Traffic
We moved to the Atlanta area in 2004. It was a work-related move. Part of what I now refer to as my 6-city tour. Six cities in 25 years. The most extended engagement was 8 years. All the moves were east of the Mississippi. And we have tended to like the south more as we have gotten older. Used to love the snow and cold, now we can’t imagine living in upstate NY, or Sandusky, Ohio. Well, maybe long enough to ride a roller coaster there.
Everyplace I’ve lived has had some good points and bad points. Pros and Cons. In Atlanta, the big one on the con side is traffic.
I live about 12 miles from where I work, and there are many routes I can take to get there. Enough options so I can change my route if there appears to be problems ahead. But it generally takes me as much time as my commute to work in Mobile, Alabama, where I lived 20 miles from work.
The first time I accepted a transfer, my methodical, you-gotta-have-a-plan engineering manager gave me his trusted guide for relocation. One of his standard steps was to choose potential neighborhoods, and when visiting the area take the drive from a house you like to your new workplace. In rush hour. An then do the same thing at the end of the workday.
It’s a good suggestion, and although I never followed it, I still recommend it as a consideration. I recommend it because if you spend four or five years at a location, and your drive is at least 30 minutes, then you will spend up to 1,000 hours commuting in that time.
But, with a family that is also being relocated, how to get the kids to school, soccer, dance and whatever can take precedence over drive time. In fact, that way of deciding has worked well for my family, and my engineer friend didn’t always think about that. If he had any sense at all, he might have, and he might have preserved his family.
Sometimes common sense is not about the numbers and simple logic. Sometimes we solve the wrong problem.