My commute to work takes over five hours round trip. In my sixth letter to my son, I wrote about why I genuinely ENJOY my super commute.
Dear Kid,
When I tell people that my commute takes over five hours round trip, most responses are similar:
“Ouch!”
“That’s rough!”
“Damn!”
My least favorite response was from an arrogant, young “professional” that I had literally met minutes earlier for networking purposes:
“You’re crazy, man!”
My favorite response, by far, was from a coworker that always brings great energy:
“Dude, that’s so savage.”
For two years, I have commuted from Yolo County to San Francisco for work. Despite the ludicrous distance from our home to my work, I accepted the job because of the salary and company. The first few months were rough, but eventually, I started to actually ENJOY my commute!
Below is a breakdown of my one-way commute. I arrive to the Davis train station twenty minutes early to secure a free parking spot. I spend over half of my commute on an Amtrak train, and another chunk on a shuttle chartered by Amtrak. The shuttle drops me off near my work in San Francisco.
I enjoy my commute in large part thanks to the awesomeness of Amtrak. Throughout this letter, I praise Amtrak and crap on alternate methods of transportation. In other words, this letter is basically free advertising for Amtrak.
Of course, my commute isn’t all sunshine and rainbows. There are a few aspects of my commute that would be deal breakers to a lot of people.
In this letter, I break down why I enjoy my five-hour commute, and the unpleasantries that come with it.
THE GOOD
I don’t have to drive for long
A few months before I started my current job, I received an offer for a job in Walnut Creek. Had I accepted the job, I would’ve had to drive for an hour to get to work. The commute would have been miserable compared to my current commute because to me, driving sucks compared to train travel.
Obviously, you can’t sleep while driving. This may change (where you at, Elon?), but for now, you can’t catch up on Zs while at the wheel.
You can’t stand up or stretch while driving. Had I taken that other job, I would probably be dealing with nagging back soreness and racking up chiropractor bills.
You can’t read, work, or mess around on the Internet while driving. Well, you could, but you would be needlessly putting yourself and others in danger.
My commute consists of a small amount of driving to get to the train station, but it’s not bad. I essentially zoom down a traffic-less, country road.
Some people do enjoy long drives. The last thing I want to do before and after work is battle traffic and avoid lunatics on the road.
I don’t have to deal with non-train public transportation
Most public transportation, though practical and affordable, is unpleasant to take.
I’m going to rip on Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) because it’s what I would probably take if I lived close to work.
BART is to public transportation in northern California as downtown Honolulu is to Oahu. During commute hours, BART is a cesspool. Ask anyone that commutes on BART, and they’ll probably be able to recall stories that involved urine, feces, vomit, yelling, fighting, PDA, and other things that can put a damper on a commute.
BART train cars are literally packed with people during commute hours. The result is an ongoing jockeying for space. There is a high likelihood that you will touch / brush up against people during your trip. As I’ll touch on later (pun intended), you don’t have to deal with any of this crap on Amtrak!
Unless you’re a senior, cripple […bastard, or a broken thing…], securing a seat on BART during commute hours is a challenge. It’s easier near the ends of the lines, but otherwise, you’ll have to be aggressive to swoop on vacated seats. All I’m saying is that you don’t have to play this game on Amtrak!
I must note that Caltrain (public transportation in Silicon Valley) holds a special place in my heart. I rode Caltrain on the night that your mom and I met for the first time! I’ll tell you the story someday, but for now, I’ll just say that a huge pro [or con, depending on how you look at it] of Caltrain is that alcohol consumption is allowed.
Amtrak is delightful
According to Amtrak.com, in 1970, the United States Congress passed the Rail Passenger Service Act, which established Amtrak to take over the intercity rail service. Today, Amtrak’s annual ridership exceeds 30 million passengers, and Amtrak serves more than 500 communities nationwide.
Over the past two years, I’ve come to love Amtrak. Besides private jet or a first class flight, I cannot think of a more enjoyable way to travel.
I rarely have to sit next to someone on my Amtrak train home. Compared to your BARTs and subways of the world, the seats are comfortable and offer a respectable recline angle. Also, each seat has access to an electrical outlet to keep those devices chugging.
Amtrak boasts WiFi connectivity. BART and Caltrain do not (at least not yet). It’s a game changer to be able to connect my laptop to the Internet. No hotspot needed!
Amtrak has bathrooms, so the train never reeks of urine like other forms of public transportation sometimes do. It’s nice to have that bathroom fallback option to avoid having to stressfully hold it, pee [or defecate?] in a bottle, or pull a Billy Madison.
