Could you imagine having to sit next to this?  I mean seriously…how does that fit in a airplane seat?  I’ve had to sit next to enormous people but at least on the train I could get up and stand if needed.  I would love to interview the poor person who had to sit next to this.

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It really amazes me that the difference between flying internationally vs. domestic is so drastically different. You would think in today’s day and age with all the hoopla of terrorism that it would be more of a pain in the ass. It could also be that the last time I flew was such a horrible experience (See my story on Southwest Airlines).

I got back from a 4 day trip to London where I figured my chances of exposure to radiation were greater than being hit with a tornado, but I was wrong. Anyway, I flew Virgin Atlantic and took the redeye flight on Sunday night. Since I’m not an SVP, I don’t get the luxury of traveling outside of economy but I survived. It was the usual fiasco at Newark where they tell you to arrive 8 days in advance of a flight so you can go through security and sit at the gate forever and you might be lucky to have a news stand to kill about 4 minutes. Then you have to wait about another 1-2+ hours for your flight to board. It’s funny how much I complained of the Southwest nonsense and thought how great the normal boarding process was. In London, there is nothing at the actual gate other than check in. You get held in a central area full of shops, food, bars, etc. Then when your gate is called, they take tickets right away and you wait in a secure area. When the flight boards, you just get on the plane. There isn’t the hassle of ticket scanning then because it’s already done.

On the planes they actually give you some good supplies for the flight. Earplugs, eye masks, a disposable toothbrush so for those going somewhere afterwards don’t have dragon breath, slippers a blanket and a pillow. Sure they give out pillows on domestic flights but they are scattered about the cabin and it’s a free-for-all to get one.

They actually feed you on these flights too. I wouldn’t say the food quality is anything different. Either it’s something you tolerate or you don’t but at least there’s something. Plus alcohol is included for everyone on the flight, not just upper & premium class. We got a bunch of snacks as well during the flight too.

Since the planes are bigger, everyone gets their own tv and selection of a bunch of programming. There is nothing that makes the time on a plane pass faster than watching entertainment. We had some serious head winds coming home so I watched 4 movies coming home (Click, The Break Up, Miami Vice and Little Miss Sunshine) and one going (Mission Impossible 3). If anyone wants my movie reviews, let me know.

…than me that I am posting a compliment about transportation.

I had a very pleasant experience traveling over the Thanksgiving holiday on JetBlue. Not only was the round trip less expensive than the United shuttle, but there was way more leg and head room.

In fact, things ran so smoothly that on the way back, we actually arrived at Dulles fifteen minutes early. Which totally messed up the ground crew and baggage handlers, as it took ten minutes for them to get us to the gate and over twenty minutes to offload our bags.

I guess if it had been too perfect I would’ve looked around for people with goatees to see if we were in the Evil Parallel Universe. (It’s a Star Trek reference.)

Yesterday, while driving home, I’m sitting at a traffic light and some idiot kid in a Jeep slams into me. The good news is everyone, including my 31-week pregnant wife , was ok. It certainly could have been much worse if he was going faster or if someone was in front of us.

The only thing that the guy says to me is, “I tried to stop but couldn’t”. I mean seriously. It wasn’t like a whack-a-mole game where all of a sudden the light appeared out of nowhere with all the traffic in front of him. He had a giant jeep, covered in mud from off-roading and wasn’t paying attention.

The ass of my car is a mangled, twisted pile of metal, rubber, and broken taillights.

I’ll be sure to keep the comments updated with the insurance battles over the next few weeks (I hope not months). Let the fun begin.

Hey at least we got to watch football from the hospital on our anniversary.

Marketing plays a powerful role in our everyday lives. Everywhere you look there’s an ad (TransitHell.com not excluded) or some kind of message that a company is trying to get out to the masses. I spent five years of my life in the advertising industry. Those are five years I will never get back. Ever.

“Ding” … You are now free to move about the country….

Do you know the slogan? Of course you do…it’s Southwest Airlines. That Ding is the universal sound of the fasten seatbelt signal on a plane. I always thought their commercials were very well done. Certainly I always remembered the message. Low fares starting at $99. Their marketing works I suppose from a brand recognition standpoint. The Ding was a catchy little jingle. Read on and let me know if you think their marketing will sell me more tickets in the future.

On Friday, I had the great pleasure to fly their airline for the first time. I had to get from Orlando, FL to Providence, RI and lucky for me, they flew there non-stop.

Their slogan should be - “Ding”…You are now free to tell us how the boarding process should work.

I always knew they had this general seating policy so you couldn’t get seats in advance. I was always curious how this worked. Be careful what you wish for in life…you just might get it.

So I get to the airport and finally get to the counter to check-in my bags. I thought the seats were distributed at that point. At least then it would be a first come, first serve basis. I get my ticket printed and it just has a giant “C” on it. No seat.

Ok, now what?

So, as a man, I naturally ask no questions. This time being no different, I proceed to the security gate and get through sans any liquid over 3 ounces, of course. I get to the gate and the flight coming in was due in from Baltimore at 10:05. My flight was scheduled for 10:35. A 30 minute turn around would be impressive (we didn’t make it for those keeping score).

