A recent move to Boston has given me, among other things, a new fickle friend: the T.
I think that “the T” refers only to the subway system. People don’t “get on the T” and head for the bus. But as I haven’t found a name that encompasses the whole Boston area transit system (besides MBTA, which I know is uncool), T will have to do.
When you use public transportation all the time, when it is, in fact, your connection to the world, you begin to notice patterns. For example, in Brooklyn, I never once saw a lone B38 bus. The drivers have never quite figured out how to stagger themselves throughout the route, so instead of one bus coming every five minutes, you have to wait 15 minutes for three buses. Mind you, not all three buses will stop. How do the other two buses not get ahead, thus spreading out? I don’t know, but they don’t.
Below ground in New York, there is also plenty to go amiss and delay you for reasons you are unlikely to ever understand. It’s hard not to take it personally when service on your train to work or home is interrupted or changed. It’s bad enough when you are informed of such a change on the platform by one of those irritating chirpy signs, or by a lately probationed MTA employee, who tells you, as though you could possibly have known, that you wait in vain. It’s far worse though, when you are already on the train and a crackly voice comes from nowhere, telling you with far more relish than regret, that he or she is sorry, but this train is going express, and your stop didn’t make the cut.
It’s easy enough to complain about NYC transit, but it’s like a good friend who sometimes takes a while to call you back but always eventually does. You need to get from Washington Heights to Sheepshead Bay at 3:45 on Christmas morning? Bring something to read, but you’ll get there.
The Boston T is a different kind of friend. This is the friend who sometimes doesn’t call back, but when you run into her a week later at happy hour, she is so happy to see you, full of apologies which seem sincere, and simply insists on buying you a drink. The fact of the matter is that there are lots of times in Boston when public transportation is simply not available. When it is running, you can’t always be sure which track your train is going to come on or if you will mysteriously have to come back above ground and take a shuttle for part of your route. Still, that platform, whether or not it’s the one you want, is sure to be expansive and clean, and when you do get on the train, you can settle into a padded seat which is almost sure to be available. I waited for the bus for more than 15 minutes today, but when I finally got on, the bus driver told me she liked my necklace.
The NYC transit system is technically always there for you, but it doesn’t care much if you are inconvenienced. It’s doing what it said it would do, and wonders disinterestedly what you are complaining about. The Boston transit system won’t take you from Malden to Mattapan at 3:45 on Christmas morning, but it feels bad about it and got you a gift.
I suppose I may get tired of this slower pace of life, but, for now, I’ll accept the apology and the gift.
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