Commuting and Happiness

I was talking with Joel yesterday on our trip on the 407 out to reherasal in Burlington, and I don't remember if we were talking about commuting and the topic of happiness came up, or if it was the other way around. Anyway, I did a bit surfing today on the combined topic and found this interesting blog post on the Commuter's Paradox. It made me wonder how a few other variable affected the equation:

• Commuting alone or with a spouse or friend
• In terms of the "weighting mistake" her refers to, this must get complicated when one pair of a couple work and commutes and the other stays at home (and works either raising a family or as a "work-from-home" job or consultancy). The weighting functions would be at odds (and yet likely very highly correlated)
• Driving vs. public transit (given similar commute times)

I think I'll need to do more reading to find out how I should feel about my new (less new every day!) commute.

Commuting Threshold

I'm heading to Hamilton after work today, and likely will make the trip completely by transit (as my usual ride (Rob) is working from home today)... I'm expecting close to 3 hours, but we'll see how it goes.

My plan is to leave here at 4:00 (as usual) and get to Union the fastest way I can, the 5:02 trains is probably a bit ambitious, but the 5:34 train is hopefully doable... which will get me into Hamilton (if on schedule) at 6:49. Hopefully there won't be too many "work to Hamilton" type rehearsals.

By the time I return home tonight, I expect I'll have spent just about 5 hours commuting. I've known people for whom this was a regular commuting day... I'm pretty sure I couldn't do it every day.

I'm still trying to figure out what my "regular commuting threshold" is (the point where you decide it's not worth it). Obviously that depends a lot on your job (satisfaction, pay, flexibility), and on the rest of your life (family, friends, housing, extra-curricular activities). What does everyone think their threshold is? What would make them extend it 25% to 50%?

Europe 2010 picures (round 1)

Some pictures are up. We still need to go through the ones from Susanna's camera that will include everything from the eastern Mediterranean to maybe some new ones from Italy, Germany and The Netherlands.

Here is a link

Thanks to Karen, again, for the camera.. photos are much nicer than I would have gotten from my camera.

Markham View

The view of Markham from my desk (over two other rows of desks) does have its charm. While the vista of light industrial warehouses and hydro towers isn't the most beautiful thing in the world, there is something to be said for being able to see a long way. It's a sort of "big sky country" by comparison to our downtown office, where since the building across the street started actually building things above ground, the view had been limited to fire trucks, traffic jams and pedestrians (there are traffic jams to see up here, but not nearly as many of the other two)

Don't get me wrong, I'd still prefer the downtown view (and the location that comes with it), but it's a silver (well, maybe nickel) lining.

"Women's Room"

I suppose it only makes sense. It is called the "Men's room", why wouldn't you call it the "Women's Room", but I'm not sure I've ever seen that anywhere other than my new office. I would have called it (without considering the appropriateness of any answer) called it the "Ladies' room". Upon examination, it does occur to me that we, collectively, no longer refer to that portion of the population as "Ladies" for the most part, unless you are talking about your grandmother's bridge club, or an auxiliary attachment to some long standing "Men's" organization (Lion's, Kiwanis, Loyal Order of Water Buffalo)

Strangely, I would have said "the Women's washroom"... just not "Women's Room". I suppose since we, collectively, have adopted the group noun "Women" in replacement for "Ladies", it makes sense to move to "Women's room" but I've just never seen it before. This new workplace is very progressive!

What are the washroom/bathroom/toiletrooms (a whole 'nother can of worms) where you are called?

The Commute (part 1 of many)

So after 4 days of commuting, I've got a decent idea of what the best route (yes Karen, short of driving myself) will be, and if these times hold up for the winter things could be worse.

So far my morning commutes have been (timed from locking my door to enterring the building):

• 56 minutes (Subway and Steeles Express)
• 46 minutes (Subway and Rob Express via viaduct)
• 51 minutes (Subway and Steeles Express... this was a dream for wait time)
• 37 minutes (Subway and Rob Express via Pape/O'Connor.. and that includes 8 minutes of waiting for Rob, which I can't exactly optimize away, since I'd rather be 5 mintues early than 2 minutes late to not keep Rob waiting)
  

I think the ideal times probably lie somewhere around 35 minutes for Subway/Rob and 50 minutes for Subway/Steeles Bus. I should also point out that all of these involved leaving my place between 6:30 and 6:50 in the morning... I'll find out if this continues to be a tenable solution.

I think if I were to drive myself... the time would probably somewhere around 25-30 minutes, as long as I left at that time, which probably isn't worth the bother... now if I did have a car and drove, I could then return the favour a drive Rob, but he still might need the car to pick up Clare.

As for the afternoon commute.... I haven't been timing it as thoroughly, but mostly I've been heading out with Rob (which allows us to take the High Occupancy Lane (which actually could save 10 or 15 minutes depending on the time we leave)) and getting dropped on a streetcar route on his was to pick up Clare. I think it was about 45 minutes door to door... that still can be optimized a fair bit, I think... need to figure out if the college car or the dundas car (or even the queen car) will be fastest. It won't be as quick as the morning because I can't avoid using surface routes in the afternoon.

I'm back!

After a long hiatus, I might start this up again. Here are some of the things I might be writing about:

• Susanna and I are just back from a long trip to Europe, so I'll have a bunch of photos to link from here once I get them all off the camera which Karen most generously loaned to me for the trip.
• My office has officially moved to almost-Markham (south side of Steeles, east of the 404), so I'm still trying to figure out my commute. Suggestions are welcome!
  
• Some of my usual rants on obviously unimportant things.

Anyway, we'll see if this round of blogging lasts!