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Rochester a daily drive for UB folk
By JESSICA KELTZ
Reporter Contributor
As a Rochester city councilman, there never was a chance that Bill Pritchard would move to Buffalo. So when UB offered him a great new job, he had only one real option: driving an hour and 15 minutes each way, every day, possibly for years.
Rochester resident Bill Pritchard says
that although he makes telephone calls related to his UB job and his
work as a Rochester city councilman while commuting to campus every day,
satellite radio has been a "godsend" in helping to make the time
fly.
PHOTO: NANCY J. PARISI
"That two and a half hours a day has come squarely out of my personal time," says Pritchard, senior director of major and planned gifts for the School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences. While he tries to use the hours on the road as productively as possible—making phone calls related to both his UB work and his city council service—he's found that satellite radio more than anything has helped make the time fly.
"Satellite radio honestly is a godsend," he says. "It offers so many options that I never get bored in the morning or on my way home."
Pritchard is one of about 100 UB faculty and staff members and students who commute to UB from Rochester. Although many feel commuting is not the ideal situation, they say it's the best option for them.
Pritchard, who has been commuting since May 2004, says he balances home, work and elected office by returning city-related phone calls in the evenings and on weekends. He relies on his legislative aide to run things during the day.
It's the little things that have surprised him, he says. He knew about the drive time going in, but didn't think about not being able to run to the gym or get a haircut on his lunch break.
"When you live and work in two different cities, you either identify two of everything or you just make do," he says. "And I've decided to make do."
Despite the hit to his personal time and even an ice-related car accident last winter, Pritchard says he's still glad to be working at UB.
"The idea was a good one. I enjoy my job here. I don't question whether it was a good idea or not—I made the right choice coming to UB," Pritchard says.
Like Pritchard, Juergen Bohnemeyer, assistant professor of linguistics, isn't crazy about commuting from Rochester. But he feels that it's the best choice for him.
"My wife works at the University of Rochester, so one of us has to commute since neither of us would consider living in Batavia," Bohnemeyer says. "My wife also was already in Rochester before I moved to the states, so we just decided to live in Rochester."
Bohnemeyer does not have to come to campus every weekday, which he says makes a big difference.
"Currently I go up to Buffalo three days a week," he says. "I'm trying to switch to a two-day schedule."
Bohnemeyer says driving in the winter is not as bad as one might assume—he takes the New York State Thruway, which is almost always plowed. Colleagues who live in the Southtowns sometimes have a harder time getting back and forth, he adds.
Bob Wagmiller, assistant professor of sociology, also lives in Rochester because his wife works there—at Strong Memorial Hospital.
"She has to go to work more often than I do, so she won the battle of where we live," he says.
Like Bohnemeyer, Wagmiller said he prefers to drive the whole way, rather than live halfway between the cities and have both spouses commute.
"We were a little worried that we'd be stuck in the middle of nowhere with no friends," he says. "So we decided that rather than split the difference, it was better to be anchored somewhere."
Before moving to Rochester, Wagmiller lived in New York City, where he says it took him about the same amount of time to commute 10 miles as it now takes him to drive from Rochester to UB every day.
"I like it," he says of the driving. "It gives me time to think."
Jessica Wilkie, a graduate student in American studies, says she commutes from Rochester because UB offers a program in film and women's studies she couldn't find anywhere else, and also costs less than Rochester-area institutions.
"There are state schools in the greater Rochester area, but they are far out of the city and the commute is not much less than the commute to UB North Campus," she notes. "On a good day with decent weather, it takes just over an hour. I live on the west side of Rochester and only have to take highways."
Wilkie says that for her, money is the biggest obstacle in getting from Rochester to Buffalo every day.
"Gas is a major expense now, whereas before I commuted, it never even factored into my expenses. That was true even last year before the gas prices started skyrocketing," she says. "This semester is obviously going to be much worse...and my EZ Pass bill is getting a little crazy, too."
Kristin Reed, who works in Procurement Services, also has seen gas prices take a bite out of her budget since she moved to Rochester in July. She and her husband had moved to Buffalo from Rochester eight or nine years ago, but he lost his job in Buffalo and found one in Rochester—one that required him to work very long hours.
After not seeing her husband from 5 a.m. to 9 p.m. some days and having him spend nights in Rochester from time to time, "It got to the point where I said 'My hours are more regular. I could be the one that commutes,'" Reed says. "We have a little girl, so we wanted to get everyone under one roof."
Although the drive is long and expensive, Reed says the move has worked out because both she and her husband have family in Rochester, which means help with their daughter and generally "more of a support system."
"We were eventually looking to move back," she says, adding that she and her husband had hoped their daughter, now three and a half, would start kindergarten in the Rochester area. "This just isn't the ideal way we wanted to do it."
Reed said she has changed her work hours slightly and begun listening to books on CD in an attempt to adjust, but she wonders how things will work when winter comes around.
"The weather there might be one way and the weather here is completely different," she points out. "You don't know what you're driving in or out of."
Financially, Reed sees no alternative to commuting for right now. Other commuters also say they don't have much of a choice, but have tried to make the most of things.
"If there was more regular public transportation between Rochester and Buffalo I would certainly try to make use of it," says Bohnemeyer. "I could spend the time reading or working on my laptop. I do get to think through a lot of stuff, but that's about the only thing you can do."
Pritchard also says that spending time in both Buffalo and Rochester has made him think about the historical rivalry between the two cities.
"I've seen many, many great things about Buffalo that I didn't experience before, and I truly believe that what unites us is far greater than what divides us," he says. "We're facing common challenges and common opportunities as well."