Lets Talk About Your Commute

Gather round folks, its time to harp on traffic…yes again.

Have you noticed anything about the commute in this town?  If you ride your bike every day you might not have, but if you take the bus, or ride the T or drive you probably have noticed that its getting worse, a lot worse.  A new poll shows that its getting so bad a significant number of people have considered moving to escape the fresh hell of a Boston commute.

Commuters with longest commutes are being pushed to the brink. Among full-time workers who commute more than 45 minutes every morning, 71% report having been late for work recently. About half (51%) of those same workers have considered changing jobs to improve their commutes and 30% have considered leaving their area altogether.

“These impact numbers, especially among those with the longest commutes, should be a red flag for the business community in Massachusetts,” says Steve Koczela, President of The MassINC Polling Group, who conducted the poll. “The levels of frustration we are seeing in this poll suggest a significant portion of workers are reaching a breaking point when it comes to their commutes.”

People in cars…are pissed…all the time. They honk, they drive aggressively, they do dangerous and foolish things.   In fact if you read the poll above, folks are so fed up they are even willing to raise taxes!

• Voters also support specific polices to raise money, reduce congestion, and fight climate change, including:
• The Transportation Climate Initiative: 68% support Massachusetts joining with other states in a plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from transportation by charging a fee to gasoline importers.
• Regional ballots: 55% support letting cities and regions hold votes to raise local taxes to fund transportation projects.
• Regional rail: 80% support increasing the frequency of commuter rail trains running to and from Boston to every 15 to 30 minutes throughout the day, at night and on weekends.
• Off-peak toll discounts: 82% support giving drivers a discount if they drive outside of rush hour, to reduce congestion.

The studies done on this find that even taking just a few cars off the road can really improve things.  Want to know a really good way to take a couple cars off the road.  Ride your bike. For those that can, you will find that its much less stressful, healthy for you, healthy for the planet, and you will save a lot of money.  You will also be increasing the general well being of everyone else who uses the road with you.  But that is only a very small part of the solution.

The problem of commuting is not just about how many cars are on the road.

Its also a problem of equity.  The folks with the longest commutes are the most miserable so you have to ask yourself, why do they put up with it?  Why do they live so far from their job?  Why can’t they afford to live closer to their job?  Why are there no good jobs where they live?  Why is there no affordable housing close to the good jobs?  Why is there not enough public transit?  Why is there no bike infrastructure on which to feel safe riding a bike?  Why don’t they get paid enough to live close to where they work?

Maybe there is a lack of controls on the price of rent.  Maybe they are out of shape because they live in a food desert and can’t get healthy food.  Maybe they don’t have enough public places for leisure and activity?  Maybe we have allowed the super rich to treat properties like investment portfolio instead of a place to live.  Maybe they are working two jobs and don’t have time to learn to bike to work.  Maybe we allow unregulated taxi services like Lyft and Uber to crowd our streets while abusing the people who work for them.  Maybe they have bad health insurance and are worried about getting hurt. Maybe they have kids and have no way to safely bike with them.  Maybe the level of crime in their area makes them reluctant to walk or ride a bike to work.

If we want to solve any of these problems we will have to solve all of these problems.  Living wages, environmental justice, ending the war on drugs, getting racist cops out of the police force, medicare for all, raising taxes on the rich, ending subsides for giant profitable corporations, investing in our infrastructure, building affordable housing, all of these are required to solve the traffic problem.  As a bonus doing all of this will also solve a lot of other problems as well.

With the specter of catastrophic climate change looming closer and closer, and with the waters around Boston rising higher and higher, its far past the time when small measures will solve our problems.   We need bold and intersectional answers to our problems.

So if someone asks you why traffic is so bad, don’t just say “because people are not riding their bike” 

Tell them its because we give tax breaks to Amazon instead of building affordable housing.  Tell them its because we subsidize oil and natural gas instead of bicycles and public transit.  Tell them its because we don’t have a living minimum wage.  Tell them we don’t tax the rich enough.  Tell them its because we don’t support unions enough.  Tell them that we allow racism to infect our justice system.  Tell them its because we value everything based on how much money it can make, and not on how much it contributes to human thriving.

When they ask you how they can fix such huge problems, ask them if hey know their state rep, did they vote, have they called their senator, have they considered running for office, do they want to ride their bike to work with you.  Tell them that individual actions are great, but collective actions change society.

Because at the end of the day no one person or politician is going to save us.  Only a political movement based on human thriving, equity, and justice (FOR EVERYONE), is going to solve our problems.  That movement starts with us, getting involved, demanding change, and holding our leaders to account for their failure if they don’t do what we demand.

Let me get you started:

Contact info for all the legislators in MA

Contact information for the governor

Contact information for the mayor of Boston

Contact information for the city council

Give them a call, mention some of the issues in this article, tell them you want bold coordinated plans that deal with ALL of them at once.  Tell them you wont vote for them unless the solutions match the scope of our problems.  Then when it comes time to vote, remember who did a good job addressing your issues, and vote out everyone else.

It might seem like a lot of work, but just imagine how nice life will be when your morning commute is a great part of your day, instead of the worst.

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