25 March
Same deal as last time: 9 a.m. from the Hopewell YMCA parking lot on Main Street in Pennington. Extra-milers can meet me at the intersection of Princess and Franklin Corner Roads at 8:30. We'll climb some hills at a relaxed pace and finish with about 43 miles from Pennington. Pace-pushers are not welcome.
Thursday, March 25, 2010
Sunday, March 14, 2010
Mass Transit Failure
14 March
Those of you who know me know how much I support public transportation. I use it every day to get to and from work. Jack, who doesn't drive, relies on it entirely when I'm not around with the car.
I think there's not enough public transportation in the United States and that it needs to be heavily subsidized. Public transportation is not a for-profit venture; it's a service for the public good. It takes cars off the roads, which reduces air pollution, greenhouse gases, traffic congestion, and highway wear-and-tear that we all pay for. It provides easy links within and beyond metropolitan areas. It's far more relaxing than driving.
And there's nothing like a large-scale mass transit foul-up to display holes in the system. Read on.
*****
Thursday, 11 March:
Brycchan is in town from London, spending the week in Philadelphia to do some research on Quakers before he heads out to the ASECS conference in New Mexico next week.
Jack is reading from his new book, the Lexicographer's Dilemma, at Headhouse Books on South Street. We meet Brycchan for dinner and go to the reading.
Jack and I arrive at Philadelphia's Market East train station with plenty of time to catch the 9:45 p.m. train. I have to be up at 6 a.m. for work the next morning, and I'm already running on fumes. We won't be home until 11 at the earliest. Tomorrow is going to be rough.
But someone has jumped in front of an Amtrak train halfway between where we are and Trenton. No trains are running on the Northeast Corridor line to Trenton, there are no replacement shuttles, and there's no word of when trains will be back in service. The RiverLINE, from Camden to Trenton, doesn't run this late at night. The West Trenton line, which ends up in Ewing, a good 20 minutes away from Trenton, takes an hour and a half and doesn't have another train coming through until an hour from now.
We need to get home. We have a cat on meds and I need as much sleep as I can get. The thought of calling my parents in their apartment in Center City flickers through my mind, but it's late and I don't want to rely on them. We'll get home somehow. I go to an ATM and pull a chunk of cash out of my savings account, the account where I've been squirreling away money for a few months in order to pay for some much-needed home maintenance. I have a feeling we'll be hailing a cab.
We walk across the street to the Greyhound station. They have no Trenton-bound buses. The New Jersey Transit bus ticket window is closed.
Outside is a line of taxis. The first driver we ask is willing to take us to the Trenton station. There's not much traffic once we pass the post-basketball game crowd. I chat with the driver to keep myself awake. We make good time on I-95.
In Trenton I point out the five renovated mansions on Greenwood Avenue. The driver looks at the one on the left and says, "It needs a porch on the second floor. With a railing." That seals it. Big tip.
We're out $140 when all is said and done, but at least we're home, and at a decent hour. I send an email to the NJ Sierra Club's listserv detailing our adventure. It's relevant because we've been talking a lot about public transit lately, what with NJ Transit's planned 40% fare increase public hearings fast approaching. DY writes from Essex County that for $140 he'd have driven down to get us. Thanks, D. A few more "Next time call us" replies come in.
*****
Saturday, 13 March:
After chairing an abbreviated Sierra Club Conservation Committee meeting at our headquarters in Trenton, I drive with Jack from there to the train station. The wind is whipping rain in all directions but we're heading to New York City anyway.
The plan is to meet up with Brycchan again for dinner. Nora and Michael will meet us then. Kevin and Rebecca are on their way home from Albany. They plan to meet us earlier, in the Village, to get coffee beans.
But first, Jack and I are going to S&P's Nuts and Candy, where we went last month with Gordon and Terry. I'm buying two pounds of dried strawberries this time, and for G&T two pounds of their favorite nut mix. When we climb out of the subway the store is right across the street. We hardly notice the wind and rain.
I have to call Terry to verify which mix they want. There are a handful that could fit the description. "Aren't you soaked?" she asks?
"Nope."
"It's pouring here!" We figure out what she wants and I stuff the stash into my backpack.
