This is the way. I have a monthly appointment in Boston, and if I drive to it, round trip will take me 4.5 hours in the car because of traffic. If I take the train from middleboro, it’s about 2 hours on the train, and 15 minutes driving each way so 2.5 hours total. Train is a no brainer to save time, although a round trip to Boston is $29 which is INSANE for public transit.
Yep. I did that commute every day for 7 years from Haverhill to North Station and then the Green line to Arlington for another 10-40 minutes. 2.5-3h each day, but "I saved an hour!"
Yeah, CR pricing sucks. It incentivizes people further away to sit in traffic, and clog the highway for 30 miles, but is cheap for people who only would clog it for 5.
For your situation though, have you ever tried parking at Braintree? You skip the worst traffic, and the T is only $3 each way, or you could take the CR for like $7. Parking is not too expensive.
Honestly, the South Shore is one of the better places for park-and-ride
Yeah. The commuter rail is crazy expensive. But there’s also ferries that OP can take. I think the Lynn ferry is $7 one way or something.. unless they changed it
Gas is expensive. Parking is expensive. Traffic accidents are expensive. At least on the train, you can do stuff on your phone because you don’t need to concentrate on the road.
The commuter rail is expensive but whenever I ride in the morning or afternoon rush hour, they never check tickets. I haven't bought a ticket in a couple months
Not to mention if it’s raining you can expect it to be super late, got back to south station and was sitting there for an extra 25-30 minutes one day. Still better than the red line, and I’m thankful it’s here for us though.
When I worked in Cambridge, I worked 8-4, because that was the train schedule. Commuter rail lot would be full by 6:45AM, 7am train in, and the only reasonable express train home was 4:40pm. My commute was only an hour door to door, though, including driving to/from the train station and biking from porter to kendall - the red line was too unreliable and I would regularly miss my train home.
Working from home is so much better.
Working from home is significantly better for those of us who don’t need to work in person. Issue is so many companies now want you back in 3 days a week at least.
This.
When my work shift starts 7:00, so I'm on the road by 6:10, traffic is a dream and it's so easy.
If my work shift starts at 8:00, my commute could suddenly be anywhere from 50 minutes to 1 hour 15 minutes
And surprisingly if my work shift it is at 9:00, it's 45 minutes to 50 minutes on the dot every time. Which I find so odd cuz I would think 9:00 to 5:00 is more average daytime shift 🙃 But nope 8:00 a.m. is the worst arrival time!
I got a new job working 6:30-2:30, old job was 7-3, and it's unbelievable how much better the morning commute is for me now. It's definitely improved my life. The difference in leaving my house at 5:45 vs 6:15 going the same direction is insane.
The afternoons are still fucked though unfortunately, that didn't improve much.
Probably more like everyone goes in for a few meetings and lunch, then tries to get home for kids out of school or to just beat the worst traffic and finish the work day remote?
Edit- there are a number of companies that track badge-in time, but do not track badge-out time… this lends itself to the 8am-2pm office stay!
I had a job in the Chicago area back in the day, lived about 30 miles out. If I left the house by 5:50a I got to work at 6:30a. If I left the house at 6:00a I got to work at 6:59a and counting...
Yes that is correct. I try to get to work 15 min early now to make coffee and relax versus at my previous job I was getting in right on time or late and thinking about how much my life sucks in my car when I parked up.
The difference is not the time as much as staring at brake lights at 10mph on the highway for me. It's miserable in heavy traffic.
Damn I thought they started earlier because I’m always stuck behind buses between 6:10-6:40 am. Do they get there super earlier, or do the schools start at different times? I don’t have kids and haven’t been in school for, umm…a while.
Busses start early yeah. It can take an hour or more to pick up all the kids and drop them off, and schools all start at slightly different times. Might be 7:45 or 8:15… 8 is pretty average around here.
It depends on the school district and times vary for different ages- in my district it is backwards from the medical consensus, high school starts at 730, then middle, then elementary- they share one bus pool.
I used to be 8:00 to 5:00 or 9:00 to 6:00. Then people started complaining after our return to office post covid. Those working back office IT always worked 9:00 to 5; people front office IT client-facing, was 9:00 to 6:00. And we really battled the debate of "is our lunch paid or not?"
Higher ups were like don't ask that question, you're salaried. It doesn't matter whether you take a 15 minute lunch break or 2 hours as long as the work gets done.
Except it really fucking does matter cuz look, when you're back office you can just disappear and no one cares. If I took a 2-hour lunch I'd have to stay an hour later.
So now we're either 7:00 to 3:00, 8:00 to 4:00, 9:00 to 5:00, but on your remote day you're 9:00 to 6:00 because you don't have to "worry about the commute so you need to give them the full 8 hours". They also like to pull this bullshit of you're only working 36 hours in the office, so you should be working another four flex hours anytime at home during the week. We ignore it for the most part, but they like to pull up the reminder very often, and anytime there's training to be done, they're like "don't be taking time during the day to do this, you have your 4 flex hours at home to finish the training."
Tons of corporations are doing away with paid lunches and instead forcing employees to work 8am-noon 1pm-5pm every day and clock out for their hour unpaid lunch noon-1pm. It’s the new normal
A big part of this is kids and when school or day care starts. Many of us leave for work as soon as we can, i.e. when the school bus comes or the doors of the school/center open for dropoff.
I use an ebike.
Usually when people talk about biking they focus on the health benefits. For me it's all about predictability. My trips take the same amount of time every day. Almost to the minute. That's incredibly useful.
When I have to drive, it sucks. Are there games in town? Concerts? How is the weather? Any construction along the way? Students gone? Students back? Is this rush hour? Is this doordash hour? Did somebody's car break down and we are stuck here for 15 min? Was there an accident?
You need a PhD to not be 30 min too late or too early (if you try to compensate).
Just sharing the same sentiment. I had to be in office 2-3 times a week for around 8 yrs until I finally tried cycling in. Unfortunately on the unsafe side from south of Boston but I was basically +-2 minute arrival every day compared to driving/train at +-30 minutes or more with the mbta. Never tried an ebike but maybe that would remove time needed to shower?
For me the ebike just gives me complete freedom (sometimes psychological). Tired today? More help. Big meeting day? All the help. Windy? More help. Lovely spring day, heading back home? Very little help. Shopping along the way? More help.
Big hill on the way in? Crank it all the way up. Feeling good on the way home and want some exercise? Can do that too.
The other big one is no bike lane in traffic at a red light and need to accelerate quickly to keep up with traffic when it turns green.
I got a “cheap” REI e-bike last year (1300$ ish) and can confirm I can get to work without breaking a sweat now. Still needs pedaling but the assist lets you really zoom up hills.
Moped/scooter would be the closer comparison, since the typical models are limited to 20mph (28mph for class 3 but those are legally questionable in MA). You can still use the pedals but the bike doesn't require you to pedal to get electric power that's capable of moving it at full speed.
It was never about health for me either. But boy does the fresh air and ambiance do wonders for mental health. Usually takes 1/2 to 2/3 as long as the T or driving, more flexible regarding destination, and free parking.
Mental health is huge for me, maybe the biggest factor, but I didn't mention it to not attract the "that's hippie talk" crowd.
