Amazon Is Selling Its 29-Acre Bay Area Property as Return to Office Stalls

Re:Amazon Is Selling Its 29-Acre Bay Area Property as Return... by notyourwork on Monday January 30, 2023 @05:43PM (#34587633)

> hour plus commutes

Commuting is my biggest complaint with forcefully going back to office. If I have a bus or train that requires no brain power for me to get to office, I am more tolerable to it.

Perhaps this will be a kick in the improve US public transportation for the masses? It is the only silver lining I can think of here.

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Re:Amazon Is Selling Its 29-Acre Bay Area Property as Return... by monksy on Monday January 30, 2023 @05:51PM (#34587769)

Just wait till you get a mayor who has decided to kill public transit. Trains/buses don't show up, they're packed with homeless using it as a bed and a toliet, and gangsters who smoke it up. On top of that they're not running the schedule, but "keeping the schedule intact". That's what's been happening in Chicago. (Thanks Lori "we're a car city" Lightfoot)

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Re:Amazon Is Selling Its 29-Acre Bay Area Property as Return... by reaperducer on Monday January 30, 2023 @06:01PM (#34587890)

I'm not sure you can blame Lightfoot for that. I've lived in Chicago on-and-off for 30 years -- never with a car -- and the CTA has always been like that.

That's why some L cars have a "hobo corner," and why there's (was?) a homeless shelter at the O'Hare airport Blue Line station.

The CTA may be smelly, but it beats getting shot at by thugs on the expressways.

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Re:Amazon Is Selling Its 29-Acre Bay Area Property as Return... by monksy on Tuesday January 31, 2023 @02:14AM (#34592242)

It was never this bad. It's gotten worse over the last 2 years.

https://www.wbez.org/stories/chicago-cta-riders-on-delays-sa...

Also, traffic has gotten a heck of a lot worse as well. Also the homeless have moved into the airport. [At the baggage areas,https://www.reddit.com/r/chicago/comments/zm4emb/homeless_pe... ]

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Re:Amazon Is Selling Its 29-Acre Bay Area Property as Return... by jacoblambda on Monday January 30, 2023 @05:55PM (#34587815)

This is really the kicker. I would have no problem commuting 1+ hours into the city for work if I could actually make use of my time.

I can't do anything while driving beyond listen to music. An audiobook is either going to get my full attention and I'll be distracted while driving or I'm going to miss 30-40% of the book trying to stay alert on the road. At that point I might as well just not listen to the audio book at all if I care about the contents.

However if I could just take trains/buses into the city, provided they actually run regularly (i.e. they don't turn a 40 minute drive into 6 hours), I'd have 1-4 hours a day I could allocate to reading, listening to an audio book, watching TV, playing a game, working on personal projects, or continuing my education.

Sure it might be a long commute but I could do the things that I'd otherwise barely have time for so it's not really lost time. Doubly so if I could actually do work on a company device while I commute (no surprise team meetings if you aren't actually on site yet meaning work would actually get done).

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