We were down in the Boston area over the weekend and all I could do was sit in quiet resignation and indignation as it took us two hours to get from the Sommerville exit to the Weymouth exit between 3:30pm and 5:30pm on Friday. We left New Hampshire early to make a timed stop on the way down. Modest employment has some advantages!

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That’s a 20 minute drive at the posted speed limit. How in the name of all that is decent do you jerks put up with that every damned day? It’s indecent. I blame you all though, everyone in their SUVs with one person in there… talking on your cell phone or texting. I guess that’s the only way to make it tolerable. Except the part where you could probably be on the train instead of idling on the highway for two hours every night. Or afternoon, really. What is everyone doing at 3:30 in the afternoon? Don’t you have work to do, or is life now all about just getting to and from work?

I watched my fuel efficiency drop by nearly 6 miles per gallon while we sat there. Can’t imagine how poorly those SUVs are doing. Why aren’t people doing more about this? I’m staggered.

There’s a diagram in the latest Time Magazine, that Dell has strangely provided to our office for the past few months, that shows how congestion has been effected by the economic decay. I wish I could find a link to it, but it shows that things are actually better in pretty much every major city, with the exception of a few mid-western areas. So that’s good, but it’s still clearly so bad and we’re wasting so much time, money and energy. I absolutely could not live my life under those conditions. Admittedly, I’m spoiled. I hop in my car after work and wait for the light to turn green at the exit to my parking lot and then I drive unencumbered directly to my house. The only thing standing in my way is the speed limit and a healthy respect for the stupidity of deer. I’d love to be able to leave the car at home, actually. It’s too far to realistically ride my bike though, and despite the fact that there’s a railway running the length of the river, it’s not suitable for commuting. Carpooling is marginally effective but I could be making more of an effort there. So that’s the problem with rural life, and the reason we’re all going to end up in cities some day. I do like to dream about a more conservative rural commute, however.

Man, Friday was miserable though and the return wasn’t much better. Something needs to be done.