So then I try figuring out…How does the boarding process work? What a mystery.

I then see there are 3 letters near the front of the jet way door. A, B & C. Now, as a smart guy, I figure out that my ticket matches the C. That must be where I’m going to board. So the plane from Baltimore arrives. The first thing I think of is “Finally, the plane is here and I’ll get to leave Florida”. Everyone else, however, started assembling by the masses in front of the door with A’s, B’s and C’s.

“Ding”…I’m not moving. It’s 30 minutes until we leave. You think I’m going to get up and just stand in line like a cattle going to the slaughterhouse? “Ding”…I don’t think so.

So, an agent makes their way over and calls the “A” people. It then dawned on me that I’m in the last group to board the plane. Not only that but since I sat on my ass for the 30 minutes of waiting, I’m now 4th to last on the “C” conga line. I arrived at the airport 1.5 hours early and still got C. I’m not sure if this goes in order or if it’s random. Do I need to show up at their airport the night before and get a bracelet as if I’m waiting to get Poison tickets? I mean seriously, this is just nutty.

“Ding”…back to the story. So then they start taking the “A” tickets…

Ding…Ding…Ding…Ding. I start wondering if I’m stuck in a bad commercial and there’s an endless Ding loop. As they scan tickets for boarding, it let’s out this stupid Ding. For 140 or so passengers… Ding…Ding…Ding…Ding…Ding…Ding…Ding…Ding…Ding…Ding. By the time I got to the ticket agent, I wanted to take my laptop and Ding him over the head to see if it makes a Ding noise. I was thinking it would be more of a Thud.

I finally get onto the plane and it’s just a circus. People standing all over the place fighting to get their crappy Disney souvenirs into the overhead compartments. Kids standing on seats like it’s a circus. Being the 4th to last person on the plane, I have to bob and weave my way through all this. Trying to find an open seat…somewhere. I finally make my way to the back of the plane and see an open seat on the end of an older couple. The woman was in the middle seat and was skinny so I lucked out there.

The flight itself was normal (i.e., it didn’t crash) but I really need to ask…How is this a good idea??? I really see no value to this and can’t imagine that anyone who had a choice would want to fly this way vs. not. Am I missing something?

WASHINGTON (AP) — More and more commuters are leaving home earlier, traveling farther and driving alone, says an analysis of commuting trends reported Monday.

The “Commuting in America” study by the Transportation Research Board also found that more commuters are traveling from suburb to suburb — rather than the traditional commute from suburb to city.

“As more employers move out of cities to be closer to skilled suburban workers, the suburbs now account for the majority of job destinations,” the report noted.

The board, part of the National Academies, has analyzed commuting trends since 1986, largely using Census data.

According to the latest analysis, the number of new solo drivers grew by almost 13 million from 1990 to 2000. The number of workers with commutes lasting more than 60 minutes grew by almost 50 percent over that period. And, compared with the previous decade, more Americans are leaving for work between 5 a.m. and 6:30 a.m.

More than 4 million people now work from home, and a growing number of those over age 55 are doing so, the report said, a trend that is expected to continue.

Must be commuter week with all the press. That’s because school starts next week and vacations end. It’s going to get ugly out there.

———————–

WASHINGTON (AP) — It might be hard for some drivers to believe, but average commuting times are getting shorter for U.S. workers.

The average daily commute to work has shrunk from 25.5 minutes in 2000 to 25.1 minutes last year, according to data released this week by the Census Bureau.

“We all should hold a celebration,” said Alan Pisarski, author of “Commuting in America.” “We’re saving 0.4 minutes!”

That’s 0.4 minutes each way, for a total of 48 seconds a day.

But not everyone’s buying it.

“Even with these numbers, we swear up and down that we are spending more time in our cars,” said John B. Townsend II, a spokesman for AAA Mid-Atlantic in Washington.

“We are spending at least an hour a day in our cars in the Washington area,” Townsend said. “We spend more time stuck in traffic and commuting (each year) than we spend on vacation.”

The numbers are surprising because many of the nation’s fastest-growing communities are in the outer suburbs, miles from central cities. The shorter commuting times could be a sign that jobs are following the workers, Pisarski said.

For example, the nation’s longest commute, at 39.6 minutes, is in the Vineland, New Jersey, metropolitan area, about 40 miles south of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Vineland, a community of 56,000 people in southern New Jersey, was part of the Philadelphia metropolitan area in 2000. It became its own metropolitan area, along with the New Jersey cities of Millville and Bridgeton, because fewer workers are commuting into Philadelphia.

The New York area had the second-longest commute, at 34.2 minutes, and the Washington area was third at 33.4 minutes. Commuters in both New York and Washington saw their commutes get slightly longer from 2000 to 2005.

The Los Angeles, California, area, which is notorious for its traffic, came in 16th, at 28.4 minutes. That’s shorter than the commute in Riverside, California, which has been siphoning residents from Los Angeles for years.

