Why We Choose Torture

For the past two weeks, I’ve spent the majority of my evening commute home stuck in traffic. Each day, the 20-minute drive down the stretch of the West Side Highway separating my house in the Bronx from midtown Manhattan turns into an hour-and-a-half of slow moving frustration.

I often wondered to myself, as I sat, not moving, running late for wherever I had to be, why so many others also chose to drive to work. Unlike Boston, New York’s public transportation system never stops running. Cheap, diverse, and affordable, I can travel the same distance in anywhere from 22 minutes to an hour for between $2 (subway) and $9 (train at rush hour). So, why do many commuters choose the more expensive option—driving—when parking costs $10 to $40 per day and the car is slower, especially if you spend both rush hours in traffic?

To me, the answer is reflected in the privacy that comes with a car. Nothing is private on the streets of New York City. I ‘ve joined a crowd of people on 42nd St. gawking at a man bound, handcuffed, and surrounded by cops in the middle of Times Square. I’ve heard countless cell phone conversations. I’ve witnessed arguments on the subway.

However, when I’m in my car, what I choose to do with my time is entirely up to me. While I have the freedom to roll down my window in Times Square and blast hip-hop music, I also have the freedom to roll them up and talk on my cell phone or listen to CDs of my own accord. The public is not listening.

Perhaps that’s why I’ve found myself spending so much of my summer in the car. When ACL surgery confined me to crutches, I was grateful every day that my right leg was unaffected so I could continue to drive. Even before the surgery, most of my visits to New York were spent driving around in my car. I’d pick up friends, and we’d drive for hours listening to CDs only we could appreciate. In the days before college, my car was the one space where I felt I had any real privacy. It was my home, where my parents couldn’t monitor who I was with or what I was doing. Being in my car is not confining but liberating.

Now I find myself repeating the same ritual. Pick up some friends, put on a CD, blast the music, discuss life over the music, and drive, and drive, and drive. The time I spend aimlessly driving is often the most relaxing part of my day. In my car, I am the one in control, and what happens in the car stays in the car. The result is an oasis of peace and order in the chaos that is life.

So, stuck in traffic in the brutal summer heat, I turned on the A/C and popped Disc 1 of the “RENT” soundtrack into my CD player. I picked up my cell phone, called my friends, and told them I’d be late. And then I turned up the music and was left in my own world for the duration of my commute.

Reva P. Minkoff ’08, a government concentrator in Pforzheimer House, is an editorial editor of The Harvard Crimson. She is such a “RENT” addict that she actually enjoys getting stuck in traffic so she can listen to it.