Hey, there! Log in / Register
The speed-bumpiest road in Boston
By adamg on Mon, 01/20/2025 - 9:24am
Last week, as part of its "safety surge" program, Boston installed 13 speed bumps on Allandale Street in Jamaica Plain, between the parkway and the entrance to Allandale Farm, which turns out to also be the town line with Brookline. That's 13 speed bumps on roughly a half mile of road. On the plus side, the slower speeds could reduce the odds of serious crashes - and could give your passengers more time to enjoy looking at Curtis and Willard, the farm's two beefy bois.
Neighborhoods:
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
On The Down Side...
This slows down people in an emergency trying to get to the Faulkner.
It's academic until it's your Nana in cardiac arrest.
Citation needed
Whenever someone doesn't like the road change they always argue that it's a public safety risk because maybe, possibly, emergency vehicles will go slightly slower.
Of course they ignore the current public safety risk that was the target of the road change to begin with. Take comfort that when you're hit by a car, the ambulance can arrive sooner, they suggest.
If getting emergency vehicles to their destination is the #1 priority, the only solution is to greatly decrease other cars on the road and/or create lanes specifically for emergency vehicles.
How Many Years? Be Honest
How many years of playing SimCity and not interacting with the real world makes you an authority on road safety?
There is already an enforcement mechanism for public safety in place. It is called the Boston Police Department.
Pull over speeders. Issue tickets and don't be too concerned that the guy in the Honda CRV with the modified exhaust is not going to get into HBS because of some speeding tickets.
By the way - I would pay to see you walk up and down Allendale Street and tell abutters face to face that they are taking part of their front yard to add an emergency lane.
Have you been down Allandale Street?
Without getting into the argument about whether 13 speed bumps are too many on a half-mile of road, there is no place to pull over anybody on the street - it's basically a narrow country road in the city (at least until it gets to South Brookline, and then it's a country road in the country).
I keep seeing the ambulance argument. Boston ambulances probably wouldn't be coming from the Brookline side of the road anyway, and the Faulkner emergency entrance is just off Centre Street, before the bumps begin.
Issue for Brookline ambulances? Possibly. To start, I suspect most people in Brookline would be taken to one of the Longwood hospitals or St. E's. Yes, there's part of Brookline where Faulkner is the closest hospital, but for most of those streets, you can get to Faulkner almost, if not just as, easily via VFW Parkway and West Roxbury Parkway.
But what about Nana?
You just said we need to consider Nana in the ambulance. Surely she's more important than anyone's front yard, right?
If you want to argue that Nana's ambulance is the #1 priority, it's meaningless unless you're also advocating for some substantial changes (no cars or dedicated lanes) to address that problem.
I'm not a traffic engineer but neither are you. We both know it's BS to say, "Just have cops give speeding tickets" because there aren't that many cops and people will speed when there isn't a cop around. And it's the speeding that's sending people to the hospital in the first place!
General traffic is what slows down emergency vehicles. If you want faster ambulances, you want fewer cars blocking the road.
Not in place
The enforcement mechanism isn't in place, matter of fact, they'll tell you to their face that they're not in the business of caring about traffic stops anymore. When the people in charge of doing the job refuse to do the job, No, there is no mechanism for public safety on the roads in place.
Too good
That's good, John. I needed a laugh today.
I don’t think it would be a
There’s no speed you can responsibly drive an ambulance over a speed bump. I don’t think it would be a good ambulance ride for transporting a person with a spinal fracture, spinal hardware, aneurysm, a grievous, painful wound, a fracture a pregnant woman in labor, &c., &c. It wouldn’t make for a good route for a private vehicle transporting family from a procedure to inadvertently, or unknowingly get caught on.
Have you ever been to Massachusetts?
Are you under the impression Boston roads are smooth? Every road in the city has potholes, many that are larger than an inverted speed bump.
This is why cars and ambulances have shocks and soft seats and beds.
Not according to the fire chief.
Who I trust far better than you to know what he is talking about. He determined speed humps to not be an issue for emergency vehicles.
Rest assured as well, your nana is less likely to be mowed down crossing the street or even just using the sidewalk with these safety measures in place.
Nana bumps
Nana is far more likely to die due to getting struck by a speeding motorist than to her ambulance failing to break the sound barrier on Allandale.
Why not just privatize the
Why not just privatize the road and put a gate on it?
I was thinking ice cream stand and naked people
.
Doesn’t make sense on an
Doesn’t make sense on an ambulance route. Time for common sense.
Makes sense.
According to the fire chief.
Google his recent pronouncement on use of emergency vehicles with speed humps.
Allandale Road is now the bumpiest road in Boston
Did anyone in city government seriously think about what was needed on that road? 13 speed bumps is incredibly excessive. I've never seen speed bumps put in, in such profusion. Maybe once the entire city is undriveable some kind of common sense will prevail, but I doubt it.
Is there a history of
Is there a history of accidents on Allandale Road? It’s basically a straight shot. Would seem difficult to screw it up.
yes there is
mostly single car crashes in bad weather around one curve on the road. These speed bumps are simply insane though. I'll bet 10K that enough important people will be getting calls about this and those bumps will be taken out. Even ambulances with patients will be impacted and that will be the main reason these bumps will be taken up.
Allandale Street doesn't
Allandale Street doesn't intersect any parkway.
Yeah, it does
Centre Street is part of the Parkway with a Thousand Names: Riverway, Jamaicaway, Pond Street, Arborway, Centre Street and then, finally, VFW Parkway. It's all the same road, owned by DCR and patrolled by State Police. I'm sure there's some fascinating story why it has so many names.
Well...
It might be nice to only have to deal with speeders coming from one direction when trying to turn out of the exit for Allandale Farm.
Truth!
the straightaway from Grove st down to Allandale farm is where the build-up in speed comes from - what's Brookline's plan to address it?