Dear Future Cyclists of America,*
*MBTA Passengers
Does your commute look like this?
Or like this?
You’re probably nervous about biking on the roads, but maybe it’s time to consider a change.
But if you’re not ready to take the leap to cycling just yet, just know that when you’re going to always be more than 30 minutes late meeting me for brunch I’m going to go ahead and take the long way there. So when you are stuck here:
Know that I am here…
…greeting Hubway users. Maybe I’ll take them to brunch if you don’t show.
I don’t know…..but I’ve never had much problem with the mbta. Every day I take the red line, then a bus to drop my daughter off at school, then another bus to get to work, then again bus, bus, train to home. I’ve been doing this since September 1st and have only been late 30 minutes once to pick her up. When we go to school we always talk about all of the different people riding in the bus/train with us, sit/stand in different spots to see what it’s like, or talk about how the train/bus works. It’s a lot more fun then strapping her into a bike trailer and biking to school and then lugging the trailer to work. We’ve also gone on the green line to check out the stations as they’ve updated them. I guess my only complaint would be the Italian green line trains are badly designed for the Boston system, but the new blue line trains more than make up for them!
Some mornings when I just don’t feel up to taking the lane, and dealing with even the potential of driver hostility, I’ll take the train, and honestly, if I have a book, it’s generally not too bad. Everyone’s a bit dazed going in in the morning, and I take the train home late enough that it’s pretty sparse. But yes, I’ve been very glad to be on a bike on a couple of occasions when I’ve seen hundreds of people trying to catch cabs, or just walking across the Longfellow because the redline has pooped out.
Only downside to East Boston. Blue line is great, then I hit the green.
Yeah, you can’t bike into/out of Eastie at all, can you? Without going through Everett?
True story. Price I pay for dirt cheap rent and the best skyline views in the city. Due to the mass gentrification taking place I give it less than 5 years until someone raises enough hell to fix it.
The second sketch really hit home for me—I was on the train that got stuck between Porter and Harvard over the summer, and have a very similar looking photo on my phone from the experience. That was the day I had my “never again” moment, and have been biking to work ever since. Before that, I would ride to work maybe 1-2 times a week, now its every day, and its lovely. And I am loathing the day when it gets too cold/icy to bike and I have to switch back to the T for the winter.
Not really fair to pick on the T. Public transportation and bicycling have a common enemy in cars or more accurately in the car culture in which all the funding and infrastructure goes to making life cheap and easy for motorists (example: $14 billion in public money spent on the Big Dig yet it’s political suicide for anyone to mention that the people who benefit from the tunnels have to pay a toll or a gas tax at the same time that MBTA fares keep raising). Don’t pit bikes versus the T. Public transit AND bikes need to stand against the common enemy.