Blocking the Box

Just a heads up: the big Mets post is on the way. I'm still doing research and some analysis, so hopefully it'll be thorough and robust.

Anyway, an incident on the road last night reminds me of another driving story. First let's recap yesterday's events:

I was intending to go home after work, but I hate taking public transportation between the East Side and the Heights, az I usually just go back to my apartment, change, and then drive to the East Side. I had a lot of dirty clothes (comes with the territory when you have to wear a suit to work every day), so I needed to make a quick cleaners run. Az I tossed my clothes into the car and drove up to Monarch on Ft. Washington and 187th Street. I dropped off all the jazz and then decided to drive south on Ft. Wash to 178th Street where I would make a left and head down to Amsterdam. I heard on the radio that there was police activity on the George Washington Bridge, so I figured there might be a little congestion getting past the entrance on 179th Street. Hah! "A little congestion!" Famous last words right? Well, there wouldn't have been nearly as much congestion if people weren't so stupid. The people in the cars driving westwards on 179th Street towards the bridge all assumed that since the traffic on the bridge was moving so slowly, they had the right of way over the cars driving north and south. So they mercilessly and selfishly blocked the box preventing cars from getting by. It would have been fine if it were just one jerk; it happens. But EVERY SINGLE CAR did the same thing. I literally waited at the same green light three times because zero cars could get by. And by the time the cars moved they had a green light again and the cars behind got caught in the box again. It's a vicious cycle; "oh, that guy is blocking the street because he wanted to get through the light before it changed, so I can do it too." It's like the traffic equivalent of ma'aras ayin. It was a freakin' disaster. On the bright side, since there were so few cars getting across the bridge in either direction there was almost no traffic on the Harlem River Drive southbound, az I actually ended up getting home earlier than I normally would. Funny how things work out sometimes.

Anyway, that reminded me of another fun-filled driving event in the Heights. Remember when they started using those extendo-accordion-type city buses? Well, a couple of years ago I was returning to the city from a wedding? An engagement party? No nafka mina there. Anyway, one of my passengers requested to be let off at the subway station on 181st Street and St. Nicholas Avenue. No problem. Az I get off the bridge and head east to St. Nick, and then make a left to go north. Because of traffic on 181st Street, it took literally 20 minutes to drive two blocks. I mean my passenger got out after like five, but I was still caught. And here was the problem: 181st is SUPPOSED to be a big street. There are SUPPOSED to be two lanes, but everyone decides that they can double park, az there's really only one lane open. This makes it very difficult for buses (which travel on 181st because, again, it's SUPPOSED to be a big street) to get by, and since they're stopping anyway to drop off/pick up new travelers anyway, things don't move very quickly over there. So there I am, sitting on St. Nick between 180th and 181st and when the light turns green none of the cars going north can get by because the buttocks of one of the extendo-accordion-type buses is blocking us. Okay, I can understand. It took two lights, but the bus finally moved. But just as our light was about to turn green, ANOTHER extendo-accordion-type bus did EXACTLY the same thing as the one in front of it. And nothing is more infuriating than two people doing the same dumb thing twice in a row. I mean don't get me wrong; I do stupid things all the time, but I never make the same mistake twice, and certainly not in rapid succession. Just because you are a bus, and you provide a valuable service to the citizens of the city, it does not mean that you are allowed to cause gridlock.

Okay, that's my driving rant of the day. Stay tuned for the big baseball post. I know you're all excited.