“Overall, congestion isn’t a problem for everyone,” said Mantill Williams, a spokesman for AAA’s national office. “But there are specific pockets of pain. There are specific areas where it has gotten worse.”

Among the findings from the Census Bureau:

?The share of people driving alone to work increased from 75.7 percent in 2000 to 77 percent last year.

?The share of people carpooling to work dropped from 12.2 percent in 2000 to 10.7 percent last year.

?The share of people using mass transit stayed the same at 4.7 percent.

?The share of people walking to work dropped from 2.9 percent in 2000 to 2.5 percent last year.

?The share of people working at home increased from 3.3 percent in 2000 to 3.6 percent last year.

Copyright 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

From NJ.com -

Getting sick of long rides on the train

Study: Commuting stress may worsen health woes

Tuesday, August 29, 2006

BY JUDY PEET

Star-Ledger Staff

For years, the prevailing New Jersey commuter philosophy has been: When the driving gets tough, the tough get a railpass.

But commuting by train is also stressful, according to a new study that found the longer the rail commute, the higher the strain. With every passing mile, there is an impact not only on physical and psychological well-being, but also on the ability to complete simple tasks, the study concluded.

“We’ve known for a long time that there is a correlation between stress of driving in congested commuter traffic and heart” attacks, said Richard Wener, a professor of environmental psychology at Polytechnic University and one of the study’s authors.

“With this study, we are suggesting that the stress of long train commutes may pose a similar health problem,” added Wener, who commutes by train every day from his Maplewood home to his classes in Brooklyn. “Trains are not as stressful as cars at rush hour, but even a relatively minor stressor, several hours a day, every day of the year, can build to a health risk.”

New Jersey commuters were studied because rail commuting here is “worse than in most places,” Wener said. The expansion of suburbia here also means the average rail commute is getting longer and longer.

Sitting on the train last night, returning from a hard day in Manhattan, few commuters were surprised at the study results.

“Of course the ride is stressful; everybody is pretty much in a daze after they get off the train,” said accounting firm manager Mike D’Angelo, whose commute between Denville and Manhattan takes about 70 minutes. “If I could afford to move closer, like to Summit, of course I would.”

Food buyer Joseph Cammarta, who commutes to New York from Dover, complained that the seats are too tight and passengers are jammed between bags, but added that the real bother “is cell phones. That’s where the stress comes in.”

The researchers studied 208 commuters taking trains from New Jersey to Manhattan on the Midtown Direct line. The subjects, who ranged in age from 25 to 60, commuted at least three days a week and had been on the same route for at least 12 months.

The trips ranged from 59 minutes, door-to-door, to 104 minutes.

The participants were about evenly split between men and women, but of similar education and socio-economic backgrounds. Eighty percent were college graduates, and the median income approached $100,000.

Wener and Gary Evans, a professor of environmental analysis at Cornell University, used several methods to evaluate stress levels.

The commuters’ saliva was tested for the stress hormone cortisol at the end of the commute, and, for comparison, during a weekend at home. The commuters and their spouses also filled out questionnaires rating their stress levels, and the riders were asked to proofread a simple office memo at the end of a long commute.

The study found that average cortisol levels rose in direct proportion to the length of time on the train. People who had a 100-minute commute had, on average, more than three times the cortisol levels of people who had only a 60-minute commute.

The ability to pick up errors proofreading declined in a similar pattern, the researchers found. Self-reporting responses supported the increased frustration and irritability of the long commute.

“Ethnicity, profession and gender didn’t seem to matter, although mothers with children at home had the highest stress levels,” Wener said, adding that the study sponsored by NJ Transit did not take into account factors such as train conditions, seat locations or train changes.

Wener said the potential impact on work productivity following a long commute “should be of concern to employers and infrastructure planners.”

New Jerseyans are tough, however, and a number of passengers polled by The Star-Ledger simply shrugged and agreed with Larry Sobol, a financial adviser from Morristown, who said: “Deal with it.”

That does not mean they don’t have suggestions. The overwhelming favorite was to take out the middle seat. People would rather stand than sit there.

Other rider suggestions included more cars, more space, electric hookups and wireless Internet connections on the cars, better lighting, club cars and better notification of train delays at the stations.

NJ Transit spokesman Dan Stessel said the agency is making several improvements that passengers have requested.

He noted 234 new cars are expected to go on line beginning later this year, with better amenities, better lighting and, best of all, no third seat.

Critics noted, however, there will not be enough new, amenity-filled trains, and most riders will still be forced to use the old, crowded cars. They said the pace of improvement is too slow and it will be up to commuters to manage their stress.

Staff writer Rohina Phadnis contributed to this report.

? 2006 The Star Ledger

? 2006 NJ.com All Rights Reserved.

Have you seen the latest TSA restrictions for all flights, including domestic? No liquids, period. Can’t bring anything to drink on the plane. That would be all well and fine if (a) they didn’t keep the cabin so dry and (b) they actually brought you water when you needed it.

I swear, it’s getting to point where I’d almost rather take Amtrak to NY. Or, god forbid, drive…