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Now that's how to take a turn
By adamg on Fri, 08/11/2017 - 12:35pm
That's gonna leave a mark......
Bennington St ramp to Rte 1A SB in East #Boston is going to be closed for a bit. #MAtraffic pic.twitter.com/wIODnMGPAr— Dustin Fitch (@DustinGFitch) August 11, 2017
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Comments
WTF Trucking Company?
Google is not your friend!
CR England
Just behind Werner and Schenider when it comes to driver quality-or lack thereof.
Truckin???
I couldn't agree with you more.After 42 years of driving everything from D12 bulldozers to the smallest roadgoing motorized equipment and more than 35 years in the transportation industry,the driver recruitment farms posing as trucking companies have succeeded in turning what used to be a good way to make a good living into a minimum wage joke.
I truly feel sorry for anyone who is desperate enough to work for the slimeballs(plural).
Just remember that those cheap bundles of paper towels from BJs or some other "warehouse" type outfit,probably came off of some low wage slimeball truckload soul killer.
This is a spot
This is a spot where this always happens. *always*
MassDOT/City of Boston put up signs TELLING truckers NOT to make a big swing under the overpass.
But much like our almost weekly Storrowing that happens.. people don't read signs.
He would have cleared it easily
Problems happen when you forget about the last 1/3 of your rig needing to stay on the pavement.
I-90 U-Turn Ramp — Not Neptune Road
This truck appears to have come off the end of I-90, and used the U-Turn ramp to head westbound again. The lanes under the expressway on Neptune Road have warning signs, but no such warnings are posted on the U-Turn ramp.
( lanes on Neptune Road have warning signs to avoid the cantilevered bridge support )
( U-Turn ramp isn't height restricted, but tight radius is challenging for big trucks )
( "bulb-out" island would seem to discourage making the necessary wide turn )
In fairness, it wasn't really the height that caused the trouble this time, but the very tight turning radius. The truck would have been just fine if its back wheels didn't go over the curb. The little "bulb-out" island is undoubtedly intended to discourage drivers heading the wrong way out to Bennington Street, but it also seems like it would —if only visually— discourage big trucks from swinging wide enough to make the turn.
That reminds me
While riding down Comm Ave this week, an 18-wheeler was in the left most lane and had to execute a 3-point right turn onto St. Paul Street. This was the same intersection where an 18-wheeler killed Christopher Weigl.
5 years later and these trucks are still on roads where they cannot turn safely.
I mean would you prefer goods
I mean would you prefer goods and services not be delivered to retailers, restaurants, manufacturers, and warehouses in the city?
I like strawmen to deliver my goods and services
Gigantic Strawmen like yours!
Amazingly
Smaller trucks do exist and and great for deliveries in cities.
S/
Uh huh
Like box trucks and delivery trucks don't exist...
Semis allow the company to short on staff and equipment and rely on the rest of us to deal with these 40 ton trucks driving all around town to buildings that don't have loading docks for them and making insane turns everywhere.
If they had to pull up to a distribution point on the outside of town and unload onto smaller trucks and drive those trucks to single point or clustered points of drop-off, there'd be no need to make deliveries out of the backs of semis.
Last I checked, CR England wasn't in the business of
making local deliveries, but provides Interstate transport to places like distribution centers. So chances are pretty good that's where the driver was headed. Unless you're going to argue that the goods should be shipped in to the distribution center by railroad cars and transferred to small trucks - Oh wait, that's not possible. And why? Because we let the railroads sell off all the freight yards in the Boston area because of classic NIMBY excuses like "OMG, freight trains are NOISY, freight yards are UNSIGHTLY, and railroad locomotives spew NASTY THINGS into the environment (as if long haul tractor trailers don't - and it takes many more long haul tractor trailers to haul the same amount of freight that a 75 to 100 car train with two locomotives can)."
But continue with your "tractor trailers are pure evil and should be banned from using anything but a twelve lane freeway" mantra. I for one get a good laugh out of it.
