Cape Cod Rail, Bridges and Highways

[FK4]

cool, thanks!

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

Here's a go at mapping out the re-badged interstates, plus 3A extension and US6 superseding 6A. Could add in some of the specific improvements F-Line talked about later on.

EDIT: Red/Orange are interstates, just used them for the sake of differentiation, no objective difference between them. Teal(ish) designates non-interstates

Yep...pretty much. Only things missing are:

-- "MA 195" designation on the lingering Super-2 part of the Mid-Cape Hwy. past Harwich to Orleans. That part really doesn't have the volumes to need a 4-lane upgrade after the Chatham traffic dumps off.
-- MA 28 expressway missing link between the rotaries to Bourne Bridge.
-- MA 28A north extension on the 2-way business frontage road fashioned out of the ex-28 SB carriageway.
-- Linking US 3 in Cambridge to start of 3A in Dorchester. I guess you could just keep it where it as a 93/1/3 triple-concurrency out to the Morrissey Blvd./Neponset Bridge rotary, and just change the "3" on the signage from a Massachusetts to a U.S. route shield.
-- 3A changeover to U.S. 3, Dorcester-Plymouth (but I guess that's self-evident enough to omit).


Note: I do not think MA 24 south of 195 into RI needs to be re-badged. It's a separate highway altogether and has always been an awkward joining-at-the-hip. So I'd leave that alone as a much-shortened MA 24.


If we're plotting commuter rail on a map, stops south of Middleboro go here:
-- Wareham Village (new)
-- Downtown Wareham (limited-service flag stop, pre-existing)
-- Buzzards Bay (pre-existing)
-- Sagamore (new)
-- Sandwich (pre-existing)
-- West Barnstable (pre-existing)
-- Hyannis (pre-existing)

There's no need for any other intermediates. Old Barnstable station was in the middle of nowhere, Yarmouth Jct. station on the wye was only 1.5 miles from Hyannis and same distance north off Exit 7 as Hyannis is south.


If you're thinking of a cheap CCCR-run rush hour dinky on the Falmouth Branch transferring to the T at Sagamore or Buzzards Bay, these would be the probable stops. Just keep in mind there will never ever be enough demand on the branch where it presently ends to float T service, so this would just be a slow-speed transfer shuttle on a Budd RDC with front-door only mini-highs for ADA accessibility.

-- Monument Beach (pre-existing for CCCR, upgrade to ADA mini-high)
-- Pocasset (pre-existing station property for future use, needs all-new platform)
-- Catumet (pre-existing for CCCR, upgrade to ADA mini-high)
-- North Falmouth (old station property available @ MA 151 grade crossing, possible private land acquisition, needs all-new platform)
-- Otis AFB (*OPTIONAL*: platform, park-and-ride lot, CCCR storage yard at the Falmouth transfer station where the freight tracks stub out. Transfer station driveway is publicly accessible without base security checkpoint. May need the CCRTA bus that runs on MA 151 to loop up Falmouth Sandwich Rd. to the station since it's a little bit of a walk to the nearest residential.)

It's not much, but CCCR could make some pocket change on this with minimal capital investment since the line's in decent enough shape for steady 25-30 MPH over short distance.

 

[CantabAmager]

Updated with corrections, minus the Cambridge stuff yet. I imagine the Falmouth branch shuttle would require CCRTA to shake up the Bourne and Falmouth-Hyannis runs.

I'm curious as to what the routing for the Southside Connector is/was/could be, surely it isn't what I've plotted?

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

Updated with corrections, minus the Cambridge stuff yet. I imagine the Falmouth branch shuttle would require CCRTA to shake up the Bourne and Falmouth-Hyannis runs.

I'm curious as to what the routing for the Southside Connector is/was/could be, surely it isn't what I've plotted?

