Posts Tagged “commuting”

I set out last week from North Station, taking the commuter rail with legions of downtown office-workers headed home to the suburbs like Don Draper.  But wasn’t headed for scotch and family, I was taking my first car-free trip to the DeCordova museum for the opening of three new shows.

When I arrived at the museum an hour later, I found myself looking at where I started, fifty years ago.

That’s North Station in the ’40s, photographed by Jules Aarons, part of an exhibition at DeCordova called “In the Jewish Neighborhoods” consisting of pictures of Boston’s North and West ends as well as Paris and New York in the 1940s.  The green line trolley is just about the only thing recognizable in this picture now, even though the tracks have been sunk underground and North Station has been subsumed (literally) in the TD BankNorth Garden.

On the occasion of Fête Nationale, or Bastille Day, I’m going to write about a particularly European thing, the man bag.  Like most public transit commuters – or really most travelers of any kind – I’m always looking for the most efficient, most comfortable, most fashionable bag in which to carry all that which must be carried every day.  I’ve had briefcases, I’ve had messenger bags, I’ve had backpacks, I’ve even had a murse or two.  But I have yet to find the one perfect bag for all – or even most – occasions.  Last week I set out with bag maven A to find something large enough to hold a laptop but slim and light enough for daily commuting.

Even though I prefer not to carry a bag that screams “computer in here!” the computer is the item that has the limiting dimensions.  Letter sized papers are also a must but the computer remains a good bit bigger than A4.  The website told me I was looking at 325 x 227 x 24 millimeters, which I decided was close enough to 13 x 9 x 1 inches, so I had a place to start.

First stop, Levenger.  I’ve admired chairs and index cards at Levenger in the past, and I had spotted some interesting bag prospects on their website.  I checked out the Bomber Jacket Messenger and the Esparta Slim Messenger.  Both were well-made, attractive, compact and just big enough for the laptop, but each lacked what I have come to believe is a critical part of a shoulder bag.

There’s no top handle.  If you keep the shoulder strap long enough for opposite-shoulder use, there’s nothing to quickly grab the bag by.  This was what made me give up my last messenger bag.  Also, both Levenger bags had magnetic closures.  These are pretty but they dont’ really hold if you overstuff your bag, which let’s face it, we all do now and again.  And finally, I was a little concerned about the weather-worthiness of the foldover flap – maybe a little drafty at the corners.

I dropped in on a couple of shops, including Kenneth Cole (too pricey and too mod – hardly any handles or pockets at all) and Johnston & Murphy (too stodgy, too luggagey) but found nothing compelling.

Returning to Banana Republic as I often do, I found what turned out to be called the “Everyday nylon map bag” which was interestng not least for its name, but ultimately failed me on the top handle and the weird clasp.

Over at Tumi, creator of my last messenger bag and current backpack, I found that their designs have evolved a bit past what I’m willing to carry in most cases.  Their Tumi Tech line has gone oddly post-apocalyptic.  I haven’t totally ruled this number out yet, but it does have a bit of the toxic waste container aesthetic to it, don’t you think?  But it gets high marks for weatherproofiness and handles.

Ending the evening with an iFail at the Apple Store, we checked out their selection of laptop bags and found something pretty interesting from Knomo: the Smithfield Stirling North-South Messenger Bag, an attractive vertical format messenger bag fitted to the 15″ MacBook.

The grab handle is subtle but clearly present, and the inside is a ducky shade of green.  I’m a little concerned about the size (kinda large especially since I’m not shopping for a 15.4″ MacBook), weather resistance, and the sure-to-be-scratched-up-in-no-time glossy leather front, but this bag is clearly in the lead right now. I’m bullish on the vertical format, it seems easier to handle in crowded situations.  Super clean lines are a plus, and a good assortment of pockets on the inside too.

Perusing Knomo’s website, I saw another model of interest, the well-named Slim Bag for Laptops. I’m a little worried it won’t have enough room for the rest of the junk I carry (too few laptop cases take the power brick or even a power bar into account) or that it look too much like a laptop bag, but it has a certain class and definitely scores on compactness.  The full zip at the top will keep the weather out.  But I wonder if the quilting is just a little bit feminine?  I’ll have to try it on to be sure.