We stop at a natural food store around the corner and then double back to the subway. I'm not even bothering to open my flimsy umbrella. My coat has a hood. Jack's umbrella is being beaten up, one spoke at a time. By the time we've climbed out of the subway at West 4th Street and walked to Porto Rico Importing Company, Jack's umbrella is halfway dead. We've seen umbrella carcasses all over the sidewalks.
I'm mostly finished picking out my pounds of beans, and the pound for Gordon and Terry, when Rebecca calls. "Where are you?" she asks. When I tell her, she says, "Don't move. We'll be there in five or ten minutes." So I go to the back, pull out my travel mug, and buy a cup of fresh-brewed coffee, which today just happens to be my favorite: organic French roast Sumatra.
Kevin and Rebecca arrive just as I've stuffed all the coffee and Jack's tea into my backpack. Everything is in plastic bags, which is a good thing, because my pack is definitely wet. I text Terry that I've procured her goods.
K&R work out what beans they need, and then we're once more into the breach. Jack's umbrella dies. Rebecca's umbrella dies. Kevin doesn't even have one. We see umbrellas in a souvenir shop and dive in.
We have a little over half a mile to walk to get to Turks and Frogs, the Mediterranean bar where we're meeting the rest of our group. By now there's no point in even pulling out my umbrella.
When we get to the bar I get a text from Terry: "You're great!" I text back, "No, I'm wet." Soaked.
We hang out for an hour or so, just enough time for me to mostly dry out, before we face the storm again to walk around the corner for dinner. The restaurant is called Paris Commune. We are informed that the bathroom downstairs has flooded. Over the course of dinner, nearly everyone in our group makes a pilgrimage around the corner to use another bathroom. By the time dinner is over the flood is cleared, and I, now mostly dry, have the privilege of using the in-house loo. It smells like a flood in the basement. When I come back upstairs we find out that the flood took out the restaurant's credit card line; they're running cards manually. Whatever.
The wind seems to have died down for now so I pull out my little, cheapo, floppy, leopard-skin patterned umbrella, which I hate, but it fits in my backpack well. Jack and I head towards the subway. A train comes within minutes, and it looks like we're going to just make the 9:57 train to Trenton.
But it's not running. Nothing on the Northeast Corridor is. Wind has downed power lines. There are signal problems. Trains are stalled along the line. Nothing has moved since 5 p.m.
OK. NJ Transit buses running as shuttles instead? Nope. Any regular NJ Transit bus routes? Nope. The announcement over the PA system implores riders to "seek alternate transportation." There's not even a hint of when trains will be running again. How about PATH to Newark? Nope. The line is under water somewhere near Hoboken. Call K&R in Jersey City? No way; we can't crash at their one-bedroom apartment. Brycchan is already staying there. I call R anyway to see if she got home OK, but I get voicemail.
How about hotels? There are scads of them around here. We look them up on our phones. Jack makes a bunch of calls, I make one. All are sold out. No surprise, really. Everyone else heading anywhere along the NEC tonight is stranded. Jack checks hotels a little farther away. Sold out. Slightly more expensive? Sold out.
At this point, it looks like we're going to spend a few hundred dollars tonight no matter where we end up resting our heads.
So I call Gordon, who drives for A1 Limousines out of Princeton. Terry answers and I tell her what's going on. "I don't believe it! Again?!?" She puts Gordon on. I ask him how much A1 charges compared to a taxi. He gives me A1's price and says that taxis might be a little more. I thank him and we go upstairs to hail a cab.
The driver lets us in then pulls over on the next block. "I have to check the price," he says. He makes a call, turns to us and says, "$300."
"No, thanks, we can't do that." We start to open the doors. He tries to bargain us down to $230, but we politely decline. The wind and rain kick up again as we walk back to the station.
What now? I call Gordon again to get A1's number. Jack calls. "Sold out," he says. He goes back to checking hotels. Now they're getting more expensive, nearing $200 for the night.
So we hatch a plan and head back to the taxi queue. "Can you get us to Trenton for $200?" we ask a driver. He says he can and lets us in. "But you pay the tolls." No problem. He's not sure what exit to take, nor how to get to the station, so I promise to guide him.
Jack is texting Brycchan, writing that dinners with him are getting very expensive indeed. "Tell him that if our plane is delayed out of New Mexico I'm holding him responsible," I say.