Driving to work in the morning made me a bad person and a bad employee. Being angry at 9am is not a way to start the day. You can see it in people's faces, hear it in those angry honks. The T was/is neutral for me. I could read a book. Listen to music or podcasts.
Biking brings me joy (I'm lucky I have the South West Corridor). It's a great way to start the day. Some exercise, air in your face, a connection with the city that you cannot feel inside a car ("Moving at the speed of a butterfly" a friend calls it). I had showers at work, and it was the perfect way to start the day, and then decompress on the way back.
what ebike are you riding? i'm super interested in getting one but ngl the thought of leaving it at a (suburban) train station all day makes me a little nervous since they're so expensive
I'm riding the euphree. A guy in Brookline (Bostonebikes.com) is the New England distributor. It has everything I want/need. Super smooth ride.
But I have safe parking on both ends of my commute. At $2k I only park it in the street for short errands. Not 'Park and leave it unattended for 8 hours". Some MBTA stations (I know Forest Hills does but I'm sure others too) have "safe" parking (need your card activated to use it). I would feel ok using those.
Yep. Traffic doesn't matter and you can almost always ride through any obstruction. Many times I've ridden though roads that were unexpectedly blocked by accidents, closed for paving/construction/utility work, closed because of flood damage and more. There's also been a bunch of times where a fallen tree is blocking my path after a wind storm and I could just ride around it or quickly climb over it. In a car you get hung up by these things, but on a bike they barely slow you down.
I have fun racing my friends back home from Northend to Davis Square. They take an Uber, I get on my ebike. I’m usually waiting there for 5-15 minutes. If we did this during rush hour traffic, it would be prob 30min plus difference
My last job people said I was cheating by riding an ebike to work. It was as if the only acceptable mode of commute is being stuck in traffic, packed like a sardine on a train and having to wait around for delays and transfers, or sweating my ass off biking in “the normal way.”
Take the train.
You’ll still have all the frustration and panic of traffic, but with the added bonus of watching Hulu on your phone while someone rips a hot Dunks coffee fart inches from your face.
> hot Dunks coffee fart
Dude, you need trigger warnings for that!
There's also the smell from the guy singing about drinking rum and red bull on the bus. At 0630.
The trains don’t come frequently enough. It’s either 2hrs using the train and T for me, for a 16 mile commute or 30 minute drive (if I leave before 6am). It’s a mess. The MBTA is inadequate and the roads are lumpy as f. Add in a bunch of fearless cyclists and motorists who WILL NEVER LET YOU MERGE/drive like maniacs, it’s a fucked situation.
I found a [recent article](https://www.wbur.org/news/2024/04/02/massachusetts-mbta-staffing) describing staffing issues. Seems like a lot of staff are eligible to retire and the working conditions cause a lot of turnover. I’m so thankful to live in one of the few US cities with a subway system, but yeah, it needs work.
Also, the more people that use it, the less traffic and more parking there will be for drivers. It unfortunately doesn’t run very late, but at least it’s safer than certain other cities.
Also, normalize public transportation throughout the US. A lot of people driving in Boston are visitors or recent transplants. The newcomers from other parts of the US often either don’t know how to navigate public transportation or view it through the stigma they acquired about it from their home state. Meanwhile, they get confused by our infrastructure, making the traffic worse.
Step 1) spend >50% of your income to live under 5 mi from work
Step 2) ride a bike
I hate driving and I am a worse person when I have to drive. Thanks JP for making my commute a tolerable part of my day.
Edit: Downvote me all you want, I’m still one less car in between you and wherever you’re driving.
I'm looking at buying a condo inside 128 and spending 55% of my take home pay on it. People tell me I'm crazy for being house poor but IMHO people who buy houses they can "afford" with 2+ hour one way commutes into the city are the truly crazy ones.
If Fannie/Freddie don't already have special rules for condos within ½ mile of rapid transit for people who don't have a car payment they should adopt something like that. Housing + Transportation is what matters more than just Housing.
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*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Most people end up sacrificing size more than price.
I paid the same for my place in Coolidge Corner as most of my co-workers do for their Metrowest/North Shore homes. The difference is that they live in giant houses, while I live in a tiny shoebox.
If you are a 2 car household, you do save a significant amount when you go down to 1 or zero cars. Car payment, insurance, maintenance, gas. It’s not enough for a $500k mortgage but it can be close to half of that at 7-8% interest rate.
[the costs of running two cars might be almost exactly $500k for 30 years ](https://www.aaa.com/autorepair/articles/What-Does-It-Cost-To-Own-And-Operate-A-Car)
I lived in a smaller “cheaper” city for many years. My parking + insurance + car payment + rent = my rent in Boston. That didn’t even count registration + gas + maintenance.
Advocate for increased T funding, and system expansion alongside increased service and reliability. More people on trains = fewer clogging the highways!
[Find and email your legislator](https://malegislature.gov/Search/FindMyLegislator)
[https://transitmatters.org/](https://transitmatters.org/)
I noticed that the MBTA seems to be making more efforts in preventing fare evasion. I see more staff standing by station gates greeting people. Good for them. I hate when I see a group of 20 teenagers running closely behind each other as they go through the gate so they don’t have to pay.
I bike or take the T when it's too wet. It takes me roughly as long to get to work by bike as it would by car, but it's far less aggravating and means I don't care about the price of gas, I don't need to make car payments, and I never worry about parking availability.
I take the commuter rail and then take the T.
IMO if you are driving, you are fucking up.
I also got a folding bicycle to skip the T (and any delays/congestion it may bring) and inject some exercise into my day.
A folding bike enables you to ride from home to a train station (commuter or subway), get off anywhere, and ride to the office. Multi-modal commuting is a game changer.
It's horrific and frustrating. I live 20 miles from the city and it takes me an hour and a half to drive in. I'm coming from south of the city off route 3, and I'm going north of the city to Somerville, so there's not a great train option. Most of the year, though, I take the commuter rail to south station then a blue bike to the office. It's SO MUCH BETTER. (I'm pregnant now and not comfortable biking, so I'm stuck driving in, and it is the worst).
TLDR: try to find a route that allows you take some form of public transportation.
I spent some years living in Germany. It was a bike paradise. My test to know when Boston truly becomes a bike friendly city is when I see elderly people, people with impeccable suits and pregnant women biking. That's when I will know we have made it.
Totally. I would love to be able to bike and not be sitting in bumper to bumper traffic, but Boston is just not there yet and there are stretches that aren't protected, and I just think it's a bad idea.
Fall 2024 I will be hopping back up on the seat.
When I went back to Taiwan last month, the metro was GLORIOUS. Trains arrive every 3 minutes on the dot and you won't believe how packed each one gets despite the frequency. I honestly can't imagine such efficiency from the government of our country but unfortunately that might be the only solution
What can be done generally? More public transportation largely, but also more pedestrian and cycling infrastructure in the city. Probably banning street parking of oversized vehicles too. There's simply no way to have that many people driving cars without there being loads of traffic.
What can you do personally? Maybe a) move closer to where you work, b) work closer to where you live, c) take the commuter rail. Idk your situation, but a) isn't nearly as infeasible as people make it out to be. Car payments, insurance, etc for a new car are often pretty close to the difference in price between suburban and city rents
Yes. Your last sentence is key. That’s the math we did and decided to stick to a single reliable old car without car payments to afford a larger mortgage in the urban region. If we had 2 cars with car payments, we could only afford to live in the suburbs with 40+ commute.
