Fuck Driving In New York
Fuck getting around in New York in general.
I moved to New York City in April of 2016, drunk on the idea of a new start and seeing snow on 34th Street and also just regular drunk.
Eight years later, I realized my suburban naysayers were right: It does smell like trash and urine and the people are mean!
This is, of course, a cruel reduction of a magical city. There is so much beauty and frightening reality in NYC and you’re confronted with it regularly. It’s a place you have to accept as it is to love it, which is appealing especially to those of us who have whatever that unique brand of trauma is that makes you yearn for that which rejects you.
But I’ve hit a wall eight years into my life here. I moved farther out of the city and deep into Brooklyn where I started driving. And driving in New York City is as unpleasant as you’d imagine.
I grew up in South Florida so I am not unaccustomed to car culture. But as any Angeleno could tell you, inching across a densely packed town can bring out the worst in you.
I get road rage. I get road rage because of other people’s selfishness. I get road rage because I’m weaving through double parked cars, jaywalkers who don’t even look one way let alone both ways when they emerge from between cars to jaywalk.
Bicyclists — are they cars, or are they pedestrians? They seem to think they’re both. There’s a guy who’s always dancing on a two lane avenue I take all the time. The cars alternate stopping and going as he gyrates and tiptoes between each lane, creating a 2-way stop situation.
On two occasions, I’ve had people actually drive into my car while looking straight at me because they wanted to cut into traffic but I didn’t give them space. Why didn’t I give them space? Because I was already miserable and late and they’d blown a stop sign to do it, and — just like everybody else — I’d been sitting in traffic for over an hour to go seven miles. That’s not natural. Which brings me to my point.
Fuck cars. Fuck driving. Fuck the fact that I need a car to live my life. Fuck people’s selfishness behind the wheel. Fuck the fact that pedestrians know you, as a driver, have no power over them and take advantage of that. Fuck people jaywalking without looking. Fuck not looking out for each other in any meaningful way. Fuck having to move to avoid rent increases. Fuck gentrification. Fuck the mayor. Fuck capitalism.
I didn’t plan on writing this today but, as I looked at what I need to accomplish in the next few hours, I realized I’m now actively avoiding driving even though I need to.
I don’t know how much of this is my own personal problem and how much of it is a city planning or infrastructure problem. I just know that, unfortunately for myself and many others, driving in a city where everyone feels like they have the right of way is really tough.
Walking and biking could be great options, but I have to haul gear for band practice and I’m just too injured to do that. If you have a family, if you live far away from your job — there are so many reasons that driving in New York seems illogical but just has to happen sometimes.
I imagine that a native New Yorker would give me a rousing, “Nobody cares!” if they read this post. I get it.
When I first moved here, I got giddy when I felt the city’s hostility toward outsiders. That’s part of what makes New York amazing. It’s this thing that you either get or you don’t get. A club that you’re in and everyone else wouldn’t make the cut for.
Tourists walk too slowly! Avoid Times Square forever! SoHo is full of Tiktok OOTD clones! New Yorkers will be like, “I know a place” and it’s the downstairs bathroom of the NoMad Ace Hotel!
For all these things and so many more, I love New York. I love it so much. I love the architecture and Prospect Park in May. The way the bark of the trees on Park Avenue turns black after it rains.
I love Grand Central’s ceiling and the corridor where you can whisper into the corner and hear it on the other side. I love the delis opening at 6 a.m. in the dark and the breathtaking beauty of Manhattan’s horizon from the other boroughs. I love the friends I’ve made here and how you have to love the struggle a little bit to stay.
I love how New York kicked me out so many times when I first visited, like an initiation. I got sick every time I visited. Horrible, life-altering bad luck seemed to plague me as I was doing my damndest to make getting to New York a reality. I love places that make you work for their love, but I wonder when the apathy it has for your existence outpaces the love it gives you back.
So I will get in my car today, wishing I didn’t have to contribute to driving culture but drive the nine miles to my practice space anyway. I’ll be grateful for that car and grateful I have a practice space. I will watch other cars blow red lights and change lanes without signaling.
I’ll arrive home safely but furious and cruise for a parking spot for 15 minutes. I will park at a hydrant because there aren’t enough parking spots in my neighborhood. I will get a ticket in the middle of the night.
I’ll resolve to use public transit. And I will wake up the next day, take the train, and there will be a delay and the local train will switch to express and I’ll miss my stop. And I’ll finally make it to my destination, miserable and sweaty.