I’m not the first nor anywhere near the last man to have a crisis in handbags.  MEL over at Ishbadiddle searched high and low for his dream bag before stumbling on this little number at the MoMA store.  I’d have to see it in person to be sure, but it looks pretty sharp, if a little backpacky.

And so the search goes on.

Until the phone carriers and MBTA collude to spoil it, my daily subway commute is the only time that I’m completely unavailable to the outside world. No phone calls, no email, no social networks. At only three stops, the journey is too brief to really get into a novel or do serious work, so I’m happy when I find an abandoned newspaper on a seat, usually one of those free papers designed to be read in the span of a typical commute.

Why don’t I just take one of those papers from the box or the people handing them out? Well, that’s where it gets complicated. I don’t want to take a paper because I know I’m going to use it only ever so briefly and then I’ll feel responsible for either leaving it behind – arguably littering – or recycling it right away – which seems wasteful. Throwing it in the trash or using it in some art project don’t even make the list.

The free paper publishers know that litter is a big issue – they are banned for distributing on MBTA property and made a donation of hundreds of recycling bins (bags, really) to try and appease the transit people. So back to my eco-neurotic quandary: Is it littering to leave a newspaper on the subway so that others might read it, and does it make a difference if you originally picked up that paper or just found it on the seat?

If lots of people regularly left free papers on the seats, maybe some people would stop taking papers and the total amount of paper would go down. But if nobody ever took those papers off the train, there would be an awful lot of litter at the end of the day. Like a car that loses value when you drive it off the lot, a daily newspaper gets worthless fast.

I’m sure the law is clear: leaving stuff on the T, even nice clean stuff, even leaving it on the seat, is still littering. I’d also say that once you pick something up, you’re responsible for it, so leaving found stuff is littering again. But I still recoil at the waste of reading matter. Like many people (of the Book) I have a hard time throwing away or defacing books.

So here’s my wacky utopian proposal for the morning commute and reading time:

• If you were born on an even numbered day, you take papers on even numbered days, odd birthdays, odd paper days, and you leave those papers on the seat when you get off the train
• If its not your odd/even day, you pick up a left paper and are responsible for taking it off the train and recycling it
• After the main morning commute time, say 9:30am, alternate rules are off and any everybody is responsible for taking papers off the train

If everybody did this, we’d use only half as much paper for disposable free morning reading.  Fat chance of that.  The free paper people certainly don’t want to cut their circulation in half, and typical Americans aren’ t going to be interested in second-hand papers.

So until everybody switches to a more ecologically sound morning read, I will continue to be quietly grateful for minor littering, and will do my best to take my found paper with me on both odd and even days.

Via ever-alert procrastinator N comes this bit on Environmental Graffiti: America’s Most Pedestrianized Cities. Much to my shock, Boston is rated #1, with 13% of the population walking to work. I’m not sure what definition of city or metro area they used, but I’m pleasantly surprised. Maybe its because public transportation is generally so lousy, or maybe they counted all the students.

Having only recently chucked a car commute for a subway one, I now wonder if I should consider hoofing it to work. The benefits – and the drawbacks – are pretty evident. A quick jaunt to the MBTA website and google maps netted me some data upon which to geek:

A drive to work (above) is 2.9 miles and theoretically 11 minutes. A trip on the red line (below) is ten minutes, plus 14 minutes walk time to and from the station (and apparently no waiting time?) totals 24 minutes according to the MBTA.

Assuming that I walk the driving route of 2.9 miles, I’d guesstimate it would take me around 45 minutes, maybe up to an hour, approximately twice the T time, with some exercise and a saving of $3-4 a day depending on the type of T pass I buy. A close call in nice weather, a no brainer in the dead of winter or dog days of summer.

I normally wouldn’t bother with something like this, but the timing was just too good. As reported in the Boston Herald, a stretch of route 495 turned blood red yesterday, adding yet another hazard to daily gauntlet of Boston-area commuting. Like Marienhoff always used to say, “Blood will flow in streets like borscht!”

Plus, the cheap symbolism makes it easy to use as a lead-in for the corporate blog, and I never was much of a fan of Beaujolais Nouveau. (“Ah yes, but no more 1966. Lets splurge! Bring us some fresh wine! The freshest you’ve got – this year! No more of this old stuff.”)

So I’m leaving early (that means before sunset) today to get to Taste of the Nation, an excellent culinary charity event. I expect smooth sailing on the greentop.