There's probably moldy study docs in the Transportation Library with umpteen different alternatives. There's no set alignment other than the trajectory needs to be able to interface with a third centrally-located bridge crossing the Canal on the wide power line ROW if there is ever a future need for one. Though the Southside Connector has absolutely no dependency on one. So figure that means a little bit of an S-curve in the NNW general direction somewhere in the middle before turning back due west. Sort of like the curve and the median on MA 25 shift at the spot where the trajectory for center Bridge #3 would've peeled off. That's about all the 50-year provisioning needed.

The rest is just wherever the EIS says is the least-impactful. And that could literally be anywhere. It might fork off very close to the Sagamore; it might fork off very close to Exit 2 and cross a wide expanse of Otis. It might be somewhere in between. All we really know is that it'll interface with the Bourne from a SE direction to avoid the Upper Cape Tech college campus and stay angled away from the businesses on the curb-cut side of 28 (or 28A frontage). Probably means taking the paintball range if anything expendable has to get bumped.

 

[whighlander]

A major benefit would be the weather maps that only plot storms onto a grid of Interstates so today we don't get to see Rt-2 or the Rt-3 to the Cape

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

A major benefit would be the weather maps that only plot storms onto a grid of Interstates so today we don't get to see Rt-2 or the Rt-3 to the Cape

Are you drunk today, or just more bored than usual?

 

[whighlander]

Are you drunk today, or just more bored than usual?

Missed all you folks the last few days =-- trying to catch-up with some free time

 

[Balerion]

Ridership update:

Mr. Cahir told the board that revenue was, and the number of passengers increased by roughly 600 people.

Also:

Mr. Cahir told the board that a new station platform for the CapeFLYER, proposed by the state to be built on the south side of the Cape Cod Canal beneath the Bourne Bridge is no longer under consideration by state transportation officials.

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

Ridership update:



Also:

Problematic station location site next to a residential neighborhood, and much too close to Buzzards Bay station since simply crossing from rotary to Exit 3 over the bridge-proper is the only real separation between them. Underneath the Sagamore Bridge is where the really, really high-potential station siting is...with the ugly gas station strip on Sandwich Rd. serving up the land. But that one is a poke too far to be thinking about until the line is a full signalized 80 MPH to BB.

Probably the right decision to save their energy on getting the Middleboro Line full schedule established to BB...then going unified at the high-return Sagamore stop. In the meantime CCRTA and the state can start sniffing around the necessary property acquisition on that Sandwich Rd. strip by Exit 1C to get it locked down for future considerations while the property value of those gravel lots is still crud.

 

[datadyne007]

Rt 6 exit renumbering hits speed bump:

Plan to renumber Route 6 exit signs hits speed bump

State Rep. Sarah Peake cannot imagine turning off Route 6 in Orleans at Exit 88, which denotes the distance to Seekonk, where the highway first crosses into Massachusetts.
“I don’t care how far it is to Seekonk,” the Provincetown Democrat said. “To folks who have lived on the Cape a long time, what we’ll see is Exit 12. It’s always going to be Exit 12.”

...

Legislators had asked state transportation officials last year to replace aging signs on Route 6 that had essentially gone dark as reflectors went missing or faded. On Friday, the Cape Cod Commission received the state's design plan as part of a routine administrative change order in which they were to sign off on oversight of the $5.76 million project transferring it from regional to statewide because it had expanded beyond the region to include the section of Route 6 between the Cape and Seekonk. It was the first time that Cape transportation officials had seen the plan, which had been reviewed and approved at the Department of Transportation.
“When we saw it, we said this is more impactful than an administrative change,” said Glen Cannon, the commission’s technical services director. The commission immediately emailed it to legislators and county transportation officials.

Read about other state projects that have ruffled feathers on the Cape
“We allowed the plan to get ahead of the process,” state Highway Administrator Tom Tinlin. “Someone hit the ‘send’ button when they shouldn’t have.”

Tinlin said that highway engineers had good intentions of using the sign replacement project to bring the highway into compliance with federal highway sign standards. But, he said the process should have included a full vetting that would have included the issue of community character.