I guide the driver from exit 8A in Cranbury, through Plainsboro's back roads, to Route 1. For the second time in three days I'm pointing out the Trenton mansions. The driver peers through the foggy windshield to look. I give him easier directions back to New York City. I'm sending him down 29 to I-195. "It'll take longer but it's direct."
Jack pulls out his credit card and swipes it on the panel in front of us in the back seat. Declined. That's really weird. We have about $200 on the card right now. Maybe it got damaged. I swipe mine, the same account, and it's declined. I use my ATM card instead, and that goes through. If someone has nicked our card number it will be the second time in 7 months, and we're about to travel again. We'll call when we get home.
It's nearly 1 a.m. when we pull into our driveway. Two of our recycling buckets, which normally stay on the side of the garage, have blown halfway down the driveway. A downed branch rests on the hydrangea bush. A third bucket has rolled next to the neighbor's fence. Our township-issued trash can's hinged lid has blown open and the can has rolled out of position. As I close the lid I peer in to see several inches of standing water sloshing around.
Jack is on the phone with our credit card company. I hear him say "Paris Commune." Turns out the restaurant ran our card for our bill and for someone else's, putting two charges back-to-back for nearly the same amount. The card company held the card until we could verify which, if any, of the charges was ours. Boy, if they'd run Brycchan's charge through to our card I'd never have let him hear the end of it. But it wasn't his.
I unpack the day's haul, gobble a handful of dried strawberries, throw my wet backpack, wet coat, wet jeans, and a load of laundry into the washing machine, change the clocks to an hour ahead, and fall into bed at 3 a.m.
*****
Through all of this, Jack and I remained calm. For Jack, it's just in his personality not to freak out. For me, well, I see it this way: None of this was nearly as stressful as one day at the Brain Factory.
*****
14 March:
We woke up to thunder and hail. The New York Times is running a story on the storm.
Those of you who know me know how much I support public transportation. I use it every day to get to and from work. Jack, who doesn't drive, relies on it entirely when I'm not around with the car.
I think there's not enough public transportation in the United States and that it needs to be heavily subsidized. Public transportation is not a for-profit venture; it's a service for the public good. It takes cars off the roads, which reduces air pollution, greenhouse gases, traffic congestion, and highway wear-and-tear that we all pay for. It provides easy links within and beyond metropolitan areas. It's far more relaxing than driving.
And there's nothing like a large-scale mass transit foul-up to display holes in the system. Read on.
*****
Thursday, 11 March:
Brycchan is in town from London, spending the week in Philadelphia to do some research on Quakers before he heads out to the ASECS conference in New Mexico next week.
Jack is reading from his new book, the Lexicographer's Dilemma, at Headhouse Books on South Street. We meet Brycchan for dinner and go to the reading.
Jack and I arrive at Philadelphia's Market East train station with plenty of time to catch the 9:45 p.m. train. I have to be up at 6 a.m. for work the next morning, and I'm already running on fumes. We won't be home until 11 at the earliest. Tomorrow is going to be rough.
But someone has jumped in front of an Amtrak train halfway between where we are and Trenton. No trains are running on the Northeast Corridor line to Trenton, there are no replacement shuttles, and there's no word of when trains will be back in service. The RiverLINE, from Camden to Trenton, doesn't run this late at night. The West Trenton line, which ends up in Ewing, a good 20 minutes away from Trenton, takes an hour and a half and doesn't have another train coming through until an hour from now.
We need to get home. We have a cat on meds and I need as much sleep as I can get. The thought of calling my parents in their apartment in Center City flickers through my mind, but it's late and I don't want to rely on them. We'll get home somehow. I go to an ATM and pull a chunk of cash out of my savings account, the account where I've been squirreling away money for a few months in order to pay for some much-needed home maintenance. I have a feeling we'll be hailing a cab.
We walk across the street to the Greyhound station. They have no Trenton-bound buses. The New Jersey Transit bus ticket window is closed.
Outside is a line of taxis. The first driver we ask is willing to take us to the Trenton station. There's not much traffic once we pass the post-basketball game crowd. I chat with the driver to keep myself awake. We make good time on I-95.
