Cross-Bronx Purgatory
My daily commute to and from work is 33 miles, each way. It takes me anywhere between 40 minutes and 2 hours to travel one way. Interestingly, 29 of the 33 miles account for about 35 to 40 minutes on the road. That's right. The other 4 miles account for the rest - anywhere from 5 minutes to a whole hour-and-a-half of riding. And those 4 miles span that stretch between the Amsterdam Ave Exit and the Westchester Ave Exit on the legendary Cross-Bronx Expressway.
Running east-west, it is the only highway that runs through the heart of the Bronx. This is true in both the literal and figurative sense. Aside from bisecting the beleaguered borough, Robert Moses, its chief architect, in the 1950s and 1960s uprooted entire neighborhoods that defined Bronx culture (for more on on Robert Moses and the history of the Cross-Bronx, read The Power Broker: The Rise and Fall of New York, one of my favorite books ever).
Those four miles are a pure nightmare. Wes Craven or Sam Raimi, contact me if you want to brainstorm about a Cross-Bronx horror flick. I've got some great ideas. Traffic on the Cross-Bronx is only seldom caused by stalled cars or accidents. The highway is very steep at some sections. It was paved under train tracks and wide boulevards and over rivers and valleys. The lanes are narrow and there are hardly any shoulders. Because it runs east-west, the sun glares right at motorists at key times during the day. You can go blind having to readjust between the pitch darkness of the underpasses and the shimmering brightness on either side.
But the worst are the trucks. The Cross-Bronx, part of Interstate 95, is strategically situated in such a way that it connects New England to the rest of the United States. Trucks traveling to and from New England would literally have to venture into the Appalachians in order to avoid the Cross-Bronx Expressway. And so the thoroughfare seems to attract truckers from all over. Unseasoned truck drivers fail to downshift or upshift when necessary to maintain speed. Moreover, they stay in the fast lane, even though trucks and buses are prohibited. The result: a parking lot.
And when my little car gets wedged between a semi carrying ten silver Porsche Carreras from Connecticut to Nebraska and a wide WM truck carrying biohazardous waste from West Virginia to Rhode Island, I just want them to let me get to my little home in Riverdale. People often say, "well, at least you're reverse-commuting." On the Cross-Bronx Expressway, there is no such thing as reverse-commuting. Heck, sometimes, there's no such thing as commuting. There's just parking. There are other alternatives, but they usually involve going through Bronx streets, which may be just as stressful during rush hour.
On the upside, I get through huge segments of audiobooks on the Cross-Bronx. I also feel sometimes like I'm driving through history, trying to imagine how the landscape might have looked like before Robert Moses came and ruined everything. And, sometimes, from within the confines of my air-conditioned Prius, I shake my fist at him, partly blaming him for the fall of New York, partly for this morning's traffic. That's my form of social protest.
Running east-west, it is the only highway that runs through the heart of the Bronx. This is true in both the literal and figurative sense. Aside from bisecting the beleaguered borough, Robert Moses, its chief architect, in the 1950s and 1960s uprooted entire neighborhoods that defined Bronx culture (for more on on Robert Moses and the history of the Cross-Bronx, read The Power Broker: The Rise and Fall of New York, one of my favorite books ever).
Those four miles are a pure nightmare. Wes Craven or Sam Raimi, contact me if you want to brainstorm about a Cross-Bronx horror flick. I've got some great ideas. Traffic on the Cross-Bronx is only seldom caused by stalled cars or accidents. The highway is very steep at some sections. It was paved under train tracks and wide boulevards and over rivers and valleys. The lanes are narrow and there are hardly any shoulders. Because it runs east-west, the sun glares right at motorists at key times during the day. You can go blind having to readjust between the pitch darkness of the underpasses and the shimmering brightness on either side.
But the worst are the trucks. The Cross-Bronx, part of Interstate 95, is strategically situated in such a way that it connects New England to the rest of the United States. Trucks traveling to and from New England would literally have to venture into the Appalachians in order to avoid the Cross-Bronx Expressway. And so the thoroughfare seems to attract truckers from all over. Unseasoned truck drivers fail to downshift or upshift when necessary to maintain speed. Moreover, they stay in the fast lane, even though trucks and buses are prohibited. The result: a parking lot.
And when my little car gets wedged between a semi carrying ten silver Porsche Carreras from Connecticut to Nebraska and a wide WM truck carrying biohazardous waste from West Virginia to Rhode Island, I just want them to let me get to my little home in Riverdale. People often say, "well, at least you're reverse-commuting." On the Cross-Bronx Expressway, there is no such thing as reverse-commuting. Heck, sometimes, there's no such thing as commuting. There's just parking. There are other alternatives, but they usually involve going through Bronx streets, which may be just as stressful during rush hour.
On the upside, I get through huge segments of audiobooks on the Cross-Bronx. I also feel sometimes like I'm driving through history, trying to imagine how the landscape might have looked like before Robert Moses came and ruined everything. And, sometimes, from within the confines of my air-conditioned Prius, I shake my fist at him, partly blaming him for the fall of New York, partly for this morning's traffic. That's my form of social protest.