Drivers this morning were not prepared for yesterday's shutdown of the overpass on the Cambridge side of the BU Bridge - although they'll now have six months to get used to it.
Kathy reports traffic was tied up in knots on the Boston side. Nikki reports from on board a bus:
Driver of the CT2 is freaking out screaming obscenities at other drivers in this INSANE traffic by BU bridge.
The state Department of Transportation says it's shutting the overpass on the Cambridge side of the BU Bridge on Sunday for some major repairs:
All vehicles will be diverted to the surface roadways and through the BU Bridge/Brookline Street rotary, and back on to Memorial Drive.
The Storrow Pool is all fun and games until the top of a bus is peeled back, sending nearly three dozen people to the hospital.
Is there any way to prevent this in the future? Clearly, the signs aren't working. Bring back the cowbells the old MDC used to attach to poles across onramps? Station troopers at every entrance? Suggestions?
Here are some thoughts from Twitter last night as the events unfolded:
Shortly before 7 a.m., a driver managed to firmly wedge his box truck into the underpass eastbound at the Harvard Bridge, causing a nice little blockage just as rush hour was getting underway. He tried moving the truck back, but all he did was set of a shower of sparks from where his truck's roof scraped against the top of the underpass.
UPDATE: After working on the truck for around 45 minutes without success, the Cambridge Fire Department ordered an electric saw to the scene to cut the top of the fool thing off.
Just as the Cambridge blackout was lifting, three cars failed to occupy the same space on Memorial Drive by the Mass. Ave. Bridge. Brian D'Amico, who took this and several other photos, reports two people were taken to local hospitals with non-life-threatening injuries.
An officer at the scene stated that even after the Accord struck the second car, it kept accelerating forward for awhile.
Earlier, around 10:25 a.m., a roving UHub photographer snapped a car taking things one step at a time on Morton Street, near Blue Hill Avenue, in Mattapan:
Top photo copyright Brian D'Amico.
A driver with impaired reading skills plowed his truck into the ceiling of the Storrow tunnel eastbound this morning. The ceiling refused to yield, forcing the top of his truck to peel back like a sardine can and backing up Storrow Drive onto Soldiers Field Road way back by the Harvard Business School in Allston and causing similar delays on Memorial Drive when Storrow refugees flooded that road, lord!
Michael Nichols tweeted shortly after 9 a.m.:
State Police announced today they've terminated Adam Paicos, a trooper caught off duty driving the wrong way on Memorial Drive in April. In a statement, State Police add:
On a date in May, Paicos was observed by a senior command officer engaged in further conduct unbecoming a state trooper, also while off-duty. Paicos was still on probationary employment status when the incidents occurred. The internal investigation into the Memorial Drive incident is ongoing.
Leslie Jones photographed a couple of MDC cops looking at the aftermath of truck vs. underpass on Memorial Drive at the Harvard Bridge on Jan. 18, 1944:
20 ton truck doesn't clear 9 ft. underpass.
The photo, by the way, is part of the BPL's huge collection of Jones photos of traffic accidents. It's a must see for fans of crushed cars, cabs, trucks and buses from the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s that are flipped over, wrapped around trees, in the water and scattered in little pieces, sometimes with occupants still in them.
Posted under this Creative Commons license.
UPDATED 10:45 a.m. with new info from State Police.
State Police report they're looking for a guy who groped a 23-year-old Boston resident as she rode her bicyle along the Charles around 7:35 p.m. yesterday.
According to state police, a man on a bicycle "came up and grabbed her buttocks from behind before fleeing on the bike over the Boston University Bridge."
MassDOT reports a truck got stuck under the Longfellow on Memorial Drive around 6:00 a.m., shutting the road, of course. And not just any truck: A big-ass truck.
Good Morning Gloucester has the Webcam pics to prove it.
Also, just like the state warned us, Morrissey Boulevard is closed due to wicked high tides, as Lauren Glynn shows us:
Wicked Local Cambridge reports the Charles River's other gas-company sign has gotten a $100,000 upgrade that includes energy-efficient LEDs.
Wicked Local Cambridge reports on an incident involving the driver of a truck from a shredding company shredding off the top of his truck on Thursday.
It's time for the annual circus animal march down Mem. Drive, Msgr. O'Brien Highway and into the Garden, starts tonight at 7 p.m.
MIT Police report on an incident Monday night involving six banditos in bandanas buzzed into a dormitory by a student expecting visitors:
An MIT officer followed the fleeing white Mitsubishi as it drove along Memorial Drive and several other streets before hitting a parked car, at which time all suspects exited the vehicle and fled the scene. Massachusetts State Police and Boston Police assisted in searching the area to no avail.
One of the suspects failed to pull up his bandana, was described as Asian, heavyset, with short cropped hair.
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