Full article: http://www.capecodtimes.com/article/20160223/NEWS/160229761

 

[ErnieAdams]

^ So if they do this renumbering and then they ever move forward on Exit 6 1/2, it will become Exit 69...


..I'll show myself out

 

[ErnieAdams]

For real though, of all the places to float this, why choose a highway that isn't limited access until Mile 56? Nobody is driving this thing straight to Seekonk past God-knows-how-many-Star-Market-strip-malls. Are they just trolling crusty year-rounders? Not that that's a bad reason to do anything, but these numbers seem particularly meaningless for a road that's not limited access all the way to the state line.

Now if they want to extend 195 out to the Cape and use those mile markers, that might be useful and justifiable. Let the Interstating discussion begin.

 

[datadyne007]

Now if they want to extend 195 out to the Cape and use those mile markers, that might be useful and justifiable. Let the Interstating discussion begin.

Lol, it's already been had. Scroll back thru the last 2 pages. ;-)

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

Christ, what a stupid thing to argue about. Do these pols know how non-negotiable a thing they're trying to negotiate? The state was denied permission by the Federal Highway Administration to continue on its sequential exit numbering exemption. It's the law, and the MassDOT contracts are already being awarded for the changeover. All the highways that got their signage completely renewed in the last 5 years are going to get their exit numbers restickered. Then the last three that haven't been re-signed--Pike, 6, and 24--get it done when their signs are replaced. They start on the Pike from state line to I-290 this spring, finish 146 to Southie next year.

And yes, it's the law that you have to conform to the MUTCD guidelines for milepost-based numbering...meaning, count the milepost from state line or start of the numbered route, not when it first becomes a highway. MP 0 on Route 6 is the state line in Seekonk; deal with it. The feds are wholly aware that NIMBY's like this aim to make a mockery out of their standards; that's why they've closed the exemption loophole.

As if 6 weren't already the most dangerous divided highway in the state, now its unsafe non-reflective signs are being held hostage by some stupid Operation Chaos. They know they won't win, because federal law is federal law. But they can extract their pound of flesh by dragging it out and costing the state money.



It's not like many people in Massachusetts give directions by exit numbers to begin with. The numbering system here is so chewed up by canceled highways, infill exits suffixed with an "A", and years of that harebrained "128 is always Exit 25" numbering scheme that there's hardly any sequence in this state's sequential numbering to give directions to. Exit numbers are how people from Connecticut give their directions, not here. I learned that the hard way after I first moved here many moons ago and saw the glazed-over expressions when giving Pike directions by exit number. Exit numbering just isn't in the Masshole driver's wayfinding vernacular. You see the difference even in advertising...here businesses give their address by exit place, in Connecticut they give it by exit number. I guarantee the same pols bitching about precious, precious Exit 12 have rarely if ever referenced an exit number as a place.

 

[ErnieAdams]

Christ, what a stupid thing to argue about. Do these pols know how non-negotiable a thing they're trying to negotiate? The state was denied permission by the Federal Highway Administration to continue on its sequential exit numbering exemption. It's the law, and the MassDOT contracts are already being awarded for the changeover. All the highways that got their signage completely renewed in the last 5 years are going to get their exit numbers restickered. Then the last three that haven't been re-signed--Pike, 6, and 24--get it done when their signs are replaced. They start on the Pike from state line to I-290 this spring, finish 146 to Southie next year.

And yes, it's the law that you have to conform to the MUTCD guidelines for milepost-based numbering...meaning, count the milepost from state line or start of the numbered route, not when it first becomes a highway. MP 0 on Route 6 is the state line in Seekonk; deal with it. The feds are wholly aware that NIMBY's like this aim to make a mockery out of their standards; that's why they've closed the exemption loophole.