From my experience, there is limited riffraff on Amtrak for a couple of reasons. Unlike most other forms of public transportation, Amtrak is not cheap. Let’s be real; the relatively high Amtrak prices go a long way in weeding out shady characters. It also helps that Amtrak staff scans tickets and hangs markers indicating that a passenger has paid. If you don’t have a ticket, authorities are summoned to escort you off of the train. Time between stops is significantly higher on Amtrak (15 to 30 minutes) than many other forms of public transportation (a few minutes). It’s not easy for seedy characters to sneak onto the train and hop off at the next stop without paying.
Finally, Amtrak has a cafe car! On the train, you can purchase food, drinks, and ALCOHOLIC BEVERAGES.
I can do almost anything that I want on Amtrak
Here is a sample of things that I can do on Amtrak that I wouldn’t be able to do [at least not safely] while driving:
- Sleep, work, read a book
- Shop, order dinner, read the news
- Watch TV, movies, sports
- Drink beer
- Post process photos
- Write letters about travel to you
- Watch videos that your mom sends me of your latest shenanigans
- Google Hangout with you
I’m one of those people that derives an exorbitant amount of pleasure from crossing things off of my to-do list. Needless to say, I live my best life on Amtrak.
I can sleep comfortably on Amtrak
One of the best things about my commute is that I can comfortably catch up on my sleep. On average, I sleep for about 1 to 1.5 hours during my commute. Typically, I take two naps (calling it a “nap” makes it sound so childish, but hey, IT IS WHAT IT IS) during my commute: on the train to work in the morning, and on the shuttle from work in the afternoon.
There are a number of reasons why I sleep soundly on Amtrak. First, every train has a designated quiet car, an oasis for sleep-seeking commuters. In the quiet car, making any kind of noise is prohibited. Also, overhead lighting is dim in the quiet car. The result is a dark, tranquil ambiance conducive to sleeping.
Watch out, Amazon rainforest – you have some competition for best sleep-inducing white noise in the world! The train’s hodgepodge of noise elements, in conjunction with the movement of the train, rock me right to sleep.
As I mentioned earlier, Amtrak seats provide comfort through an adequate recline angle and amount of leg space.
My train ride is long enough so that I never worry about suffering from one of those crappy, short naps that make you feel groggy. My naps on Amtrak leave me feeling refreshed and rejuvenated.
Also, I never worry about waking up to an “Oh crap, I missed my stop!” moment. My body has been conditioned to wake up a few stops before I have to get off of the train.
There is one non-Amtrak related reason why I sleep so well on the train. I’m sleep deprived because I’m the father of a baby! Hey, don’t take this as me blaming you for being sleep deprived; take this as me thanking you for helping me sleep so well during my commute.
On the shuttle after work, I often slip into a deep sleep. I’m guaranteed a seat, the cabin is usually quiet, and the seats recline even further than they do on the train. After a mentally-exhausting workday, I hop on the shuttle, throw in my earbuds, and knock the F out.
Speaking of measures that I take to optimize my commute naps; take notes, kid – Here are some of my keys to success:
- Wear: noise-cancelling earbuds, sunglasses, multiple layers
- Sit: in the quiet car, away from the stairs, where the overhead lights shine the least, next to a window with the shades drawn
- Sit next to someone: already asleep (if I see an open seat next to someone wearing an eye mask and covered in a blanket, it’s a done deal), not hogging more space than they should, not brandishing a light-polluting device
I have missed my shuttle stop once. If you’re not interested in reading about this baffling incident, skip the next few paragraphs.
One day after work, I grabbed a few cocktails with coworkers. Upon boarding the shuttle, I was feeling the buzz. The shuttle was packed, but I secured a seat in about the fourth row. I fell asleep almost immediately.
When I woke up, the bus was moving and empty except for the driver and me. Panicked, I spoke up, “Hey, I think I missed my stop.”
The bus driver replied, “Yup…I’m not driving back though.”
Luckily, we were close to my stop, so I got out, walked, and still made it onto my train.
There are multiple things about this incident that baffle me:
- Upon exiting the shuttle’s only door, and considering that the shuttle only has one stop, why didn’t one of the 50+ passengers that walked by my sleeping ass wake me up?
- Why didn’t any of my fellow dozen-or-so shuttle regulars recognize that my sleeping ass was a fellow regular and wake me up?
- Why didn’t the shuttle driver, before departing from our only stop, look behind him and notice that there was a can’t-miss-black-haired-Filipino man passed out just a few rows behind him and wake me up before departing?
- What happened to my lunch box and water bottle? I had both items upon boarding the shuttle. When I woke up, both were gone (fortunately, my backpack with my laptop was still with me).
The only possible explanation is that people did try to wake me up, but were unsuccessful so thought, “Oh well, he ain’t waking up,” and moved on.
