The Shameful Secret Is Out: Some of Us Enjoy Commuting

I like my commute. There, I’ve said it out loud--the like that dare not speak its name. For years I’ve kept silent, through dinner-party gripefests complete with conspiracy theories involving Caltrans, construction crews and rental-car companies, through water-cooler soliloquies detailing daily voyages of Odyssean proportions. I nodded, and murmured, and occasionally threw out a few key words--”the 405,” I would say heatedly, or “La Cienega,” causing the chorus of discontent to swell and averting attention from my lack of real participation.

Because I have a great commute. From Glendale to downtown, via San Fernando Road and Broadway. It takes about 20 minutes and has just enough points of interest--the train tracks, a concession wagon lot, Chinatown--to keep myself and my 21-month-old traveling companion engaged and interested. Even at night, when it’s a bit more congested, I like it. Not endure it, or put up with it, but actively like it. It gives me time to calm down, to sort through the day, to sing my son a song or two, to rewrite my Oscar acceptance speech, to sit on my can with the smug knowledge that, yes, I am listening to Duran Duran, but I am also getting something accomplished.

The only downside is the emotional isolation. I thought I was the only one. I thought there was something wrong with me.

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But now I know there’s not. Because a study from UC Davis says so. Researchers there discovered that the average ideal commute-time is not zero minutes, or even 10 minutes, but 16 minutes. When asked to choose their dream-commute, just a little more than 10% of the 2,000 participants chose less than 10 minutes, while a quarter said 19 minutes or more. (Everyone, however, agrees that an hour is way too long.) And although 52% feel they are spending at least five minutes more on the road than they would like, 42% are doing just fine, thanks, and 7% would actually prefer a longer commute.

Of course, the participants of this particular survey are residents of San Francisco, a city of notable, if lovable, peculiarity, which might explain that odd last finding. But still, the results resonate down south. If Angelenos really hated commuting, downtown would be a true urban center, and Culver City and La Crescenta would not exist.

Culled from the results of a larger study on travel--defined by study authors Lothlorien Redmond and Patricia Mokhtarian as people moving themselves around for any purpose, by any means--the commuter data reveals that people view commuting not as a necessary evil, but as a useful part of the day. And not just for the obvious reason of getting from point A to point B; commuters found benefit in the activities they could enjoy during the travel time, and the travel in and of itself.

“People like the decompression,” says Mokhtarian, a professor in UC Davis’ department of civil and environmental engineering and Institute of Transportation Studies. “They use the time to strategize, to listen to music or books on tape.” For overworked and overwrought Americans, she adds, the commute has become the primary source of quiet time. An opportunity for reflection or rock ‘n’ roll, for prioritizing, poetry or prayer. A room of one’s own, on wheels.

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Mokhtarian also believes that travel is a basic human need.

“There is an intrinsic desire to travel for its own sake,” she says. “Even when the purpose is work or chores. People like the sensation of movement, they have a curiosity about their surroundings.”

Mokhtarian says she chose a house in a town 17 minutes from her office because she didn’t want “to feel confined to one neighborhood.”

So the next time you’re staring down an hour’s worth of brake lights, remember: You may be 44 minutes above and beyond the ideal commute, but at least you’re not confined.

Mary McNamara can be reached at mary.mcnamara@latimes.com.