As if 6 weren't already the most dangerous divided highway in the state, now its unsafe non-reflective signs are being held hostage by some stupid Operation Chaos. They know they won't win, because federal law is federal law. But they can extract their pound of flesh by dragging it out and costing the state money.



It's not like many people in Massachusetts give directions by exit numbers to begin with. The numbering system here is so chewed up by canceled highways, infill exits suffixed with an "A", and years of that harebrained "128 is always Exit 25" numbering scheme that there's hardly any sequence in this state's sequential numbering to give directions to. Exit numbers are how people from Connecticut give their directions, not here. I learned that the hard way after I first moved here many moons ago and saw the glazed-over expressions when giving Pike directions by exit number. Exit numbering just isn't in the Masshole driver's wayfinding vernacular. You see the difference even in advertising...here businesses give their address by exit place, in Connecticut they give it by exit number. I guarantee the same pols bitching about precious, precious Exit 12 have rarely if ever referenced an exit number as a place.

OK, here we go, I'm doing it. Bear with me, I will bring it all the way around.

1. If the pols don't know how futile it is to negotiate, their constituents definitely do not know. The poor Cape Cod Times (along with every paper bought and gutted by Gatehouse in, south, and east of Boston) is a shell of its former self, and the ability to keep the electorate informed and engaged has suffered irreparable harm at the hands of the collapse of the newspaper industry. It may not be Gatehouse's fault that the industry will never recover, but as long as those chop-shoppers happen to be in charge of so many crumbling civic institutions, then scapegoat them I shall. Notice in the linked article how federal guidelines, the actual controlling element of the story, are a relative afterthought to the political posturing. That's not a function of Doug Fraser being a bad reporter -- he's actually one of the very best and just won a regional industry award to prove it. It is a function of him only being allowed 1,000 words to explain the entire issue to the reader. So it's an argument at all because almost nobody knows that it may have already been lost.

2. That said, I don't hate what the pols are doing here. Call it pandering if you want because of the perceived futility of the gesture, but representing the interests of a unique region is what Cape Cod voters want of their elected officials. That does not always align with the interests of larger groups with which we might otherwise agree, such as the progressive transportation lobby (v. Sarah Peake here) or the environmental lobby (v. Ted Kennedy and a litany of lesser-knowns on Cape Wind). It certainly makes a NIMBY tag easy to affix. But that's life on the Cape. Take solace in little victories for progress, like getting a successful passenger train running again through the backyards of actual bona fide tinfoil-hat NIMBYs who expect us to believe they didn't see the train tracks in their backyards when they bought their properties. Let's distinguish NIMBYing and attempting to avoid confusion. (And to be absolutely fair, yes, the concurrent objections to overhanging highway signs are 100% NIMBYrific.)

3. The MUTCD numbering guidelines are an overly blunt instrument. Let's assume that you're right that IT'S THE LAW and I understand that it's going to eventually happen. The article says otherwise: "State transportation officials are in conversation with the Federal Highway Administration about numbering exits and that, so far, federal officials haven’t made it an absolute requirement tied to funding, he said." But let's assume it's already a done deal. The law is absolutely wrong here. It's nonsensical to make the lowest-numbered exit on a limited access highway Exit 58. That requires drivers to actively stifle their own intuition to figure out where they are. When driving to RI, the logical continuation of the Mid-Cape Highway is 25 and then 195. If the new numbers on those highways somehow lined up with the Mid-Cape's new numbers, then fine. (Incidentally, I don't see how that could be possible unless 25 got an exemption, and then what are we even doing here.) But renumbering the Mid-Cape is an impediment to wayfinding otherwise. If just one person decides to stick with Route 6 to count down the milepost numbers and wastes an hour zigzagging through scenic Fall River instead of getting to where they're trying to go, then the renumbering is a failure. Truly, the fact that a federal guideline like this is required to be implemented on every qualifying highway in these United States is a reason why people get excited about Rand Paul libertarian types. Not that many people, clearly, but come on, feds, it's a big country and it could use a little more heart than that. Not to mention that "federal guidelines" is a genuine specter on this highway since some federally mandated clear-cutting of the median resulted in a fatal accident two years back. We've discussed that up the thread somewhere, but it explains some of the skepticism you're hearing.