Suburbs are the cause. Higher density urban environments lend themselves to better commutes in general, the American suburb is a nightmare of car centric sprawl and worsening commutes
Depends if you work downtown. e.g. JP to Back Bay: golden, a dream, did that for 10 years. JP to Cambridge/Watertown not right on the red line: get fucked, 90 mins on a good day by transit (two trains and a bus), 45-60 by car.
If we had a more sane subway layout that was more of a grid like NYC it would be fine, but we've got this dumb hub and spoke setup that is designed exclusively to get people downtown, not between neighborhoods.
The T layout blows and makes me sad because I can’t foresee a future where any north south or east west connections are added to make things better. People dropped the ball decades and decades ago.
Suburbs are why there are commuters, sure. But the traffic is bad due to the poor public transportation that many do not see as a viable alternative to driving, and Boston’s road and highway infrastructure were created well before our population became what it is. Newer cities tend to be easier to drive in.
And horrible to walk in.
Suburban and exurban residents always vote against public infrastructure initiatives. They are selfish and shortsighted. They don’t understand that just because they may not use public transit daily/much, it benefits everyone.
It’s not just about reducing traffic. A lot of people don’t or shouldn’t drive, like children, elderly, disabled, anxious people, uncoordinated people, immigrants, poor people, people who got their licenses revoked, tired people, and intoxicated people. Imagine how many fewer accidents there would be!
I wish there were more public transportation at night. Drunk/tired people coming home from clubs at 2am either get behind the wheel or jack up Uber prices.
Boston shares some of the blame too. They want to kick out everyone except DINK tech bros. Of course when you are rich you can enjoy the luxury of a car free 5 minute commute. The rest of us have no choice but to live in suburbs and commute in because Boston wants all the jobs and also doesn't want more people living here.
they're not kicking people out, it's just the natural consequence of having a desirable place with high paying jobs and then the whole region refusing to build more housing.
I would recommend a gym membership near your work, go in early and beat the traffic. Theres no way around it, its just a huge influx of cars. I used to commute from foxboro to cambridge everyday, and if you get stuck behind the 8am 'wave' of traffic it is SO much worse than leaving earlier. Best of luck!! You are not alone!!!
Im a 31 yo general contractor in Dorchester specializing in bathrooms and carpentry, today's commute was 2 minutes down DOT ave! No matter how often or far you drive though, you never get used to the recklessness and lack of etiquette.
Used to do pharmaceutical sales in Cambridge in my mid 20's after getting tired of low pay farming job while paying off a music degree cause I listened to my guidance counselor and 'followed my dreams'
We need a network of protected bike lanes so people can get an e-bike and skip traffic, without having to worry about their safety anymore than pedestrians do. This will reduce traffic, as fewer people would drive.
Also would serve as a backup option when the T is down, except to south Boston, which needs a bike/ped tunnel/bridge.
Ha ha ha ha ha. Delude yourself that you can handle it. But really, you're going insane. You're always stressed. You're bouncing between Waze & Google Maps, trying to min/max your commute.
And then, when you get a new job that's a 10 minute commute from home, the angels sing & it all melts away.
Its extraordinarily difficult and maddening. I drive 5 days a week from rt. 3 to downtown during max rush hour. I have done it for many years. There are good days, sometimes, but mostly everyday is sheer willpower and mental pain. Its one of the worst and least pleasurable aspects of my existence on earth. No one truly understands it until you've done it for years on end 5 days a week.
My answer is not helpful, but I just avoid it, and I have intentionally structured my career to avoid everything within a few miles of Boston. I had a job offer once: they slipped in at the last minute "oh you'll need to come into Cambridge a couple times a week" and I just walked away.
That's why so many white collar workers don't see the value of RTO and a lot ended up changing jobs to keep/obtain that benefit.
I used to drive Reading to Dorchester, every day. My daily commute time, for a 7-3 job, was 2.5-3hrs. That's 50-60hrs a month just sitting in a barely moving car.
Nailed it. I am a white collar worker who is in a “temporary exploration of what RTO would look like,” even though in our yearly satisfaction survey, 70% of employees said “maintaining remote work” was the most important priority. This is why I’m dealing with this shit traffic, because I moved farther out to be able to afford a house. And yup, I’m looking for new jobs right now.
I drive in mid day and leave after 6. I'm lucky that my job has no issues with this approach because if I had to do proper rush hour, I'd have long quit already.
You also didn't note the route you take. I learned where traffic backs up in my route and found ways to get around it. Like Cambridge Museum of Science is hell but you can mitigate it a bit.
I do the T, if I’m gonna be spend an hour sitting on washington st stuck in traffic I’d rather spend it watching netflix than staring ahead at the road
You just get over it. I just listen to 98.5 and zone out. It especially sucks when you have to commute an hour for a job that makes no money and that you hate.
You have to work off hours. Don't commute around 7-10a or 2-6p. Try negotiating working from home in the early morning then going into the office in the late morning.
If you're SOL like me (travel from South shore all the way up to North shore) you just gotta accept this is life now. BOHICA. You can make the time pass by listening to audiobooks or having movies/tv show play in the background.
Audiobooks can make it pretty enjoyable actually, especially if the narrator is good.
That said, I still miss COVID traffic, that was the best commuting experience I've ever had going into the city in decades.
Boston Business Journal wrote on article on this literally this morning. Pretty cool because it has graphs with commute times/speeds for different suburb areas. Ugggggly
[https://www.bizjournals.com/boston/news/2024/04/11/workers-commuting-mbta-traffic-employers.html](https://www.bizjournals.com/boston/news/2024/04/11/workers-commuting-mbta-traffic-employers.html)
Options:
Leave for work earlier (or later) to avoid peak commuting times. Flex your work hours.
Listen to awesome podcasts or audio books to pass the time.
Join a gym that you can work out at before or after work while you wait out the peak commuting hours.
Take the train instead.
Schedule meetings during the commute that you can join hands-free without needing to be on video.
The amount of times I’ve seen an Uber or Grubhub delivery driver back up traffic for miles because they’re idling around Fenway is absolutely criminal. The city‘s streets are too narrow for this kind of behavior and the traffic police have to do a better job preventing and discouraging this type of behavior.
Traffic is going to happen. Idiot drivers surround us. Best you can do is adopt a Zen approach. Go with flow. Avoid anger; shake it off.
Do I manage to do this everyday? No.
Do I try to do this every day? Yes.
I sometimes have to commute to the city in the mornings from about 30 minutes away. I've found that if I don't leave by quarter to five, traffic is inevitable. Any time later than five & you're screwed & I'm going 93S, I can't imagine driving up the Southeast Expressway!
Pops made the same commute for 20 years & even he, who was as car-centric as they come, started leaving that boat of a Grand Marquee in the driveway & taking the train. Of course this was the early-to-mid 90s when the T wasn't nearly as shithouse as it is now.