In Trenton I point out the five renovated mansions on Greenwood Avenue. The driver looks at the one on the left and says, "It needs a porch on the second floor. With a railing." That seals it. Big tip.
We're out $140 when all is said and done, but at least we're home, and at a decent hour. I send an email to the NJ Sierra Club's listserv detailing our adventure. It's relevant because we've been talking a lot about public transit lately, what with NJ Transit's planned 40% fare increase public hearings fast approaching. DY writes from Essex County that for $140 he'd have driven down to get us. Thanks, D. A few more "Next time call us" replies come in.
*****
Saturday, 13 March:
After chairing an abbreviated Sierra Club Conservation Committee meeting at our headquarters in Trenton, I drive with Jack from there to the train station. The wind is whipping rain in all directions but we're heading to New York City anyway.
The plan is to meet up with Brycchan again for dinner. Nora and Michael will meet us then. Kevin and Rebecca are on their way home from Albany. They plan to meet us earlier, in the Village, to get coffee beans.
But first, Jack and I are going to S&P's Nuts and Candy, where we went last month with Gordon and Terry. I'm buying two pounds of dried strawberries this time, and for G&T two pounds of their favorite nut mix. When we climb out of the subway the store is right across the street. We hardly notice the wind and rain.
I have to call Terry to verify which mix they want. There are a handful that could fit the description. "Aren't you soaked?" she asks?
"Nope."
"It's pouring here!" We figure out what she wants and I stuff the stash into my backpack.
We stop at a natural food store around the corner and then double back to the subway. I'm not even bothering to open my flimsy umbrella. My coat has a hood. Jack's umbrella is being beaten up, one spoke at a time. By the time we've climbed out of the subway at West 4th Street and walked to Porto Rico Importing Company, Jack's umbrella is halfway dead. We've seen umbrella carcasses all over the sidewalks.
I'm mostly finished picking out my pounds of beans, and the pound for Gordon and Terry, when Rebecca calls. "Where are you?" she asks. When I tell her, she says, "Don't move. We'll be there in five or ten minutes." So I go to the back, pull out my travel mug, and buy a cup of fresh-brewed coffee, which today just happens to be my favorite: organic French roast Sumatra.
Kevin and Rebecca arrive just as I've stuffed all the coffee and Jack's tea into my backpack. Everything is in plastic bags, which is a good thing, because my pack is definitely wet. I text Terry that I've procured her goods.
K&R work out what beans they need, and then we're once more into the breach. Jack's umbrella dies. Rebecca's umbrella dies. Kevin doesn't even have one. We see umbrellas in a souvenir shop and dive in.
We have a little over half a mile to walk to get to Turks and Frogs, the Mediterranean bar where we're meeting the rest of our group. By now there's no point in even pulling out my umbrella.
When we get to the bar I get a text from Terry: "You're great!" I text back, "No, I'm wet." Soaked.
We hang out for an hour or so, just enough time for me to mostly dry out, before we face the storm again to walk around the corner for dinner. The restaurant is called Paris Commune. We are informed that the bathroom downstairs has flooded. Over the course of dinner, nearly everyone in our group makes a pilgrimage around the corner to use another bathroom. By the time dinner is over the flood is cleared, and I, now mostly dry, have the privilege of using the in-house loo. It smells like a flood in the basement. When I come back upstairs we find out that the flood took out the restaurant's credit card line; they're running cards manually. Whatever.
The wind seems to have died down for now so I pull out my little, cheapo, floppy, leopard-skin patterned umbrella, which I hate, but it fits in my backpack well. Jack and I head towards the subway. A train comes within minutes, and it looks like we're going to just make the 9:57 train to Trenton.
But it's not running. Nothing on the Northeast Corridor is. Wind has downed power lines. There are signal problems. Trains are stalled along the line. Nothing has moved since 5 p.m.
OK. NJ Transit buses running as shuttles instead? Nope. Any regular NJ Transit bus routes? Nope. The announcement over the PA system implores riders to "seek alternate transportation." There's not even a hint of when trains will be running again. How about PATH to Newark? Nope. The line is under water somewhere near Hoboken. Call K&R in Jersey City? No way; we can't crash at their one-bedroom apartment. Brycchan is already staying there. I call R anyway to see if she got home OK, but I get voicemail.
