my work commutes

going to work

misc

written on 2024-03-24

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now playing: pure michigan by julian klincewicz from mabel's playlist 'systems of learning' (shoutout mabel may you never see my blog post)

my commute to work

my commute to work currently is quite boring but i have devised many strategies to make it bearable. for context, i travel regularly from my home to my work, a community art center/theater approx 10 miles south/west. i go twice a week almost always by car. because i work in the evenings, i have always driven down during rush hour. i take the highway as it is normally the most straightforward route, albeit not the most fuel efficient nor the most entertaining. the highway travel takes about 80% of the commute and can be broken down into three sections:

1. the first stretch of southbound highway, which spans from the ramp on which i enter the highway to a key split in the highway towards the toll road to indiana. this stretch is usually the most awful because it is normally the slowest due to a fuckton of merging traffic on both sides -- that is, traffic merging in/out on the right and in/out of the express lanes on the left. the volume of commuters/truckers/etc. going south during rush hour (beginning as early as 2-3pm) can make this especially hectic (on top of slow). i have experimented with taking the express lane with mixed results. it does not decrease my commute time significantly enough for me to justify the pain of merging in/out of it. it's also important to note that this stretch is most slow at the split towards the toll road. normal four-lane traffic is split halfwise -- the left two lanes go to the toll road where the right two continue on the highway. what happens is a lot of "cutting the queue" where drivers (both intentionally and not) will stay in the left two lanes up until the fork and then cut across the median into the right two lanes. there are several degrees of audacity on display here corresponding to how aggressively and close you cut into the lane, which is almost always moving slowly and tightly (as opposed to the left two lanes which tend to move very quickly around the beginning of the split). (unfortunately i cannot say i've never done this...i've only cut across the fork maybe once) while i used to identify as a 'stay in the fast left lanes until the 1/2 mile mark where you begin to merge right' driver, i've now found that the anxiety of trying to find a spot, jockeying your position ahead of cars moving more quickly (and often impatiently) behind you, and often cutting off some poor guy, doesn't really justify the delight of cutting the queue. although there are some strategies which can make this better (often taking advantage of the huge margin trucks have in front of them), lately i've gotten in the habit of sticking it out in the right most lane which avoids the slowdown caused by 'queue cutters.'

2. the second stretch of highway, which for my purposes spans approx the 67th st. exit to another split off into a different highway towards memphis. this stretch is okay, because cars tend to move a little faster. i do believe the lack of an express lane makes a difference here. it also matters that there are 5 lanes (with the right most lane usually being a ramp). the lanes tend to move along more quickly on the left, and i used to stick around in the faster left two lanes before moving over to the middle/right to exit, but lately i've been a bit lazy and find the right lanes fine enough. i just stop paying attention to cars in lanes that aren't mine and where they are relative to me (in a positioning sense). this stretch is fastest by the split. nothing much to say here except i usually hit a good 20-30 mph pace during rush hour and this stretch has some of my favorite features (shen yun billboard, grocery stores off the exits, the underpass under the last train station is cool, it's the second to last stretch of the awful commute)

3. the final stretch of highway which brings me just west enough to my workplace. this is a fine stretch of highway. usually it gets a bit slow in the beginning because of the big merge and also because the right most lane is a forced exit lane, so many drivers are itching to move in/out of it right off the bat. it tends to move a little faster after this, but not consistently. i think that because it curves quite a bit in the beginning people tend to go slower. it also can be tricky because the curve will often position you facing the sun especially during the winter rush hours. however, past the first big curve it's quite nice and traffic tends to decrease signficantly, so the final curve into the exit i take is very smooth and nice. this specific exit also happens to be a crash investigation site so it's quite spacious, easy to merge onto and cruise off of towards a traffic light at the end. i have considered taking a brief nap in the crash investigation site here but have never really needed to as once i exit, my work is about 10 minutes away. it is also nice due to the fact that further down the service road you can hit another one of those highway-adjacent grocery stores. there is almost always some random lump of debris/garbage someone has left on the side of the exit.

the other parts of the commute (beginning and ends) are not so memorable to me, but on the topic of making the trip bearable:

1. entering the highway at a later stretch: lately on tuesdays i've been taking classes in hyde park; this lets me get on the highway past the toll road split and can sometimes cut my commute time in half. it's nice too because there's a pretty cheap gas station right before the highway (although the station is a pain to get in/out of due to the number of lanes on all sides of the intersection). this entrance to the highway is also notable because it has a huge shen yun 2024 billboard above it. there are some pain points going from class to the highway (roads are pretty poorly paved, a lot of people cutting you off at a specific intersection where the left lane becomes a forced left turn lane, driving west to the highway can put you facing the sun) but overall the time saved intuitively feels worth it, even if it's only 15-30 minutes shaved off.

2. having things to munch/drink: one of the most recurring issues i have driving this commute is getting incredibly bored and sleepy while on the highway. when this does happen, i try my best to exit and sleep on the service road, but of course the best measures are preventative. so i often try to have some instant coffee in a thermos prepared before driving, or if not that a canned/bottled beverage or some snack to munch on. maybe its the delight of the snack or maybe it's the blood sugar spiking but i've never had issues when i have something to eat while driving...

3. studying other commuters: this is not a real "strategy" and more a thing i do to pass time. i used to find myself in the habit of "racing" cars around me in different lanes by switching to whatever lane i felt was fastest and measuring my actual difference in "pace" by seeing how far away i was from cars i recognized prior to merging. nowadays i try not to do that because after maybe about a hundred commutes down (maybe a little less?) i'm realizing that beating the bright yellow jeep on the right only actually saves you 2 minutes at most, plus positions tend to even out in changes in traffic density. instead, i keep my eye out for funny license plates and bumper stickers.

4. karaoke: yeah...

writing about my commute

i had the thought to blog about my commute while commuting back home one night (if i remember correctly). i was just struck by how much fucking time it takes for me to go back and forth from this job. of course i am always angry to be driving, in traffic, shuttling myself to a place where i'm not really valued or paid appropriately. driving back exasperated and covered in dust. i learned last fall that a large percentage of microplastics come from rubber tires. i felt (still feel) bitter about how wasteful it is for me, a lone commuter in my SUV, to be rolling down south at a leisurely pace for 3 hours cumulatively each week. i think about how much time in my commute is actually spent idling (stopping on the highway).

i was also thinking about how no one really knows about this unremarkable thing i do. when i think about the routines that make up the fabric of my life, this happens to be quite sizeable in terms of how much time i spend thinking and planning around it. it's a given in my week (of course until i quit this job). but i've never talked about it ever, because who wants to talk about traffic? nevertheless, this unremarkable event has a lot of rich detail, because it is still life lived. i'm still in the car, bored as fuck, wasting, eating, going and stopping. calculating which grocery store to hit on the way to or from. counting the miles on my odometer. swearing at aggressive or shitty drivers in ways only i know about. belting the lyrics to some carly rae jepsen¹ song on my way back.²

i think the little exercise of documenting my otherwise unknown (to anyone ever) commute is nice because it maybe brings some intention to this otherwise unintentional task. or rather it reminds me of how much intention i put into the task, making it bearable for me. it might teach you a lot about me as a driver and as a person. i imagine if i were a character in someone's book there could be some use in describing my commute. it is worthwhile to think of these unremarkable motions as integral to living, as actual slices of life. i think there's some value and i'm trying to hold onto this perspective, this mode of seeing/experiencing the mundane, a little more tightly. also, it's just nice to practice writing something random every once in a while.

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