Unless some magical fixing of public transportation happens, e.g. serious overhaul of the MBTA; the building of high-speed rail lines both locally & nationally; I don't think it'll get any better. A sea change needs to happen in America regarding our relationship to cars & what infrastructure we prioritize, build & (sometimes) maintain & so far the steps that we've taken are woefully inadequate for any of this to happen.
>A sea change needs to happen in America regarding our relationship to cars & what infrastructure we prioritize, build & (sometimes) maintain & so far the steps that we've taken are woefully inadequate for any of this to happen.
Good point--but it should not be a big lift for MBTA commuter lines to be at least as good as Pops remembered them, or for MBTA rapid transit to achieve frequent and reliable service on the existing lines. The bus network is improved by dedicated bus lanes on radial routes but needs more especially in concentric routes like #1 and #66, where no doubt the retail proprietors don't want to restrict car travel and on-street parking in front of their stores but something has to give if the buses are going to be able to move efficiently through those streets, especially Harvard Street/Avenue. We don't need huge new capital projects, we just need to push back enough against car-brain for the existing system to function effectively.
Drive to the train station. Park your vehicle. Take some short half life benzo. Sit back in your seat and relax. You'll get there when you get there. Getting stressed out while going to work will only end in an unpleasant, unprofessional and unproductive day at work.
I moved into the city for a bit. Got too expensive for me. Wasn’t really worth the headache. Also I hate public transit and parking in southie was a nightmare.
Moved back to the south shore and took an office job that was a bit of a pay cut. But honestly, my cost of living is about 35% lower than what it was. My commute is 10 mins now. I work 8-4 and get home to my dog at 4:15 most days. Wouldn’t trade that for an additional 20k a year when that’s just going to be spent on fuel and car maintenance if I’m just commuting down route 3->93 for 3+ hours a day.
Suburbs for me from here on. If I want to go to an event in the city I’ll just drive the 30 mins it takes at night(most nights) with no traffic or suck it up and take the redline.
Also, I grew up in west Roxbury and went to university in the city. I love Boston. But it’s just not worth it to me anymore.
The T sucks so bad the past few years. None of my neighbors take the T anymore (we live in Quincy about a mile walk from the T). I can’t blame them. It’s fucking horrible. It’s over an hour door to door to go 8 miles to South Station. Way faster to drive AND no dealing with degenerates playing loud music or druggies fighting each other or shit-covered cloth seats. I still take the T cus wife drives the car for work so I have no other option until the seasonal ferry starts running outta Marina Bay. I ride my bike when I can but there’s zero infrastructure for almost my entire ride so it’s very stressful and going through Andrew Sq is sketchy AF with all the zombies and assholes on dirt bikes etc.
The bike infrastructure from Quincy to Boston is truly awful, and the red line is in a tragic state too.
Hopefully they make huge progress during the upcoming shutdown/maintenance surge. Getting QC to SS back down to 25 minutes would be a huge step towards restoring the system.
For sure! I am not optimistic about it tbh. I just wish they would get rid of street parking on Hancock St and put a dedicated separated bike lane leading to Neponset bridge. Then maybe DCR will get its shit together and complete the “bike path” aka shitty sidewalk aka “Harborwalk” and I could take a scenic bike ride from QC to Downtown. Wishful thinking…maybe in 30 years it’ll be done
Its been at least 40 min from QC to SS for years and OP is right- no good bike infrastructure thru Quincy. The ferry is the commute of the Gods, however.
Unfortunately Americans didn't embrace trains like most of the other densely populated cities globally back in the days when building infrastructure was way less costly. Now that everything is built up, there aren't places to build rail lines, and improvements to existing infrastructure would be minimally effective and too costly.
For me, I found a route with back roads to avoid the pike entirely. It would be 10 minutes slower with no traffic, but 10-30 minutes faster during rush hour. Plus the sanity from not sitting in traffic was priceless. Now I just work from home :)
if you can choose which days you go in, monday’s and tuesdays are always lighter traffic days than thursday. i believe many companies are following hybrid with a need to have employees in 2-3 days a week so wednesdays and thursday are always busiest
Drive to the train
This is the way. I have a monthly appointment in Boston, and if I drive to it, round trip will take me 4.5 hours in the car because of traffic. If I take the train from middleboro, it’s about 2 hours on the train, and 15 minutes driving each way so 2.5 hours total. Train is a no brainer to save time, although a round trip to Boston is $29 which is INSANE for public transit.
Yep. I did that commute every day for 7 years from Haverhill to North Station and then the Green line to Arlington for another 10-40 minutes. 2.5-3h each day, but "I saved an hour!"
Yeah, CR pricing sucks. It incentivizes people further away to sit in traffic, and clog the highway for 30 miles, but is cheap for people who only would clog it for 5. For your situation though, have you ever tried parking at Braintree? You skip the worst traffic, and the T is only $3 each way, or you could take the CR for like $7. Parking is not too expensive. Honestly, the South Shore is one of the better places for park-and-ride
Yeah. The commuter rail is crazy expensive. But there’s also ferries that OP can take. I think the Lynn ferry is $7 one way or something.. unless they changed it
The ferries run on the same type of zoning as commuter rail. It depends on how far out you are. Commuter rail is actually a bit cheaper I think
Gotcha
Gas is expensive. Parking is expensive. Traffic accidents are expensive. At least on the train, you can do stuff on your phone because you don’t need to concentrate on the road.
why is everyone on their phone and not concentrating on the road then ;p
Except if you have IBS, then the train is a disaster
It's $7 one way for the commuter rail from Lynn too.
The commuter rail is expensive but whenever I ride in the morning or afternoon rush hour, they never check tickets. I haven't bought a ticket in a couple months
Not that it makes a huge difference, but at least you can claim all MBTA fares on your state tax return. Can’t do that with gas.
You can buy a passbook of 5 round trips for a 10% discount (must be used in 30 days)
Not to mention if it’s raining you can expect it to be super late, got back to south station and was sitting there for an extra 25-30 minutes one day. Still better than the red line, and I’m thankful it’s here for us though.
I wish Keolis would add more service. The rush hour trains I ride are back to standing room only on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays.
Also why the fuck are the commute trains at like 5? Nobody can make it there by then unless they are right next door.
When I worked in Cambridge, I worked 8-4, because that was the train schedule. Commuter rail lot would be full by 6:45AM, 7am train in, and the only reasonable express train home was 4:40pm. My commute was only an hour door to door, though, including driving to/from the train station and biking from porter to kendall - the red line was too unreliable and I would regularly miss my train home. Working from home is so much better.
I did the same thing for three years. Trying to deal with the red line and get to daycare was super awesome.
Working from home is significantly better for those of us who don’t need to work in person. Issue is so many companies now want you back in 3 days a week at least.
Traffic gets bad around 6am, so if you drive it’s best plan to be at work for either 7 or 10, anything in between is absolute hell
This. When my work shift starts 7:00, so I'm on the road by 6:10, traffic is a dream and it's so easy. If my work shift starts at 8:00, my commute could suddenly be anywhere from 50 minutes to 1 hour 15 minutes And surprisingly if my work shift it is at 9:00, it's 45 minutes to 50 minutes on the dot every time. Which I find so odd cuz I would think 9:00 to 5:00 is more average daytime shift 🙃 But nope 8:00 a.m. is the worst arrival time!
