Well, your faithful blogger is leaving The Tribune, retiring actually. Today is my last day.

The commuting beat/Behind the Wheel column/blog will be staffed again, I am told, as soon as managers can hire/find someone.

It has proven to be viable beat: Most of us do it, some of us better than others. And we spend a whole lot of time in our cars, trying to get to work or home, some more time than others. But we don’t have much choice but to drive herabouts.

In a sprawling place where subdivisions are “planned’’ based on where the cheaper land is, we need more and more roads to enable all those folks to get to work somewhere more urban, so they can pay their mortgages.

I commute(d) from Sarasota, a town too far from Tampa. Earlier assignments permitted me to work there, and in St. Petersburg. But the downtown Tampa gig ... didn’t work for me.

Too much commuting.

I know, the irony is as thick as Los Angeles smog.

Adios. I’m going home.