Woodlands commuter nearing a half million miles

THE WOODLANDS, Texas—Woodlands Online caught up with resident Michael Cullen on his daily commute to his office in the Galleria; a journey he’s been making since 1988. We calculated that at an average twenty work days in a month, making the round trip of 80 miles a day, Cullen has traveled approximately 456,000 miles in the almost 24 years he’s been commuting. That’s nearly a half-million miles!

Cullen participated in the Commute Solutions campaign this fall, sponsored by the Houston-Galveston Area Council (H-GAC). The program encourages local commuters to save time and money on their daily drive to and from work by becoming part of a solution to help clean our region's air. Solutions range from committing to take a bus or rail one day a week, teleworking from their home, riding their bike to work, or declaring that they will vanpool or rideshare with fellow employees using STAR Vanpool and Nu Ride. Cullen and ten other commuters ride in a Metro Star vanpool daily, saving serious wear-and-tear on their vehicles and their nerves. Their daily commute is subsidized in part by their employers and Metro. The van lease and gasoline are all but covered, with just a small out-of-pocket expense averaging $15 a rider per month, which fluctuates with the gas prices.

On any given day the commute via the Hardy Toll Road takes 45 minutes from point to point. Since we had 45 minutes of Cullen’s undivided attention, we were able to find out what manner of man is apt to opt for this way of life…spending an hour and a half of his day on the road.

An engineer for Energy Transfer, which manages 20,000 miles of natural gas pipeline, Cullen has traversed almost the full gamut of engineering disciplines to include Geology, Petroleum, Computer Engineering, and currently Systems Control using Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA). Although there have been acquisitions and mergers throughout all of these transitions, he’s basically worked for the same company his entire work tenure. Cullen’s daily routine has been to hop aboard the shuttle and to report to work as usual.

The morning rider departs early at 6:00 a.m. Cullen may be the longest rider in terms of tenure, but the long-distance riders who commute with him come as far as Willis and Cut-n-Shoot. These riders start their day as early as 4:30 a.m., so the ride into the Galleria affords some additional shut-eye time.

“The agreement is, the one who drives the van goes to sleep last,” Cullen said. “That way they he won’t scare the rest of the passengers when he falls asleep at the wheel.”

Not wanting to disturb the morning sleep routine, Woodlands Online conducted the interview on the return trip. This is typically the reading hour. Cullen is an intense reader. Never without Kindle in hand, he’ll have as many as eight books downloaded at a time which includes novels like the "Game of Thrones" series.

“Depending on the size of the novel, I average one book a week,” Cullen said.

That amounts to a minimum of three dozen books a year, maybe closer to four dozen. If you can’t read in a moving vehicle, music on iPods fill the void; Cullen’s preference is Christian Contemporary. His Blackberry also provides an opportunity for him to catch up on news, weather and sports while commuting.

But why would one commute this distance for that length of time? “When you love where you live, you don’t mind the commute,” said Cullen. “When my wife and I moved from Missouri, we just fell in love with The Woodlands and all its amenities.”

Woodlands commuters who, likewise, love the community but need to commute to their jobs, can add longevity to both their cars and themselves by coming up with an alternative solution and then going to My Solutions and making a pledge to so. Alas, Cullen’s commuting days are numbered. He’ll be taking retirement on December 1. In the remaining 63 days our Woodlands Wanderer will rack up an additional 4,960 miles, and probably get eight more books read.

When asked how he intends to fill the hour and a half daily void, Cullen replied, “My wife and I have six kids, eight grandkids, and three weddings to plan. There’ll be plenty to do.”

The one thing he said he doesn’t plan to do is take a long vacation by car.