Hey, there! Log in / Register
Massachusetts horror movie
By adamg on Fri, 08/23/2024 - 1:42pm
DCR is out with its annual Allston Christmas warning for kids and their parents about the river roads.
Neighborhoods:
Topics:
Free tagging:
Ad:
Support Universal Hub
Help keep Universal Hub going. If you like what we're up to and want to help out, please consider a (completely non-deductible) contribution.
Comments
Cute
Remind me again why the Department of Conservation and Recreation manages these "highways"?
If thats the goal, why are we allowing our beautiful public green spaces to be buffered by 4 lanes of pollution-spewing vehicles?
You'll only hear about preserving our precious park spaces when it comes to shadows from new construction. Weird.
Division of Cars and Roads
I have no idea why DOT hasn't claimed these roadways from DCR. The only roads that DCR should control are the ones inside campgrounds and parks, not adjacent.
I may be mistaken, but...
I may be mistaken, but I think these roads are technically through DCR land, and thus owned by DCR. Having spent several years active in Dorchester civic stuff, wading into the morass of who owned what road and which agency or department people needed to contact to address policing and repairs was, well, moronic.
Like a lot of the details about living in this city (hello, Land Court?), many of these distinctions have long ago become impediments. But either it's too entwined into the general laws making it too hard to disentangle, or there's just little appetite (or desire to spend the funds necessary) to do the work.
This is such a problem
In particular at Morrissey Blvd and environs. The famous dilapidated staircase that killed the BU professor was in part allowed to become so decayed because neither DCR, DOT, or MBTA knew who owned the staircase and so they all denied ownership and responsibility to repair.
They managed to abolish the MDC Police
I don't see why it would be so hard to transfer ownership of roadways that the DCR continually messes up and uses as car sewers.
It looks like what happened
It looks like what happened was some chicanery back in the early 50s to get around the objections of the Storrows, who were opposed to the highway. Even though nobody actually wanted the highway.
Because
DCR was created by merging the Department of Environmental Management and Metropolitan District Commission, so it ended up with most of the assets and responsibilities of the former MDC, although the MDC Police were subsumed by the State Police before DCR was created.
The state could transfer the parkways to MassDOT, but the money/employees/resources would just follow the assets so in the end it's just an administrative exercise.
An Administrative Exercise in Expertise and Focus
DCR should not be doing major urban highways. Period. DOT has more organizational experience and people with a clue.
DCR continually screws up major roadways when it comes to "people want to use a park" - as in ONE FUCKING MILE between crosswalks on Mem Drive between MIT and the river at one point to make traffic speed faster and faster in a heavily pedestrian and recreational area. Like a fifteen lane intersection in Newton where, again, people want to get to the parklands from the neighborhoods.
Not a "Storrowing" hazard but...
Morton Street begins in Jamaica Plain near the Forest Hills MBTA station and ends at Washington Street, just north of the Lower Mills Village center in Dorchester.
It has been policed by the Metropolitan District Commission (MDC), predecessor to today's Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation. Even though its parkway section was not built by the MDC, it was built with sensitivity to the standards the MDC applied in the construction of many other parkways in the Greater Boston area.
Source: Wikipedia
This is cute and all
But why does the truck at 19 seconds go under the sign without hitting it?
Shouldn't the sign be lower?
Moreover
Why is this still seen as a student move in problem?
They should make one to be shown for any truck rental or CDL licensee.
This
It's rare for a moving truck driven by the mover themselves to hit the bridges. They hit others things like fire escapes and drive-throughs but surprisingly avoid the river roads. And the smaller Uhaul trucks (10' long) and cargo vans fit under the bridges anyway.
It's commercial truck drivers who ignore the sign. And there's no uptick in September.
Nice
But this will be seen by less than 1% of their target audience (those moving to Boston and new to the city). I suppose if it is on TikTok it might get more viewers than it will on YouTube.
Poor James J. Storrow.
Bad enough they named the motorway after him. Despite his never advocating for one and his widow actively opposing it as she knew he would not want one there.
But now to add insult to injury, his name has come to mean the result of bad driving.
Guy can’t get a break.
I suppose this means
it's time for the Universal Hub pool to predict, for this Labor Day weekend move-in, storrows in at least the following categories:
- first storrow
- worst storrow (most damage to truck and surroundings)
- most creative storrow (one that actually impresses the East Allston judge)
We really
We really should do this one year.. maybe do a pool and we can find a worthy charity to donate the money too?
To the DCR, of course.
To put up better and more effective warnings.
The Signs are Unclear
As an actual idiot I wouldn't know what "low clearance" means. The signs should say "upcoming bridge so low it will rip off the top of your truck. take X exit or lose your roof". I'd understand that sign.