I have a short quote in an article in the Christian Science Monitor today about extreme commuting.

The thing that strikes me about the extreme commute is how something absurd has become normalized. As Andres Duany said in my interview with him, “time in public means time in traffic” and its a competitive, hostile experience.

The article is partly in response to the Texas Transportation Institute’s 2007 Urban Mobility Report which, among other things, says

• Trips take longer

• Congestion affects more of the day
• Congestion affects weekend travel and rural areas
• Congestion affects more personal trips and freight shipments
• Trip travel times increasingly are unreliable

They have some suggested solutions, but they mostly have to do with traffic engineering (not surprising considering the source). It’s a kind of myopic viewpoint, restricted by the profession. A more comprehensive view would consider urban planning issues, including multiple design theories and scenarios.

Then there’s the personal angle:

“There’s the philosophy that people buy houses on Sunday and discover on Monday that it’s a tough commute.”

From the Wall Street Journal:

THE COSTS of Americans’ ever-expanding commutes might outweigh the benefits of the higher-paying job or the more prestigious house in the suburbs. Long commutes can increase loneliness and cut back social activities, undermining happiness.

The number of people who travel 90 minutes to work — deemed an “extreme commute” by the Census Bureau — has doubled since 1990, reaching 3.5 million.

Nine out of 10 commuters travel by car, and 88% of those drivers do so alone. Long periods in the car not only provoke loneliness, they reduce time for sleep, sports and socializing. …

This is another example of how design on the macro level is critical to democracy itself.