General Infrastructure

Boston and the surrounding area's Mass Infrastructure: This sums it up. Its FUCKED
Gridlock at random times of the night on the highways
Poor MBTA upgrades
UBER drivers
Poor infrastructure upgrades.

Even Mayor Marty Walsh states the Seaport was not built in the idea of having good infrastructure. Very Poor Planning.

We need flying cars.
 
I know you're just throwing chum in the water, but I'll bite. We will never have flying cars, and that is good because we should never have flying cars.

Individual transit will never be efficient enough to alleviate traffic, so we might as well not add the instant death when you suffer a formerly minor mechanical or navigation failure.

ETA, lest you think I'm skipping the point:

-night repairs on the highways cause traffic. There's no better time for them.

-the T sucks, but we just have to fix it. Easier said than done, yeah.

-holy hell, are all these uber and lyft drivers terrible. I almost got hit by one going the wrong way down a street in DTX yesterday to pick up a fare. Last week I almost rear-ended one stopping on Storrow Drive to drop someone off. Storrow Drive!

-the seaport, totally with you. Should have been planned with rapid transit from the start.
 
Quick fixes coming to Porter Square intersection, including reducing 5 light phases to 3 and simplifying some lanes:
Cambridge Day said:
Traffic safety improvements in Porter Square would remove the pedestrian island where Somerville Avenue feeds into Massachusetts Avenue; close an exit from the mall allowing for a left-hand turn onto Massachusetts Avenue; and make the left turn from Massachusetts Avenue onto Somerville Avenue a single, dedicated left lane, replacing a center southbound lane that can be either left or straight.
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All the striping that looks like a giant cross walk but is in fact not a crosswalk at all doesnt help things.
 
CSTH said:
All the striping that looks like a giant cross walk but is in fact not a crosswalk at all doesnt help things.
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Are you talking about sidewalk/plaza in front of the CVS? Yeah it looks like a sidewalk from above but that area is raised from the street and I've never had or seen anyone have a problem with mistaking that as a crosswalk.
 
Blackdog said:
Are you talking about sidewalk/plaza in front of the CVS? Yeah it looks like a sidewalk from above but that area is raised from the street and I've never had or seen anyone have a problem with mistaking that as a crosswalk.
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I haven't seen it either, but that plaza is ugly. Blow it up. Start over.
 
Equilibria said:
I haven't seen it either, but that plaza is ugly. Blow it up. Start over.
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Agreed, it's ugly and I personally don't like the way it's designed from a walking perspective. Those stupid double long stairs are annoying to walk down. I'd say now that the exit to mass ave is going to be removed, that they should do something better with that plaza but it will probably be turned into more parking.
 
The plaza was designed to be pedestrian hostile to accommodate the wishes of the nearby residents to minimize homeless folks congregating on it.
 
I dont see eliminating the ped island as an improvement, and the left turn queue space looks very short
 
Preserving the historical integrity of the Longfellow? Or just $$$ limitations?
 
Or lack of vision. The old bridge didn't connect to Longfellow either. It may not have even been considered.
 
Tombstoner said:
Very graceful. A shame that it doesn't seem to connect to the Longfellow at bridge level--you go down a tall set of stairs, walk 30 feet, then have to walk up a tall set of stairs. I'm sure they have their reasons...
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Well, the first set of stairs is part of the original Longellow structure.

Given the lengths they went to achieve historic integrity in other elements of this project, I think the working hypothesis has to be that the didn't modify that original stair structure for historic reasons as well...
 
RandomWalk said:
The plaza was designed to be pedestrian hostile to accommodate the wishes of the nearby residents to minimize homeless folks congregating on it.
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This is why we can't have nice things. BTW this is also the reason why there are no benches or outdoor tables in Allston.
 
Re: Porter Sq

34f34f said:
Quick fixes coming to Porter Square intersection, including reducing 5 light phases to 3 and simplifying some lanes:
Click to expand...

I assume the three phases have to be:

  • Straight on Mass Ave in both directions
  • Somerville Ave to Mass Ave, both left and right turns
  • Left from southbound Mass Ave to Somerville Ave

(Apparently left turns from Somerville Ave to Mass Ave are currently disallowed, but the plan is to allow them in the future to compensate for the loss of the mall exit left turn, judging from the article's photo showing a future left turn arrow in blue and the existing right only white arrows on the pavement in the satellite photo)

Given that basic arrangement, the pedestrian crosswalk to cross Somerville Ave on the east side of Mass Ave has to be simultaneous with traffic going straight; will right turns from Mass Ave to Somerville Ave have a dedicated turn lane that gets a green simultaneous with Somerville Ave getting a green?

Also, it appears that this means that during the left turn from Mass Ave southbound to Somerville Ave is the only time pedestrians can cross Mass Ave, which implies that Mass Ave southbound straight through traffic will have to get red during that phase.

How are bicycle left turns from Somerville Ave onto Mass Ave toward Harvard expected to work?

I think if the plaza gets rebuilt it would be good to use some of its space for a protected cycle track running from White St to the remaining right turn only exit from the mall to Mass Ave. Hopefully we get cycle tracks along Mass Ave along the lines of the proposal at http://amateurplanner.blogspot.com/2016/02/a-complete-mass-ave-in-cambridge.html at some point for that to connect to.

Does Somerville Ave need its second eastbound lane between Mass Ave and White St?

It would be ideal to have both a protected cycle track and loading zone space on the eastbound side of Somerville Ave just to the east of White St in addition to the travel lane there, but I'm not sure if there's enough road width to make that work. (Maybe eliminating the second westbound lane just east of White St might work, although the 83 bus stop in that vicinity does need to be maintained somehow. The other question is whether the travel lanes are wide enough that they could be narrowed, etc.)

It might also be possible to reconfigure the plaza to provide a separated right turn lane from Somerville Ave to Mass Ave on a more direct path sort of like how the Wilson Sq right turn from Somerville Ave to Elm St works (but probably without copying Wilson Sq's parking). It might also make sense to move the 83 bus stop into that area.
 
The phases are:
1. Mass Ave through, both directions (no turns allowed) - long crosswalk on is on. This is also the longest vehicular phase, so the crossing time for that crosswalk actually increases despite the island being removed. Also cars can no longer turn right into the crosswalk while it is on walk as they have a red arrow.
2. Rights from Mass Ave onto Somerville Ave and lefts from Somerville Ave onto Mass Ave - northern crosswalk is on
3. Lefts from Mass Ave onto Somerville Ave and rights from Somerville Ave onto Mass Ave - southern crosswalk is on

(2 and 3 could be reversed, I can't remember it exactly.)

At the community meeting last week they said they would make some adjustments based on the feedback they received.
 
sm89 said:
The phases are:
1. Mass Ave through, both directions (no turns allowed) - long crosswalk on is on. This is also the longest vehicular phase, so the crossing time for that crosswalk actually increases despite the island being removed. Also cars can no longer turn right into the crosswalk while it is on walk as they have a red arrow.
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Actually according to the Mass Vehicle code you can take a right on red even with an arrow as long as there isn't a no turn on red sign.

Also on a one way road intersecting another one way road you can take a left on red. I wish more drivers would figure that one out.
 
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