The £5k commuter club

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Sixmile

Veteran
Location
N Ireland
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-40936050

Hands up, who's in it?! Or who was in it?

As someone well outside of London and it's ways, I find the sums here quite hard to fathom. I knew the trains in England are expensive but that's a serious amount of money to get to work. Money aside though, it's a serious amount of time to spend every day just travelling to work on a train..

"In the club is Matt Blackwell, a sub-editor from Leicester, who combines a 70-minute train journey and two-mile cycle to get to his office in London"

Now that I commute most days on the bike, my commuting time is around the 45 minute mark, meaning it's an hour and a halfs exercise every day and traffic gridlock, rtas, road closures etc generally don't affect my journey times.

I commuted 35 miles each way by car for a year but moved closer to work in the end as I was fed up with the amount of time sitting driving in traffic. What has been your longest regular commutes and how does 'your alternative' compare with your cycling commute?
 

mjr

Comfy armchair to one person & a plank to the next
Money aside though, it's a serious amount of time to spend every day just travelling to work on a train..

"In the club is Matt Blackwell, a sub-editor from Leicester, who combines a 70-minute train journey and two-mile cycle to get to his office in London"
Some people from around here in Norfolk are commuting 100-minute train journeys into London with a few miles cycling or walking each end. I understand that commuting in from Surrey/Hampshire can take as long.

What has been your longest regular commutes and how does 'your alternative' compare with your cycling commute?
I did spend a few years commuting 45 miles, but I was allowed both flexitime (so could do 3 very long days on-site, which also helpfully meant commuting off-peak instead of sitting in jams) and work-from-home which made it tolerable... but I was still happy not to do it any more. It's not sustainable in several ways.
 

Oldfentiger

Veteran
Location
Pendle, Lancs
I had an aquaintance, via an on-line racing forum.
He was an Iranian teacher who worked at a college in Enfield, and his Icelandic girlfriend worked in Harrods.
They lived in a one room flat somewhere in between the two workplaces.
His commute involved two buses each way, with a total of 4 hours travelling time each day.
I don't know the details of his partners commute.
I cannot fathom this type of existence. Paying a fortune to live in a veritable cubbyhole, and 4 hours commute every day.
I tried to persuade him to become a Northerner to no avail.

I once had to commute by car every weekday for 5 months between Peterborough and Walsall.
I hated every minute of it!
 

ianrauk

Tattooed Beat Messiah
Location
Rides Ti2
At my workplace we have people who commute into London from Norwich, Bath and Brighton. However we allow remote working so they only come in once or twice a week otherwise the costs of travel would hurt them hard.
 
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User33236

Guest
I now live approximately 7 miles from work which is the greatest distance I have done so in the past 15 years.

When I first left school I was travelling 35 miles each way to college on a bus that ran every hour and stopped at every lamppost, or so it felt like, on the way there. It also took a substantial amount of my income to pay for it. That is not a situation I would like to go back to.
 

screenman

Legendary Member
The guy that used to live next door worked in Whitehall, car to Newark 28 miles train to the smoke and then another train and a walk to the office. 3 hours each way every day 5 days a week, cost about £1200 a month, 8 years ago. Big money paid to Ex army guys with the right contacts made it worth while.
 

Drago

Legendary Member
Aye, I know an ex squaddie who does 'something' for the MoD and he does the train commute, but I think they make it very much worth his while.
 

rivers

How far can I go?
Location
Bristol
My commute is approximately 11 miles by car/motorbike, 15 by bike each way(as I take the B2B railroad path as opposed to the main roads). Cycling takes me an average of 1:02, give or take a couple of minutes. Motorbike is generally around 30-35 minutes. Car, anything from 30 minutes to over an hour depending on traffic. But, my car parking permit is set to double in cost next month, and doesn't guarantee me a parking space, so I will stick to cycling and the motorbike. I'm not renewing my permit.
 

delb0y

Legendary Member
Location
Quedgeley, Glos
70 miles to the office, and 70 miles back again (driving, not cycling). Usually three days a week, sometimes four. This week one :-) This is the longest my commute has been and it's pretty draining. It's about 1:45 each way on average.
 

stalagmike

Enormous member
Location
Milton Keynes
I used to do MK to London commute five days a week. Stopped it 7 years ago and changed career. It think the season ticket then was about 3.7k so it's gone up quite a bit. Well, over 200 quid a year. I now drive 50 miles round trip five days a week which is a ball ache but darn sight cheaper.
 
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