I'm going to move this to the main Motoring section so that more people will look at it, and hopefully come up with ideas.

I commute 54 miles per day, going North on the M6. I find the commute reasonably pleasant, as the traffic volume is much smaller compared to when I used to commute South. The commute takes me 27 minutes, either way, so 54 mins in the car each day.

Going South, the bane of my journey was, in a nutshell, Manchester. I didn't want to go there but I was forced to suffer absurd queues on the M6 if any small incident occurred on the M62. A fourth lane on the motorway would have helped a lot....!

Thanks for the feedback so far, it is much appreciated :)

Sam

I live just outside London, 35 mins to Waterloo on the fast train. I live in a town with 2 stations, but they are too far to walk. There are buses but they are like all buses, irregular and unreliable. Worse still, on returning from London in the evening they are virtually non existant. After trying walking to the station and back (an hour and 10 mins a day tramping along in rain and snow, and waiting for buses that didn't come, I quickly realised the only option was to drive to the station and park, which I hate to do but there's no choice. Monthly station parking ticket, £90. The monthly railcard price would make your eyes water, £400-ish. So the problems are massively overpriced railways and infrequent and unreliable buses. And its getting worse.

I drive to work, 11 miles each way. It usually takes about 25 minutes there and 30 minutes back. However, this is only because I leave home at a ridiculously early time and leave work before the rush hour starts. If I were to leave an hour later the journey times would probably be twice as long. Luckily my employers are reasonably flexible about working hours.

The main thing that has got worse over the 12 years I have been doing this trip is that Hants County Council has gradually been blocking off the outside lanes of the dual carriageways. Previously if you got stuck behind a tractor, JCB or other slow moving vehicle, you knew you would be able to overtake it safely on the next bit of dual carriageway. Now, however, you can be stuck for miles or try a risky overtake on the single carriageway sections.

Yes, hot potato topic.

I used to live in London and my daily commute was into Shorditch from Wanstead (right past the site of the Olympic Park) - the biggest bane was the road junctions designed to restrict traffic movements. (especially in Hackney). I think the journey was only 7-10 miles, with a journey time rearely under an hour weekdays, or 30 minutes weekends. A slow crawl.

Nowadays I live on the Kent coast, and currently commute to Deal, it's about 16 miles each way in generally free flowing traffic which takes about 30 minutes in a relaxed drive, followed by a 7 minute walk to the office after parking (foc) on the sea front. Banes -just the one really, tractors which drive at 20 mph causing long slow traffic queues. However the weather in winter is sometimes blighted by a perishingly cold wind, or in summer the desire to sit out in the sun is a distraction too! (oops! late for work again)

Edited by Smileyman on 02/10/2012 at 00:05

I cycle to work in London, except when it's raining and I use my motorbike.

1) My main problem is other road users trying to kill me, just to save a few seconds whilst trying to get to work. And pedestrians trying to kill themselves by walking out in front of me.

2) My commute would be nicer if buses were electric, or pretty much anything other than diesel...

Travel each day is 30-60 mins depending on office location.

Futher to my answer for 2). I think everyone who works in London would be better off if buses weren't diesel. Pollution sucks and so does paying fines to the EU for not meeting pollution targets.