I had a 2 hour commute in - and I was 30 miles out of London. Drive to train station, get train, walk/Tube to office and that was on a good day with no train delays, I stuck it for 4 years Moved to the Midwest where I had a 15 minute commute and could afford a home (which I am currently WHF from)

No opinion on the accuracy but there are numbers out there [1] that an hour or more is pretty average. Not London, but I live about 40 miles out of a major city in the Northeast US near a commuter rail and a major highway and it takes me a good 90 minutes+ if I'm traveling into the city for the day either by train or car. (I did actually commute about half-time for about 18 months at one point.)

[1] https://bmmagazine.co.uk/in-business/londoners-commute-74-mi...

Get a house that's 30 mins from your job via walk-train-walk [1] then change to a job on the other side of london, via walk-train-underground-train-bus [2]

[1] https://goo.gl/maps/UcNQmsbTE5Q3ni5c8 [2] https://goo.gl/maps/aFJ2Ut1ZLgmNGN266

Not the GP or in London but this was my commute in LA from Pasadena to Santa Monica (~20 miles). If I left at 5am, it'd take less than 30 minutes but return traffic wouldn't clear up till 8-9pm so on most days it made sense to just suffer normal traffic. On a bad day I'd be in my car in bumper to bumper traffic for 5 hours.

Let's just say I have mixed feelings about the pandemic

Wow this is so real. Thank you to share your anecdata! Internet jerks asks: "Who don't you just move to Santa Monica!!??" Zero trolling: Do you have a romantic partner who is tied to Pasadena area or is there a better(!) reason why you suffer this awful commute? I could understand well if you are caring for an elderly or sick person in Pasadena, but worked long term for a firm in Santa Monica. (Real life is tough.)

I was splitting an apartment with a family friend in my hometown in a really nice quadplex where I grew up, for $700/mo. Something comparable in Santa Monica would have cost well over twice that and I'd have a stranger for a roommate. The savings worked out to $10-20 per hour of driving so while not life changing, it was pretty substantial.

I quickly learned to cope by making full use of the company provided gym: I'd leave at 5am and spend 3 hours at the gym doing stretches, exercising, watching TV on my phone, and going to the sauna/steam rooms (daily! it was amazing). Since everyone was in the same boat wrt traffic, we'd all take a long lunch most days and leave later, like 7-8pm which made evening traffic more managable. Most weekends I'd drive 3 hours one way to visit family anyway so I got used to it.

Like I said, I have mixed feelings about the pandemic. Getting 3-4 hours of my life back each day has been incredible. Never going back to any commute.