Wednesday Walk: More Trains!
Welcome to the Quarantine Creatives newsletter, a companion to my podcast of the same name, which explores creativity, art, and big ideas as we continue to live through this pandemic.
Every Wednesday, I share random thoughts and tidbits with links to let you do some exploring. I call these Wednesday Walks, as it’s the type of conversation we might have walking down a path in the woods- the topics are free flowing, sometimes related, sometimes not.
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Happy Wednesday! For today’s essay, I wanted to share a few tidbits from the start of my week which have me thinking some more about public transportation. Also, there’s some pandemic thoughts below.
Monday Morning
On Monday, I was officially back in an office for the first full day in years. I am fortunate that my company has (at least so far) taken a pretty liberal approach to return to office. I am required in person for video shoots and for a few select days per month, but I am still able to be remote about 85% of the time, which really suits my life at the moment.
This was my first time commuting regularly on public transit in almost a decade too. Even though the trains were crowded and slow moving at times, I forgot just how nice it is to travel without having to drive. I looked at the world around me, listened to some podcasts, and did a little thinking.
I am fortunate that we have decent public transit options here in Boston, but I keep coming across tweets that show how most of the country used to have similar options available:
Even though riding the subway was far from a perfect experience this week, I would still choose it over driving my full commute most days. We’ll see if that sentiment holds, but I spent my first year in Boston without a car and have always enjoyed getting around by public transportation.
Monday Evening
After work on Monday, I met up with a friend and we went to see Stevie Nicks perform. I haven’t been to a concert in ages, and because of COVID concerns, we opted for lawn seats which allowed us to safely distance and spread out.
The concert was at the suburban outdoor venue officially known as the Xfinity Center, but still often referred to locally by its original name of Great Woods. The amphitheater sits right off of I-495, the outer belt freeway that circles Boston. Parking at the venue is abundant, free, and all in surface lots.
After a concert, it can be incredibly frustrating to get onto the interstate, as there are thousands of people in individual cars all trying to leave at the same time. It took me more than 40 minutes just to exit the parking lot.
It occurred to me as sat in traffic idling that part of the problem was that the venue was only designed for cars. There was no mass transit that could take people to a concert or get them safely home, which forced every concert-goer into a car. At the end of the show, the only choice was to drive home (or take an Uber/Lyft, which is still using the same roadways).
Contrast this with some of the other large venues in our area. Gillette Stadium, where the Patriots play, is within walking distance of a commuter rail station.
Fenway Park is in the middle of Boston and it has tons of alternative options for getting home from a game. There’s car parking, there’s subway trains, there’s a commuter rail line, and there’s even the ability to walk or bike somewhere.
I keep coming back to the idea that I wrote about after my trip to Disney earlier this year: we need to start embracing all forms of transit and making them accessible to the places people want to visit.
The Xfinity Center opened in 1986, at a time when car travel was seen as the only desirable means for getting around. It’s still often seen as the default, but I’d like to hope that if a concert venue opened today, it might be more accessible to other infrastructure that would allow for more varied options for arriving and getting home.
Let’s also hope there can be some effort made to connect entertainment spaces like concert venues, sport stadiums, amusement parks, and other destinations to a larger transit grid someday.
Stay Safe
Switching gears, Joe Biden made headlines this week after he declared the pandemic “over” in an interview with 60 Minutes. If you haven’t seen it yet, here’s the clip:
I know we’re all feeling COVID fatigue, but this quote comes as I am once again seeing a spike in people around me getting infected.
At this point, the risks of long COVID and the possible long term damage that this disease can do even with mild infections, is well documented. People need to make their own risk assessments and do what they feel is safest for them.
I am still masking indoors and opted to mask for some of the concert on Monday when I didn’t feel that I could keep adequate social distance. It can sometimes be strange to be the only one in a mask, but it’s what I’m comfortable doing at the moment.
Let’s just say that I felt this tweet a little too strongly when I saw it:
Stay safe, build more trains, and go get the rest of this week!
Other Wednesday Walks
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Stay Safe!
Heath