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Comments
brutal...
Two cars ended up in the median, both having flipped over guard rails to get there. A grayish vehicle was crumpled, a white van in better shape but flipped. Truly hope everyone's alright, but it didn't look good.
128 & 9 = mess
Given the financial woes of our transportation sector, I guess I shouldn't hold my breath waiting for somebody realize that the raceway 128 & route 9 interchange is an enormous bottleneck. Given that I drive into it every day might impact my impartiality. Where do other people think are the biggest messes?
Widening 128 south of 9
I haven't read yet the state has canceled the project, so maybe they're still working toward adding an extra lane in either direction.
But I'd argue the intersection of Eliot Street and Rte. 9 most days is way worse than 128 and 9.
Really?
Eliot St next to the Chestnut Hill Ave/Lee St set of lights?
I avoid Rt 9 at rush hour like it's the start of Armageddon anyways, but I usually get onto 9 at Chestnut Hill Ave and never seem to have a big problem.
Oh, wait, LOL. I am now looking at a map to figure out what the name of the intersection is where I think the *REAL* problem is. You know, it's the light just inside 128 where there's that hill and the T passes overhead....ah, here it is...Eliot St/Woodward St. :)
Who woulda known Eliot St would be Atlanta's Peachtree of Newton/Brookline. :D
So, yeah, Eliot sucks more than 128 on Rt 9. There are worse places than the Rt 9 exit on 128 too.
Elliot St/Rt 9
Although this intersection gets backed up, there are A LOT of cars that go down that way to get to 128/mass pike/9 west etc. I think it could be a lot worse. Dedham just put up these new lights at Washington St. and Elm that are going to be a huge pain in the ass if they dont put sensors in. Im might be going home either 109 or down Elliot St. through Needham from now on if that light becomes a problem
The Phi
That intersection is messed up at all times. I think it might be the worst intersection in the west Boston area. It's worse than 9/Elliot, and worse than 9/128, both of which I go through regularly with less difficulty. I think of it as a phi.
Yea they could use an overpass there....
They should have Rt1/VFW go over Washington St like they do at Harris and High. The Phi is like a wannabe rotary that doesn't work.
The intersection one light back at Rt 1 and Eastern is a pain in the arse too. I liked it better when each direction of Rt1 (north and south) had a full green light to go straight and take turns.
Oh, yeah, the Phi of Doom
It's also amusing, in a scary sort of way, that two of Boston's alleged emergency-evacuation routes (Washington Street and the VFW Parkway) come together right at that intersection - not that I have much faith that Dedham would actually let any of us in in an emergency (I'm picturing a line of Dedham cruisers across Washington by the car wash with shotgun-wielding cops in sunglasses, what, me paranoid?).
That would be an intersting photo essay
Take pictures of all the emergency route signs in the area during normal rush hour traffic. Mid-September would be a great time to do it.
Good idea
In the meantime, my report on driving the Washington Street evacuation route back in the day.
The Phi?
'Cause it looks like one from above? Shirley that's not what the townies call it. Let me guess... Da Rotary?
Probably not, but ...
Everybody calls the interchange of Rte. 9 and Speen Street in Natick the Beetleback.
Why?
That used to be your basic traffic-light intersection. When the state began planning to replace it with the rampy thing we know today (true story: I was once flagged down at the fire station there by an out-of-state couple who were trying to get from the turnpike to Wayland, but got stuck in the Beetleback and couldn't get out), Bob Moore, then editor of the Framingham News (today's MetroWest Daily News) was looking at the plans one day and said "that looks like the back of a beetle!" (actually, knowing Bob, he probably said "that looks like the back of a goddamn beetle!"). He ordered his reporters to henceforth refer to the thing as the Beetleback, the name stuck and to this day, that's what people call it (the paper later recreated its success by renaming greater Framingham as MetroWest - in part by insisting stories that involved more than one town ALWAYS refer to "MetroWest").
AFAIK, the I-95 Wellesley to Needham widening is
still on schedule. Here's a link to project info on MassHighway's page.
http://www.mhd.state.ma.us//default.asp?pgid=conte...
Project 603711
Just to make sure, you're talking about Project 603711? "NEEDHAM- WELLESLEY- BRIDGE REHAB/REPLACEMENT ON I-95/ROUTE 128 (ADD-A-LANE - 3.25 MILES); INCLUDES 5 BRIDGES (BRIDGE V CONTRACT)"
Yes MadMax
That is the project.
Woman hurt when she suddenly decides to get off 128
Channel 25 reports:
What's the over/under here?
My bets on cell phone involvement - odds?
I wouldn't bet against it.
I wouldn't bet against it.
While I wouldn't want to see
While I wouldn't want to see anybody get hurt and I hope she's OK, if someone had to get injured in this I'm glad it was the one who pulled the boneheaded maneuver.
I see this sort of thing all the time on 128 every day--people turning across 2 lanes at the last minute to turn onto 9. The breakdown lane is an active lane during rush-hour, yet people act as though it's not even there.
Northbound or southbound?
The breakdown lane as an active traffic lane only starts southbound after the intersection with 9. There's good reason for that, IMHO, as that turn-off crossfade with the merge-on gets truly loused by people swerving through the rumble strip.
I couldn't tell which way the cars in the median were originally going. Northbound?
Northbound.
Northbound.
128 accident
We drove by this accident (going Northbound)just before 9am this morning, and I was just checking in to see if anyone had word of the severity of injuries. I'm absolutely shocked (and relieved, if the info is accurate) that this woman (and all passengers) made it out of this alive. That dark blue Nissan was smashed up more than any other car accident I've ever seen (that car was probably smashed in at least 1.5 feet on driver's side, along the entire side - the picture you see is not distorted, it really was that mangled and actually looked worse if you saw it directly from the drivers side (not the rear like this video shows). You could see that the car had side airbags that had been deployed along w/front, and the person(s) was stuck in the car when we went by and first responders had just gotten there. I'm shocked no one died, and a real testament to seat belts, airbags, and the surprising crumple cage of that Nissan (btw, when driving by, I thought the car was just a VW bug or something, it looked that small all crumpled up.) I hope those passengers all recover well; I'm sure the injuries were pretty severe.
Bank shot?
According to the eyewitness in Ch 25's video clip, it sounds like the blue Nissan shot across the highway from the exit lane to the median after having been clipped by a Honda Element. He did say that she "was attempting to get off late," so maybe she did a double-swerve maneuver from the high-speed lane to the exit lane and back to the median. At 65 mph. Yikes!
Let's hope everyone survives intact.