To drive or not to drive – that is the question:
Whether ‘tis more exciting to get in the car
And face the endless traffic of rush hour,
Or to simply hop on public transport,
And, by doing so, avoid the frustration of dealing with it all.

To walk past the car, to hit the accelerator pedal-
No more – and by walking past the car to say I avoid
The huge backlog of rush hour traffic and wasted time
That each morning holds-
‘Tis a situation
I do not wish to face.

To drive, to feel the thrill of the engine rumbling to life-
To weave in and out of rush hour traffic, perhaps for too long. Ay, there’s the problem,
For in driving to work what other things might we have accomplished
When we are stuck sitting for a seemingly infinite amount of time in a traffic jam
Must make us pause and realize,
That’s the idea
That makes disaster of driving to work.

For who really wants to experience the joy of barely moving a mile in ten minutes,
The agitated drivers cutting everyone off only to gain a car length or two,
The snail on the side of the road moving along faster than you are,
The periodic lane closures that bring traffic to a screeching halt,
The people who make you wonder how they ever got their driver’s license,
The gas gauge slowly ticking towards empty,
And the unsympathetic looks
That subway riders send in my gas-guzzling direction,
When they too dream of someday purchasing a car
To experience the freedom of the open road and the thrill of opening the taps?

Who would heed the car’s frustrating journey,
To bang the steering wheel and mutter expletives at other drivers under your breath,
But the horror that something may be missed while sitting on the subway,
The unknown experiences that have occurred which
The people who drive to work discuss
While we stand in a confused daze,
Wishing we had driven to work
Instead of squeezing in next to someone with influenza on the subway,
All to avoid the qualms of everyday traffic and shave some precious minutes off of our commute?

Thus the chance of catching influenza on the subway does make drivers out of us all,
And thus the ease of taking public transport
Is tainted by the life-changing prospect of catching some sort of contagion on the subway/bus,
And effortless moments of sitting back and relaxing
With this regard their paths are cut short
And lose the public transit card in favor of a car key.