All I know is that somewhere out there, someone is enjoying my CamelBak water bottle (which your Lola and Opa gifted to me!) that features the name of my hometown (Petaluma) inside the red outline of a chicken.
A bunch of other good stuff
- “Me time” to decompress – My primary goal during my commute is to arrive home with zero baggage. I nap so that I arrive home energized, work so that I don’t have to crack open my laptop at home, and relax so that I can fully exert myself during your bedtime routine. When I get home, my sole focus is to be the best father and husband that I can be.
- I get the best of both worlds – Up in the Sacramento valley (where we currently live), salaries, cost of living, and real estate are significantly lower than down in the San Francisco Bay Area. My commute enables me to reap the best of both worlds: that Bay Area salary and that valley cost of living. By the way, remind me to tell you about the time that I sang a line from The Artist Formerly Known as Hannah Montana’s hit song on a stage in front of hundreds of people.
- I only commute a few times per week – I’m fortunate that my job affords me the flexibility to work from home often. If I had to commute every day, I probably would’ve quit my job by now and I sure as hell wouldn’t be writing this letter. Being able to break up my commute and early wake-up days is HUGE.
- The views aren’t too shabby – Throughout my commute, I’m treated to picturesque views. I would definitely enjoy my commute less if I was commuting through somewhere depressing like the dreary world in my favorite Alfonso Cuarón movie Children of Men.
- Train travel is good for the environment – I trust that Amtrak’s infographic is telling the truth about the eco-friendliness of my commute.
THE BAD
It’s a TREK of a commute
Five hours is a long-ass time. That’s ~60% of a good night’s sleep, ~20% of an entire day, and ~3% of an entire WEEK.
In the time that my commute takes, I could watch five episodes of Game of Thrones, seven episodes of LOST, or fourteen episodes of The Office.
There’s no getting around it; from a length perspective, my commute is monstrous.
I spend less time with you and your mom
If your mom and I could, we would spend every waking hour with you. Every minute that I spend commuting in a minute less that I spend with you.
Technology helps us stay connected throughout the day, but there is no substitute for being with each other in person.
On commute days, it sucks that I only get to hang out with you for a few hours in the evening. I do spend a lot more time with you on work-from-home days, plus all day with you on the weekends.
Delays aren’t uncommon
Amtrak can be delayed for reasons that include mechanical issues, railroad congestion, and trespasser incidents. Amtrak publishes performance reports, but they don’t provide much detail. I estimate that 70% of my trains have been on time, 20% delayed by up to 10 minutes, and 10% delayed over 10 minutes.
A majority of my delays occurred at Emeryville station. Emeryville isn’t a bad place to be stranded. The station has ample seating, decent bathrooms, and a Subway Sandwiches across the street. I usually use any delay that lasts for over thirty minutes as an excuse to crush a sandwich and chips for dinner (with a cookie if I’m feeling especially wronged by the delay) while I wait for my train.
The longest Amtrak delay that I’ve experienced is 3.5 hours. On the evening of that delay, I had slammed a couple of beers for a work team event. While on the train home, my team-event-boosted morale was crushed when the train stopped and I heard the dreaded announcement from our conductor, “There has been a trespasser incident, so we’re going to be here for a while. We’ll let you know when we have more details.”
Trespasser incidents that involve a fatality usually last hours. Getting the train moving again is dependent on multiple parties (e.g. police, fire department, coroner) surveying and documenting the scene. This particular delay was complicated further because it happened after hours and in an isolated location. Amtrak staff didn’t provide us an estimate on when the coroner would arrive until over two hours into the delay!
The crappiness of the delay was compounded by my post-buzz headache and the fact that the cafe car doesn’t sell Advil. I didn’t arrive home until 2am, so I didn’t get to play with you before you went to bed.
Extended delays are inherently egregious, but in a weird way, this experience actually encapsulated my love for Amtrak. I wasn’t sitting next to anyone. The cafe car was giving out free bottles of water. WiFi on the train still worked. I had packed my laptop charger. The time flew as I hammered out some work, shopped for Christmas presents, conducted in-depth fantasy football analysis, and worked on a letter for a certain first-born son of mine. Also, I didn’t have to wake up early the next day because I work from home on Fridays.
If I ever got stuck on Amtrak for 37 hours, I would probably destroy this letter and wage a personal vendetta against Amtrak for the rest of my life. Honestly though, it might not be all that bad, provided that the WiFi was working, the temperatures weren’t extreme, and the cafe car had enough food and water to dole out. The bathroom situation would be abysmal though.
A bunch of other bad stuff
- I have to catch the train early – It’s all relative (your Lola and Opa regularly wake up at like 3am), but waking up to catch the early train can be painful (especially after having my sleep interrupted multiple times throughout the night by your crying butt!).
