March 2, 1999   As most folks are aware from my health status updates, I've been spending the last month getting radiation treatments in Boston and staying at my grandmother's in Arlington.  With only two more treatments to go, I am realizing that as much as I'm looking forward to being home and having no more treatment, I have enjoyed being out here for several reasons.  Spending time with my grandmother is at the top of the list and I feel lucky to have had this month with her.  I've also enjoyed being in and around Boston, which is something I haven't done much of in many years. 

Though I've lived in Western Mass for nearly fifteen years now, the Boston area still feels like home to me in certain ways, since I grew up here.  Since Eastern Mass and Western Mass might as well be on different planets for all the interaction they have, there are things that I miss things about Boston that we just don't have in Western Mass.  Sure there's the obvious stuff like the architecture, the rich sense of colonial period history and the Charles River.  But I really don't miss that stuff all that much.  I miss the more tangible things that separate Eastern Mass from Western Mass culturally.   

So what does separate the Eastern half of the state from the Western half, besides the Quabbin Reservoir and Sturbridge Village?  Besides the fact that Western Mass has no Au Bon Pains (which only bolsters the Eastern Mass attitude that Western Mass never evolved much past the cavepeople), Bostonians also talk really funny, drive like maniacs and are convinced that Boston is literally the Hub of the universe.  They even call it the Hub without any sense of irony.   Though I never totally lost my Boston accent when I moved West, I did learn to pronounce the letter R on occassion.  And though I can still drive like a maniac on Route 9 between Northampton and Amherst it's just not the same as driving in downtown Boston.   

My route from Arlington to the Longwood hospital area in Boston passes through some of the most challenging driving in the world.  This includes both figuring out how to get from one place to another and also getting there in one piece.  Since I'm doing it every day, the rules of conduct are fresh in my mind so I thought I would pass them on to everyone, just in case you ever find yourself in the unhappy position of having to drive in Boston. 

First of all, there are three basic rules to Boston driving.  In order of priority, they are: 
1) Get to your destination as fast as the laws of physics will allow. 
2) Try not to kill or maim yourself on the way.
And providing it doesn't interfere in any way with the first two rules:
3) Try not to kill or maim anyone else on the way. 

In an effort to slow down the maniacs that inhabit Boston streets, the DPW in both Boston and Cambridge have apparently adopted a strategy of either posting no directional signs at all, or posting signs that are an outright lie.  There are also probably more one way streets here than anywhere else in the world, and they all have one thing in common in that it is impossible to get to the street you want to be on from the street you are currently driving on.  Rather than slow down the drivers, however, these strategies have apparently only succeeded in making them very angry so that they drive even faster. 

A lot of people talk about New York City drivers as being the worst, and there's certainly an argument to be made for that.  However, I think Boston driving is even nuttier for several reasons.  While New Yorkers like to do things like drive on the sidewalk and honk a lot, Bostonians don't have time to waste on such antics.  In fact, you will rarely hear cars honking in Boston, because in the time it would have taken to honk the horn, the driver has already swerved into the oncoming lane of traffic, likely including several city buses and tractor trailors, and swerved back in front of the offending vehicle, clipping his/her front bumper in the process.  They then floor the gas and are out of sight before they can even see the obscene gestures being made at them. 

My biggest challenge in driving to the hospital each day has been when taking the Massachusetts Avenue (known formally as Mas Sav) route from Arlington, through Cambridge and into Boston.  This route takes me through Harvard and Central Squares in Cambridge, past MIT, over the Harvard Bridge, and up to Commonwealth Avenue (known formally as Com Mav), through Kenmore Square, past Fenway Park and finally into the Longwood Medical Area, which is something like a ten square block area with more sick people and doctors than probably anywhere else in the world.   

Mas Sav is roughly a four lane non-divided street with a light approximately every three feet.  The four lanes are rough because there are rarely, if ever, any lines delineating them.  Under ideal conditions, however, two cars should fit side by side going in either direction on the road.  However, these conditions almost never occur on Mas Sav.  Generally, there is either one lane on your side due to the truck or bus that has decided to drive smack down the middle of where the lane line would be if it were there, or three or four lanes due to the cabbies and yuppies in Honda Civics jockeying for position and driving approximately two inches from the car on their left or right.   The basic idea is to make your own lane depending on your purpose at the moment. 

When I first began driving this route, I forgot the most basic premise of Boston driving, which is that in order to get anywhere, you have to drive like a maniac also.  I foolishly thought I could tool along sedately down Mas Sav, staying quietly and unobtrusively in my lane and eventually reach my destination with great dignity and aplomb.  This delusion lasted approximately five minutes. 

