Clara Raubertas // Freelance Web Design, Web Development, and Web Consulting // Cambridge and Boston, Massachusetts clara raubertas design. development. consulting.

When I first moved to Boston I decided that before I move away I want to visit every train station on the T — my rules are that I have to get on or off the T at the station as well as explore the immediate surrounding area.

This week I made my first deliberate visit to a T stop I hadn’t been to, though in a somewhat anticlimactic way — Alewife is one of the closest T stops to my apartment, just in terms of distance, but I’d never taken the T there because there’s no bus from my house to there and biking to Harvard (which is close to the same distance) is usually a lot faster overall given the extra time I’d spend on the T.

On Friday, I decided to get to Harvard by biking to Alewife and taking the T from there. Alewife is the last stop on the red line and boasts a large parking garage where commuters from the northwest suburbs leave their cars while taking the train into the city; I was pleasantly surprised to note that they also have huge bike racks, which were totally full in the middle of the day. I took the T back around rush hour, and watched a lot of people get out to go to their cars and bikes — the people in cars probably live in places like Arlington or Lexington, but since Alewife is kind of in the middle of nowhere I’m curious where all those bikers come from.

One of the things I like most about living in the Boston area is how much easier it is to get from place to place than in other places I’ve lived. The city is pretty walkable in general, and most of the time, I can choose between five different methods of travel (walk, bike, drive, public transit, taxi), depending on the circumstances. Circumstances usually also dictate that one or more of those methods is totally stupid — the weather is too nasty to walk, or I’ve left my bike somewhere, or I’m planning on drinking, or the bus doesn’t go there, or a taxi is too expensive — but given the plethora of options there’s usually a good one that’s obvious. Sometimes, however, circumstances collaborate to make my transportation choices much more obscure…

I’m currently hanging out near the Davis T stop, which is also about a 20 minute walk from my house. In a couple hours I am heading to somewhere else which is also accessible by T. My house is a 10-minute bus ride from the T (but the bus only runs every half hour).

I’ve also left my bike near the Harvard T stop with an underinflated tire; Harvard is a short T ride from Davis and a 20 minute walk/10 minute bike ride/10 minute bus ride (but the bus only runs every half hour) from my house, and I have a bike pump at my house.

PROBLEM: What is the optimal way to get from point A to point B, given that I also want to drop some stuff off/get some stuff at my house before arriving at point B? You may use scratch paper.

Tomorrow early in the morning I’m coming back to Davis. I’d hoped to get may bike back home by then so I could bike here, but that’s seeming pretty unreasonable by now — so I’ll probably take the bus to Harvard (which is of course in the opposite direction from my destination), and then take the T to Davis. And that’s why the MBTA should start bus service from West Cambridge to Davis.

I understand (sort of — it’s still frustrating) when motorists think they have the exclusive right to the road (hint: legally, NO) and honk/yell at bicyclists going slower-than-car-speed in front of them. But when a public bus honks at me to get out of the way when I’m riding down Mass Ave, exercising my rights as vehicular traffic — well, I’d have hoped the MBTA would train their drivers more thoroughly in the rules of the road.