(Excerpts and material taken from Commuting by Jonah Lehrer, author of How We Decide)
David Brooks, summarizing the current state of happiness research:
(Well, my commute is about 2 minutes by bike, and I am getting married in a few months. Perfect.)The daily activity most injurious to happiness is commuting. According to one study, being married produces a psychic gain equivalent to more than $100,000 a year.In other words, the best way to make yourself happy is to have a short commute and get married.
Swiss economists Bruno Frey and Alois Stutzer have 'discovered' the commuter's paradox: When choosing where to live, people underestimate the trouble of long commutes, leading them to thinking that a big house in the suburbs/exurbs will make them happier, even if it means extra driving.
Yet, the time in traffic is agony and a bigger house doesn't do much for you. Frey and Stutzer calculated that a person with a one-hour commute need earn 40 percent more money to be as satisfied as the person who walks to work.
The speculative hypothesis of a psychologist at Radboud University in the Netherlands argues that long-distance commuters are victims of a "weighting mistake," a classic decision-making error in which we lose sight of the important variables:
Consider two housing options: a three bedroom apartment that is located in the middle of a city, with a ten minute commute time, or a five bedroom McMansion on the urban outskirts, with a forty-five minute commute. "People will think about this trade-off for a long time," Dijksterhuis says. "And most them will eventually choose the large house. After all, a third bathroom or extra bedroom is very important for when grandma and grandpa come over for Christmas, whereas driving two hours each day is really not that bad."
Having lived in the Greater Toronto Region and LA, I regularly talk to people that travel 1.5 hours, each way, to work. That's mind-boggling to most Victorians.What's interesting, Dijksterhuis says, is that the more time people spend deliberating, the more important that extra space becomes. They'll imagine all sorts of scenarios (a big birthday party, Thanksgiving dinner, another child) that will turn the suburban house into an absolute necessity. The pain of a lengthy commute, meanwhile, will seem less and less significant, at least when compared to the allure of an extra bathroom. But, as Dijksterhuis points out, that reasoning process is exactly backwards: "The additional bathroom is a completely superfluous asset for at least 362 or 363 days each year."
What are your thoughts? What do you prefer? How long is your commute? Would you trade size for location?
4 comments:
Commuting distance was a major determinant when we bought our house last year. I used to commute 30-45 minutes (Fernwood -> Langford) every day, and was painfully aware of the time and money wasted. Since my vehicle was full of tools, public transport/cycling wasn't a viable option.
Here in Ottawa, it's not uncommon for people living in some of the more populous suburbs to spend an hour in their cars coming into the city, and another hour back home. We opted to buy a house in the equivalent to Vic West which has left some of the people we meet aghast, but allows for a 10-minute ride to work all year long. Leaving aside issues of sprawl, the rising cost of oil, the barrenness of the suburban lifestyle, etc., the 100 minutes a day I save by not having to idle in a metal coffin in +/- 30-odd degree weather was more than enough to compensate for the lack of McMansion.
This seems to be the same conclusion that many of my colleagues are drawing, and this once-maligned neighbourhood is quickly filling up with young professionals for whom the environmental and personal consequences of spending two hours a day in their cars just aren't worth it.
Hi Cael. Thanks a lot for the comment, anecdote, and thoughts.
Yeah, it's incredible how far people seem to be willing to drive in Ontario. A guy on my soccer team drives nearly two-hours, each way.
The Vic West-equivalent neighbourhoods (i.e., less fashionable but downtown adjacent) seem to be gentrifying in many, many cities for this exact reason: People cluing in to the benefits of living centrally.
Yes, I did not address the ethical, environmental, social, cultural, or economic factors in encouraging such auto-oriented built forms.
You might be interested in the videos, here: http://www.makevictoriabetter.com/2010/05/two-videos-dissecting-of-and-end-of.html
Besides the indirect implications, I would be very interested in a study that compares the money saved on housing (by living in the suburbs; though, I suspect people end up spending nearly as much or more at the end of the day -- giving into a ever-bigger house) vs. the net increase in money spent on transportation (cars, gas, repairs, insurance), child care, etc.
I tried to post comments here yesterday, but somehow got booted from the system. I've reworded them over at my blog, in this post: http://vincentsvictoria.wordpress.com/2010/05/29/commuting/
Hey Vincent,
I just read the post. Good points. Thanks for the feedback and posting the link, here.
I should clarify that what is expressed in this post is a) a generalization, b) primarily referring to commuting by car, and c) primarily referring to permanent situations -- which being a student generally isn't.
My opinion is that commuting by transit is significantly different from driving for the very reasons you find your commute doable: You can get things done and focus on something other than driving for that time. In some cases it, it can be the equivalent to being at 'the office', already.
If your transit pass cost $80/month (in Victoria; more in most places), like it does for non-students, then would you consider spending $200/month more on rent to walk to school/work?
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