First of all, there is no such thing as staying in your lane.  Either there is no real lane, the lane suddenly changes, the lane suddenly becomes left or right only when you want to go straight, there is a giant delivery truck parked in the middle of your lane, someone is turning left into miles of oncoming traffic in your lane,  or there is a giant truckeating pothole in your lane.   Any of the above conditions necessitates a swift swerving motion into another lane, which under ideal conditions is not already occupied, though often it is.   

Second of all, there is no such thing as remaining sedate.  Though you may have all the time in the world, the sixth time some jerk cuts you off to try and avoid a truckeating pothole, you will snap and become as crazed and insane as the rest of the people on the road.  Your eyes will gleam red and you will seek revenge on those that have wronged you.  If someone in front of you shows a shred of human decency by letting a poor old man cross in front of them, thus delaying your trip by 5 seconds, you will despise that person with every fiber of your being.   You will vow to make them pay.  You will, in short, become a raving lunatic whose greatest triumph is to barely miss a pothole, swerve around a delivery truck, cut off the guy who cut you off a few blocks back and beat him through the first one second of a red light (which, as everyone in Boston knows, is as good as a green). 

Further complicating the Boston driving experience is the plethora of DP's.  DP's are darting pedestrians.  DP's, like Boston drivers, have no time for traditional rules of the road, or things like crosswalks.  They are in a hurry, and life and limb is apparently just not that important to them.  It is easy to see why the third rule of Boston driving (about not killing or maiming other people) becomes almost an afterthought since these people are clearly asking for it.   You can be driving along at 35 miles an hour and a pregnant woman with a shopping cart will RUN out from between two cars approximately 10 feet in front of you.  Given a choice between hitting her or the shopping cart, most drivers will aim for her since she will do less damage to their car.  Amazingly, however, most of these people seem to make it to the center line relatively intact.   

Finally, a word about rotaries.  It is not possible to discuss Boston driving without extolling the virtues of the rotary.  For those of you from outside the area, a rotary is a Boston area traffic creation which takes a perfectly good intersection of several major roads and turns it into a sort of merry go round for cars.  There are big rotaries, like the infamous one at the foot of the Sagamore Bridge leading to Cape Cod, and little rotaries that seem to be just an excuse to put in a traffic island, some flowers and a sign proclaiming the rotary to be "John 'Biddy' McManus Square" or some such thing.   But no matter where you drive in or around the city, you are bound to run into a few. 

The problem with rotaries is that too many drivers don't understand them.  If everyone understood rotaries, they would be wonderful things.  Since many people don't they end up as driving nightmares.  The biggest rule in negotiating a rotary is NEVER BRAKE.  Never brake coming into or getting off the merry go round.  The idea is to kind of zen your way into the circular flow of traffic in a smooth, non-braking fashion.  This requires a kind of mind meld between you and the other drivers.  You just have to trust that there will be room enough for your car and in return for providing that room, your fellow drivers will get the courtesy of not having to stop for you because you foolishly hit the brakes!  Just go with the flow, and soon you'll be veering gently off the rotary onto your chosen road.  The true beauty of a rotary, is that if you miss your road, you can simply drive around the rotary again!  In fact, some rotaries have had tourists stuck in them for years. 

Nothing makes Boston drivers more livid than someone who brakes before entering a rotary.  Unfortunately, so many people in the Boston area are non-natives these days that rotary braking has become an epidemic.  Thus rotaries have become a huge nightmare of brake slamming.  All the fun has gone out of these clever little inventions.

A few additional suggestions for Boston driving:

1) On Storrow Drive and Soldiers Field Road, there are numerous short, steep little underpasses that allow through-drivers to keep going while people turning off the road stay above ground.  These underpasses go up and down so abruptly that they are nearly V shaped rather than the more traditional U shaped underpass.  Try taking these little babies at high speed - like at least 65 MPH.  Besides leaving your stomach in the bottom of the "V", you will hear a very compelling "WHOOSH" noise that is downright addicting.  Not recommended in 4x4's with roof racks, if you like the roof rack.

2) There is no place to park in Boston.  There are a few garages, but they are outrageously expensive.  However, if you have cancer, Dana Farber will let you park in their garage for a mere $4.00.  So if you need to park in Boston, you might find that getting cancer is your best bet.

3) On Mas Sav in Cambridge, a significant portion of the road is consumed by a bona-fide bike lane that has been painted and clearly marked down both sides of the street.  Since this bike lane takes up enough room to bring the road down to one lane in numerous places, most drivers have decided it is really a pass-on-the-right lane and use it as such.  All I can say is, God help anyone who actually attempts to ride a *bike* in this lane!

So that's all the advice I have for now.  If you do end up having to drive in Boston, I strongly suggest you bring along a native who knows where they are going (you say you have a map?  AHAHAHAHA!) or else you will end up in Portsmouth, New Hampshire before you can turn around on that one way street.  Good luck, and make sure your life insurance policies are up to date.

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