Roving UHub photographer George Lewis captured the scene at the Bowker Overpass today, not long after a truck driver yelled, we imagine, "STORROWED!" on learning why trucks are banned from Storrow Drive in general, but especially the Kenmore loop ramps, because trucks hit them at just the right angle to flip them on their side.
You know it's a good storrowing when the fire department shows up, too: Read more.
Crew trying to remove the remains of the truck. Photo by DemonHusky.
NBC Boston's Mark Garfinkel got to the Bowker Overpass where the driver of a box truck for a New Bedford produce company found out what happens when you try to drive a truck onto the overpass, shortly after 5:45 this morning. Judges rate this a 10 out of 10: Truck on its side, roof torn off, debris in the road.
Workers try to figure out how to get trailer out from under overpass. Photo by roving UHub photagrapher Brian C.
The driver of an 18-wheeler tried to get on Storrow Drive outbound from the Bowker Overpass this morning only to learn that like the house in poker, the bridge always wins. Bright-eyed and bushytailed NBC Boston photographer Mark Garfinkel was on the scene shortly before 6:30 a.m. and posted some photos of what it looks like after the overpass is done teaching its latest lesson.
State officials announced today they now have the money in hand for what could be a ten-year project to replace the current decrepit hulk of an overpass that connects Storrow Drive and the Fenway over part of the Emerald Necklace with more graceful roads - and new paths and parkland aimed at reconnecting the Emerald Necklace and the Esplanade, which were severed when the overpass went up over Charlesgate in the 1960s. Read more.
Surveillance photo via State Police.
State Police report they are hunting roughly 40 people on dirt bikes and ATVs they say began attacking an 82-year-old Brookline man near the Bowker Overpass, then kept following him as he tried to escape onto Storrow Drive and then beat him when he rolled down his window on Cambridge Street in Allston to yell for help this past Thursday night. Read more.
The Boston Sun reports residents living near Charlesgate and the Bowker Overpass are reporting more homeless people setting up camp there following the city's "Clean Sweep" along Methadone Mile.
State Police report the man who managed to carjack a Kia on the Bowker Overpass, drive against traffic and then flip the vehicle at the start of rush hour on Friday was arrested at the scene. Read more.
Rolled over car. Photo by Kyle Stratis.
UPDATE: Arrest made.
Robert Alvarez reports getting onto Storrow Drive at Charlesgate quickly became a mess after a car rolled over around 5 p.m. WFXT reports the car was carjacked nearby about 15 minutes earlier and had been driving the wrong way.
The Boston Sun reports on the nascent Charlesgate Alliance, which aims to restore what grandeur it can to Charlesgate, once a tree-lined pond where the Muddy River entered the Charles but now a dumping ground where homeless people drown.
Shortly after 10 a.m., State Police reported a truck driver heading out of town on Storrow Drive managed to smash his truck into the Bowker overpass, and now his truck is stuck there.
Cruisers enroute. Expect delays.
Ric Duarte was among commuters who had plenty of time this morning to consider the impressive sardine-canning of a truck whose driver learned the Bowker Overpass is not meant for his ilk.
Antoinette Antonio reports the box truck is wedged in nice and tight, so it's going to take some work to get it out.
State Police report the driver suffered minor injuries.
Ed Hatfield captured the scene yesterday on the entrance to Storrow Drive from the Bowker Overpass:
I would hate to drive in any big city in anything bigger than a sedan. Why doesn't GPS warn these guys? I think this guy was trying a U turn and got stuck. There is a very small cut through just to the left.
At least he didn't plow into an overpass, sending 33 of his passengers to the hospital like the last guy.
Plans probably don't include restoring Charlesgate to its early 20th-century state.
State officials hold a meeting tonight to discuss options for the turnpike through the Back Bay and the Bowker Overpass - the decaying hulk that now speeds cars across the fetid remains of the Muddy River between Fenway and Storrow Drive.
At the session, which begins at 6 p.m. in the mezzanine conference room at the BPL in Copley Square, state transportation officials will discuss various options for improving the Back Bay for people encased in metal shells, including extending the overpass to the turnpike for people heading to the airport or just tearing it down altogether and replacing it with a simple surface road. Another possibility is a new offramp to Brookline Avenue.
State officials recently announced plans to tear down the equally decrepit Casey Overpass in Jamaica Plain and replace it with surface roads and parkland.
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