I am new here and am a total automotive enthusiast. I don't own a hybrid and don't have intentions to own one but love all automotive technology.

The thing that bothers me is as far as conseving natural resources there never is a simple focus on people living closer to work. So many people choose to live 50+ miles from work. There are people I work with that live over 100 miles each way and there is no shortage of land here. I personally live 10 miles from work and only work 4 days a week so I only have to put 80 miles on my car a week for work. So even at 17-18mpg in the city I dont' use much gas 4-5 gallons a week.

 

Hi RobGreg75:

___Sometimes distances are simply forced upon us … A plant closes, you are offered a job at another and the wife makes as much as you do right where you live. 40K miles/year w/ 4 + weeks of vacation and great $’s or 2 weeks and ½ the money while driving 15K miles/year? The math says drive and I wish it was different. Ever see California Real Estate prices from LA all the way up to San Francisco? I am surprised more don’t live 150 miles away from work given housing prices out there.

___Good Luck

___Wayne R. Gerdes

 

Driving shorter distances is noted, but like xcel said, we don't have as much control over our careers and family situations as we might like to believe....

 

I have a home office and I bought a hybrid.
doesn't matter whether I'm driving 100 miles a day or not driving at all for 2 days- it's still great to get 50mpg. I had an explorer for 13 years- it was great for hauling the boat & the horse and the kids, but alot of times it was just me driving around empty getting 15mpg. now I'm lucky enough to keep a suburban for hauling stuff & camping, and I use the civic for the rest of the 12,000 miles a year I rack up.
I like the technology, I like less gas/ foreign oil dependance, and I love less pollution. Can't lose- and I even get out and ride my bike more locally- can't be recking my mileage with a 1/2 mile trip, now can I?
Every little bit counts.
Kate

 

I live in a rural city and frankly the key to some of these economic issues surrounding commuting is the focus on urban areas for business expansion. Why must new business happen in urban areas? Why must businesses expand where they already are?

I'll illustrate. Microsoft, as good as it has been for the Puget Sound and for Washington State has also been terrible at the same time. Writing software is labor intensive, and on top of that you need to keep working groups of people together. Even if they can communicate electronically, you just can't conveniently have your morning all-hands meetings or conduct quick business with your next door neighbor if they aren't in your building, let alone on your corporate campus. From my knowledge of Microsoft operations, software task groups are pretty much kept together in a particular building or clump of buildings on campus. Different buildings or areas of campus house different software groups and business units. As Microsoft has expanded, they have increased the size of their campus (more buildings), meaning they have consumed a lot more of the once rural parts of Redmond and Bellevue and on top of that have imported lots of labor into the Redmond, Bellevue, Issaquah, Sammamish etc. areas of King County. The commute circle if you will for some employees is easily 50 miles each way. Some longer.

Ok, so I've illustrated what we already know. Considering how Microsoft keeps groups of employees together in buildings based upon software development goals or working groups why not find ways to put software development groups in more rural locations and limit the impact of Microsoft's footprint on a single area and spread out their labor and office space needs by using an entire state.

For example, there are at least a few hundred employees who are continually working on new Windows releases. A few hundred working on the next Office version and so on. This may sound harsh, but why not move those software development groups to mini Microsoft campuses in other places in the state, east of the Cascades. Intentionally keep the impact down to just a software group and then bless one of the rural eastern cities with a software group.

Benefits abound for employees and Microsoft. Employees can buy homes closer to their workplace, those homes are less expensive and the morning commute will be a fraction of what it once was. Their children will go to less crowded schools and in general life will be slower paced and much more leisurely. Microsoft gets to locate an office where overall operating costs are lower. Less tax, less property expense and less cost to maintain facilities. On top of that Microsoft can (ghast) reduce salaries to reflect the lower cost of living in their new operating area. They won't reduce benefits, insurance coverage or even retirement benefits, but they can save a lot in terms of take home pay and employer paid employment taxes.

The third winner is the rural city which could really use the boost in the arm that a tech company would bring. Thus increasing the chances that other tech and light manufacturing companies might show up.

 

Quoted for truth. I'm an instructor, and I teach all over the place, so my commute ranges from 25 miles round trip to 83 miles round trip. Moving closer to one facility just means I have to drive farther to another facility.

 

It's come up PLENTY of times before. Usually by people who think they are smug by pointing out their 25mpg car uses less fuel than a 60mpg hybrid if the hybrid owner drives 80 miles round trip for work and they only live 3 miles from work. Sure, it's true, but as has been said several times already, a lot of us are very limited in options. Things like dual-worker families are an automatic compromise since you're bound to have jobs that aren't as close to each other as you'd like.

Another big factor is that in the new economy, no one has a job long term anymore. Sure, some folks may brag of having 10, 20, or 30+ years with one company, but I'm in my 20's and no one I know feels there is any such thing as job security anymore. Not even the teachers, and that's technically a government job! We just try to buy a place (or rent a place) somewhere we can afford and do our best to find a job within a reasonable distance of there. I "only" commute about 20 miles each way for my job and literally every house that would put me any closer to work is either ghetto or $300-500k. I won't move to the ghetto and I don't have $300k+ to spend on a house, so I just have to accept my commute as it is.

 

I see "smug" every day....



Pictures of the High and Mighty

 

All true but the reality of it all is how many miles they drive their urban assault vehicles on the weekends...stop and go, stuck in all the shopping traffic like when a new IKEA opens up.. engines idleing for hours stinking up the atmosphere with their greenhouse gasses..wasting away all that gasoline just to go 3 miles to the store when they should be walking (me included). Case in point: a new IKEA just opened up nearby and it has traffic snarled on all side roads and even the highway was backed up for 5 miles in both directions. People probably wasted more money on fuel to get there than they actually spent in the store.

 

Why would I want to live near my work.. a coal fired power plant!Kevin