I visited a hospital in eastern Long Island today. It was beautiful, like what I imagine a hospital in the Capitol might look like. The interviews and tour ended at 3:15 PM, and I stupidly believed the Google maps lady when she told me I'd be home at 5:50 PM. The truth is I was tired, so much so that I ditched my original plan to just hang around the town until late at night, when the worst of NYC traffic would have been . . . less worse.
So I get on the car and, not two minutes into my fifty mile trip, Google lady starts freaking out about delays here and delays there. I see people swerving from lane to lane in desperate attempts to get home before the imminent gridlock, as if every single lane wasn't moving at the same intermittently slow pace. Me? I just drive in the middle lane, resigned to my fate. My car's too old and the accelerator is a little blown. If I tried any of that lane switching desperation, I'd just crash. I know because I did try that when I first got the car, and a truck slammed me out of I-280.
As I neared the city, I kept seeing these traffic notices on the electronic signs about a "gridlock warning" and to "use mass transit". Whatever that means. Highways, I guess? If there's a way to get from Long Island to Jersey without crossing some bridge that takes you around NYC or, God forbid, NYC itself, I'd love to hear of it. Also, I don't think anyone needs to be "warned" about a rush hour gridlock on NYC on Friday. That's just gravity. When people need to go to NYC on Friday, they don't go by car. They use public transportation. People with cars drive them to the station and rent parking nearby. Yay cost of living.
Obviously, I don't have such an arrangement because I avoid going to NYC unless it's absolutely necessary (I might be working there next year, isn't that hilarious? I'm getting rid of the car if that happens). This morning, I had to be on the road at 4:30 AM to avoid the morning rush hour gridlock, and I almost got caught up in it anyway.
I didn't almost get caught up in it this time. At around 4:55 PM, Google lady was happily informing me that I was ten miles from my domicile . . . and also two hours away. At one point, it took my an hour to get the car through half a mile of traffic. For comparison, I can run a full mile in ten minutes.
At times, I wondered if I was just a timid driver or something. Then I realized I wasn't driving; I was just parked in NYC. No one was driving. The driver next two me was on her phone, working or having a serious Facebook fight. Her expression was not happy, though that might have been the traffic jam. The cab a little ahead had a tab $50.82, and the passenger was napping. I unbraided my hair. Then rebraided it.
At the entrance to Holland Tunnel, a billboard told me that "the only thing racing in Holland Tunnel is your heart", which took me a while to interpret as an anti-drag racing PSA because it's not possible to drag race in Holland Tunnel. I've been gridlocked in that strip of hell on Wednesday night at 2:00 AM.
Do people do this, as in the sitting in the car for an hour to trek through half a block, every day? There were extenuating circumstance for me personally, but it's not like NYC traffic is ever any better. Are there millions of New Yorkers who just accept an hours-long commute and offensive parking expenses when they could probably walk the city from end-to-end faster?
I get the train to work and love it. Occasionally I do have to drive and I don't know how people do it every day in a big city. Such a waste of time!
ReplyDeleteOne of the few positive of NYC is that it's small enough that you can walk from one of Mahattan to the other if you're not in a hurry, and there's reliable public transportation if you are in a hurry.
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