Unfortunately this isn’t true in all of greater Boston or even within the whole metro core. If you live in Watertown, Quincy, Waltham, Newton, etc etc you are going to have a very different experience
My main complaint with Boston is that even if you’re happy with just the walkable city center, it’s still tough commuting if you can’t walk/bike and you aren’t going to/from downtown Boston.
For example if someone in Somerville takes a job in Boston Landing they’re looking at a multiple seat commute over an hour most likely, to effectively travel maybe 5-10 miles. Driving still ends up winning.
Somerville to Boston landing is kind of a tough example, but I agree it’s annoying that there’s no way to go “sideways” on most public transport in Boston - everything goes to the center
This is true of even the most public-transit-centered cities like Tokyo and NYC. It's easy to find commutes that are short as the crow flies but cover a much longer distance on public transit.
Yep, the drive and bike times for my example are roughly the same at rush hour according to google. For someone interesting in biking as a commute, Boston/camberville is probably one of the best places to live+work. If you can deal with the winter anyways
My main complaint with Boston is that even if you’re happy with just the walkable city center, it’s still tough commuting if you can’t walk/bike and you aren’t going to/from downtown Boston.
For example if someone in Somerville takes a job in Boston Landing they’re looking at a multiple seat commute over an hour most likely, to effectively travel maybe 5-10 miles. Driving still ends up winning.