- I live by Amtrak’s schedule – When I lived in Hawaii, I walked to work. When I lived in San Diego, I drove to work. In both cases, I basically left for and from work whenever I wanted. With Amtrak, I have to catch a train or shuttle at a precise time; otherwise, I have to wait forty minutes for the next one.
- Amtrak WiFi is spotty – WiFi on Amtrak might be the MVP of my commute. As a nitpick though, the connection isn’t always reliable. I learned quickly not to schedule work calls while on the train (“Can you hear me now? What was that? Sorry about that, we just went through a tunnel…”). The connectivity is solid as the train gets up into the valley. It can be frustrating down in the bay when more of my fellow super commuters are chewing up bandwidth.
- People are annoying – This is pretty much applicable to life in general, but here are Amtrak-specific examples that I need to share:
The person that disturbs everyone in the quiet car – The worst offender that I can remember of the “Shut the F up” quiet car policy is a woman that walked the entire length of the quiet car while speaking loudly on her phone. Through her ignorance, she woke up dozens of people within seconds.
The person that puts their belongings on the seat next to them – “One ticket, one seat” is a policy that Amtrak staff regularly reminds passengers about over the loudspeaker. Nonetheless, people still [childishly] violate the policy in an attempt to decrease the chances of / make it more awkward for a fellow commuter to sit next to them.
The person that doesn’t wait for people in front of them to get off of the shuttle first – Everyone has somewhere to be, and you would think that it would be common sense to let others seated in rows in front of you get off of the shuttle before you do. Alas, there are neanderthals that, after the shuttle stops, immediately get up and push forward towards the exit, showing little regard for the passengers seated in front of them.
The person that stinks – Compared to your BARTs and subways of the world, I’m proud of my fellow Amtrak super commuters for excelling in the “take a damn shower and don’t apply too much fragrance” competency. Once in a while though, you do get that one person that screws the pooch and ruins existence for everyone sitting within a twenty foot radius.
The person that prevents people from parking in front of or behind them – Free parking at the Davis Amtrak station is limited. The last few spots to fill are parallel parking. Occasionally, people selfishly space their parking so that another car cannot fit in front of or behind them. Kid, don’t be like one of these jabronis that cause one more person to have to have to pay $5 at a parking lot located a ten-minute walk away from the station.
- Amtrak ain’t cheap – With Amtrak, you get what you pay for – An experience that is vastly superior to other forms of public transportation for a premium price. In 2020, a 10-ride Amtrak ticket from Davis to San Francisco costs $200, or $40 per round trip. My salary makes up for the cost of my train passes, but, if instead of taking Amtrak, I drove to Richmond and took BART the rest of the way (i.e. commuted through hell), I would save a bunch of money.
- Happy hour is disruptive – In past jobs where I had an “un-super” commute, it was easy to grab a drink with colleagues after work and be home by a reasonable time. This isn’t the case with my current commute. If I go out to happy hour, I won’t get home until after 8pm, which is after your current bedtime.
- Amtrak climate control isn’t perfect – There are times on Amtrak when I’ve felt as cold as I did in the frigid, end-of-winter Great Smoky Mountains, and there are times when I’ve sweated my ass off like I was in the sticky, humid Amazon Rainforest.
- I can’t exercise during my commute – Hook me up with a [safe] way to burn calories during my commute, Amtrak! I’m kidding of course, but a guy can dream.
THE BOTTOM LINE
Many people dread their commute. I look forward to my commute as an opportunity to sleep and get stuff done.
Thanks to Amtrak, I’m comfortably able to do pretty much anything that I want (except exercise…).
While I enjoy my commute, I concede that it’s not for everyone. You would probably hate my commute if:
- Your bed is the only place where you sleep well
- Salaries and cost of living are higher where you live than where you work
- You’re single and looking to mingle
- You’re a happy hour enthusiast
- You would rather be stuck in traffic
- You would rather be rubbing elbows with strangers where there is limited seating, no WiFi, no bathrooms, and no car that serves food and alcohol
As much as I enjoy my commute, realistically, I probably won’t keep doing it long term. Eventually, you’ll have school and extracurricular activities that I cannot miss. Until then, I’ll continue to live it up on my super commute.
Love,
Dad
P.S. While I worked on this letter, you learned to walk in your walker and we celebrated your first new year! As I write this sentence, I’m sitting on an Amtrak train, eager to get home and play with you. Coincidentally, your mom sent me a video of you laughing at your mobile literally seconds before I started writing this sentence, then called me via Google Hangout to show me. On the call, you promptly stopped laughing because that’s the kind of little rascal that you are!