Hidden Waste: A Long Commute

There's one type of waste that we produce more than we are comfortable producing that never ends up in the trash under our sink: fossil fuel combustion.  Sergio and I both commute about twenty miles each way every week day to get to work.  That's a total of eighty miles of driving each day, or four hundred miles per week, or over twenty thousand miles per year.  Egad!

Since I've worked in Palo Alto, I've lived a fair number of different places.

When I lived in San Francisco, I took Caltrain to work.

When I lived in Menlo Park, I biked to work.

When I lived in Hayward, I carpooled to work.

When I lived in Mountain View, I biked to work.

Now that I live in Union City, I drive alone to work.

Because this is the first time in eight years that I have driven to work, I really feel terrible about doing it.  It just isn't my nature.  But, we pollute so much because we live so far from where we work, and there aren't any viable alternative methods of transportation.  Biking takes over an hour each direction and involves crossing a bridge over the ocean (wind central). There is a bus called the Dumbarton Express, but it takes nearly two hours to get to work because it uses the same regular, traffic saturated streets as all of the other vehicles, plus it makes some stops along the way.

For me, there are two most frustrating aspects of the commute waste issue.  First, although Sergio and I leave the same residence and travel to the same school district for employment, we start at different times (multiple hours apart) so carpooling is not realistic. But, it kills me that we aren't carpooling. Second, between when Sergio leaves (5:30am) and when I leave (8:30am) the number of vehicles on the road increases exponentially.  What is a twenty-five minute ride for him is a seventy-five minute ride for me.  Both directions.

So, it is with some apprehension that we have decided to move as close to work as possible.  In doing so, we hope to preserve our tiny house lifestyle by finding a similar place to live in Palo Alto.  Fortunately, once we move there, a tiny rental is certainly all we will be able to afford!