Very important. The first 3 years of college I lived within 5 miles of school and would commute by bike almost every day of the year(exceptions would be when I was sick or it was raining/snowing, in which case I would use my car or preferably take a bus). I'm staying in a different house this year that is considerably further away from school, which wouldn't be a problem but half of the commute is on highly trafficked roads with no bike lane and to be completely honest I'm pretty scared to try it. I've been making the commute to school with my car, but still do all of my local errands on bike and if there are no errands to do, I try and get atleast 4 or 5 miles in and without fail I feel like a million bucks afterwards. I totally agree with Roody on the idea that it's about the journey, not the destination. When I lived on the other side of town, I used to commute to the mall(5 miles) and when I got there I would walk around for about 15 minutes and couldn't wait to ride my bike back. Also the feeling that you can transport yourself and not spend any money or be dependent on gas or a car is just awesome.