4. Exit numbers for the Mid-Cape are routinely used by Cape Cod drivers, which is a region distinct enough to have bandied about secession-from-Massachusetts talk two generations ago. If you won't take it from me after the 17 years I lived there and the 85 years combined (and counting) that my parents have lived there, just think of WBZ's Traffic on the 3's on Sunday afternoons in the summer. You'll hear mileage announced for a backup of five miles or less, or an exit number if the mileage is so silly to be meaningless, which kicks in at about Exit 4.

5. By the way, does this mean that they eventually have to number the exits on the limited access section of Route 28 through Bourne and Falmouth too? Holy shit, Wikipedia says so, and just look at the clusterfuck this will create! The Mid-Cape will be numbered 58 through 88 as you head down Cape from the bridges. Route 28 will be numbered 51 through 56 as you head down Cape from the bridges. So somebody tells you you need to get off at Exit 88. You start driving, head over the bridge, see Exit 51, long way to go but so far so good, Exit 52, 54, 56, Ok...HAHA NOPE FUCK YOU YOU'RE IN DOWNTOWN FALMOUTH, YOU JUST WASTED TWO HOURS LOL. That's an utterly absurd and entirely plausible result. You can't do that to people when things are already confusing enough out there as it is. If they stick with 28 to remedy that mistake, South will be North by the time they finally get where they're going. The only people who benefit from that are psychotherapists in Chatham who will get walk-ins from the drivers who've abandoned all hope by then.

F-Line, you're a "show me the proof" guy and I love that about you. Prove to me that these new numbers would be better than the current ones. "Because MUTCD says so" isn't proof. I can think of one argument in favor, but I'll save it for now because I want to know what else you think and I don't want to taint my devil's advocacy. Why does this make sense in this specific place?

 

[Equilibria]

The MUTCD numbering guidelines are an overly blunt instrument. Let's assume that you're right that IT'S THE LAW and I understand that it's going to eventually happen. The article says otherwise: "State transportation officials are in conversation with the Federal Highway Administration about numbering exits and that, so far, federal officials haven’t made it an absolute requirement tied to funding, he said." But let's assume it's already a done deal. The law is absolutely wrong here. It's nonsensical to make the lowest-numbered exit on a limited access highway Exit 58. That requires drivers to actively stifle their own intuition to figure out where they are. When driving to RI, the logical continuation of the Mid-Cape Highway is 25 and then 195. If the new numbers on those highways somehow lined up with the Mid-Cape's new numbers, then fine. (Incidentally, I don't see how that could be possible unless 25 got an exemption, and then what are we even doing here.) But renumbering the Mid-Cape is an impediment to wayfinding otherwise. If just one person decides to stick with Route 6 to count down the milepost numbers and wastes an hour zigzagging through scenic Fall River instead of getting to where they're trying to go, then the renumbering is a failure. Truly, the fact that a federal guideline like this is required to be implemented on every qualifying highway in these United States is a reason why people get excited about Rand Paul libertarian types. Not that many people, clearly, but come on, feds, it's a big country and it could use a little more heart than that. Not to mention that "federal guidelines" is a genuine specter on this highway since some federally mandated clear-cutting of the median resulted in a fatal accident two years back. We've discussed that up the thread somewhere, but it explains some of the skepticism you're hearing.

Completely agree. Milepost exists are intuitive only relative to the road you're on, and the road you're on isn't always defined by the route number. I wonder if MassDOT could use shadow state route numbers as a workaround - label MA-6 on just the LA section and do the mile markers based on that?

The same thing will come up on Route 3, which will be labeled from MIT under these rules. If anything, I wonder if that would be impetus to get MassDOT to go for a I-293 designation for the highway section...

