Two days a week I am sans car. This compels me to take the train to work. I have a love/hate relationship with public transportation that recently has tilted on the hate side. When I came to Washington, DC more than a decade ago, my prospective employers expressed surprise that I didn't have a driver's license. Why should I? When not accumulating credits at the architecturally-challenged UMass-Amherst, I took classes at UMass-Boston, worked at Fenway Park, and spent weekend evenings in Harvard Square. And for this latter pursuit, I had somebody else's driver's license. What did I need a real driver's license for? And plus, I come from three generations--brother, father, grandfather--of employees of the Massachusetts Bay Transit Authority, the operator of the oldest subway in North America. Train, bus, or foot can get you where you want to go around Boston better than a car.
But my love affair with public transportation has hit a few bumps in the road, so to speak. Instead of my frustrations exploding in subway rage (a close cousin of road rage), I've compiled this list of ten things that I hate about public transportation as an act of therapy.
10. Rubes and jerks who attempt to enter the train before passengers have exited the train doors.
9. Germs. Touching escalator railings, turnstyles, or the metal poles designed to stabilize standing passengers is about as sanitary as playing slip-and-slide on the floor of the bathroom under the Fenway Park bleachers. It's incumbent that you wash your hands after riding.
8. Lazy people who don't give up their seats for old folks, little kids, or pregnant ladies; and, alternatively, fat people who believe they should have preferential seating too.
7. A permanent stench suggesting that the train station is periodically cleaned with urine. Park Street on the MBTA and Downtown Berkeley on the BART fit this profile.
6. Loud cell-phone conversations that overpower the decibel level of the rap song blaring from a fellow passenger's headphones that I so want to hear.
5. Couples who go two-wide on escalators, oblivious to the people behind them rushing to make their train.
4. Train gropers. You know who they are. They live for packed trains, when they can "mistakenly" rub against you. These people are real and create a culture of paranoia. "Certainly that hand didn't brush my leg on purpose, or...did it belong to a train groper!"
3. The third rail. Seriously, it's 2005. Can't someone figure out a method to propel the train that doesn't scare me so?
2. Reminders of the many unnecessary costs. In DC, flashing lights and a board counting down the minutes to your train's arrival alert you that the train is coming (in case you don't hear or see it rumbling towards the platform?). Boston's MBTA has installed a robotic voice on buses informing riders of each stop. Nothing, however, tops the MBTA's decision to construct an $8,000 "third bathroom" for the benefit of a transgendered employee.
1. Creepy people who sit next to you even though the train or bus is empty.
I must say your list of grievances or things about public transportation is dead on. I ride the T(Boston) every weekday to work. I couldn't agree with this list anymore. I think I have the same love/hate relationship thing going for me in terms of public transportation. One day is better than another yet always are there days when the love/hate meter tilts towards hate. This is when frustration sets in and these set of grievances take over my collective thought process. Especially numbers 5 through 10 are ones that I can relate with. It is funny how the oldest subway in North America happens to be also one that is becoming debt-ridden... Thanks in no part to investments like #2. I like the subway and it gets me from point A to point B yet I can do without some of those things I witness every other day it seems. You couldn't have written any better why it is a love/hate relationship.
Go Sox!!!
Well, I have to chime in about METRO here...
The DC subway system is the absolute WORST rail system on the entire planet (and I've been to Italy).
METRO, how do I hate thee? Let me count the ways:
1)It doesn't get close enough to anyplace anyone actually wants to GO,
2) it's ridiculously expensive,
3)parking sucks at the stations (when you can even find a spot you have to walk 3 miles to the station),
4)the cost of new rail cars/new stations/new anything is astronomical and
5)is ususally paid for with tax-payer money, and
6)it closes too damn early, and
7)even during Rush Hour, there is too much time between trains, and
8)when it's NOT rush hour, it's sometimes 20 minutes between trains, and
9)it takes forEVER to travel from one part of the system to the other, and
10)it connects the beautiful areas of Anacostia and greater South East with places that people move TO to get AWAY from Anacostia and SE. As such, it provides easy access for rapists, drug dealers, and murderers to the more well-heeled areas of Washington, and even a convenient getaway vehicle "post-crime".
Paul Simon wrote that "The words of the prophets are written on the subway walls." Well, the Brookland METRO station is covered in grafitti (I miss Cool "Disco" Dan. Any relation?) and among the artwork I once happened to read the following: "F%&$ you METRO you punk-B*tc^!"