Perfectly said
When MassDOT made deal to build CRX Worcester facility in exchange for tracks, the first thing I though was about all those trucks that will hit the road and the MBTA would probably have minimal improvements due to typical operating procedures. Would be great if the rail gains exceeded the highway losses.
Eliminating freight service to improve passenger service
is the oldest scam of an excuse to remove freight yards and convert freight haulage to trucks. From the 1920s to the 1950s, when railroads suddenly decided they didn't want to run passenger trains anymore, a typical Class 1 railroad ran three times as many through freight trains as they did through passenger trains with minimal issues or problems concerning delays to either freight delivery or passenger movement.
It's truly unfortunate that most of the rail infrastructure we had has been removed, thanks in large part to politicians who were conned by the rail industry and convinced by the NIMBYs that rail transportation is a bad thing.
Yawn
The comment I responded too said these trucks are needed for deliveries "in the city". This moron in his semi tried to take a tight U-turn loop that I can't even figure out why he was there (who even uses that U-turn since if you're going to Maverick, there was an earlier exit and...I just can't even figure out who uses that road for anything). He's not the reason the person I responded to said what they did and thus he's not the reason I said what I did. You've erected a strawman and knocked it down by taking the entire comment out of context.
Was *this* specific truck making a local delivery? Probably not...he was probably lost on 90 or something. But DPM wasn't talking about what this truck was doing. And if you can't show me what distribution point this truck would have needed to go to that U-Turn to get there from whatever his point of origin was without using better roads that didn't have tight turns, then you're barking up the wrong tree.
Let's Say, You're Driving From California To Maverick Square
Google Maps suggests a routing via I-90 to its terminus in East Boston. However, after going through the Frozen Head Tunnel, it requires looping through the airport terminals, before heading down the Enrico Fermi Overpass towards Central Square:
Of course, most truck drivers would wisely choose to avoid driving into the middle of a busy airport. If you drag the route so as not to get off at the airport exit, the route uses this U-Turn at Neptune Street to loop around onto the Fermi Overpass:
If you opt avoid the FHT in favor of the Callahan Tunnel to East Boston, it requires taking the O'Neil tunnel all the way to North Station, to make a U-Turn on I-93, by looping around at Leverett Circle. Not an appealing choice:
Your next option is the Tobin Bridge, a often traffic plagued route going miles out of your way:
Can you find a better route?
The problem is, when I-90 — a primary, coast-to-coast Interstate highway — was extended under the harbor to East Boston, huge new ramps were built for the airport, but it was barely patched into the old, existing interchange with the Enrico Fermi Overpass, and the Eastern Expressway to the McClellan Highway.
This old interchange at Neptune Street is now the eastern terminus of Interstate-90. It was built in the 1950's and never designed to handle the traffic and vehicles that now wind up there by default.
Excellent points, with one nitpick.
Your Tobin Bridge route is actually longer than you show. While the Google routing has the driver exiting the Tobin at 4th Street, the ramp itself is far too tight for any tractor trailer to navigate without getting hung up. Ordinarily, the driver would go up Route 1 to Everett Avenue, and then over to Eastern Avenue. However, the crybabies on Everett Avenue, through their representatives, forced the state to post a truck restriction there, even though there is NO PHYSICAL REASON to ban heavy trucks from this street. Because of this selfish and pointless restriction, the driver now then has to exit at Route 16 and go into Bell Circle, then turn around onto Route 1A south. Time and fuel wasted, additional needless wear, and hardly good for the environment.
Oh, and we used to have a
Oh, and we used to have a freight route from western Chelsea to East Boston, that didn't use any residential streets and was even mostly grade-separated. A rail line.
But it's rapidly being converted into a new branch of the Silver Line, for anyone who thinks the 111 gets you downtown too quickly and reliably.
Great, but...
I'm told that he was going to a distribution point, not making local deliveries to Maverick Square...
Unavoidable this week
Doesn't everyone have to make that right turn until the bridge construction is finished?
Had to take the shades off...
Had to take the shades off... Wtf is that truck really on top off the jersey barrier or do I need another cup of coffee
Dangerous!
Was that guy standing beneath the truck? Even standing near it could be dangerous!