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Forest Hills becomes one vast, immobile parking lot
By adamg on Wed, 11/16/2016 - 5:57pm
Malfunctioning traffic lights at Washington and New Washington streets have created gridlock in all directions: Traffic heading south on Washington Street is now backed up to Egleston Square; traffic heading north is so bad it took one guy an hour to get to the T stop from Dedham.
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Comments
Good thing the overpass is gone.
The overpass lights were always ruining traffic.
/s
Calling the Transit Police
Is there a reason why the Transit Police assigned to the station can't stop traffic to let the buses out?
No place for the buses to go?
BPD is swarming the area to try to get traffic moving again - even though the main trouble intersections are State Police jurisdiction.
Which police force is missing?
Is this a job for city police, state police, transit police, or Batman? Somebody should get called off from watching Verizon Fios crews and do a real traffic detail here.
BPD was on top of it right away
Unfortunately, they had a stabbing up near Egleston at the same time. And it took the Staties awhile to show up.
Not right away
My daughter and I approached the area around 5 from the northeast and after a half hour when I realized that Washington and Amory (and most cross streets) were parking lots, I used some car-fu to get us over to South just above Forest Hills. From there it was about 15 minutes to go a few hundred yards.
Everything at FH was a complete mess and there were no police in sight. I only was able to squeeze by the station because of a temporary lee created when a construction vehicle got 3/4s of the way across the Arborway/New Wash/South st intersection. (not sure what he was doing on the arborway in the first place).
Then up through the arb to avoid wash/village craziness and came back into washington via walter and walworth.
Insane!!
Is there any solution to the jurisdiction issues?
The fact that the staties patrol certain largely unlinked areas of Boston is just bananas.
Why can't this be fixed? Lack of political will? Why do the Staties want to be in charge of the Southwest Corridor even?
Do you need to ask?
It's so that you can duplicate effort and get less for more, of course. I mean, what's the alternative? Lean government? That's crazy talk. Don't be talkin' crazy.
Batman
He can direct traffic using his Batsignals.
How bad was it?
Around 7:40 p.m., Kate Hutchinson reported:
Thats a 38 minute round trip
Thats a 38 minute round trip walk. Thats just laziness and foolishness.
Maybe not
If you are ill or have a broken leg, it is what you have to do.
But if everyone who's healthy
and could walk or bike actually did so, there'd be more room for those who have to drive.
And people wonder
why there's congestion...
Oh good! They need more
Oh good! They need more parking in the area.
Former MDC roads patrolled by State Police
Before the merger of the Capitol, Registry and MDC (Metropolitan) Police, the Boston and suburban parkways were heavily patrolled by the "Mets" (MDC), the second largest department in the state at the time. The Registry Police had statewide jurisdiction and could work any road. After the three merged with the State Police in 1992 and ensuing budget cuts, staffing and coverage was never the same. There is definitely a lack of leadership (Baker, Walsh) on jurisdiction reform unless Charlie decides to hire a class of 500 troopers.
In many cases there is one trooper on the desk and only two or three on the many miles of road covered by each barracks. One accident, one breakdown and one arrest can tie-up the entire barracks, so no surprise MSP took a while. Details are a separate issue, worked by officers on their time off and not by the regular patrol shift. My guess is that Boston PD would have more readily-available staffing to cover situations like this and the Seaport but our "leaders" can't agree.
Lucky For Us They Are Coming Off of Pot Patrol
We can take the phalanx of staties and their helicopters that have been pulling up single pot plants from grandmothers' back yards in the Pioneer Valley and on the Vineyard and reassign them to doing necessary cop stuff like keeping people from getting all stabby.
Agreed John Costello
The marijuana battle ended years ago when every defendant and dealer began getting an automatic CWOF (Continued Without Finding then Case Dismissed) in all of our courts. Pot has been technically legal in MA for decades. At this stage, I don't even think you need to give your name/ID if stopped with pot. Obama just pardoned a bunch of dealers. Lost cause. As I've said before, legalize, tax, and check the purity of all drugs and place the police resources elsewhere. Our drug officers do a great job but if the courts have deemed it irrelevant, time to move on.
Troopers
There is no need to add 500 troopers just reassign 500 who are in specialized units. No one wants to wear a uniform and do traffic duty except on double time.
State Police
Why wouldn't the better solution be for BPS to take over all patrol duties within the city outside of the interstates? I assume the BPD would like more jurisdiction assuming they get more budget to go with it. My uninformed read is that the State Police would fight this for the same reason - they don't want to lose territory and budget. Is that a fair assessment?
Not referring to stuff like the bust in Roslindale or other State Police type operations but just the basic nuts and bolts day to day stuff.
To be specific - you state we'd need hire 500 more State Police but why not more BPD in this example?
Typo?
I know it's just a typo but my mind boggled for a moment at the idea of the Boston Public Schools patrolling the streets.
Drove thru this mess
on my way to Mattapan, only to run into that horrible car accident at Gallivan and Morton st. Wish I had taken a picture for you Adam, it was pretty horrendous, and involved at least one vehicle in the fire station parking lot being essentially demolished. There were so many police vehicles there I thought there had been a shooting or something at first, had the whole area cordoned off.
All to get my car inspected in Watertown. Think I hit Uhub bingo last night!
We don't need police to direct traffic
Civilians could do this, and be deployed quickly. They would not be getting pulled when there was a crime that needed an immediate response.