mithriltabby | Commuting (Reply)

I’ve finally wound up with a job with a real commute: Sunnyvale to San Mateo and back. Previously, I’ve been very lucky with my commutes, with short dashes up and down Central Expressway or Wolfe Road, or the amazing time that Quote.com moved in next door and I was jaywalking to work because it cut my commute time in half. Now I’ve got 25 minutes each way when the road is clear, and often more due to Highway 101 being Highway 101, and I’m putting significant miles on a gasoline-burning vehicle— one with good mileage, but the eighth floor at work gives a superb view of the layer of smog that settles in over the city, and I’d rather be contributing as little to it as possible.

Public transport, as is usual for the South Bay, isn’t a lot of help. I could easily walk to Caltrain from my house, but the last train that leaves in time to catch a shuttle to EFI leaves at 8:30 a.m., and I know I’m not good at getting up in the morning; and meetings here often run late enough I’t need to bum a ride off a co-worker if it ended after the last shuttle left. It’d also bump my commute time up to at least an hour— yes, I could be reading or working on a laptop through most of that, but it’s that much less of the day I have at home. I could learn to ride a bicycle and try riding that over the several miles between the Hillsdale station and EFI, but then I’d have to worry about changing clothes and showering (taking yet more time!), because it’s seldom cold enough in the Bay Area I can exercise without getting drenched in sweat. Maybe I should look into some of those PowerSkips that give you digitigrade locomotion— the jumps aren’t as interesting as the prospect of getting a really huge stride length for about as much energy as ordinary walking... :-)

There’s always finding a vehicle that’s pure electric or at least hybrid, I suppose, but it’s not easy when the government is removing all the incentives and pressure on the auto makers to produce a good one. My Acura is almost nine years old, though, so it might be about time.

I’m just glad that my method of commuting is the biggest moral quandary I’m facing right now.