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Probably few worse places for traffic lights to go out than Comm. Ave. at the BU Bridge
By adamg on Mon, 02/23/2015 - 9:11am
Jonathan Levitt give us a taste of the chaos around 9 when the lights went out on Comm. Ave. by the bridge.
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Walked by this morning
A single tradesman was hunched over in the snow in the narrow path been the tracks and the road. He had a blowtorch and seemed to be pretty stressed. I felt bad for the poor guy.
It's amazing how every minor construction job needs 1-5 detail cops but a major intersection like this goes out and not a cop in sight. No fun if not OT I suppose.
I am not one to hit the cops for things, but....
The lights at Chestnut Hill Ave./Market St. and Washington St. in Brighton Center were out on Saturday afternoon. It was a debacle, with tons of pedestrians and vehicle traffic all mixed up in a game of chicken. (Those of you who know the area know that the sight lines at that intersection are not great even in good conditions, so it was a non-trivial thing.)
After I made it through the intersection, I took the time to pull over somewhere safe and to find the business (non-emergency) number for BPD D-14 (which is literally within sight distance of the intersection).
I reported the issue, and the Sergeant who took the call said "ok, thanks, we're on it".
I came back through in the opposite direction 35 minutes later (at which point it had then begun to snow quite hard): still no lights, still no cops.
My experiences with the BPD (and State Police) have been almost all positive - I was a little disappointed in this one, however. It is, of course, possible that there was a more pressing emergency somewhere in the district, but I would have otherwise expected at least one cop to direct traffic while they waited for BTD to get out there to fix the signals.
No coffee/doughnut jokes, please. Anyone know if something else big was happening around 3 pm in that district?
I don't know about that
I don't know about that district, but I know there were HUNDREDS of BPD cops downtown all day yesterday directing traffic [standing around providing more obstacles for me to navigate around] around the Garden (Disney on Ice). I don't think I've seen that many police in one place since their last sports championship 'show of force'.
So perhaps some D-14 guys were over there?
Seems like a malfunctioning traffic light would be a higher priority though, at least to me.
Disney probably were details
I suspect that the extra cops around the Garden were working paid details.
Crowd control
Hey, the Garden wasn't going to take any chances after what happened with the Avicii concert!
Well played, BPD!
Nice to see that the BPD hasn't lost their legendary sense of humor.
listening to the scanner,
listening to the scanner, they've had cops down their this morning
"The B Line is working, but..."
...yeah.
Not sure what the difference is
Looks like this at rush hour, year round.
Hell, I just biked through here around 8:30ish and it still looked like this, even with functioning lights.
Maybe we should be posting police details here?
that intersection was out
that intersection was out last night around 8pm and when we drove by again after 11pm it was still blinking. pretty dangerous as noone knows who has right of way
If no one knows how to deal
If no one knows how to deal with a broken signal (4-way stop) then no one should have a license
Yes on both.
No one knows how to deal, and none of them should have a license.
Boston drivers have enough issues dealing with 4-way stop signs as it is.
It's not exactly a 4 way stop
Technically, I suppose, but it's complicated by trolley traffic and nearby intersections that feed into Comm Ave and cross over to get to the BU Bridge.
Not a normal 4 way stop
We're talking two lanes in each direction (four lane roads with double tracks in the middle) so the normal "treat it as a stop sign" advice is hard to follow. The sight lines suck and you need to figure out the movements of at least six others cars plus the T if a train is present.
There needs to be someone directing traffic. No excuse for lack of one at this artery intersection.
In California I drove through
In California I drove through many 8 lane intersections with 4-way stops. No trolley tracks obviously, but left turn lanes in all directions.
East-west goes.
East-west left turns go
North south goes
North-south left turns go
Repeat.
Number of lanes doesnt affect the basic premise here.
"In California"
Say no more. This sort of behavior is not possible in Boston.
I'll bet drivers don't try to trail the person in front of them through the intersection either.
And they probably don't block the box.
And the police probably give a shit if people do either of these things.
not that it matters
i go through this intersection every day and the people coming from the cambridge side consistently block the box. I went through at 7:30 AM this morning, and the lights were blinking and it felt the same as it does on any given day. Some enforcement at that intersection to get the people who block the box would be awesome
Lights were out at Huntington/S. Huntington this morning, too
That's a pretty awful place for that to happen, since the Rt. 9 Crowd just gridlocked the whole intersection.
They were out yday
As well, but clearly this city doesn't know how to get things fixed....
Why couldn't the BUPD have
Why couldn't the BUPD have picked up some of the work and at least directed traffic in that intersection? After all it affects Boston University traffic significantly.
Someone would have to give a
Someone would have to give a fuck.
Not really allowed
BUPD has limitations on what it can do on the roads around BU because they're not university property. There are some jurisdiction that they've been given because it's part of their "normal patrol" and such. But it's a grey line. http://maclea-ma.org/files/76961883.pdf
That's also an intersection of two state highways (20 & 2). Then other roads involved are in Brookline's jurisdiction (Essex St) and Boston's jurisdiction (University Rd).
Finally, I don't think anyone's going to question a BU cop if he chose to stop there and start directing, but an intersection that big would require at least 2 cops in coordination to be meaningful and not require them to frequently cross the T tracks to get everyone's attention.
The BU Bridge is maintained
The BU Bridge is maintained by MassDOT because it's a major bridge. But the numbers say nothing about road ownership, and Comm Ave is maintained by Boston.
I will be
forever grateful to my coworker who gave me a heads up about this so I could take another route.
Traffic flow
Would be so much better if that huge mound of snow was removed.
rat's nest
The whole Comm Ave / BU Bridge / Carlton St / Mountfort / University Road thing is one of the worst major intersections I've encountered in the entire country. You've got an entrance/exit from a main artery (Storrow) onto another main artery (Comm) with another main artery (BU bridge) adjacent, and then you throw a light rail, an interstate overpass, and heavy pedestrian traffic into the mix.
Outside of a Big Dig part 2 to bury the pike deeper underground and cover it east of the BU bridge, I don't know how anyone's ever going to fix this giant mess.