Look, Up in the Sky, It's SuperCommuter!

Super-commutes are becoming more common as suburbs are flung farther from the city core, and the price of a home within reasonable distance of town keeps heading upward. But most super-commutes still only involve trains and automobiles. This piece in the Los Angeles Times concerns a trauma nurse who works 16-hour shifts in the Bay Area and commutes by plane (to the tune of 350 miles and $400 a month) to her home--her dream home, needless to say--in suburban Las Vegas.

A different kind of commuting--call it kindercommuting--is cropping up in Seattle. A Seattle Times article today profiles families who send their city kids to close-in suburbs for high school to avoid the overcrowding and violence that some Seattle schools suffer. The piece estimates that as many as 1,000 Seattle students are skipping town, including two dozen or so who commute by ferry to Vashon Island (above). The suburban schools get to be choosy--kids who are discipline problems are not accepted--and each transfer represents a vote of confidence in the education the suburban schools are providing. The transfers are not moneymakers for the receiving districts, however. For every out-of-towner,the suburban schools get only the state funds attached to a student, not the local levy.