Like you, I get up in the morning, get showered and shorn, flip on the coffee and the kitchen radio, grab the paper off the driveway, forage for a quick bite and then hit the road for work.
OK, maybe that’s not quite your routine. I mean, after the latest dismal circulation numbers for our local dailies, who still grabs a newspaper off the driveway? (For the record, I get the North County Times.
Unless you get to work from home, that’s how you spend the early part of your day. Maybe you have to shuttle the kids to school first (I did it for 18 years; trust me, I’ve been there). In any event, we become road warriors as soon as we close that front door.
Except my commute starts in Poway just off Pomerado Road about a mile south of the hospital and ends 83 miles later next to the long-term parking lot of John Wayne Airport in Irvine. The drive typically takes 1.5 hours — each way.
And that’s what qualifies me to blog to you all. You see, I am an extreme commuter.
I’m not going to bore you with all the gory details, but in the spring of 2006 I had the opportunity to join a news organization I had admired for many years.
At the time I was managing editor of the San Diego Business Journal, and as much as I enjoyed my job and the people I worked with, it was a chance that was too good to pass up.
So when I took the job, I joined the swelling ranks of extreme commuters. Since that time, we’ve endured a massive spike-and subsequent drop-in gas prices. We have had to deal literally with fires and floods.
We’ve become acquainted with those folks in the black-and-white-as well as the all-white-Ford cruisers with the red, blue and yellow cherries on top. We’ve also dodged all manner of road hazards. If the construction industry is sucking right now, you’d never know it by all the hardhats along the road.
Did you know roadside trash is seasonal? All those really sweet coolers along Interstate 5 is a sure sign it’s summer. But let me tell you, the flying surfboard knows no season.
Before we go any further, there indeed is a definition for an extreme commuter.
We pretty much spend 90 minutes or more on the road. On a really good day, we’ll do under three hours round trip.
And believe me, there are some serious extreme commuters. There’s the guy in the Central Valley-I think he was from Modesto-who commuted every day to the Bay Area.
Then there are people who hop on a plane on a Monday to fly cross-country to get to work and return home late Thursday or Friday.
There’s even a story I found about a guy who drives to the airport in Buffalo, N.Y., flies to JFK, hops on the AirTrain and gets to work by 7:30 a.m.
Oh, and does the same thing to get home.
Myth? Urban legend? Doubt it.
I’ll at some point introduce you to a couple friends whose insane commutes put me to shame.
I should also mention that this blog isn’t strictly about my commute north through Camp Pendleton into Orange County. Yes, it’s about extreme commuting-hopping on a plane, train, automobile, bike or, like the guy I just heard about who twice a week does a marathon to get to work, I want to hear your stories and pass them along.
As you so well know, we are in the midst of a massive change in how we get to work. We not only have real-time technologies to help us get to work (hello, 511), but the vehicles we use are revolutionizing the commute.
Hybrids may have been a twinkle in the eye of some forward-thinking engineer when I first started making my commute in an AMC Hornet back in 1982, but I sure never passed one on what back then was a four-lane Interstate 15.
In any event, SDNN is letting us hit the road together. I appreciate you coming along for the ride.
Rick Bell is senior editor for Workforce Management and previously spent eight years as managing editor of the San Diego Business Journal. He can be reached by Twitter or email: rickbell(a)cox.net.
Tags: SDNN
Comment by: Extreme Commuter: Summertime blues on the road Posted: June 15, 2009, 9:12 am
[...] I have slogged it out, more often car-pooling but some days making the trip solo. Either way, the Poway-Irvine commute is even more of a grind on I-5 all summer [...]
Comment by: Extreme commuter: Radio, CDs and other guilty pleasures Posted: August 11, 2009, 11:58 am
[...] Diego) shows our average rush hour commute lasts between 25 and 30 minutes. My daily trip to Irvine and back is a radio programmer’s dream — generally three hours-plus in a car. And, for the most [...]