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

2. That said, I don't hate what the pols are doing here. Call it pandering if you want because of the perceived futility of the gesture, but representing the interests of a unique region is what Cape Cod voters want of their elected officials. That does not always align with the interests of larger groups with which we might otherwise agree, such as the progressive transportation lobby (v. Sarah Peake here) or the environmental lobby (v. Ted Kennedy and a litany of lesser-knowns on Cape Wind). It certainly makes a NIMBY tag easy to affix. But that's life on the Cape. Take solace in little victories for progress, like getting a successful passenger train running again through the backyards of actual bona fide tinfoil-hat NIMBYs who expect us to believe they didn't see the train tracks in their backyards when they bought their properties. Let's distinguish NIMBYing and attempting to avoid confusion. (And to be absolutely fair, yes, the concurrent objections to overhanging highway signs are 100% NIMBYrific.)

Lost me at "unique region". The Cape isn't unique at all. Not in population vs. the rest of the Commonwealth, not as insignificant speck amongst a nation's worth of "unique regions". That is exactly the argument privileged NIMBY's love to cloak themselves in when they've got nothing else.

3. The MUTCD numbering guidelines are an overly blunt instrument. Let's assume that you're right that IT'S THE LAW and I understand that it's going to eventually happen. The article says otherwise: "State transportation officials are in conversation with the Federal Highway Administration about numbering exits and that, so far, federal officials haven’t made it an absolute requirement tied to funding, he said."

MassDOT's latest extension request for continuing to use sequential numbers was rejected. Why was it rejected? Because of the statewide re-signing project that's been going on for the last 5 years. The federal exemptions on renumbering have been a nod to the financial realities that highway signage is fucking expensive to replace. California, which historically used no exit numbers whatsoever on signage, has so many miles of freeways and so many years of budget shortfalls that they're gotten extension-of-time exemption after exemption (still not done, although finally getting close). CT and RI highways are still full of nearly invisible, bullet-riddled button copy (which is now illegal) signs from before I was born. CT is finally starting to do the replacements and renumberings, but it may take them 20 years to fund and replace its signs while MA got it done in 5. RI may never do it on a wide-scale, instead waiting for each individual sign to fall over before spot-replacing.

Well...MassDOT did fund the statewide sign and sign mount replacement blitz, so it's no longer about money. (And they may or may not have gotten some amount of fed funding for it.) But they didn't do the exit renumbering when they were spending tens of millions fabricating new signs, so the feds pulled the plug on their latest extension-of-time exemptions. That is not the MUTCD being an overly blunt instrument, or the federal ogre imposing itself over states rights. That's the state very voluntarily choosing to fund the wholesale sign replacement, and then running a red on one of the very well spelled-out triggering events for exit numbering compliance that they've known about for 2 decades. If they didn't want their exemption getting taken away, they would've punted the statewide sign replacement for another decade like RI and NH keep doing. They knew this day was coming. Probably even planned for it, since coming back in stealth to resticker 2 digits on a bunch of cleanroomed signs is a path of much lesser resistance than holding up the sign replacement contracts--at financial penalty--for a NIMBY fight in every single MassHighway district.

There are no victims here. They knew the score, and chose to proceed. Resisting now constitutes genuinely provocative action against the feds that will jeopardize their chances at federal funding. Emphasis on "chances". They have to compete with a finite pot of FHWA funding awards with 49 other states. To further my last point about "Cape = not special"...there is no way in hell MassDOT and Gov. Baker are going to let 12 exit numbers on Route 6 add 1%'s worth of uncertainty to their funding prospects for a highway SGR project bucket list that's 10 miles long. Cape voters and pols do not have enough influence to make that threat stick when every other MassHighway district's worth of voters and pols have their list of pet projects to push.

