*Click on the map above for a closer look at where the PATH can take you!
As most of everyone knows, New York City transit workers walked the picket lines today, shutting down the world's largest transportation system.
Clearly, this blowed...
...FOR EVERYONE WHO DOESN'T TAKE THE PATH!!!!!!
Man, I heart the Port Authority Trans Hudson. I've been commuting on the PATH for 7 1/2 years now (ever since I was a wide- eyed freshman at NYU) and it's been nothing but reliable, clean, and devoid of smelly weirdos...although there was that one perverted weirdo flasher at the Newport station but, in all fairness, he didn't smell (please refer to my flasher post for further information). PATH, for those of you who don't know, is an underground system that connects New York and New Jersey.
Most Jersey Cityeans know and appreciate the PATH. However, most New Yorkers don't even know it exists and those who do are hesitant to venture out from their subway stations. Yes, it doesn't go everywhere in the city, but it's a nice change of pace if you want to go from, say, downtown to the Manhattan Mall on 34th Street. Why not just hop on the PATH?
So, today, PATH set it's strike contingency plan into action, running more trains and a special service between 33rd Street and the World Trade Center. Needless to say, the PATH stations in NYC were packed but extremely organized. Christopher Street, where I get off for work, is one of the smaller of the PATH stations and, in the morning, it was gridlocked with commuters exiting and entering the station. By the evening, the line to the station wound around the corner and up Hudson Street. However, it moved very smoothly and I was at the gym much sooner than I had expected. The crowds were unlike anything I've seen since the months following 9/11 when the WTC line of the PATH went down, making Christopher Street the most southerly stop in the line.
Anyway, today's strike and the fact that PATH emerged as a glowing hero (perhaps the LIRR or something did as well, but I don't care about Long Island) inspired me to write the following haiku.
A Haiku on the Occasion of the NYC Transit Strike or Why I Live in Jersey
Transit workers strike
The wheels of the city stop.
Oh, God bless the PATH!
3 comments:
thats one advantage of living outside of new york. as much of a people watching exercise (ergo, a daily study in human sociology) as public transportation is, there is just something else about driving down a smooth six lane highway in an audi a8. or rocketing through another highway in a flat-6, water cooled porsche 911 turbo. or...uhh...going to and from work in a luxury acura flipping through the presets or the few cd's you've managed to fit into your center console while sipping your hot green tea that is conveniently stored in your clean and personal cup holder as the wind blows into your car through the crevice created by your verticle sliding sunroof as you sit on your own leather seat that will always be set to the length of your legs and the height of your torso and the curve of your back and ass which, by the way, will be heated by your own personal seat warmer.
Flipping through CDs, drinking hot green tea AND text messaging people as you drive is bad business, my friend. I'd much rather stand sardine-style in a PATH car, praying to God that I don't fall into a guy and inadvertently grab his crotch like I did that one time.
...and when are you updating your blog anyway, Mr. Anonymous??? Or do you prefer Mr. Adventure?
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