A few years back, I lived in the SF Bay Area. Driving home at 3am, drive time was 45 minutes. During daylight hours? 3 hours, each way. I would leave at 6am, get there at 9am, and then when I turned around to go home at 6 pm I would get home at 9pm. Longer on Fridays.

This was my best option. Commuting on rail and bus wasn’t possible because the hours the bus ran were too short, when the bus showed up at all. Ironically, if there were better bus service from rail hubs in the SF/South Bay, I would probably have never left.

Rail and bike worked, except I literally had to jump off my bike at least twice to avoid being killed by drivers, in addition to people trying to door me, run me off the road, or cut me off- mostly by people who literally would rather kill me than yield for a bike (and yes, I was following all traffic laws, even when they weren’t). Also, being harassed by police for various reasons, including for locking my bike up to street signs because there is no bike parking in the Bay Area. I once had a San Jose police officer pull a gun on me and threaten to shoot me if I didn’t get off my bike and walk it down an empty street, just because.

Motorcycle didn’t work because I had people cut me off or door me to keep me from riding around them in traffic. Radio DJs would regularly joke about dooring motorcyclists. After seeing too many downed motorcyclists, and a couple of my own near mishaps, I stopped riding a motorcycle there.

And, yes, that burned me out. I moved away from there, found work in places where I could safely ride a bicycle or remote work. My health as been better for it.

Never going back to commuting if I can possibly avoid it.