The Way We Work: Super Commuters Go the Distance for Their Careers
For Labor Day, Patch examines why some professionals are willing to travel hundreds of miles every week for work.
At 5 a.m. three days a week, Mark Schofield wakes up in his Washington, D.C. home to prepare for his commute—to Philadelphia. By 6:15 a.m., he grabs a cup of coffee from the Starbucks in Washington’s Union Station. “The coffee there is stronger” than on Amtrak train No. 130, he says. It’s no wonder he needs a potent blast of caffeine: Schofield spends more than 15 hours riding each week to Philadelphia’s 30th Street Station. From there he catches a local train to his job at Haverford College in Delaware County. The commute adds roughly two and a half hours and 140 miles onto both ends of a 9-to-5 workday. His three-day commute, roundtrip, totals 840 miles—roughly the distance between Washington and Orlando, FL. For Schofield, and other “…