I suspect this is well understood and the fact that they're trying to talk the Cape down slowly is so they don't have to tell the feds they're making new exceptions. The FHWA has never cared much about how long it takes for the states to attain full compliance, because of those budget realities. So as long as it gets framed as a temporary delay while they try to quiet the screaming baby for appearance's sake, nobody's going to hold it against them. But there's no endgame here that self-affirms the Cape's oh-so-specialness.

But let's assume it's already a done deal. The law is absolutely wrong here. It's nonsensical to make the lowest-numbered exit on a limited access highway Exit 58. That requires drivers to actively stifle their own intuition to figure out where they are. When driving to RI, the logical continuation of the Mid-Cape Highway is 25 and then 195. If the new numbers on those highways somehow lined up with the Mid-Cape's new numbers, then fine. (Incidentally, I don't see how that could be possible unless 25 got an exemption, and then what are we even doing here.) But renumbering the Mid-Cape is an impediment to wayfinding otherwise. If just one person decides to stick with Route 6 to count down the milepost numbers and wastes an hour zigzagging through scenic Fall River instead of getting to where they're trying to go, then the renumbering is a failure. Truly, the fact that a federal guideline like this is required to be implemented on every qualifying highway in these United States is a reason why people get excited about Rand Paul libertarian types. Not that many people, clearly, but come on, feds, it's a big country and it could use a little more heart than that. Not to mention that "federal guidelines" is a genuine specter on this highway since some federally mandated clear-cutting of the median resulted in a fatal accident two years back. We've discussed that up the thread somewhere, but it explains some of the skepticism you're hearing.

You'd be totally wrong, as drivers' intuition in every state that uses milepost-based exit numbering has already been acclimated for decades to wayfinding by mileposts. It's not a foreign concept; it's how the vast majority of the country operates. The vast majority of the country isn't thrown completely for a loop by an undivided road that turns into an exit-numbered highway at some high milepost count. And there's reams of data backing it up as more logical than sequential numbering. That's an appeal to "oh-so-specialness" that doesn't hold water in the real world. There's nothing logical about the way Massachusetts does sequential numbering, because Massachusetts sequential numbering is so broken and hacked to pieces it isn't even sequential. Route 2's expressway ends at Exit 43 in Acton, then restarts at Exit 52 in Lexington. I-93 in Boston has no Exit 17, 19, 21. 22, or 25...and 18 is out-of-sequence with 20. That's logical wayfinding???

Cape drivers will get used to it. You...you'll get used to it.

4. Exit numbers for the Mid-Cape are routinely used by Cape Cod drivers, which is a region distinct enough to have bandied about secession-from-Massachusetts talk two generations ago. If you won't take it from me after the 17 years I lived there and the 85 years combined (and counting) that my parents have lived there, just think of WBZ's Traffic on the 3's on Sunday afternoons in the summer. You'll hear mileage announced for a backup of five miles or less, or an exit number if the mileage is so silly to be meaningless, which kicks in at about Exit 4.

More appeal to "oh-so-specialness". Nope. We've discussed how this was voluntary action around well-understood triggers and not a states rights issue. We've discussed the contradictions in the wayfinding argument. Now we're up to non-sequiturs about secession and libertarianism and "aww, c'mon...have a little heart" that aren't even related to the point at hand.

5. By the way, does this mean that they eventually have to number the exits on the limited access section of Route 28 through Bourne and Falmouth too? Holy shit, Wikipedia says so, and just look at the clusterfuck this will create! The Mid-Cape will be numbered 58 through 88 as you head down Cape from the bridges. Route 28 will be numbered 51 through 56 as you head down Cape from the bridges. So somebody tells you you need to get off at Exit 88. You start driving, head over the bridge, see Exit 51, long way to go but so far so good, Exit 52, 54, 56, Ok...HAHA NOPE FUCK YOU YOU'RE IN DOWNTOWN FALMOUTH, YOU JUST WASTED TWO HOURS LOL. That's an utterly absurd and entirely plausible result. You can't do that to people when things are already confusing enough out there as it is. If they stick with 28 to remedy that mistake, South will be North by the time they finally get where they're going. The only people who benefit from that are psychotherapists in Chatham who will get walk-ins from the drivers who've abandoned all hope by then.

