Finding Fordham: A Cautionary Tale Against Trusting GPS

By JULIA O’DONNELL
July 16, 2011

Published: August 25, 2010

I (usually) love Fordham, but I always hate getting here. Even from my very first trip to New York, I’ve equated driving in the city with certain death. My mom refuses to drive in the city, and her boyfriend will only come up to help me move in at the start of each school year. Every May, my dad drives up from Maryland to “help” me move out (which mainly entails standing next to his car, “looking good”), and even then, the only real trouble I encounter is having to wait outside of Magnolia Bakery for 30 minutes after move-out, guarding all of my possessions while my dad chats up the ladies inside.

Traffic jams, route changes and confusing signs make finding your way in New York hard enough without MapQuest telling you the wrong way (Lucy Sutton/The Observer)

But aside from a few move-in days, most of my trips in and out of the city have been by bus or train and have been relatively uneventful. For some reason, though, I decided it would be a good idea for me to drive to Fordham from D.C. in June. My plan was to park near the Secaucus station of the New Jersey Transit, leave my car for the weekend and take the train in and out of the city. After a four-hour drive, which followed an eight-hour workday, my friend, Liz, and I made it to the Secaucus junction and pulled out my MapQuest directions. We turned onto the exit (which at that point was difficult to see through my dry contact lenses) and onto a ramp that took us under a bridge and up onto an elevated road.  Finally, we began approaching the train station on the left, but the directions instructed us to take a right.  Against all reason and common sense, we followed MapQuest’s command and wound up in an industrial area with no escape.

Luckily, Liz’s phone had GPS capabilities, so she programmed in the name of the parking garage where we were supposedly headed.  I started to drive down the street, waiting for the GPS to calculate, and sure enough, the roads it suggested I turn onto didn’t exist.  We circled the same stretch of highway for 15 minutes, getting a fabulous tour of the hooker/trucker hangouts of New Jersey, until finally the GPS pointed us in what seemed to be the right direction.  Just when I thought we were saved, I turned onto a road that then dead-ended onto the entrance of the Holland Tunnel.

“No,” I said. “Absolutely not! We NEED to find some other way to do this. Maybe we can take the PATH train!?!?!?”

At this point, I was fairly certain that I’d terrified Liz. My usually calm and collected demeanor transformed into one characteristic of a chronic methamphetamine user: erratic, irrational and rude. I had been through the Lincoln Tunnel numerous times—and, on second thought, had I been placed spontaneously in front of that tunnel, I may have managed a little better—but my only memory of the Holland Tunnel was my mom screaming “NO! WHAT IS GOING ON, I’M JUST TRYING TO GET TO HOBOKENNNN” in a panic (even though we weren’t even close to the tunnel). I began to get annoyed by the silliest things (For instance, why do the “Stay in Lane” directions on the tunnel road appear as “Lane in Stay?” You have to look down the road while driving anyway…). But I braved the tunnel nonetheless.

After entering Manhattan, the 12:30 a.m. lack of traffic allowed me to cruise safely uptown. Nonetheless, I don’t think I’ve ever been so happy to finally get to Fordham. Well, except for that time I had bronchitis and got delayed at JFK…