I Pit my commute

The BBQ Pit
1

I can’t blame this on anyone. There is no solution. And I doubt I’ll get much sympathy. Still, I reserve the right to be pissy and vent my spleen.

My commute sucks ass. I hate hate hate it. Fucking useless commute. Stupid commute eats stupid food for breakfast.

I have 3 options, which I will call the D option, the E-B option, and the C-A-B option.

Because the first two suck so very much, the C-A-B option is the one I’ve been taking. Convenient, but expensive. It was never really affordable before, but now taxi fares have gone up, and this option threatens to cost me around 25% of my take-home pay. I make a good living but live in squalor. It’s hardly an option anymore.

The D option is my second choice. It’s a walk, then a trolley ride, then another walk. About 25-30 minutes of walking altogether. Now, I wouldn’t mind that so much if it was a pleasant walk along a babbling brook where butterflies soar and lolipops spring from the grass like dandilions. But no. Hell no. Fuck no. I have to walk on uneven sidewalks where the streetlights have long burned out and conditions are often dangerously icy. Last winter I fell and fucked up my knee for a good two weeks. And I have to cross some of the most dangerous streets I’ve ever seen. At one point I have to run across a 6-lane highway where drivers think they are the bastard sons of Dale Earnhart and ‘Mad’ Max Rockatansky. Seriously, I take my life into my hands just by crossing the street. Five times. Each way. Uphill. (“And we liked it!”)

In the summer there’s light and dry sidewalks, but there’s also baseball. To get on the trolley I have to contend with drunken Sox fans with smelly butts. (I know this because to even get on the train, my face usually ends up in some guy’s butt. They are that crowded.) And often I have to wait for three or four trains to pass by before I see one empty enough that I can wedge my way in with the aid of the jaws of life.

My average travel time by this route is 50 minutes.

The E-B option is special, in the Special Ed sense of the word. I have to cross yet another crazily dangerous road to get to a trolley. This, I take a couple of miles away my destination, so that I can transfer to yet another trolley. I’ve timed this one and figured that for most of its route, it’s slower than walking. And very crowded. Often, 3 stops before my own, the driver announces that it’s going express past my stop, so I have to get off and wait for another. But it does have the benefit of being almost door-to-door service. When the driver actually stops there. Sometimes they’ll simply bypass my stop. The next one is well over half a mile from my home.

Total travel time? Usually 75-90 minutes.

Do I have any other options? Sure, there is the shuttle service provided by the hospital where I work. They go everywhere. They hit all points of the city. Except one. Go ahead, take a guess.

And now for the punchline:

I only live three miles from where I work!

2

Get a bike.

Are you really short?

3

HAHAHAHAHA! Good one! But seriously, my death wish is not yet that strong.

No, I’m pretty tall. But when I have to stand on the lowest step, crushed between the doors and Assman, who’s on a higher step, it’s mudflap city.

4

Seriously, though, what about a low-cost motor scooter?

5

It’s that pesky old death thing again. The streets around here are pretty crazy, and the drivers are crazier. As I said, I don’t like crossing them, but at least I’m on the sidewalk most of the time. With a scooter, I’d be on the street all the time, and low to the ground, hence less visible. And drivers barely look out for motorcyclists, much less scooterists. In the summer that would be bad. In the winter, when it’s dark and icy, it would be foolhardy at best.

6

Check with HR at your hospital, and see if they have a ride-sharing list. You might find someone in your area to give you a lift if you share the gas.

7

That’s a possibilty, although I kind of hate the idea. shudder

I know of a coworker who not only lives near me, but lives in the same building. Same floor. Right down the hall. But she takes option D as well.

8

May I ask where you live?

9

I’m guessing Boston by the “Sox” comment and the fact that there are trolleys…

And I second the ride-share suggestion. It seems better than the alternatives.

10

Correct.

11

I overlooked the mention of ‘Sox’. Lots of places have trolleys though, if you use that word broadly to include general light rail systems, some on their own rights of way like regular trains.

12

Why? It couldn’t suck worse than what you already have to do. Especially for only 3 miles. I rideshare some days and the gas savings is great - I swap driving with someone else.

13

It’s just the thought of depending on someone else, and having to work on someone else’s schedule, and all that. I’ve done it before in pinches and I was miserable. But I suppose I could give it another shot.

14

Or maybe this other person would be amenable to sharing cab fare when it’s not inconvenient?

15

Dude, walk.

And I’m speaking as someone who works on the Boulevard of Death. Or bike. It’s not that bad. Me, I’ve got a thirty mile commute, each way. I’ve got the option of walking a mile and a half to take a train, it just adds two hours to my daily commute to do so.

Seriously, weather sucks, I know, but three miles is something you can do in a blizzard. Heck, I’m temperature-sensitive asthmatic and I can do it.

16

That’s an interesting idea. I’ll bring it up next time I see her.

17

Oh, and I’m not telling you to ‘suck it down’, tdn. I’m saying that you might be surprised how easily you get used to a three mile walk after you do it a few times.

It might be fun.

18

tdn, I sympathize. There’s the T… and then there’s the Green Line. Fortunately, I work near the hospital on the other end of the Green Line, and that part isn’t so bad. You might want to look into the buses. It’s not like they’re the Elysian Fields or something, but they might be less crowded than the T, even if a little more indirect. I myself walk a good part of my commute, and it allows me to say I’m getting some exercise.

19

Ah. Down by the river. I worked there years ago, when very few of us knew the 2 hospitals and the cancer institute would merge.

I’ve looked at busses and found little. If I do a search on mbta.com, the recommended route is to take a bus to Kemore then switch to the train.

Actually, I just redid the search. It told me to do exactly my D option, except replace the walks on both ends with buses. Bus, train, bus! That can’t be a waste. :rolleyes:

20

Yeah, I got what you meant, thanks. The thing is, that’s pretty much my D option but without the trolley in the middle. More roads, and probably over an hour. Although on a nice spring night, it might be nice. I think I’ll try it sometime.