How about hotels? There are scads of them around here. We look them up on our phones. Jack makes a bunch of calls, I make one. All are sold out. No surprise, really. Everyone else heading anywhere along the NEC tonight is stranded. Jack checks hotels a little farther away. Sold out. Slightly more expensive? Sold out.
At this point, it looks like we're going to spend a few hundred dollars tonight no matter where we end up resting our heads.
So I call Gordon, who drives for A1 Limousines out of Princeton. Terry answers and I tell her what's going on. "I don't believe it! Again?!?" She puts Gordon on. I ask him how much A1 charges compared to a taxi. He gives me A1's price and says that taxis might be a little more. I thank him and we go upstairs to hail a cab.
The driver lets us in then pulls over on the next block. "I have to check the price," he says. He makes a call, turns to us and says, "$300."
"No, thanks, we can't do that." We start to open the doors. He tries to bargain us down to $230, but we politely decline. The wind and rain kick up again as we walk back to the station.
What now? I call Gordon again to get A1's number. Jack calls. "Sold out," he says. He goes back to checking hotels. Now they're getting more expensive, nearing $200 for the night.
So we hatch a plan and head back to the taxi queue. "Can you get us to Trenton for $200?" we ask a driver. He says he can and lets us in. "But you pay the tolls." No problem. He's not sure what exit to take, nor how to get to the station, so I promise to guide him.
Jack is texting Brycchan, writing that dinners with him are getting very expensive indeed. "Tell him that if our plane is delayed out of New Mexico I'm holding him responsible," I say.
I guide the driver from exit 8A in Cranbury, through Plainsboro's back roads, to Route 1. For the second time in three days I'm pointing out the Trenton mansions. The driver peers through the foggy windshield to look. I give him easier directions back to New York City. I'm sending him down 29 to I-195. "It'll take longer but it's direct."
Jack pulls out his credit card and swipes it on the panel in front of us in the back seat. Declined. That's really weird. We have about $200 on the card right now. Maybe it got damaged. I swipe mine, the same account, and it's declined. I use my ATM card instead, and that goes through. If someone has nicked our card number it will be the second time in 7 months, and we're about to travel again. We'll call when we get home.
It's nearly 1 a.m. when we pull into our driveway. Two of our recycling buckets, which normally stay on the side of the garage, have blown halfway down the driveway. A downed branch rests on the hydrangea bush. A third bucket has rolled next to the neighbor's fence. Our township-issued trash can's hinged lid has blown open and the can has rolled out of position. As I close the lid I peer in to see several inches of standing water sloshing around.
Jack is on the phone with our credit card company. I hear him say "Paris Commune." Turns out the restaurant ran our card for our bill and for someone else's, putting two charges back-to-back for nearly the same amount. The card company held the card until we could verify which, if any, of the charges was ours. Boy, if they'd run Brycchan's charge through to our card I'd never have let him hear the end of it. But it wasn't his.
I unpack the day's haul, gobble a handful of dried strawberries, throw my wet backpack, wet coat, wet jeans, and a load of laundry into the washing machine, change the clocks to an hour ahead, and fall into bed at 3 a.m.
*****
Through all of this, Jack and I remained calm. For Jack, it's just in his personality not to freak out. For me, well, I see it this way: None of this was nearly as stressful as one day at the Brain Factory.
*****
14 March:
We woke up to thunder and hail. The New York Times is running a story on the storm.
Thursday, March 4, 2010
Hill Slug Ad Hoc, Saturday, 6 March
Sunny and above freezing. We'll take it. Now, if we could just remember how to ride a bike...
Meet at 9 am in the Hopewell YMCA parking lot on Main Street in Pennington. We'll go to Sergeantsville, about 42 miles round trip. Extra-milers can meet me at 8:30 a.m. on Princess Road where it intersects Franklin Corner Road.
We'll take it slow, so if you're thinking of pushing the pace, go elsewhere.
Meet at 9 am in the Hopewell YMCA parking lot on Main Street in Pennington. We'll go to Sergeantsville, about 42 miles round trip. Extra-milers can meet me at 8:30 a.m. on Princess Road where it intersects Franklin Corner Road.
We'll take it slow, so if you're thinking of pushing the pace, go elsewhere.
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