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Why do we call it rush hour when you can't actually rush anywhere?
By adamg on Tue, 02/16/2016 - 5:20pm
John Gage urges people to avoid Storrow near Leverett or to just abandon all hope.
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Comments
It's one of those paradoxes
Like driving on parkways but parking in driveways.
These people look parked on
These people look parked on the parkway.
Yikes.
That looks horrible.
My office job
I show up at 1 PM and leave at 8 PM. If I had keys, I would work until 10. I can't be the only office worker downtown who wants to work irregular office hours.
So why do we still have such a congested rush hour?
We should have staggered or
We should have staggered or flexible start times for workers. Sure, there's some jobs that need people there early, but far too many jobs require workers to arrive at 9 (or even earlier!) when working from 11-7 would be perfectly fine.
A good chunk of this traffic
consists of people commuting from well outside the city. I can't imagine people who have families and live in Salem or Weymouth want to work shifts like that, especially when 93S is pretty much ALWAYS stop and go regardless of time of day.
There are better ways to get around the city than drive
So why do so many people still use their cars at all?
Same sort of question.
Around the city, maybe
into and out of the city, not so much.
Trains don't run that often. And the train stations don't have parking in many cases. And the bus to the train station doesn't run that often. And when it does, it contents with all the car traffic squeezing along the two-lane cow paths with antisynchronous traffic lights. And it makes stops.
"The city" and its daytime and nighttime inhabitants doesn't end at the city limits.
Same logic
Fewer cars mean fewer jam ups.
Don't complain about traffic if you insist on being part of the problem.
Also...
It's school vacation week. No "Mice on Ice" at the Garden yesterday, but they resume again today (Wed). The Museum of Science is also packed, no doubt with hordes of suburbanites driving the kiddos in. The MoS usually has a State Police detail all week to control the traffic in/out of the garage...in my experience they usually make the traffic on O'Brien far worse. I guess if the museum is paying the police detail, that means their traffic gets priority.
It's really not much better on the T
At least at this time of the year. Here's a few examples.
when public transit improves, more folks will take it
I live 5 miles from government center/downtown Boston. I can drive there in about 10 min (non-rush hour). Or I could walk to a bus stop, take bus to subway, and get off at Haymarket, taking approximately 1 hour (non-rush hour). Guess what wins?
It wasn't as bad
as it looked. I left my office in Washington Sq. well after 5 and was home in Eastie just before 6. Would have been even faster if it were possible to drive down Beacon St. in Brookline without catching virtually every light.
Still, it was worse than the commute on a clear day, and 93 S was backed up REALLY bad once you got into the tunnel. I understand being cautious and safe, but whenever it rains or snows around here, everyone drives like it's their first time doing so in bad weather. Never understood that considering it's New England and all.
Many of those drivers aren't from here
Many come from warmer climates.
I'd be willing to bet
it still rains in these places.
And that's exactly what
And that's exactly what happens in CA when it rains - people go apeshit and drive 5mph. I read a theory about how it's because it rains so rarely, the roads become very slick with accumulated dirt and oil. I think it's because people are crap drivers.
Roads do become very slick
in a very short time if you suddenly get rain after a long dry spell. But there's still no need to slow down to 5 mph, so yeah, it's idiot drivers.
Of course, LA treats a moderate rainfall like we would a major snowstorm - the city all but shuts down.
Yea, slowing down due to
Yea, slowing down due to inclement conditions is silly. Those darned people need t learn how to drive.
On the contrary
I said I understand exercising caution. I don't consider slow moving traffic equating to bad drivers whatsoever. Here's where I was heading with this:
Breaking early? Good call. Slamming on brakes early because you see brake lights 20ft ahead in wet conditions, bad.
Trying to merge across 3 lanes at the last second? Bad. Trying to do this while it's raining or snowing? Idiotic.
Keeping some extra distance between you and the next car? Great. Keeping 3 cars worth of distance, causing other drivers to cut in front of you, subsequently causing you to slam on the brakes in the rain or snow? bad. Being that guy who speeds around the slow car in the rain, then slamming on your brakes when the car you just merged behind does too, the worst.
And so on.
I realize this isn't necessarily seen in the picture, but that's how Storrow is leading up to Leverett. And late merging across lanes happens all the time when people on the right need Rt. 1 (even though they could still get to it from the circle) or when people in the left lane need to get to the circle, but they either wait too long or nobody lets them over.
A couple weeks ago when we
A couple weeks ago when we had the Friday snowstorm the majority of drivers on the road fell into 2 categories: those going 15mph and those going 40mph. There were a couple individuals here and there staying about 30, but most were either gunning it or driving like grandmas. Both extremes need to learn how to drive, IMO.