Amen brother. Amen.
My daily commute entails two completely separate worlds of public transportation.
The first leg is accomplished by taking a commuter boat to the city. It’s clean, efficient, always on time and on schedule and the clientele are typically well-dressed professionals who are quiet and courteous.
The second part of my daily journey is spent on the subway where all of the things mentioned here and more are true. Typically dirty, never know when you’ll start or arrive, sometimes due to constant breakdowns (especially when there is a combination of cold weather and high humidity), varying degrees of hygiene amongst the riders, lots of loud and obnoxious behavior with certain riders who think they’re sitting in their living rooms at home.
Two recent examples of subway commuter life: couple arguing in a packed car throwing out F-bombs at each other and telling each other how they will perpetrate murder on one another and how they’ll dispose of the bodies afterwards. Drunk enters car and decides to relieve himself where he’s trying to stand. Meanwhile, captive audience commuters trying to dodge the spray scattering like rats with no place to go.
Worth every penny of the $1.25 fare. More of an entertainment fee I think.
Your number 9 (germs) is my biggest complaint with public transportation.
#6 is the biggest annoyance, to me. People must wear headphones to listen to music, but what if they put them arond their neck or behind their ears and crank the volume? That's hardly private. Listening to one side of a loud cell conversation sucks, but walkie talkies really suck, too.
BTW: You left out the half-eaten food (and occasional vomit) not uncommonly left on public transportation.
Germs r the worst. But, when some guy decided to light off a brick of jumping jacks ;while the T was stuck in the tunnel, has to take the cake. Off course most of the windows had been kicked, out due to AHS' stellar win in the super eight tourney.
The invasion of privacy that’s developed as a result of cell phones is one the most annoying public issues. Does anybody really want to be part of the conversation when Joe Cellphone decides to call the wife and discuss what kind of pizza to order? Frickin’ bothersome and people like this typically carry on conversations that are louder than usual. Worse in the T as you can’t walk away.
I actually kinda like listening to cell phone conversations even if it is something as small as ordering a pizza. I like observing people and how they communicate: what they say, how they say it etc... Once I get off it's over.
But with germs, once I get off it comes with me....and then it could be with me for a week or so being sick.
I kinda agree with Robby. And sometimes if the situation is right, I like to talk to a cute girl, just a little chit chat on the train. You never know. All friendly and nothing untoward of course.
But yeah, DC's metro is obscenely priced and poorly designed. The DC area could use a Purple line to connect some far-flung termini of the different lines AND could use express lines to shuttle heavy loads of travelers from the termini straight into say Metro Center, from which to commute on non-express trains to stations within the city proper.
That pic of Peter Lorre was fairly disturbing.
"Rick! I've been groped on the subway! You've got to help me, Rick!"
How about the homeless that you sometimes encounter late at night? How disgusting is it being approached by this drunk vermon. I usually just pretend to be deaf so they don't bother me.
Speaking of the DC metro, I hate being attacked with newspapers, bad musicians, and crazy political leaflets on my way out. What is being accomplished here? Do these people actually think this is a good marketing scheme?
I can't believe you guys are complaining about the Metro. Whenever I am away from in Boston and in DC riding it is an absolute joy. Just take a look at this website dedicated to the MBTA:
Check out the photo features for the Redline. Absolutely hilarious!
Give up their seat for children? They're young; they can stand.
Sandra,
So basically it's every child, woman, and invalid for themselves?
Should I still offer my seat to a lady these days, or is that outdated? How about old people? How about mentally challenged? What are your thoughts regarding this?
by the way Auc, if you remember, the guy who lit off those jumping-jacks was a T employee who had just been fired! That was also a night when someones head was almost decapitated by the green line outside the Garden!
Christopher, of course you should offer your seat to a lady, an old person, or a diabled person. But not to a healthy child over the age of 3?
I mean, i was always taught that children are to give up their seats to adults, out of respect and because they have more energy.
Couldn't resist. Healthy adults should give their seats to healthy children, kthxbye.
There is nothing worse than pickpocketers on the
subway. I've gotten my wallet stolen twice in the past five years on the subway.
Hey Peter by any chance was there a guy by the name of Auc on those trains?
Second wallet with razor blades taped to a couple of ones and bogus credit cards can take care of that. At least temporarily.
Sandra,
That sounds about right.