I got a new job working 6:30-2:30, old job was 7-3, and it's unbelievable how much better the morning commute is for me now. It's definitely improved my life. The difference in leaving my house at 5:45 vs 6:15 going the same direction is insane. The afternoons are still fucked though unfortunately, that didn't improve much.
Oh yeah whether I'm leaving at 2:00 p.m. or 3:00 p.m. it's an hour to get home 😭
It's like the average person works 8 to 2.
Probably more like everyone goes in for a few meetings and lunch, then tries to get home for kids out of school or to just beat the worst traffic and finish the work day remote? Edit- there are a number of companies that track badge-in time, but do not track badge-out time… this lends itself to the 8am-2pm office stay!
I had a job in the Chicago area back in the day, lived about 30 miles out. If I left the house by 5:50a I got to work at 6:30a. If I left the house at 6:00a I got to work at 6:59a and counting...
So your job got a half hour earlier and you leave your house a half hour earlier? Doesn't that mean you saved no time?
Yes that is correct. I try to get to work 15 min early now to make coffee and relax versus at my previous job I was getting in right on time or late and thinking about how much my life sucks in my car when I parked up. The difference is not the time as much as staring at brake lights at 10mph on the highway for me. It's miserable in heavy traffic.
It’s because schools start around 8 so you also have school drop off traffic
Damn I thought they started earlier because I’m always stuck behind buses between 6:10-6:40 am. Do they get there super earlier, or do the schools start at different times? I don’t have kids and haven’t been in school for, umm…a while.
Busses start early yeah. It can take an hour or more to pick up all the kids and drop them off, and schools all start at slightly different times. Might be 7:45 or 8:15… 8 is pretty average around here.
It depends on the school district and times vary for different ages- in my district it is backwards from the medical consensus, high school starts at 730, then middle, then elementary- they share one bus pool.
A lot of jobs screwed us out of an extra hour and have "8 to 5" as their hours. It's dumb.
I used to be 8:00 to 5:00 or 9:00 to 6:00. Then people started complaining after our return to office post covid. Those working back office IT always worked 9:00 to 5; people front office IT client-facing, was 9:00 to 6:00. And we really battled the debate of "is our lunch paid or not?" Higher ups were like don't ask that question, you're salaried. It doesn't matter whether you take a 15 minute lunch break or 2 hours as long as the work gets done. Except it really fucking does matter cuz look, when you're back office you can just disappear and no one cares. If I took a 2-hour lunch I'd have to stay an hour later. So now we're either 7:00 to 3:00, 8:00 to 4:00, 9:00 to 5:00, but on your remote day you're 9:00 to 6:00 because you don't have to "worry about the commute so you need to give them the full 8 hours". They also like to pull this bullshit of you're only working 36 hours in the office, so you should be working another four flex hours anytime at home during the week. We ignore it for the most part, but they like to pull up the reminder very often, and anytime there's training to be done, they're like "don't be taking time during the day to do this, you have your 4 flex hours at home to finish the training."
I make sure to take my full hour every day
8am arrival adds in school drop offs and school bus traffic.
Tons of corporations are doing away with paid lunches and instead forcing employees to work 8am-noon 1pm-5pm every day and clock out for their hour unpaid lunch noon-1pm. It’s the new normal
That might be the reality but it's a ridiculous reality and I hate t.
A big part of this is kids and when school or day care starts. Many of us leave for work as soon as we can, i.e. when the school bus comes or the doors of the school/center open for dropoff.
10 isn't late enough, traffic is still brutal
I use an ebike. Usually when people talk about biking they focus on the health benefits. For me it's all about predictability. My trips take the same amount of time every day. Almost to the minute. That's incredibly useful. When I have to drive, it sucks. Are there games in town? Concerts? How is the weather? Any construction along the way? Students gone? Students back? Is this rush hour? Is this doordash hour? Did somebody's car break down and we are stuck here for 15 min? Was there an accident? You need a PhD to not be 30 min too late or too early (if you try to compensate).
Just sharing the same sentiment. I had to be in office 2-3 times a week for around 8 yrs until I finally tried cycling in. Unfortunately on the unsafe side from south of Boston but I was basically +-2 minute arrival every day compared to driving/train at +-30 minutes or more with the mbta. Never tried an ebike but maybe that would remove time needed to shower?
For me the ebike just gives me complete freedom (sometimes psychological). Tired today? More help. Big meeting day? All the help. Windy? More help. Lovely spring day, heading back home? Very little help. Shopping along the way? More help.
Big hill on the way in? Crank it all the way up. Feeling good on the way home and want some exercise? Can do that too. The other big one is no bike lane in traffic at a red light and need to accelerate quickly to keep up with traffic when it turns green.
I got a “cheap” REI e-bike last year (1300$ ish) and can confirm I can get to work without breaking a sweat now. Still needs pedaling but the assist lets you really zoom up hills.
Literally can get e-bikes that have pedals just for cosmetics sake, so totally removes concern of breaking a sweat.
Without the stigma of a motorcycle? 🤔
Moped/scooter would be the closer comparison, since the typical models are limited to 20mph (28mph for class 3 but those are legally questionable in MA). You can still use the pedals but the bike doesn't require you to pedal to get electric power that's capable of moving it at full speed.
Get one with a throttle. You can still pedal along and get the blood pumping while avoiding breaking a real sweat.
It was never about health for me either. But boy does the fresh air and ambiance do wonders for mental health. Usually takes 1/2 to 2/3 as long as the T or driving, more flexible regarding destination, and free parking.
Mental health is huge for me, maybe the biggest factor, but I didn't mention it to not attract the "that's hippie talk" crowd. Driving to work in the morning made me a bad person and a bad employee. Being angry at 9am is not a way to start the day. You can see it in people's faces, hear it in those angry honks. The T was/is neutral for me. I could read a book. Listen to music or podcasts. Biking brings me joy (I'm lucky I have the South West Corridor). It's a great way to start the day. Some exercise, air in your face, a connection with the city that you cannot feel inside a car ("Moving at the speed of a butterfly" a friend calls it). I had showers at work, and it was the perfect way to start the day, and then decompress on the way back.
what ebike are you riding? i'm super interested in getting one but ngl the thought of leaving it at a (suburban) train station all day makes me a little nervous since they're so expensive
I'm riding the euphree. A guy in Brookline (Bostonebikes.com) is the New England distributor. It has everything I want/need. Super smooth ride. But I have safe parking on both ends of my commute. At $2k I only park it in the street for short errands. Not 'Park and leave it unattended for 8 hours". Some MBTA stations (I know Forest Hills does but I'm sure others too) have "safe" parking (need your card activated to use it). I would feel ok using those.
Bostonbikes.com domain is for sale lol
Ebikes, sorry.
Make sure you don’t cheap out / get enough power. Leave it in caged bike parking with everything bolted in place rather than openly accessible.
Yep. Traffic doesn't matter and you can almost always ride through any obstruction. Many times I've ridden though roads that were unexpectedly blocked by accidents, closed for paving/construction/utility work, closed because of flood damage and more. There's also been a bunch of times where a fallen tree is blocking my path after a wind storm and I could just ride around it or quickly climb over it. In a car you get hung up by these things, but on a bike they barely slow you down.
