In one car the silence was welcomed. In the other …
… Let’s just say it wasn’t Raffi’s happy “Wheels on The Bus” all the way into New Haven.
Commuters have been keeping diaries this week of their travels to and from the city for work — whether by car, by train, by bus, or on two wheels. Read on for their latest dispatches from the road.
The Silent Treatment
By Lori Mack
Mack commutes from Branford to WNPRs Audubon Street studios.
7:25 a.m.: We couldn’t seem to get it together this morning.
I could be heard throughout the house giving the countdown: “You have 5 minutes, now one minute, I’ll meet you in the car!” Leaving five minutes later than usual immediately puts us in the stop-and-go school bus traffic.
Resting my elbow on the door with my head in hand I quickly noticed a hastiness in the drivers around us. Was everybody running late this morning?
As I turn onto East Haven’s Hemingway Avenue a small pickup pulled out of a parking lot into oncoming traffic, causing everybody to hit the brakes. He traveled half a block and turned into Dunkin’ Donuts.
Not ten seconds later we arrived at the next bus stop, where a car on the opposite side blew by as school children boarded their bus in single file. This prompted the bus driver to lay on the horn. I guess the East Haven coo pointing his radar gun less than two blocks away didn’t notice.
Meanwhile the 11 year old in my car is giving me the silent treatment, since I rushed her out of the house before she was ready.
As I’m about to get on the highway I notice a champagne-colored jeep on my tail, where he stays for my entire trip on 95. My new passenger, in the Jeep, finally punches it when we get to 91, leaving me and a line of cars at the New Haven Trumbull Street exit in the dust.
Needless to say, I did not make it to New Haven in my record 17 minutes.
Almost Missed It
By Holly Parker
Parker works as Yale’s director of sustainable transportation. She lives all the way out in Coventry.
Wednesday evening ride home with Julia, the carpool rock-star:
Julia, my friend and carpool partner, does double duty on Wednesday evening. She works in Bridgeport, with other New Haveners, and she has brought two of them home to New Haven. They get out, I get in. We continue on our long trip to Columbia, Connecticut, where I have left my car at her house.
We take 91N to Route 3 to Route 2 to Route 66. The sky and precipitation seem to change every 5 – 10 minutes over the course of our hour-plus trip home.
We are discussing our jobs (which have lots of interesting overlap), curriculum development, Connecticut politics, and the fact that Anthony Bourdain is, in fact, insufferable. But that we love to watch his foodie travel show anyway.
We are having such a fabulous conversation, we almost miss the double rainbow shining through the clouds ahead.
Thursday morning commute with Randall:
Today my husband needs to meet with a colleague in New Haven, so we carpool together. When I ride with Julia, it feels rude to work on the laptop or talk on the phone, but the familiarity of couplehood affords a different paradigm.
I had intended to write my commuter blog post from the road this morning, but a pressing issue has crossed my email inbox, requiring immediate attention…
I am grateful for the sharing aspect of carpooling, as well as its practicality. It is surprisingly high-quality time spent with the highest quality people. I estimate my cost savings at between $100-$200/week. And I can work if I have to.
Previous “Commuter Diary” installments:
• Garbage In
• No Weather Wimps Here
• “Jihad Jane” Lookalike Slips By
Kudos to Ms. Parker. I wish more people would carpool. Imagine how much less pollution there would be, and how much money people would save - hundreds of dollars, per week, per person, that would be pumped directly into the local economy instead of shipped out.
That would amount to potentially many billions of dollars per year that could support Connecticut's education, arts, culture, and health care. For that amount of money, you could create 10 new youth symphony orchestras and 30 youth soccer teams in every town in the state, and still have billions left over.
If we raised the price of parking downtown, and if raised gas taxes (they currently cover only about 5% of the ultimate cost of roads), I think that carpooling would be more popular.
In Europe, realizing the public benefits of increased carpooling and transit use is seen as an absolute policy imperative that trumps virtually all other considerations. One day, we will wake up and do the same.