Dear Allston

Written by Boston Biker on Oct 26

Dear Allston,

I didn’t want to have to do this over the internet, but I am breaking up with you. This shouldn’t come as a surprise as we have been fighting a lot lately, and frankly I just can’t take this anymore. I know people say “it’s not you, it’s me” well this time its totally you.

Seriously I don’t know how you manage to stay in relationships with anyone. Judging by the way you act I think you need to take a break from seeing people and get yourself a good city planner. I know it might seem mean, but in order to help you improve yourself I have included this list of things that drove me away from you. You seem like a nice little section of town, and perhaps with a little bit of self reflection and a lot of road work you could love again.

Your Citizens

Seriously is every single person that lives or travels within your confines a total moron? Why is it that the students that call you home are smart enough to go to Harvard, but can’t figure out how to cross the damn street? Does EVERY motorist have to drive in the bike lane, or make turns with no signals, and whats with all the moms dropping kids off at school and nearly dooring me every damn day. Who instructed your delivery truck drivers that the best possible way for them to drop off goods is by first cutting me off while honking at me and then stopping directly in front of me in the bike lane to scream profanity (PS. Biga Breads tell your drivers not to be such assholes while they are driving your vehicles, bad PR).

Lastly, what have you done to the other bikers who use your roads? They all seem to be rude inconsiderate helmet-less dunces. If they aren’t dressed all in black while riding around at night with no lights, they are busy pretending their commute home is a time trial and pedestrians and red lights are just a waste of time.

In short I think you might want to call the CDC because it seems everyone within your confines has contracted terminal stupid.

The Roads

Baby I thought you were making progress, really I did. You repaved, you bike laned, you sharrowed, but it just wasn’t enough. Your bike lanes are great, and the sharrows do seem to help a little, but its like trying to put a forest fire out with a squirt gun. The sheer torrent of morons has overwhelmed them. Perhaps if you went and repaved the rest of North Harvard, got a whole lot more bike lanes, did something about those giant train track covered intersections on Comm. Ave. and I don’t know…tased anyone who j-walked or parked in the bike lane, well maybe then we could get back together.

Last Straw

Just so you don’t think I am being cruel let me illustrate what happened just today on my way to work.

After fighting for my tiny patch of road by slowly edging my way out of the door zone (which incidentally was full of people who for some reason seem to enjoy sitting in their car with the door all the way open), I was honked at for having the audacity to only follow the car in front of my by 5 feet instead of 1. I guess when you’re in a hurry you only look at the person in front of you and not the other multitude of cars backed up in traffic.

A couple MBTA buses took a swing at me, I know their tricks, but they had backup today. Several yellow school buses also got into the fray moving into the bike lane for no apparent reason on several occasions.

Delivery trucks were set up every 100 feet parked on the right hand side of the road (or in some cases right out in the middle of the lane) the drivers unloading box and box walking right into the street with nary a glance to see if they are about to be run over.

Mothers and fathers sprung forth from their vehicles in a symphony of dooring to drop off their children, college kids walked out from between parked cars at random, and I even had one guy get out of his car in the middle of the street and run across traffic so that his driver wouldn’t have to turn to let him out. Luckily he managed to not be run over by three lanes of moving traffic and myself. Plus I had the added bonus of nearly getting plowed into by a semi-truck who failed to yield to oncoming traffic (me).

All this and some douche bag on a folding bike cut me off after he ran a stop sign and then had the marbles to say “your welcome” as he ‘allowed’ me to pass him on the left. Really buddy, what exactly should I be so thankful for? That I was able to stop in time so that when you ran that stop sign and cut me off we didn’t run into each other? Here is a little pro-tip, only run out in front of fast moving objects if you are going to go faster than they are. Next time it might be a car you cut off, and I am pretty sure they don’t swerve over to one side to avoid you.

In short Allston, you’re a hot mess. I never had this kind of trouble when I was with Dorchester, or Somerville, or even Down Town (and DT is wild). I think I might be forced to start dating the BU Bridge area just to avoid you…yea its gotten weird between us.

Tags: Allston, rant, seriously how does allston function, shit show
Posted in bostonbiker | 28 Comments »