Beneficial. The temporary prototype worked well and they made it permanent-- similar to the Big Dig era drop of a lane on 93 north outbound for 28 North.
Expect to see more of this--the congestion and accident costs of the diverge and merge are not worth it for letting a few cars pass on the right.
They seriously need to replicate that setup on the southbound side where the way short and sharp Pike-to-128S merge is still a catastrophe of slow-speed mainline merging. Maybe when the tollbooths go away they can do something quick along the lines of:
-- Delete the Route 30 offramp from the SB mainline and replace it with a slip ramp through the tractor-trailer parking lot (or right-turn only ramp through there for 30E + right-turn only ramp up to Park St. for the 30W lights if we don't want to be adding any traffic light cycles).
-- Re-stripe 128S at the Pike split for the lane drop, where both Pike and 30 exiting traffic have now split.
-- Stick the current 30-to-128S onramp merge behind a jersey barrier, separated from the restriped SB mainline.
-- When the barriered 30 merge and the Pike-to-128S merge approach each other at level ground, eat the grass median and merge them together behind the barrier. Start an 800 ft. accel lane behind the barrier with generous right shoulder.
-- Finish all merging to full speed behind the jersey barrier, drop the barrier, then start travel lane #4 by the Worcester Line overpass.
Now there's no longer a problem of weaving when anyone who's been hanging in travel lane #4 gets abruptly upended by tractor trailer coming off that sharp Pike onramp pushing them out of the travel lane because it's only managed to rev back up to 35 MPH by the time its accel lane has run out. Can't fix that ramp's geometry until they blow the whole interchange up, but the only way to make it safe and tolerable is for the merge traffic to be the one starting the travel lane...and for the Pike traffic, not the meager Route 30 volumes...to be the point dictating where the travel lane drop begins and ends.
