Browsed by
Category: commuting

A Matter of Direction

A Matter of Direction

Comments 0 Comment

This morning I enter the city from the east, the sun an orange disc behind me. Across a broad river and along a flat plain, the bus takes a route I don’t understand and scarcely notice.

For me, a car/Metro Orange Line/Metro Red Line commuter who enters and exits at least three vehicles before I walk into the office, this seems easy. Board a bus in one place, exit in another.

I think about approach and perspective, how the angle of light, the placement of shadows, can make such a difference.

I have arrived at the same destination from a different direction. And this has made an old place seem new again.

Rush Plus

Rush Plus

Comments 0 Comment

As one who relies on the subway to carry me to and from the city, I’m often amused at Metro’s public relations efforts. It must be a losing game, trying to put a positive spin on an aging, overcrowded, mismanaged transportation system. 

The most recent example is what Metro folks are calling “Rush Plus,” which aims to ease overcrowding on the Orange line (the so-called “Orange Crush”) by providing less frequent service on the Blue line.

You have to admire the spunk — since one man’s “Rush Plus” is  another man’s “Rush Minus” — even if the program is deemed a failure in a few months. I like it because it reminds me of other attempts to make do with less. The brave comb-over of the balding man. The tasty dish that emerges from an empty pantry. The worn out, discouraged person who keeps on going (because, really, what else is there to do?) — but who does it with a jaunty step, a clear eye and a naive belief that today, somehow, will be different.

(Making do with less is the beachcomber’s way.)

Stampede!

Stampede!

Comments 0 Comment


Most of the time we commuters behave ourselves. We move orderly from one conveyance to the other. But every so often something rials us up. It might be the sound of an oncoming train as we alight from our connecting line. We need to make this next train. We will be late otherwise. So what begins as a brisk walk becomes a trot and then finally a full-tilt run.

We dash down the stairs at Metro Center (the escalator is usually under construction), racing for what we think is the Orange Line to Vienna. Turns out, it’s the Orange Line to New Carrolton, the wrong direction. But at least we’re down here waiting, standing at our appointed spots. We are ready.

The funny thing about this behavior is how contagious it is. All it takes is one eager commuter to set us all off. It reminds me of a herd of cattle I once saw outside of Cody, Wyoming. We were driving back from our big trip west with the girls, and on the way out of this wonderful town we were caught up in a swirl of cattle, cowboys and dust. It was like being part of a great roundup — even though we were driving a minivan. But it gave me the feeling of being caught up in a great sweep of animal energy, moving forward just for the sake of moving forward.

Pity the suburban commuter, dashing from car to car, startling at the sound of an approaching train, all to save a minute or two. We are creatures of habit, members of the commuting herd. Our great brains are idling; we operate on instinct only.


W.H.D. Koerner, Cattle Stampede

Missing Out

Missing Out

Comments 0 Comment

Yesterday I talked with a woman on Metro. Nothing much, just a small conversation. But any pleasant exchange is a surprise when people are packed so close together. She was sitting on the aisle and the man she’d been sharing her seat with had just missed his stop. “I wish he’d told me that he needed to get out,” she said. I nodded politely. After all, I’d just taken the seat he had vacated. I was glad he was gone.

As she explained more, I learned that the man may have assumed she was getting up because she was putting her magazine away. He was trying to read her body language and (perhaps I’m making him more deferential than he actually was) save her from standing up sooner than she needed to. Was he, too, leaving cues about his intentions, cues that she wasn’t picking up?

But then she said more. “We have all this technology. We have email and cell phones and computers. But we still don’t know how to communicate.”

I would take it a step further. Perhaps we don’t communicate because we have the technology. It keeps our gaze down at our palm instead of outward, toward each other.

The Train Stops Here

The Train Stops Here

Comments 0 Comment

More snow is forecast for tonight and tomorrow. But that’s not what I want to talk about. It’s the morning light, the morning that comes earlier every day, pink tinged and proud. It’s the rosy fingered dawn that Homer wrote about in “The Odyssey,” still rosy, still here. And it’s a guy I noticed this morning while waiting for the train, just an ordinary guy in a black pea coat, who thrust his right index finger up into the air and then very definitively pointed it down again as the old Orange Line cars lumbered into Vienna station. He looked as if he were delivering a downbeat to the New York Philharmonic or refereeing the Super Bowl, but what he was really doing was pointing to his place on the platform, saying to the great god Metro, “I want the door to open here. Right here where I’m standing.” And, by golly, it did; a door opened magically in front of him. This is the wish of weary commuters everywhere, that the doors will open right in front of us, that we’ll step into empty trains and find seats. The pantomimer was just more open about this desire than the rest of us. We can all use a little levity in the morning.