Not a rant, but a little MPSIMS moaning and groaning.
I’ve been spoiled by the NYC transit system depositing fairly close to the building I’ll be working in for the bulk of my working career. However, as a (salaried) consultant, I have to go to my clients*, and my next client is in Berkeley Heights, NJ. So now I have to get off of my island, cross one of two possible islands, to get on the lovely mainland and navigate NJ’s treacherous highway system. I’ll have to pay attention to traffic reports in the morning, and I’ll lose the time I spent reading the paper and my books daily.
Woe is me, woe is me. Consider this thread your invitation to my pity party (BYOB, and bring one for me, too).
*When I do travel out of my home NYC area, I’m usually at a hotel within shouting distance of whatever office I’m working at, and any commute is negligible and often handled by the hotel shuttle.
I had to commute between Queens and Morristown for almost 2 years. Same deal, company paid for all expenses. but it sucked – you have to get your car thru or around Manhattan, the traffic vortex of the whole eastern seaboard. At least once a week something went wrong (accident, motorcycle parade, fire) and the 1-way trip took over 2 hours. I came in to work every day pissed off from having to sit in traffic, repeat on the way home.
Here’s my advice (not that you asked for any): try to figure out if there’s a way you can take NJTransit out of Penn. If you can take the train just once a week, it helps. The train will probably take longer, but sometimes you just need a break for driving. See if you can expense cabs in NJ from office to train. Myself and some of the managers would also leave our cars overnight in the NJ Transit lots, without problems. If you’re working at a Big Corporate Site, the town may already run some sort of shuttle service to the local train station (ask the secretaries and such when you get there – I knew there was one out by Murray Hill) You’d be amazed how many people commute on the train within New Jersey.
People say they like public transportation but nobody really does. The illusion is created by the cognitive dissonance of seeing BMW’s fly by while you are sitting there on a bus. The brain does what it can to suppress the pain. Public transportation is for plebes and you deserve much better. Public transporation controls where you go and when you go there thereby controlling much of what makes you a sentient being.
I hope you get an SUV (like I have) to maximize the joy in your commute. There is no feeling quite like hard blocking a 1300 lb econo-car with a 3000 lb SUV just through sheer mass and intimidation. Driving is fun especially if you have a kick-ass stereo and an attitude. People think Ipods are cool. They are cool in a way but not when that is your only option like on the ill formentioned public transporation. Cool is a 17 inch subwoofer cranked up via a 1500 watt amp with some spinning rims doing a little dance to their splendor.
I give you a week before the realization hits about how much of your life has been wasted sitting next to undesirables and how much better things are literally in the driver’s seat.
Yep, own a car, but have never used it for commuting. Now it’s a question of avoiding crossing through Manhattan (sugar and spice nailed commuting there) and hitting Staten Island, or taking my chances going crosstown from the Williamsburg Bridge to the Holland Tunnel. Lose-lose.
Unfortunately, I need to be there when (a)the client is there and (b)the rest of my team is there. Not too much opportunity to shift.
Shagnasty, I see no BMWs flit by me, and if I were to, I’d be very surprised and a little afraid. The bulk of my commute is underground. And while I’ve shared a subway car with ‘undesirables’, headphones and newspaper/book all but make them all but invisible to me (and if, as has happened on occassion, the scent is strong enough to scare me away, it is easy enough to move to the next car). Lastly, the day I put spinning rims on my family sedan, Mrs. D_Odds has permission to put me down like a mad dog.
Just finished my first day’s commute. I need a better approach to the bridge (Williamsburg or Manhattan), but it wasn’t bad. I get in early enough to beat the 9:00am rush, and good weather helped. Still, that was over 1 hour of my life wasted…well, not totally wasted, I got to listen to NPR, which I can’t do on the subway. Prefer reading my paper, though. Next, the first commute home. Probably be post rush hour, but we’ll see.
Take the EXPRESS routes for 78. Trust me, you’ll be glad you did! Berkeley Heights is exit 43, I believe. It’s been a few years since I’ve gone there from the east.
Fah! Entirely backwards attitude. When you are on a public conveyance, you have someone else doing the filthy work of dealing with the lunatics on the road while you spend your time reading, listening to music, meditating, or snoozing. Why spend large chunks of your day getting aggravated at having to deal with traffic when you can happily spend your time in a much more relaxing manner? ** D_Odds**, I feel your pain. I don’t take jobs that require me to drive. Life is too short.
Interesting you should say that. Express lane was very backed up this morning, but the local was moving decently. I was in the local (first time through, didn’t know when and where it would cut over - now I know).
Actually, I often whiz to my destination while all the BMWs and SUVs are just sitting there on I-66.
Well, that much I can agree with. I would, however, argue that when one lives in the car-centric exurbs, cars/roads/traffic control where you go and when you go there thereby controlling much of what makes you a sentient being.
Depends on the situation. True happiness comes from whichever is easiest for you.
Commuting around NYC is not so enjoyable as commuting, say, up here, in Albany. I have a nice, restful commute 90% of the time. I mean, in NYC, I remember taking up to an hour crossing a small bridge and the residents thinking nothing of it. That’s just the way it is.
I’ve also noticed NYC people don’t understand my distances. When I say I am driving an hour to somewhere, they don’t get that’s an hour at 70 mph. They just don’t seem to comprehend the distances! And I am pretty sure this is because to them an hour is across town, it just takes so long to navigate the traffic at times.
Plus NYC the horns are their way of communicating. It isn’t even rude, it’s just their way of saying, “I’m here, move it or lose it.”
D-Odds, I sympathize. I hope you can find something enjoyable in the commute, but as I recall, the bridge I speak of was one between NYC & NJ.
Got an iPod? - get an audible subscription. You can catch up on your “reading” during your commute. Audible’s selection isn’t extraordinarily deep, but its deep enough.
(Is NYC to NJ a reverse commute, or is the traffic so snarled around there that every direction is bad, its just that one may be less bad?)
(I was going to say you could do what long commuters around here do - get an efficiency apartment on the cheap - but I doubt such a thing exists in New Jersey.)
NYC-to-NJ is a (semi) reverse-commute, in that there are less people going east-to-west than west-to-east, but that’s only once I get to Manhattan. Getting to Manhattan, I’m going with the flow.
I used to have Audible, but I can’t see myself taking time to sync up at 6:30am. In the mornings, I’ll be fine - NPR. Going home, soon I’ll have the Yankee games (or hockey playoffs), or my iPod.
Anaamika, there’s more than one way to cross into NJ (I’ve got 5 off the top of my head: 3 bridges and 2 tunnels). I’m taking the Holland Tunnel. It’s down near the southern tip of Manhattan, and it is about one mile across Manhattan at that point.
Except even a Honda Accord is more than 3000 lbs., and pretty much any SUV you see on the road is going to be 4500-6000 lbs. (Why a special license isn’t required to drive a 6000 lb. Chevy Suburban, Ford Excursion, or Porsche Cayenne I don’t know.)
I live and work within a easy walking distance of a light rail system. A monthy pass is reasonably cheap, and I love the idea of saving money on gas and doing my share by taking public transportation.
One big problem: when I drive, my commute is 20 minutes, tops. If I take the light rail, the trip is 60 minutes door-to-door. I’m sorry, that’s almost 2 weeks a year out of my life. I’ll drive, thanks.
