At my prior job, there was only one road.

At my current job, there are several possible variants and each has advantages and disadvantages.

The road with the least distance and climbing home is a major artery and it's also under major construction. To be avoided this year. When they finish it, it will look like the freeway from Matrix Reloaded, but at least it will have bike lanes.

The bike trail can seem very dark in moonless winter, and sort of dodgy with homeless if very late at night.

The bike trail connects to a fire road that I usually take and it shortens my ride by a mile, but if I kept to the pavement my bike would stay a lot cleaner.

There's a fishing season when the fishermen present a hazard, they wear dark clothes and carry no lights but often have a pole with a hook in one hand and a bucket with a big fish in the other.

There is a route to work with almost no climbing that is longer but faster, so net time is about the same. It's clockwise around a lake so the bike lane is continuous and there are few intersections that present any trouble. The same route does not work going home because counter clockwise around the lake you're on the outside of road and there's just a lot more to navigate.

I have MTB options but I don't often take them because they are slower and the home workload is really high right now.