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February 05, 2007
Third Rail
In the hustle and bustle that it city life, it’s quite easy to look down at your shoes, avoid as much contact with the outside world as possible, and simply try to get to and from work with as few problems as possible. I myself fall victim to this tendency. I work in a vibrant part of Boston, itself a large (if not ginormous) city, with hundreds of thousands of people doing the aforementioned hustle with a side order of bustle all around me, and as a collective, we populate an area teeming with great food, culture, and activity. And yet, so often we can see the forest from the trees, if by “forest” I mean “Boston” and by “trees” I mean “the stuff that makes up Boston”. I shouldn’t have overexplained the analogy. Oh well.
But while waiting for the commuter rail home tonight, I had some time on my hands to ponder the world around me. I didn’t have any reading material, and I had twenty minutes to kill before boarding, so I got to people watch for the first time in a while. And I got to do it in the brand-spanking new waiting area at North Station. So incredibly brand-spanking new that it’s not even done yet. But someone on high determined an arbitrary day to have a ribbon-cutting ceremony, only they had the misfortunate of timing it during the insane “Aqua Teen Terror Force” saga last week, so no one really knew it “officially” opened, and there’s still a lot of work to be done, so no one wins, except of course for the terrorists. And the Mooninites.
The new waiting area didn’t teach me anything new, but it did remind me of three important things.
People really, really like shiny things. On one wall of the new waiting area is a large LED board. I’m horrible at guestimating the size of things, but I’d wager this is a 12’x18’ board. Up until today, it merely ran an unending ad for the TD Banknorth Garden, an ad that was patently ridiculous because North Station is attached to the Garden, thereby rendering an ad touting it unnecessary. But as of tonight, it finally showed something useful: namely, the track numbers of outbound trains.
Freed from the insanely small, black-and-white TVs that were before our only means of obtaining track numbers, this new LED screen beckoned to people like a briny cheery rainbow of banality. I stood under the sign for good three minutes, watching people watch the sign, anxiously hoping for their track number to be called. I swear, I saw at least 2% less desperation and resignation at their lot in life while looking at this sign. Well done, MBTA. Well done.
People are by and large out of shape. I’m a nut for getting places early. It’s not my best quality, since I err on the side of “way too early” often enough to drive The Girl and anyone else around me nuts, and I get it, but I hate being late for things, and I hate having time as my enemy. Time is a horrible enemy to have, especially when it comes to getting to North Station on time when you’re at the mercy of the Green Line. So I go really early and wait, bored out of my mind. But, better than those who tempt fate, get stuck around Park Street, and find themselves in need of hoofing it from the subway to the commuter rail. Well, not so much “hoofing it” so much as “attempting to find he balance between moving faster than average walking speed and not having a heart attack”.
After moving from under the LED sign, I stood near the entrance to the waiting area from the subway, and saw a good thirty people running into the area, stopping, taking a nanosecond to obtain their track number, and then trying to catch their breath (unsuccessfully) in order to make the train. I’d calculate the distance from the subway to the commuter rail to be less than a quarter-mile, with one staircase in that quarter-mile, and that stairway has an escalator. So, in 440 yards, the majority of Bostonians were beyond tired and on the verge of puking up their fast-food lunch on the new multi-million dollar floor in the glow of the LED screen. I realize that some people have legitimate reasons for not arriving 15 minutes early, and that the subway system is a wreck, especially in any weather that that’s not 67 degrees and sunny, but I’ve seen this pattern on a daily basis, so either get their early or take that money used to get a greasy lunch each day and get yourself a gym membership, y’all. Yea, it sucks, and I know it because I go and it sucks, but I go, and if Lazy McGee here can go, you can go too. Oh, and one other thing these huffers and puffers reminded me…
The shortest distance between two points is a straight line. Pretty self-evident, and hard to forget. But it took me watching the Flabathon to be reminded that this is indeed true. Problem is, the new waiting area isn’t built for such a dictum. It’s a rectangular shape, probably five times wider than long. Again, an estimate, but let’s say it’s 20 feet deep and 100 feet wide. Coming from the outside, on either side, you have two entrance points. In fact, the new waiting area allows you to enter from pretty much anywhere from the old, cramped waiting area, but naturally people file in at the shortest point possible.
Problem is, in between these pinch points and the tracks lie approximately 50 new seating areas. And when you combine these seating areas, the general milling of a thousand plus people, the asthmatic horde descending upon the scene with fewer than all of their faculties intact, and the general urban entitlement which states that “I am more important than anyone else in my general vicinity so I’ll do what I want at their expense, because really, when am I ever going to run into them again?”, you have a recipe for disaster. My placement to avoid the Running of the Blobs also afforded me a respite from the pushing, shoving, and accidental tripping that was caused as their people strove to cut through at a 45 degree angle, path of least resistance be damned, shortest distance is a straight line, people, move it, move it, move it!
It’s only a matter of time before someone runs in, checks the shiny LED monitor, gets a ray of hope they might make their train after all, runs through the horde gasping for air, trips over someone sitting on a bench, and falls down dead of a heart attack. And knowing Bostonians, a crowd will gather around the dead body, and other people running in late will curse out the guy who had the nerve to drop dead while they were trying to catch the train to Rockport.
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Anybody have any life lessons they were recently reminded of in their own experiences? Drop them below.
Posted by Ryan McGee at February 5, 2007 08:25 PM