Waiting an hour for a bus each way for your daily commute

Adding an hour-long commute turns an 8 hour day into a 10 hour day, for no extra pay. A $25/hr job turns into a $20/hr job.

For the bus rider, avoiding that “commuter tax” strictly limits employment options to those employers on the same line(s) as their home. Adding a transfer slashes the hourly rate even faster.

Further, those bus lines only operate in dense urban areas, where housing costs are also at an exorbitant premium for the space acquired.

The driver can choose to work in less dense areas, where traffic jams simply don’t occur, parking is easy to find, and housing costs are considerably lower. The bus rider can’t: buses tend not to serve such areas.