My last meeting before leaving Boston today was in Burlington, a suburb that is about half an hour outside of Boston proper. I wasn’t sure what the traffic would be like, as Google Maps estimated that my car ride would take anywhere from 30 minutes to a full 55 minutes to arrive from the Downtown Crossing area of Boston. So of course, I left an hour early only to arrive half an hour too early for my meeting.

As I sat in the lobby of my customer’s corporate headquarters waiting for my hosts to come pick me up, I marveled at the fact that I was sitting right in the middle of what I consider hell: in the boonies of suburbia, a corporate office park where every single person, whether against their own will or not, likely has to drive to work every single day. They have to drive and park their car in the lot outside, and then, when the work day is over, they have to go to their car, pull out of the lot, and leave.

People love to hate on Manhattan and say it’s too crowded, too busy, that traffic is a mess. But really, I don’t care about traffic here because I’m not driving in it. I’m taking the subway, then walking a few blocks to work. One of the best things, to me, about living in New York City is that pretty much no one (sane, anyway) drives to work. We can literally take the train or bus, then walk right into our office. No car to park. No parking lot. None of that. Walk right in. That just sounds so glorious to me.