Bicyclists write about avoiding swerving cars and drivers’ curses. Those behind the wheel bemoan the lack of a timely bus alternative. And some wonder why their trips keep getting longer.
These commuters from across the area and around the country are sounding off on their cumbersome commutes on a new Web site with a name that summarizes their general sentiment: MyCommuteSucks.org.
The site, which started Friday in conjunction with national Bike to Work Day, is meant to be an outlet for people to vent, according to its organizers, but also to “redirect rage.”
“The main goal here is to raise the issue of transportation and how we pay for it,” said spokesman David Goldberg. “The truth is our commutes suck year in and year out and they don’t get any better.”
His group, Transportation for America, is a coalition of more than 300 housing, environmental, transportation and other organizations including AARP and the National Association of Realtors that formed to push Congress and President Barack Obama to use an upcoming transportation bill to create a “world-leading, sustainable transportation system.”
The bill, which will be debated on the Hill in coming weeks, lays out how billions of dollars of transportation funding would be spent over six years.
“We want ordinary Americans to have a say in it this time,” Goldberg said.
One person reported having a five-hour commute each day that includes taking a car, ferry and bike. “I am tired of it and wish the company I work for would get with it [and] let me work at home,” the post said. “I have no interaction with anyone at the job site except my boss who is perfectly happy to have me working at home. It’s the old farts at the top that won’t allow it.”
T4America is pushing for transit projects to be funded on par with highways, for communities to create streets usable for more than just cars and for the government to streamline project funding, Goldberg said.
The site features a petition to Congress in addition to the message board. Goldberg’s group plans to keep it going, he said, as long as people are making use of it.
SOUNDING OFF
Posts from Washington-area commuters on MyCommuteSucks.org and its Twitter account:
» “Routes 66 and 50 in northern Virginia are truly experiments in the limits of applied danger evasion techniques and containerized human rage.”
» “It’s bike to work day! Too bad it is raining and I have a 35 mi commute on highways.”
» “My commute isn’t bad, it’s 6 miles round trip on my bicycle. I live and work in DC, and most days I take 16th. The sucky part about it is that DC does rush hour lanes on 16th and Connecticut, my two main options, and the cars are thick, angry, and aggressive. Some days it is pretty sketchy … We need better infrastructure for those of us that choose not to drive. Cars got all the space that was available to ‘alleviate congestion’ and guess what, it’s still congested and sucks for everyone.”
» “My commute on Saturday mornings sucks. My orchestra used to rehearse at a church in downtown D.C., centrally located and close to a Metro station, but since the church needed to cut down on energy costs, and would no longer be open on Saturdays, we had to find a new location to keep our rehearsal time. That new location is a mile from the end of the orange line, and takes me 2-2.5 hours, depending on track work, to get there from my house. That’s right, up to a 5 hour commute for a 2 hour rehearsal.”
» “What’s the deal? I thought the economic downturn was going to cause a decrease in traffic. Why is my commute taking longer today than it did a year ago?”
» “I live outside of Washington, D.C. and take the Metro every day to work. Yesterday, the train I take heading into the city had another malfunction — this time, the doors just wouldn’t close. So, they offloaded the train and we all had to stay there for another 8 minutes until another train pulled up. During rush-hour, eight minutes of waiting is a lot of new people showing up, in addition to the folks who had just been kicked off the first train. … It’s so frustrating to go out of my way to get someplace early and then to be stranded on the platform and end up later than ever! Why are there always malfunctions in the middle of rush hour!?”
