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 Fall
2004The Road to Hell One recent Thursday morning my five coworkers and I came into the office stating some variation of the same phrase: “I had the commute from hell this morning!” How could six different women coming from six different corners of the D.C. metro region all have had a horrible commute in the same day? Lorene faced a track fire that delayed her. Mattie was struggling with a delayed bus. Katie had to contend with unspecified delays on the Orange Line. Kate broke the heel off her shoe while walking to our Rosslyn office from Courthouse. Shelley had to share a seat with a very large, very tall, very rude seat-hog who was listening to a very loud Walkman, while I had a busload of oblivious tourists sharing my trip. After tearing our hair out for a half hour and lamenting the situation, we adjourned to our desks to get to work. I spent the next two hours on the phone with the girls (in the name of research, of course). In addition to my coworkers, Alison and Erika also had horrendous trips to work that day, while lucky Stacey was at home teleworking. Even my dad’s carpool had run into an unavoidable traffic jam. How do you solve the problems of mass transit and fight the urge to get in the car alone when you are faced with the commute from hell? I wondered, is the commute from hell paved with good intentions? Some things, like natural disasters, clueless tourists, and even broken Manolos are unavoidable, but rudies, traffic jams, and delays must be somehow avertable. But how? Short of chartering a private jet, how can you make your commute a stress-free ride? It’s enough to make you want to lie on Dr. Phil’s couch while your head spins like Linda Blair’s. I decided to propose a dare to my painfully challenged friends, family, coworkers, and myself. Get off the bus, stop walking, don’t take Metro, get out of your carpool, and do not telework, for just one day. Drive to work. Alone. At first glance, this may seem to fly in the face of everything that I stand for, but I hypothesized that perhaps people would see the value of the “alternative” commute. Or, it could blow up in my face. The following Monday was the Big Day – Drive Alone to Work Day (so dubbed by me). I was nervous and excited (I’m a transit geek, I can’t help it) about my trek. I just hoped that my theory would stand on its own and that I wasn’t about to convert a whole new group of single-occupant drivers onto the already-crowded streets. I had even gone so far as to convince Alison to rent a car for the day just so she could drive in to the office and to persuade Kate to drive instead of walk the five blocks to work. After all, it was in the name of science. This was going to be a big deal—I hoped. I set out with an almost-open mind (I didn’t really want to convert to a drive-alone commuter), and got behind the wheel. It was a gorgeous day—clear skies, warm weather, and no rain, all signs that my commute would be a smooth one. On the perfect day, my drive to work from Dupont Circle to Rosslyn was about a 15-minute ride. Would today be the perfect day or would unexplained obstacles stand in my way? Only time would tell. No sooner had I hit the perimeter of G.W.U. than I hit a clog of buses and taxis sitting in front of the Foggy Bottom Metro Station. I sat for a minute or two, impatient but listening to a Cher CD, so not too bothered. A mile later, I merged onto I-66. So far, so good. Until disaster struck—a fender bender exactly at the exit I needed to take. Perfect. Quickly (or slowly, as the case was), my 10-minute reverse commute turned into 27 minutes as I sat with the blocked lane in front of me and a line of cars at least a mile long backing up behind me while we all waited for the police and a tow truck to arrive and clear the situation. By that point, not even Cher could calm me down. Frazzled, I got to work, grumbling again about the ride (not to mention the $10 for parking). The others in my office didn’t have much luck, either. Accidents, road construction, potholes, and a dead bird (don’t ask) made for harrowing trips. I got on the phone and called the girls and my dad—not much luck there, either. The only one who actually enjoyed the trip was Alison, my car-free friend, who was happy just to be driving. My dad put it best by saying that even on his worst days with the carpool, at least he could unwind and leave the driving to someone else or at least lament the situation with others, whereas riding alone, he was tense and he had nobody to talk to about it. While I’m no scientist and this experiment is slightly unorthodox and definitely a little biased, my conclusion is that it’s better to let the bus driver deal with the traffic, ride in unity with a carpool, tune out the tourists, read a good book while sitting in a Metrorail delay, or even stumble downhill with a broken shoe than it is to sit alone and stressed out, hoping for the demise of every other motorist on the road. So maybe the commute from hell is really a blessing in disguise. |
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