>Make the full cost of driving salient for employees
The problem that I usually see when someone brings up this idea is that the employee's "cost" is ignored. I used to live in the Washington, D.C. area, where I could walk or take the bus to the subway. One way, the total time was 30 minutes longer than driving. Between the cost of the subway and my time, it was cheaper to drive.
For 18 years, I commuted year-round by bike, rather than drive. It took as long as the bus-subway combination from my last apartment. While it took more time, I did not have to pay for gas and my maintenance costs were minimal.
> If commuting is work then employers should pay for it or have the time taken to commute deducted from work hours.
If your employer requires you to come to the office, then getting there is part of the job, and I think you should be compensated for that time. Commuting during rush hour certainly isn't a pleasure activity that I'd be doing without obligation.
> I can wake up later since I don't have a commute. I don't lose two hours a day due to the commute.
Commutes are also dangerous if they're by car. Not only are roadway congested, everyone is in a rush, and people are driving after just waking up and then again after a full day of work.
From a purely economic standpoint, commutes are responsible for a 10% drop in hourly wages[1].
> makes you mostly sit in traffic while going to work
Cherry picking this part of your argument: the last time I switched jobs this is what I told myself to rationalize commuting 50 mins one way (plus 15 mins last mile stuff). It works out _terribly_ if the mode of transport is not super reliable.
> companies seem to ignore they are asking all their workers to unnecessarily spend an hour or more a day driving
Um - not all. A number of people use public transportation. Some walk to the office. I chose a home location close to a subway station that gets me downtown with a 25-minute commute if necessary - not that I have needed it since I do work from home :)
> Might ask for 20, 25 grand more if I have to go back to the office.
Here's a source you can use for hard numbers[1].
Commutes are responsible for a 9.91% drop in wages. They're also responsible for an average of nearly 10 entire days of driving a year, or 30 full 8-hr work days of driving each year.
You can't work during the commute in that case, however - the author referred to this as an opportunity cost of driving. Working in tech one would imagine in many cases work would be much more productive than driving.
The authors missed some important causes about why commuters prefer to drive personal vehicles. If they were going straight from home to work and back again then carpooling or public transit would often be fine. But real workers often need to make extra stops at schools, child care, stores, gyms, club meetings, etc. Making driving harder and more expensive for those workers only serves to punish them without offering any practical alternatives.
> 2.) A lot of employees live 1+ hour away. The bus doesn't work in these situations.
I live in large dense city in the US (Los Angeles). I live a 15-20 minute car ride from work. The city is going to be doing some construction on my route and have asked the businesses to encourage their employees to take public transit, walk, bike, etc. during the construction. I looked into taking the bus, which for the first time in my life, is a reasonable walk from my home. It would increase my commute time (one way) from 20 minutes to 50 minutes! Sorry, but I don't have an extra hour I can take out of my day for that. It would be better to just work from home, but my employer won't let me do that for the duration of the construction which is supposed to last a year or two.
EDIT: For about a month, my office was at the Santa Monica end of the train. (Like literally right next to the train stop.) Sadly it no longer is. Even then, a coworker decided to take the train once from his place in Pasadena. His normally 45-60 minute commute increased to an hour and 50 minutes taking public transport. Sorry, but he'll just drive instead.
I used to live a 10 minute drive from work, and I never took the bus because it would take close to an hour.
Now I live a 10 minute nonstop bus drive from work, but the fare is the same, which means it's several times the cost of gas for my vehicle even at 16 mpg. And it still takes about 15-30 minutes by bus, net, because of the time waiting for it.
I can walk home after work before the bus even arrives, but the only way to get there is across 3 highways with no crosswalks and people going 50+ mph.
I'm not happy with any of my choices, but driving my gas guzzler kind of seems rational after I've tried all the options and weighed them.
For the moment, it may make sense to not use my car because if I don't commute in it, I'm less likely to go somewhere after work, but that's more of a psychological trick than a logical consequence.
...and while I'm not in a mega-city, I'm in the middle of a medium to smallish city that's part of an area with a million people or so.
Is this comment stating that commuting to an office and dealing with the absence of in-person contact are equally burdensome? One of those things requires (often) buying a vehicle that costs thousands of dollars + maintenance and spending, on average, about an hour a day of their time just commuting (https://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2021/one-way-...). These are not equivalent asks.
My preferred line of argument to overcome such assumptions: My time is too valuable to waste navigating a car through traffic, and hiring a driver (permanently or per-trip) woulnd't make financial sense.
Yes, driving there may save you 10 minutes on a half-hour commute, but in the same time I'll get done 20 minutes of work/whatever.
Most jobs have those costs. You need a car to get to work; you pay for gas, insurance, tolls, etc. Time is wasted during transit/commute.
Are drivers special in this respect?
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