Newton, a suburb for this city girl

Yes, this is me on my new Public bike. More about this in another post!

This is a post that has been a long time coming. I think I'll break it up and do an ongoing series about Newton, its villages and why it's a near perfect place to live for this city girl.

Back History: I was born and raised in NYC. My father did move to NJ in 1983 therefore making me a suburban dweller. However despite that, my mom still lived in Harlem/ Upper West Side and I stayed with her every other weekend and half of my vacations including the month of July. So while I can appreciate a good mall, I always felt like a New Yorker. Suburban living was never anything I longed for.

Also, even though I lived in Jersey, I didn't learn to drive like everyone else did junior year. Drivers Ed was the only class I cut the whole four years of High School b/c the teacher was handing out the drivers exam and I knew I didn't pass and didn't care. But I didn't feel like dealing with the humiliation of having him declare my less than passing grade as I knew he would. I lived mere blocks from two bus lines that went straight to NYC, the high school 2 miles away and the library as well as a short walk to a bus that took me to the mall. I was a latchkey kid so no one was ever around to give me a ride places, so I carried bus schedules in my pocket and walked everywhere a bus didn't go.

My dad and stepmother both worked in the city and took the bus, thus our one car stayed in the driveway until weekends for errands. My stepmother did not know how to drive. Errands were run all together.

I tell you this backstory b/c I think it might be unique. Perhaps not in the 80's. But certainly it would be now. I also think this way of living gave me the foundation to see transportation as multivariabled, one can get around many ways and I never relied on anyone to get where I needed to go.

The Here and Now:

So flash toward to now. I personally picked Newton as the place we would live when it was clear we were moving back to the Boston area. My first choice was Jamaica Plain a hip and cool neighborhood of Boston we lived in pre-kids. However marriage is a compromise and B felt strongly that he wanted a little more green space both private and public. So I knew nothing about Newton except it was a fairly well to do "city" with a train line and "great schools". In college I met a few very "cool" skaterboys from Newton and the town stuck in my head as an interesting place. I also knew it had a nice sized Jewish population and being from NYC that made me feel more comfortable as well. And with that knowledge I pretty much told B I would live no other place except JP or NYC and we bought our house.

It's been 5 years and a bit of a culture shock to start. For the first few years I felt I made a huge mistake and desperately wanted to move. I looked out my window that first summer and rarely saw a soul walking by. Everyone was busy, driving huge luxury SUV's and minivans and I felt out of place.

Cue biking. I started biking three years ago. It was like an epiphany. I had been walking the kids in a double stroller but they were getting too big for it. I saw an online article about xtracycle and saw a picture of one with two kid seats and immediately it was like -I need to do this.

The thing about Newton is that there are 13 villages here. A lot of village centers are about one - two miles from each other and I personally live in the middle of 5-6 of them all about 1-2 miles from my door. Walking was too slow, but I learned that it was the perfect biking distance. The train line runs about a mile from my house. I have my pick of two stops that are particularly easy to get to. One Sunday in March I needed to get into Boston to deal with my eyeglasses and I biked to the train in and back. It took me two hours door to door, which I thought was a reasonable amount of time. Sure it's 15 minutes in by car, but then I'd have circled around for parking, paid an arm and a leg for it and well this was my two hour kid free weekend time so I enjoyed every minute of it. I happen to think it could be incredibly easy to be car-free or car lite via bike here as an adult. ( y'all know my trials at family biking so I feel the same as a family but one needs the right bike set up to do so).

There are weeks that I circle in the same five mile radius getting stuff done. Being able to do it by bike only makes the journey enjoyable.

This coming sept, Tuber will enter elementary school and will take the bus to get there. This means I won't be responsible for getting him to and from school which saves me a lot of time in my day to run through my circle or take the train to work. Because of that increased time and need to only transport myself each day from the hours of 8:15-3:30 (and 12:45 on the three half days for kindergarten) I hereby take my oath to not use my car during those times for trips in Newton or to Boston. I'm not going to be extreme about it, and I may wimp out in nasty and extreme weather, but that's pretty much my goal. All this year I've been a wimp and driven Tuber over the hill to preschool ( often times to use the folding bike to bike my circle before driving him home) and each day I did, I kept the mantra- next year I won't need this box of steel really at all!

I'm excited for September. I'm excited to write about village to village riding in more detail. I'm excited to prove how perfect Newton is for riding. To share how riding made this city girl fall in love with a suburb.