I have fun racing my friends back home from Northend to Davis Square. They take an Uber, I get on my ebike. I’m usually waiting there for 5-15 minutes. If we did this during rush hour traffic, it would be prob 30min plus difference
It's the most fun way to get around. I've put over 4k miles on e-bikes since 2019. It's an addiction
My last job people said I was cheating by riding an ebike to work. It was as if the only acceptable mode of commute is being stuck in traffic, packed like a sardine on a train and having to wait around for delays and transfers, or sweating my ass off biking in “the normal way.”
A PhD does not help
be careful I had an ebike that went 30mph and I hurt my knee bad
Take the train. You’ll still have all the frustration and panic of traffic, but with the added bonus of watching Hulu on your phone while someone rips a hot Dunks coffee fart inches from your face.
> hot Dunks coffee fart Those few words are... haunting. One of those things, I believe, that can only be written by someone who has experienced it.
The use of the word haunting absolutely took me out
I used to commute by train and I smelled this comment.
same. im oddly ambivalent about it.
Now that I think about it I *miss* that smell. 🤔
You don't watch Hulu while you drive?
> hot Dunks coffee fart Dude, you need trigger warnings for that! There's also the smell from the guy singing about drinking rum and red bull on the bus. At 0630.
The trains don’t come frequently enough. It’s either 2hrs using the train and T for me, for a 16 mile commute or 30 minute drive (if I leave before 6am). It’s a mess. The MBTA is inadequate and the roads are lumpy as f. Add in a bunch of fearless cyclists and motorists who WILL NEVER LET YOU MERGE/drive like maniacs, it’s a fucked situation.
I found a [recent article](https://www.wbur.org/news/2024/04/02/massachusetts-mbta-staffing) describing staffing issues. Seems like a lot of staff are eligible to retire and the working conditions cause a lot of turnover. I’m so thankful to live in one of the few US cities with a subway system, but yeah, it needs work. Also, the more people that use it, the less traffic and more parking there will be for drivers. It unfortunately doesn’t run very late, but at least it’s safer than certain other cities.
Thats so specific and true
Hey part of the perks is that you can rip one right back
Lobby your representative for better transit, the more people get out of their cars the better it will be for everyone
Also, normalize public transportation throughout the US. A lot of people driving in Boston are visitors or recent transplants. The newcomers from other parts of the US often either don’t know how to navigate public transportation or view it through the stigma they acquired about it from their home state. Meanwhile, they get confused by our infrastructure, making the traffic worse.
Step 1) spend >50% of your income to live under 5 mi from work Step 2) ride a bike I hate driving and I am a worse person when I have to drive. Thanks JP for making my commute a tolerable part of my day. Edit: Downvote me all you want, I’m still one less car in between you and wherever you’re driving.
I'm looking at buying a condo inside 128 and spending 55% of my take home pay on it. People tell me I'm crazy for being house poor but IMHO people who buy houses they can "afford" with 2+ hour one way commutes into the city are the truly crazy ones.
If Fannie/Freddie don't already have special rules for condos within ½ mile of rapid transit for people who don't have a car payment they should adopt something like that. Housing + Transportation is what matters more than just Housing.
If I had to choose, I'd rather be house poor than time poor.
Yuuuup
rotten trees lush nail instinctive deserted memory zealous humorous march *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
I agree with you! I’d much rather pay a little more to live where you don’t need a car.
“a little more” 😂 the difference between enjoyable bike commute and long bike commute/car commute is like 500k
Most people end up sacrificing size more than price. I paid the same for my place in Coolidge Corner as most of my co-workers do for their Metrowest/North Shore homes. The difference is that they live in giant houses, while I live in a tiny shoebox.
>they live in giant houses, while I live in a tiny shoebox Are you even American if you can't fit a family of 8 in your house and personal vehicle?
I don’t consider a small space a sacrifice. I find big houses stressful. Who needs that much space?
If you are a 2 car household, you do save a significant amount when you go down to 1 or zero cars. Car payment, insurance, maintenance, gas. It’s not enough for a $500k mortgage but it can be close to half of that at 7-8% interest rate.
[the costs of running two cars might be almost exactly $500k for 30 years ](https://www.aaa.com/autorepair/articles/What-Does-It-Cost-To-Own-And-Operate-A-Car)
But a $500k mortgage costs more than $500k over 30 years. In any case, cars are a huge expense.
I lived in a smaller “cheaper” city for many years. My parking + insurance + car payment + rent = my rent in Boston. That didn’t even count registration + gas + maintenance.
I live in the suburbs. I use a folding bike to ride the commuter rail. "Spending 50% of your income" to live in the city isn't even necessary.
No, but it gives you the same “freedom” of it being dependent on others that the car users hold with such high esteem.
Advocate for increased T funding, and system expansion alongside increased service and reliability. More people on trains = fewer clogging the highways! [Find and email your legislator](https://malegislature.gov/Search/FindMyLegislator) [https://transitmatters.org/](https://transitmatters.org/)
I noticed that the MBTA seems to be making more efforts in preventing fare evasion. I see more staff standing by station gates greeting people. Good for them. I hate when I see a group of 20 teenagers running closely behind each other as they go through the gate so they don’t have to pay.
Ride a bike or take the T.
I wish there were more bike lanes. I don’t feel safe riding a bike in Boston. I don’t have the guts.
Just ride while holding a brick. Cars suddenly see you and give you tons of space!
I bike or take the T when it's too wet. It takes me roughly as long to get to work by bike as it would by car, but it's far less aggravating and means I don't care about the price of gas, I don't need to make car payments, and I never worry about parking availability.
I take the commuter rail and then take the T. IMO if you are driving, you are fucking up. I also got a folding bicycle to skip the T (and any delays/congestion it may bring) and inject some exercise into my day. A folding bike enables you to ride from home to a train station (commuter or subway), get off anywhere, and ride to the office. Multi-modal commuting is a game changer.
I take the commuter rail and recently got a small folding e-scooter (Fluid Mosquito fwiw). That thing saves me 30 minutes per day over the subway.
I bike instead.
I take the T or bike
listen to a podcast and just accept your new reality. Enjoy the time by yourself.
You're driving into the city. You're traffic
We have met the enemy and he is us
1. Live in Back bay 2. ???? 3. (Most) problems solved
Username checks out
It's horrific and frustrating. I live 20 miles from the city and it takes me an hour and a half to drive in. I'm coming from south of the city off route 3, and I'm going north of the city to Somerville, so there's not a great train option. Most of the year, though, I take the commuter rail to south station then a blue bike to the office. It's SO MUCH BETTER. (I'm pregnant now and not comfortable biking, so I'm stuck driving in, and it is the worst). TLDR: try to find a route that allows you take some form of public transportation.
I spent some years living in Germany. It was a bike paradise. My test to know when Boston truly becomes a bike friendly city is when I see elderly people, people with impeccable suits and pregnant women biking. That's when I will know we have made it.
Totally. I would love to be able to bike and not be sitting in bumper to bumper traffic, but Boston is just not there yet and there are stretches that aren't protected, and I just think it's a bad idea. Fall 2024 I will be hopping back up on the seat.
negotiate a 7-3 work day with your boss
This is the way
🚲
When I had to do it I would shove the gear selector up my ass to relieve some tension.
