To paraphrase a close friend of mine:
Boston is like a Grand Theft Auto map. There's a lot to do, but it never really feels all that spread out.
I moved to Boston almost three years ago from today. What I love most about this city is how accessible it is. Here are, roughly chronologically, the ways I've picked up to navigate here, and my reflections on city life.
Link to this section The Subway
By far the most obvious answer to "how do you get around?" is the subway. Despite distinctly remembering a CharlieCard shortage for around a month after I arrived in the city, I quickly started using the system to explore.
The subway gave me direct access to downtown, and somewhat efficient access to many other places around the city. But using it also feels kind of like "fast travel" in a video game: you hit a button somewhere, wait for the map to load in, and boom, you're somewhere else, bypassing all of the beautiful level design in between.
Link to this section Walking
When I first moved here (and didn't have many friends), I would sometimes pass the time by just stepping outside, pointing myself in a random direction, and walking. When I would get tired, I would start looking for a T stop or just turn around and head home.
Shortly after, I started challenging myself to walk places without looking at any map: learning street names, orienting myself based on the skyscrapers and cranes overhead, and taking plenty of wrong turns in the process.
I love the chaotic street network of Boston, and how it always gives the sense that there's more to explore.
Walking puts me on the same scale as the world around me. I can look into any storefront, stop to peek down side streets, or take in the scenery around me. To this day I'll still happily walk impractical distances from time to time for no reason other than to take in my surroundings.
Link to this section The Bus
It took me about a year before I started taking MBTA buses. Many friends I've talked to share the same experience. I'm not sure if it's because the bus network is harder to understand, buses are the more "looked down upon" form of transit, or if those who are new to city life, like my past self, are just less aware of the utility of local bus routes.
I've found the social dynamics on buses to be quite different to the subway. You'll see tons of people piling into the back doors on the Green Line to avoid paying the fare, but you almost never see that on buses. On the bus, there's a much stronger sense of "we're all in this together."
Buses also let me expand my radius of places I can explore. A few of my friends live in places vaguely accessible by infrequent bus routes, and while we'll usually opt for the more practical option of meeting at a subway line terminus, it's fun to occasionally take a long, winding transit journey.
Link to this section Commuter Rail
While the most expensive transit mode on this list, the commuter rail is hugely useful both for going beyond the confines of the city and quickly getting to and from downtown (provided you time it right). Honestly, it's one of the modes I wish I took advantage of more.
Also: the $10 weekend passes are an insanely good deal. Use them.
Link to this section BlueBikes
I didn't start biking in the city until recently, but I immediately fell in love with it. Biking immediately felt like the "just right" scale: when riding, you can see every detail of every street, you have full autonomy to stop and explore and detour to your heart's content, but you also get places fast.
When I was young, I used to watch those Casey Neistat vlogs where he lane-splits through NYC traffic on a skateboard, and I always wished I could experience a feeling like that. Biking gives me that excitement: navigating complex situations at high speed, finding miniscule ways to shave time off of trips, and playing my small part in the chaotic yet coordinated motion of traffic.
I expected biking in Boston to be scary, mostly because people tend to make it out to be. But coming from narrow, rural, two-lane roads with large trucks whizzing by at highway speeds, the city feels like a cakewalk by comparison. Sure, you're navigating way more interactions with cars than you would be otherwise, but you don't get nearly the speed differentials of somewhere more rural.
That said, if you take anything away from this post, wear a helmet. One of my most "I can't believe I didn't buy this sooner" purchases was a nice folding helmet that fits in my backpack, so I'm ready to ride safely whenever.
Link to this section Cars
My girlfriend and I are looking to buy a car soon. While I'm excited to have easier access to places beyond the city, I'm simultaneously nervous that the convenience of car trips will make me lose out on the connection to the city that life without a car has allowed me to build over the past three years.
To end on an anecdote: Once, after a robotics competition in rural Utah, a close friend of mine picked me up to drive me to her home in New Mexico. Sitting on the center console was a notebook on which she had written the numbers: 70, 191, 491, 160, 84 -- the highway numbers we followed on our drive back.
I asked about the notebook, and she said it she was trying to use Google Maps less since she felt it made her less connected to the areas she drove through: instead of looking out the window to understand and be present in the places you drive through, it encourages you to just follow the arrows, ignoring the world around you.
Whenever I navigate a place by memory or intuition, be that the chaotic streets of Boston, the sprawling MBTA bus network, the back roads of small towns in Maine, or the Albuquerque airport I hadn't been through in a year, I feel, in a way, welcomed by the communities I pass through. I feel nostalgic for the times I passed through those same places before. I feel excited to explore, knowing that wrong turns can be less of an annoyance, more of an adventure. I feel grounded, able to anchor my experiences to the world happening around me as I traverse through it. Above all, I feel content, no longer stressed by the arrow on my phone screen, just present in the here and now.