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Boston in 2023: Storrowing

Two trucks under one Storrow bridge

Storrowing of the year, captured by Mark Norton.

As always, local bridges in 2023 emerged victorious in their ceaseless battles with careless truck drivers, whose journeys come to a sudden halt, often with the sickening sound of metal being peeled back like tinfoil being ripped off the leftover turkey. But this year brought that rarest of occurrences, the local equivalent of a leprechaun at the end of a rainbow holding a pot of unicorns: A simultaneous double storrowing! So let's run down local storrowings and more amusing/annoying near storrowings, from the river roads to Westborough:

Storrowed truck in Westborough

Westborough gets into the storrowing game

1/17/23

Westborough Police report the driver of an 18-wheeler thought he could fit under a CSX train bridge at Rte. 30 at Willow...

Near Storrowing on Storrow Drive

Storrowing on actual Storrow Drive averted by inches

1/17/23

The driver of a box truck - and his passenger - were a bit luckier on Storrow Drive this morning than the driver of an 18-...

School bus narrowly avoids a storrowing

Say, we don't get many school buses on this road; yeah, and with these bridge heights, I can see why

3/2/23

Nichole Davis shows us a school-bus near-storrowing, inbound, by the Copley tunnel.

Crushed box truck after getting storrowed

Storrowing doesn't take a holiday

4/17/23

A roving UHub photographer ran across this freshly shorn box truck sitting on North Harvard Street after a little run in with...

Freshly storrowed truck

Boston's most apeeling road

6/19/23

Chad Boudreau gives us the visual of Storrow Drive's latest victim, under one of the can-opener Kenmore ramps.
The view...

Backup on Soldiers Field Road

Getting close only counts in horseshoes - or in creating massive traffic jams on a river road

6/29/23

Ari Ofsevit was on hand for an almost-storrowing that turned into a backup of shame on the inbound side of Soldiers Field...

Truck nearly slams into overpass on Huntington Avenue outbound at Mass. Ave.

Oh, so close!

7/20/23

Like football, storrowing is a game of inches. Magic was on hand to see the proof of that this morning on Huntington Avenue...

Truck peeled back in Dorchester

Dorchester bridge stays in the storrowing game

7/21/23

Another Gay Boston Realtor came upon a prime example of storrowing at the Red Line bridge over Freeport Street in Boston,...

Truck that survived storrowing in Dedham

Hit-and-run storrowing reported in Dedham

7/26/23

Transit Police have put out an APB for the driver of a Budget rental truck who managed to get rather intimate with Dedham's...

Truck stuck under the Freeport Street Red Line bridge

Why shlep all the way to Back Bay when you can storrow right off the Expressway in Dorchester?

7/30/23

Another Gay Boston Realtor, who spotted a storrowing at the Red Line bridge over Freeport Street earlier this month, got...

Inspecting where the trailer roof used to be

Canton train bridge racks up impressive victory over out-of-state trucker

8/14/23

Around 6 a.m. on Friday, a truck driver from Columbus, OH, found out what happens when you ignore the "Low Clearance" sign on...

MassDCR says please don't hit our bridges

Aw, who wants to adopt a Storrow Drive overpass?

8/24/23

DCR is out with an online ad spot that urges newcomers to Boston to keep their rental trucks off the river roads - set to...

Truck almost hits pedestrian bridge on Storrow Drive

Trucker almost makes up for inability to read with good reflexes, brakes on a rainy morning on Storrow Drive

9/18/23

RadRebe was among those jammed on Storrow Drive when an 18-wheeler driver somehow missed those "CARS ONLY" signs and got on...

Truck stuck at a pedestrian overpass on Storrow inbound

Now here's something you don't see every day: A storrowed food truck

10/13/23

Alisa Bokulich reports seeing her first ever storrowing this evening, on the inbound side: A food truck whose driver realized...

Sorrow Drive and two ghoulish staties in Roslindale

Roslindale's first storrowing

10/31/23

Ghoulish staties Joe DeMasi and Teresa Marx await the next truck driver to come down Sorrow Drive, also known as Tyndale...

Two storrowed trucks, two!

It's the most wonderful time of year: Simultaneous double storrowing by Mass. Eye and Ear

12/17/23

Roving UHub photographer Mark Norton beholds the majesty of that rarest of occurrences: TWO TRUCKS jammed beneath a bridge on...

The latest storrowing reports.


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Comments

Note how few of these incidents are related to students moving times.

Myth: students and UHauls
Reality: illiterate truckers using Google Maps

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It always impresses me how many of the drivers are locals, who you would think would know better - like the driver of that Boston Public Works trash truck in the double storrowing.

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And the 10' UHauls (smallest they have) fit under all the local bridges. That's what a student or someone without much stuff would rent anyway as it's the cheapest.

Also, not listed on Uhub is all the not-so-near misses. Seriously, at least once a week I'm riding to Boston in the morning on the Boston side of the path and see a truck parked in the pull-over area they have just before the BU Bridge. It's becoming more and more common.

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I've seen at least two large trucks that didn't quite make it to the Needham line bridge near Home Depot. I'm sure there were dozens more.

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But then the city lowered Lagrange Street and now no more storrowings there.

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You know this, it was not merely lore in the past. It was fact. But with Google maps, the stupid has just transferred to everyone, not just people from 'away'.

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I used to live along Storrow in the 1980s. There were out of state rigs getting backed out all the time. Someone posted a picture of one such hit on a footbridge sometime back - my husband is one of the college students peering over the railing.

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I'm pretty confident most truckers are literate. The real reason for frequent Storrowing today is apathy from DCR which hasn't done a single thing to improve the signage in the past 30+ years. Obviously the existing signage is inadequate for the roadway, even if it's enough to check the box for minimum DOT requirements.

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And Adam's yearly summaries for other years.

There are plenty of signs. There are rubber thingies that thump the cabs.

Maybe they can read? Sure. But they certainly ARE NOT reading "Clearance X'XX", nor are they bothering to measure their loads.

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DCR which hasn't done a single thing to improve the signage in the past 30+ years.

Au contraire...

https://www.universalhub.com/2023/just-time-allston-christmas-dcr-starts...

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This is an incredible list of Storrowings.

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I'm torn between 6/19 and 7/21 for this years "Perfect Peel" award.

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