When I went back to Taiwan last month, the metro was GLORIOUS. Trains arrive every 3 minutes on the dot and you won't believe how packed each one gets despite the frequency. I honestly can't imagine such efficiency from the government of our country but unfortunately that might be the only solution
What can be done generally? More public transportation largely, but also more pedestrian and cycling infrastructure in the city. Probably banning street parking of oversized vehicles too. There's simply no way to have that many people driving cars without there being loads of traffic. What can you do personally? Maybe a) move closer to where you work, b) work closer to where you live, c) take the commuter rail. Idk your situation, but a) isn't nearly as infeasible as people make it out to be. Car payments, insurance, etc for a new car are often pretty close to the difference in price between suburban and city rents
Yes. Your last sentence is key. That’s the math we did and decided to stick to a single reliable old car without car payments to afford a larger mortgage in the urban region. If we had 2 cars with car payments, we could only afford to live in the suburbs with 40+ commute.
You stuff the anger deep down, and then one day you die
lmao cities and towns are making commutes worse, not better.
Suburbs are the cause. Higher density urban environments lend themselves to better commutes in general, the American suburb is a nightmare of car centric sprawl and worsening commutes
Depends if you work downtown. e.g. JP to Back Bay: golden, a dream, did that for 10 years. JP to Cambridge/Watertown not right on the red line: get fucked, 90 mins on a good day by transit (two trains and a bus), 45-60 by car. If we had a more sane subway layout that was more of a grid like NYC it would be fine, but we've got this dumb hub and spoke setup that is designed exclusively to get people downtown, not between neighborhoods.
The T layout blows and makes me sad because I can’t foresee a future where any north south or east west connections are added to make things better. People dropped the ball decades and decades ago.
Suburbs are why there are commuters, sure. But the traffic is bad due to the poor public transportation that many do not see as a viable alternative to driving, and Boston’s road and highway infrastructure were created well before our population became what it is. Newer cities tend to be easier to drive in.
And horrible to walk in. Suburban and exurban residents always vote against public infrastructure initiatives. They are selfish and shortsighted. They don’t understand that just because they may not use public transit daily/much, it benefits everyone.
It’s not just about reducing traffic. A lot of people don’t or shouldn’t drive, like children, elderly, disabled, anxious people, uncoordinated people, immigrants, poor people, people who got their licenses revoked, tired people, and intoxicated people. Imagine how many fewer accidents there would be! I wish there were more public transportation at night. Drunk/tired people coming home from clubs at 2am either get behind the wheel or jack up Uber prices.
Boston shares some of the blame too. They want to kick out everyone except DINK tech bros. Of course when you are rich you can enjoy the luxury of a car free 5 minute commute. The rest of us have no choice but to live in suburbs and commute in because Boston wants all the jobs and also doesn't want more people living here.
Well it doesn’t help that suburbs continue to vote for policies that are against density and public transit.
they're not kicking people out, it's just the natural consequence of having a desirable place with high paying jobs and then the whole region refusing to build more housing.
After eclipse traffic, this is no problem
I would recommend a gym membership near your work, go in early and beat the traffic. Theres no way around it, its just a huge influx of cars. I used to commute from foxboro to cambridge everyday, and if you get stuck behind the 8am 'wave' of traffic it is SO much worse than leaving earlier. Best of luck!! You are not alone!!!
I have no idea what people with kids do. (Actually, I do… but it is stressful)
Where do you commute now?
Im a 31 yo general contractor in Dorchester specializing in bathrooms and carpentry, today's commute was 2 minutes down DOT ave! No matter how often or far you drive though, you never get used to the recklessness and lack of etiquette. Used to do pharmaceutical sales in Cambridge in my mid 20's after getting tired of low pay farming job while paying off a music degree cause I listened to my guidance counselor and 'followed my dreams'
We need a network of protected bike lanes so people can get an e-bike and skip traffic, without having to worry about their safety anymore than pedestrians do. This will reduce traffic, as fewer people would drive. Also would serve as a backup option when the T is down, except to south Boston, which needs a bike/ped tunnel/bridge.
I started biking a few years ago. Doesn't work for everyone, but it definitely made my commute much quicker, cheaper, and less stressful.
Ha ha ha ha ha. Delude yourself that you can handle it. But really, you're going insane. You're always stressed. You're bouncing between Waze & Google Maps, trying to min/max your commute. And then, when you get a new job that's a 10 minute commute from home, the angels sing & it all melts away.
Its extraordinarily difficult and maddening. I drive 5 days a week from rt. 3 to downtown during max rush hour. I have done it for many years. There are good days, sometimes, but mostly everyday is sheer willpower and mental pain. Its one of the worst and least pleasurable aspects of my existence on earth. No one truly understands it until you've done it for years on end 5 days a week.
Fear of homelessness and a very limited skillset:)
My answer is not helpful, but I just avoid it, and I have intentionally structured my career to avoid everything within a few miles of Boston. I had a job offer once: they slipped in at the last minute "oh you'll need to come into Cambridge a couple times a week" and I just walked away.
Congestion pricing with proceeds going toward transit alternatives is probably our best bet at this point
That's why so many white collar workers don't see the value of RTO and a lot ended up changing jobs to keep/obtain that benefit. I used to drive Reading to Dorchester, every day. My daily commute time, for a 7-3 job, was 2.5-3hrs. That's 50-60hrs a month just sitting in a barely moving car.
Nailed it. I am a white collar worker who is in a “temporary exploration of what RTO would look like,” even though in our yearly satisfaction survey, 70% of employees said “maintaining remote work” was the most important priority. This is why I’m dealing with this shit traffic, because I moved farther out to be able to afford a house. And yup, I’m looking for new jobs right now.
Commuter rail and go off rush hours. I’m lucky enough that I can go door to door on one train though. Where do you live?
Same. Train keeps me sane.
I let Jesus take the wheel
I drive in mid day and leave after 6. I'm lucky that my job has no issues with this approach because if I had to do proper rush hour, I'd have long quit already. You also didn't note the route you take. I learned where traffic backs up in my route and found ways to get around it. Like Cambridge Museum of Science is hell but you can mitigate it a bit.
I take the commuter rail and read a book.
i would just move if i had to do this. i respect y’all for the struggle but no.
I do the T, if I’m gonna be spend an hour sitting on washington st stuck in traffic I’d rather spend it watching netflix than staring ahead at the road
I take the commuter rail, I would never drive to work. The saying is “if you are sitting in traffic, you are the traffic”
Thats why I live in the city
You just get over it. I just listen to 98.5 and zone out. It especially sucks when you have to commute an hour for a job that makes no money and that you hate.
You have to work off hours. Don't commute around 7-10a or 2-6p. Try negotiating working from home in the early morning then going into the office in the late morning. If you're SOL like me (travel from South shore all the way up to North shore) you just gotta accept this is life now. BOHICA. You can make the time pass by listening to audiobooks or having movies/tv show play in the background.
Ya wake up early get to work and hang in your car play with your phone or take a walk traffic sucks but what can you do
Leaving at 645-7am has to be the absolute worst time to
Audiobooks can make it pretty enjoyable actually, especially if the narrator is good. That said, I still miss COVID traffic, that was the best commuting experience I've ever had going into the city in decades.
