Returning to Normal
Plain and simple, commuting so far this week has been a bitch. The weekend’s heavy rain caused the Alewife Brook to flood the Alewife Brook Parkway (Route 16) in Arlington. Now, my commute doesn’t even take me down Alewife Brook Parkway, but it does intersect it at Massachusetts Avenue – and that’s where the trouble began.
Understandably, Monday’s morning commute was a disaster and it took me over an hour and a half to go the 3.5 miles to work. The afternoon commute, still in the rain, wasn’t much better as I waited 30 minutes for the bus.
But yesterday, the sun was out, the temperatures warmed up, and spring had sprung. The morning commute still took an hour (better than the day before), but I expected the water to have receded enough so that my evening commute would be normal. In fact, I took precautions to avoid rush hour altogether by going to the gym after work.
Big mistake.
I got out of the gym slightly after 6PM, then went outside to wait for the bus at Porter Square. I could see that traffic was backed up to the Cambridge Common and there wasn’t a bus in sight. Still, I waited.
And waited.
And waited.
More than 30 minutes later not a single 77 bus drove by. At this point, there were 20-30 people waiting. Impatient, I gave up and decided to walk. I made it just about to the Arlington Center fire station before seeing my first bus. It was a 79 bus (one that starts at Alewife Station and avoids Massachusetts Avenue and Alewife Brook Parkway). Sweaty from the walk, I hopped on the bus for the three stops it takes to get to my place.
Fortunately, my commute this morning took just over 20 minutes as the parkway is now open to traffic. YAY!
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Try commuting from Central MA….where most of you’re town is badly flooded. Then we’ll talk. :)-
Luckily my little street/corner is on a ridge and was pretty much the only part of the town that didn’t flood.
Um, do you want me to get your scooter running?