Yeah, probably. But...like the rest of the United States, you'll get used to it and the world won't end.

F-Line, you're a "show me the proof" guy and I love that about you. Prove to me that these new numbers would be better than the current ones. "Because MUTCD says so" isn't proof. I can think of one argument in favor, but I'll save it for now because I want to know what else you think and I don't want to taint my devil's advocacy. Why does this make sense in this specific place?

See all above. Because MA's sequential system is broken, because MA voluntarily and without pressure from above issued the triggering event that ended their exemption, because reams of data over 4 decades in 40+ states say that milepost-based wayfinding is much easier, and because the "appeal to specialness" arguments being made here are unrelated to the issues at hand.

 

[SeamusMcFly]

Wow! What an epic waste of taxpayer funds. The Feds are good at that.
I remember when Maine changed to mile related exit numbers and thinking "wow this is dumb and not helpful in any tangible way".

Yes, people constantly use exit numbers when giving directions. Non-sequential exit numbering is stupid and made even more stupid with the proliferation of GPS equipment in every car and cell phone. Your wanna know how far it is to something, your GPS will say it out loud.....

I get it. Common sense means nothing. I also had no idea this was dictated to us all by the Feds with exemptions and all that, because I don't care to follow such tomfoolery. However, I will stick with all of my opinions on this. No good comes out of spending tax dollars to change a number, especially when the new number makes the sign more useless to the majority of people who reference it. When exit 36 follows exit 29, the whole freakin system is out of order!

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

Wow! What an epic waste of taxpayer funds. The Feds are good at that.
I remember when Maine changed to mile related exit numbers and thinking "wow this is dumb and not helpful in any tangible way".

Yes, people constantly use exit numbers when giving directions. Non-sequential exit numbering is stupid and made even more stupid with the proliferation of GPS equipment in every car and cell phone. Your wanna know how far it is to something, your GPS will say it out loud.....

I get it. Common sense means nothing. I also had no idea this was dictated to us all by the Feds with exemptions and all that, because I don't care to follow such tomfoolery. However, I will stick with all of my opinions on this. No good comes out of spending tax dollars to change a number, especially when the new number makes the sign more useless to the majority of people who reference it. When exit 36 follows exit 29, the whole freakin system is out of order!

Nobody has answered why Massachusetts' not-at-all-sequential sequential system is so much better at wayfinding over a numbering system that follows its intended milepost sequence. Nobody has answered why there's a taxpayer argument to be made when the state has already spent the money to re-sign the entirety of its expressway network. Nobody has answered why this is the tyranny of the feds when Massachusetts voluntarily undertook the action of re-signing its highways to-code.


Has anyone got a counterpoint that's relevant to the topic?

 

[Arlington]

{^No counterpoint from me}There are several advantages to numbering exits by milepost

1) National wayfinding consistency...Federal dollars get spent on a federal system with national-standard features, including MUTCD signage (color, font, etc). US6 is not just the Cape's road.

2) Emergency Response / Milepost Wayfinding. In a cellphone-enabled emergency response world, when you call 911 from your car, it helps to be able to say "I saw [a bad thing] westbound near milepost 56.5" Milepost exits reinforce the "real" way (mileposts) that highways are measured. You'll also note that most bridges/structures now have milepost-based identifiers too.

3) Tourists. Exit numbers are for people who need navigation help from signs. GPS is going to say "turn here". True locals can probably navigate from the pavement feel or their internal clocks or natural landmarks. To the extent that exits get signs with numbers at all in the GPS era, the signs should conform to an intelligible, consistent system, such as also applies *wherever they're coming from* Mileposts, mileposts, mileposts.