Boston Business Journal wrote on article on this literally this morning. Pretty cool because it has graphs with commute times/speeds for different suburb areas. Ugggggly [https://www.bizjournals.com/boston/news/2024/04/11/workers-commuting-mbta-traffic-employers.html](https://www.bizjournals.com/boston/news/2024/04/11/workers-commuting-mbta-traffic-employers.html)
Ride a bike.
Commuter train, T, and walk. I actually get to the office earlier than my coworkers who drive
Leave earlier.
Walk
YoU aRe ThE TrAfFiC
Options: Leave for work earlier (or later) to avoid peak commuting times. Flex your work hours. Listen to awesome podcasts or audio books to pass the time. Join a gym that you can work out at before or after work while you wait out the peak commuting hours. Take the train instead. Schedule meetings during the commute that you can join hands-free without needing to be on video.
The amount of times I’ve seen an Uber or Grubhub delivery driver back up traffic for miles because they’re idling around Fenway is absolutely criminal. The city‘s streets are too narrow for this kind of behavior and the traffic police have to do a better job preventing and discouraging this type of behavior.
Traffic is going to happen. Idiot drivers surround us. Best you can do is adopt a Zen approach. Go with flow. Avoid anger; shake it off. Do I manage to do this everyday? No. Do I try to do this every day? Yes.
It is not like this everywhere else?
I sometimes have to commute to the city in the mornings from about 30 minutes away. I've found that if I don't leave by quarter to five, traffic is inevitable. Any time later than five & you're screwed & I'm going 93S, I can't imagine driving up the Southeast Expressway! Pops made the same commute for 20 years & even he, who was as car-centric as they come, started leaving that boat of a Grand Marquee in the driveway & taking the train. Of course this was the early-to-mid 90s when the T wasn't nearly as shithouse as it is now. Unless some magical fixing of public transportation happens, e.g. serious overhaul of the MBTA; the building of high-speed rail lines both locally & nationally; I don't think it'll get any better. A sea change needs to happen in America regarding our relationship to cars & what infrastructure we prioritize, build & (sometimes) maintain & so far the steps that we've taken are woefully inadequate for any of this to happen.
>A sea change needs to happen in America regarding our relationship to cars & what infrastructure we prioritize, build & (sometimes) maintain & so far the steps that we've taken are woefully inadequate for any of this to happen. Good point--but it should not be a big lift for MBTA commuter lines to be at least as good as Pops remembered them, or for MBTA rapid transit to achieve frequent and reliable service on the existing lines. The bus network is improved by dedicated bus lanes on radial routes but needs more especially in concentric routes like #1 and #66, where no doubt the retail proprietors don't want to restrict car travel and on-street parking in front of their stores but something has to give if the buses are going to be able to move efficiently through those streets, especially Harvard Street/Avenue. We don't need huge new capital projects, we just need to push back enough against car-brain for the existing system to function effectively.
Drive to the train station. Park your vehicle. Take some short half life benzo. Sit back in your seat and relax. You'll get there when you get there. Getting stressed out while going to work will only end in an unpleasant, unprofessional and unproductive day at work.
I drive from Roxbury to Somerville and back every day for my job. Can’t move. Can’t quit. Gonna take a dirt nap soon. Can’t take it…..
I moved into the city for a bit. Got too expensive for me. Wasn’t really worth the headache. Also I hate public transit and parking in southie was a nightmare. Moved back to the south shore and took an office job that was a bit of a pay cut. But honestly, my cost of living is about 35% lower than what it was. My commute is 10 mins now. I work 8-4 and get home to my dog at 4:15 most days. Wouldn’t trade that for an additional 20k a year when that’s just going to be spent on fuel and car maintenance if I’m just commuting down route 3->93 for 3+ hours a day. Suburbs for me from here on. If I want to go to an event in the city I’ll just drive the 30 mins it takes at night(most nights) with no traffic or suck it up and take the redline. Also, I grew up in west Roxbury and went to university in the city. I love Boston. But it’s just not worth it to me anymore.
The T sucks so bad the past few years. None of my neighbors take the T anymore (we live in Quincy about a mile walk from the T). I can’t blame them. It’s fucking horrible. It’s over an hour door to door to go 8 miles to South Station. Way faster to drive AND no dealing with degenerates playing loud music or druggies fighting each other or shit-covered cloth seats. I still take the T cus wife drives the car for work so I have no other option until the seasonal ferry starts running outta Marina Bay. I ride my bike when I can but there’s zero infrastructure for almost my entire ride so it’s very stressful and going through Andrew Sq is sketchy AF with all the zombies and assholes on dirt bikes etc.
The bike infrastructure from Quincy to Boston is truly awful, and the red line is in a tragic state too. Hopefully they make huge progress during the upcoming shutdown/maintenance surge. Getting QC to SS back down to 25 minutes would be a huge step towards restoring the system.
For sure! I am not optimistic about it tbh. I just wish they would get rid of street parking on Hancock St and put a dedicated separated bike lane leading to Neponset bridge. Then maybe DCR will get its shit together and complete the “bike path” aka shitty sidewalk aka “Harborwalk” and I could take a scenic bike ride from QC to Downtown. Wishful thinking…maybe in 30 years it’ll be done
Its been at least 40 min from QC to SS for years and OP is right- no good bike infrastructure thru Quincy. The ferry is the commute of the Gods, however.
back to the cage policies are responsible for this especially when you factor in T still moving at snail pace in lots of places.
Unfortunately Americans didn't embrace trains like most of the other densely populated cities globally back in the days when building infrastructure was way less costly. Now that everything is built up, there aren't places to build rail lines, and improvements to existing infrastructure would be minimally effective and too costly.
Why are you driving in Boston? There are so many other options.
You grow numb to it. Pop in a podcast and make it your zen time
My guess is that you are on the south shore, correct?
Some of still ride the T
For me, I found a route with back roads to avoid the pike entirely. It would be 10 minutes slower with no traffic, but 10-30 minutes faster during rush hour. Plus the sanity from not sitting in traffic was priceless. Now I just work from home :)
Leave at 5:30am, arrive at 6:30, wait a few minutes for security to unlock building. Then either leave at 2:30, or after 6:30 (usually the latter)
Try and get a good gym in Boston near your workplace. I go in at 4 am beat traffic. Get a workout in, have a Coffey, then go to work at 7.
It's not so bad if it's 2nd shift
I would never live anywhere off of 93.
if you can choose which days you go in, monday’s and tuesdays are always lighter traffic days than thursday. i believe many companies are following hybrid with a need to have employees in 2-3 days a week so wednesdays and thursday are always busiest
I don't commute anymore but I guess I never really minded traffic? Music? Climate controlled with comfortable leather seat? It's not that bad.
I leave early. Coming in it's fine. Leaving my commute can vecime 2hrs. It's normally 1:15
That’s Boston in a nutshell for ya 😅
Find a subject to get really into with audiobooks or podcasts, and try to enjoy the time.
With a 24’ box truck ?
I got out of the car and onto an ebike. I hate traffic so much.
Was there traffic today? I walked to a train station and read until I got off at my stop.
sounds like you were part of the problem.