As a resident of suburbia, I'm used to getting around by car. However for the past three summer that I have been volunteering/interning at WPFW I have to love the Metro. One of the things I miss the most about London is the Underground. And while I have a driver's license I have never owned a car. All this means is that while the majority of my fellow upperclassmen have control over how they get around Fredericksburg I am at the mercy of the FRED bus system for better and worse.
Generally speaking I have a love/hate relationship with public transport systems. I love them when they work and when they're on time and get me where I need to go in a timely fashion. I hate them one when they fail to do any one of the above. This is why my love for the Underground is so odd. Most of the time I was in London it worked like a charm but on the other hand most weekends I was stranded in the semi-suburb where I was staying (though it's more complicated than that.) I also understand that my admiration of the metro is odd because most residents of DC are more likely to moan about it than embrace it. But for me, with only a few exceptions, the Metro has worked.
On the other hand FRED and I seem to have a mutual disdain for each other. We're like ex's who broke up amicably - we put with each other but only to a point. While I have seen parts of Fredericksburg that I wouldn't have seen otherwise I do wish sometimes that I could have just driven from Central Park back to my apartment without having to wait an hour for a bus. While all of the public transport systems I have ridden on have been dysfunctional* in one way or another, Fredericksburg's system is perhaps the most dysfunctional of all of them. But who knows, maybe Boston** will prove even more dysfunctional.
*Really this all breaks down to my love of things what are dysfunctional. I don't know love them all the time, but I do identify with inanimate but dysfunctional systems. It's why I love WMWC so much - it's incredibly dysfunctional but it does the job well enough that no one knows just how dysfunctional it is. The same can be said for all of the above examples. I just have a thing for dysfunction.
**Boston aka the place I'll probably end up going to law school, unless Loyola LA surprises me and actually says yes instead of no or waitlist. But we shall see.
5 comments:
No, you will love the Boston metro system, the "T." There's some quirks about it, especially on the Green line, but it is more charming than annoying. It's older and feels more worn than the DC metro, but I think it also has more character. Not as big as the Tube, but closer in spirit to that than to the DC metro.
Haha, you stole my blog post! The very day I saw you at the Fred stop, I had been planning my post. I'll be taking mine in a somewhat different direction, though.
What's worse than waiting for the bus is changing a habit to suit the Fred's habit of never being on time, only for the Fred to be on time next time I need to ride. Thus, I miss it and have to wait another thirty minutes for the next Fred bus to stop there.
The lovely thing, though, is that if you're not laden with too many things, it's possible to walk from Central Park to the school.
Ha!! I've never taken the Fred - it seriously sketches me out. But I have heard stories... not good stories.
@Media Tourist
The Fred isn't so bad and it keeps a fairly regular schedule on the weekend. It's far, far worse during the week and I'll just keep it at that. You just have to keep an on the time and make sure you've given yourself plenty of time to get to and from Central Park ;)
Yeah...the FRED bus is kind of sketch. The first time I rode it, the bus was an hour late. It gets you where you need to go, but on its own time, and in its own kind of freaky way.
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