Epic Commuting

Since starting a new job my morning commute consists of a four-mile bike ride uphill to Overbrook Train Station, where the R5 carries me onward to work at Radnor. That is unless it rains, in which case I take West Chester Pike to the Blue Route.

Rarely does a commute pass without a sense of urgency, by which I mean I'm usually running late. Over time that urgency has combined with my imagination to produce some names for various spots in the commute. The names aspire to the Homeric, and I enjoy them too much not to share them.

On the car route, just into Upper Darby one meets the Three Sisters. The Sisters are three traffic lights spaced very close together with seemingly no coordination as to when they turn red and seemingly no cross traffic ever on the streets they guard. The result is that if one doesn't get you, the other will, and if she doesn't the last will turn her Cyclopean glare on you.

At a similar point in the bike commute one meets Girard: Graveyard of the Proud. The foolhardy biker might meet the gradual incline that starts at Girard with a full head of steam. Were he to do so, the steeper incline he meets after turning onto Lancaster Avenue would surely mean his demise. To escape Girard intact requires humility.

Happy is the traveler who turns onto Lancaster Avenue and is passed by a SEPTA train going east before he reaches 59th Street. This train is called The Harbinger of You're-Probably-Okay. He can relax a bit, for his predecessors have all made it to the Elysian bliss of the 8:26 train.

The very last stretch, the length of 63rd Street between Lancaster and City Avenue, has a dual nature. On good days it is simply the Victory Ramp; on bad days the sudden short incline leading to the railroad bridge is the Tongue of Taunting.


Names like these give me a little extra bump when I am in a hurry in the morning. In the case of the bike ride that's a good thing because it can translate to faster riding. In the car, however, nothing I do makes lights greener or other drivers faster; I feel far more like Sisyphus than Odysseus.

Getting Around

One of the most general critiques of technologies is that as we come to rely on them, we become more helpless when they fail or we find oursleves without them.

One of the easiest examples is the technology of GPS. With a GPS one is largely spared the burden of ever being lost. The tradeoff is that if one is not careful, one will also lose the joy of knowing one's way around.

I had a stark experience of this downside recently. I was at the doctor's office and I was going next to a third-party facility for routine bloodwork.

Not remembering exactly how far down the road the facility was, I asked the check-out woman for directions. This woman was probably in her sixties and so she has certainly had to get around for many years before GPS was widely available. Nevertheless, she first appeared flustered, then asked if I had a GPS I could enter an address into. I did, so she handed me a flyer with the address circled on it and sent me on my way.

The thing was as I discovered momentarily the place was on the same street a mere two traffic lights farther down. To have entered the address into my phone and waited for it to tell me to go a thousand feet before turning left would have been quite the opposite of thinking.

But that's just the point. With GPS we have essentially outsourced the problem of navigation from our brains to our computers. That has obvious benefits, but the cost of not being able to distinguish simple cases from complex ones or of not building a mental map of our surroundings at all are significant. It is also apparent from this example that just as muscles atrophy from idleness, we can lose faculties we once possessed. I guarantee that twenty years ago that woman could have told me to go down the street two lights and turn left.

The implication is not that GPS is a bad thing that shouldn't be used. Rather, we should be critical in our use of it. I prefer to use it more like a compass, giving me an idea of a route before I set out on a trip and then going back to it if I stray or become uncertain. In the meantime I do my best to follow along with the route, to know where I am and where I am going. Additionally, if I am giving directions, along with just giving an address to be plugged into a computer, to those that will hear it I give an overview of the way.

On a recent trip to San Francisco I was quite gratified to know enough of my way around to be guiding other visitors and driving them around town.  I felt like I had more ownership of the place I was visiting and that I understood more what makes it tick. And on a recent trip to Washington D.C. after giving an address to a friend I was glad I called him back and told him the simple directions. As a result I had a stake in his journey and our shared experience started as soon as he left. I felt like we had acheived something special in this day and age.

In both locations I used my phone as a GPS quite frequently. But I feel I was much more its master than it mine. Let us likewise wield all of our tools.

