Published August 9, 2010

It can be a nightmare to get around Martha’s Vineyard by car. You could rent a scooter or ride a bike.  But why not take the subway? Just take the Blue Line to Oak Bluffs.

OK, there’s no T on the Vineyard, and the islanders would probably keep it that way. But it’s nice to dream, isn’t it?

Rob Stewart, half of the Northampton design firm Rob & Damia, dreamed up subway lines in places without robust public transit. Imagine a line from Plymouth to P-town. Or one straight to UMass Amherst. Stewart maps these fantasy subway lines for a project called Transit Authority Figures. They’re beautiful and believable.

“I found myself staring at a T map and just thinking about how that classic subway diagram … works for every mass transit system in the world,” Stewart told me on the phone. “You could just put any names on the stops. You could just relocate it to any place, and all of a sudden that place, no matter how rural or how unadaptable … to a subway, if you just design the map, it’s completely believable.”

[pullquote author=”Rob Stewart”]”You could just put any names on the stops. You could just relocate it to any place, and all of a sudden that place, no matter how rural … it’s completely believable.”[/pullquote]

Since Stewart designed his first map for Northampton/Amherst, he has been inundated with requests from people in other towns. It has turned into a side business for the pair, selling posters and T-shirts. Stewart said he has been approached by a publisher for a book deal.

I’m reminded of a tweet I posted a long time ago, fantasizing about a “purple line” from Mattapan in the south, through Forest Hills in JP, through Coolidge Corner in Brookline and terminating in Harvard Square. Fellow Twitterers responded with even better ideas, and one person alerted me to the MBTA’s long-planned Urban Ring Project, which would connect Boston, Brookline, Cambridge, Chelsea, Everett, Medford and Somerville by bus.

Here’s my question for you, readers: What public transit options do you wish for? What’s your dream subway line? I’d love a bus from Harvard to BU. Let’s brainstorm in the comments.

Update: I talked about this Monday on Radio Boston.

Published August 9, 2010

I moved yesterday, from Brookline to Harvard Square. (Ever parallel parked a 14-foot U-Haul truck in Harvard Square? I have.)

I finished unloading late in the day and found myself lying on a bed without sheets, hungry and tired. All I wanted was a few hours of mindless surfing.

But I was off the grid. My Internet connection won’t be flipped on till Tuesday afternoon. My laptop was dead. My iPhone was dead. I found my iPad, 12% battery remaining, and scanned for wireless networks. But they were all password-protected.

Desperate, I actually tried guessing network passwords, which may be a crime. I drove to a closed Starbucks and sat outside, scooter idling, where I could finally check e-mail and read headlines. It wasn’t even that satisfying.

[pullquote author=”jemimah”]”We’re ruled by our computers, not the other way around.”[/pullquote]

It was my accidental Internet sabbath, a phrase coined by the author William Powers, who joined Hubbub last week for a live Web chat. His family unplugs the Internet every weekend.

This morning I couldn’t fire up Globe Reader or open wbur.org, the first two things I do every morning. No Universal Hub, no New York Times, no Twitter. Not that I’d have had time — my dead iPhone is also my dead alarm clock.

Last week, commenter jemimah poignantly noted:

I’ve been marveling for years at the fact that we’re ruled by our computers, not the other way around. All these devices are great and I love ‘em, but they were supposed to give us more “free” time. Instead, we’re never w/o either work or social obligations. We need to teach these machines who’s boss!

Powers said the “itch to connect” is a “perfectly natural human instinct.” We’re biologically programmed to respond to stimuli.

His book, “Hamlet’s BlackBerry,” is a more of a how-to guide than a warning. He doesn’t foretell the end of society; he asks people to create boundaries.

You know the cliche about Thoreau is that he ran away from society. In fact, he built his cabin a short walk from town, and was back and forth all the time. The real point of his experiment was that he established a ZONE where he could be “less” connected on a regular basis, and allow his inner life to flourish.

So I think any of us can do the same today, inside our homes. A Walden Zone is a room or other kind of space – it could be the front porch – where digital screens are not used. A place for non-screen togetherness and solitude. Sounds kind of nice, doesn’t it?

Maybe. Maybe Powers finds peace in his weekly Internet sabbath because it’s self-imposed. I’m just cranky.