Freelance Web Design & Development

clara raubertas . boston, ma . web design, ruby on rails, & wordpress

Posts Tagged ‘puzzles’

Getting There

Saturday, May 10th, 2008

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.