A Day in Philadelphia for $20

Why is there a British flag hanging in Elfreth's Alley?
Let's call it...a sign of the glory of the First Amendment.

Yesterday I went with my friend Pat, my sister Samantha, and her boyfriend Jace to Philadelphia. Jace is from Maine and had never been here before. He is also studying to be a history teacher. So, we undertook to show him historic Philadelphia, on a budget. Our itinerary:

• 8:04: Purchase SEPTA "Independence" day pass for $10 each and catch the R5 into 30th St Station.
• 8:45: In West Philadelphia ("born and raised..."), catch the El to 2nd and Market St.
• 9:10: Tour Christ Church at 2nd and Arch, birthplace of the Episcopal church. See George Washington's pew, a 300-year-old chandelier, and a 600-year-old baptismal font, among other treasures. Stingily give only $1 of the suggested $3 adult donation.
• 9:30: Walk through Elfreth's Alley, one of the few preserved colonial streets left in the wake of demolition for Independence Mall and I-95. Price: free.
• 9:45: Walk past Benjamin Franklin's grave on the way to Independence Hall. Price: Free.
• 9:50: Get a fresh, fluffy, warm, mustard-drenched pretzel from a food truck. The pretzel is so good it "lives up to Avatar's hype." Price: $0.50
• 9:55: Reach Independence Hall looking for tour tickets, only to discover we must walk a block to the "Independence Visitor's Center" to pick up the tickets. The Center is immensely pointless, a fact made more bitter by the knowledge of the aforementioned demolition of Elfreth's Alley-like neighborhoods in its place. Grudgingly pick up free tickets for the 11:45 tour.
  
• 10:00: Stop in and see the Liberty Bell. Have the feeling that the history presented here is to real history as muzak is to music. Nevertheless, the bell is cool. Price: free.
• 10:15: Stop for another pretzel at another cart. Find the second every bit as delicious as the first. Price: another $0.50.
  
• 10:15 Walk to the Second Bank of the United States, and stumble upon an incredible exhibit of portraits of Founding Fathers and their contemporaries. Here is history intelligently and legitimately displayed, as the exhibit tries to explain these folks as products of a movement called the Enlightenment, grouped so as to leave room for visitors to make their own inferences and contextualization. See some really cool paintings. Price: free.
• 11:30: Return to Independence Hall for tour. Hear excellent tour guide involve the whole group, which included visitors from both coasts, the South, Canada, and France. Price: free.
• 12:30: Walk to Reading Terminal Market for lunch. Realize there are better times to go than Thanksgiving weekend at peak lunch time. Wait around 45 minutes for a cheesesteak at Spataro's, which proves pretty much worth it. Save money and unnecessary calories by bringing a water bottle from home. Price: $8.
• 2:15: Walk to City Hall. Explore the tallest masonry building in the world. Find the city's Christmas Village set up in wooden huts on the west side. Meet Germans selling roasted nuts. Find out from the merchant that his group came from Bavaria just for this market and will return two days after Christmas. Share Pat's roasted pecans, which are out of this world. Price: free to me, $4 to Pat.
• 3:30: Walk through Love Park with the intention of reaching the Franklin Institute.
  
• 4:00: Stop in to see the Comcast Center's video wall, and receive 3D glasses for their "Holiday Spectacular" show. Enjoy the beautiful screen, though it is merely a glorified screen saver. Discover exactly how empty Christmas becomes when stripped of its Christian context, as most spectacularly displayed by a children's chorus of "It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year" for the finale. Price: free.
  
• 4:25: Return to Love Park for photos of Sam and Jace under the iconic sign.
  
• 4:45: Take the El past the giant clothespin to 5th and South with the intention of dinner at Pietro's and an exploration of the street. Price: free.
• 5:15: Elect instead to return home for free lasagna from Mom's kitchen. Stop by Carpenter's Hall, site of the First Continental Congress. Price: free.
  

A wonderful day with a few surprises to boot. Total cost was $10 for SEPTA, $1 for the Christ Church donation, $1 for two pretzels, and $8 for lunch.

$20 for a day packed with history, culture, and delights for the senses in a world class city? Sounds like a great deal to me.