General Infrastructure

[RandomWalk]

Funny you mention it... they are apparently redeveloping the DEC/IBM site with housing and retail?

“The site”? There were many sprinkled throughout metro west. I remember playing hide and seek in many of them…

Seeing the Taylor St buildings in Littleton turned into an Amazon warehouse makes me sad.

 

[jklo]

Littleton? Yea the town just approved a site master plan for that one. The existing buildings are staying, but it's fairly well massive. 804 units, mostly one bed, 241 2 bed and 79 3 bed family units, plus a hotel and retail and a shuttle to Littleton /495. I'll need to be convinced retail will work out here, since the newish The Point mall down the street still has an entire strip of vacant storefronts and several pad sites, but it's been vacant for years.

Yeah.

I looked at condos in North Acton a long time ago and thought the commute even from there was marginal at best, no matter how you shake it. Given the prices at the time it was worth investigating though. Didn't bother with Littleton because I thought it was too far

The rotary being grade separated would have helped at least in the PM when driving. But it also would have made it viable to go to the West Concord CR stop as an option... even though it would be questionable if it would be better versus the South Acton express. Not $100M worth it but better, sure.

 

[bigpicture7]

No idea where to post this (I considered Kendall infill), but thought this might be a better fit: DCR is moving forward with rehabilitation/replacement(?) of the two little drawbridges on Land Boulevard over the Broad Canal in Kendall.

Related lane closures for preliminary testing work this week:

https://www.mass.gov/doc/dcr-traffic-advisory-edwin-land-boulevard-3/download

Project itself ~2026:

Projects

 

[malabari]

Boston-25 News Report on the recent increase in speed limit on Rt. 3 between Burlington and Nashua, NH to 65 mph.

 

[BOS2BON]

No idea where to post this (I considered Kendall infill), but thought this might be a better fit: DCR is moving forward with rehabilitation/replacement(?) of the two little drawbridges on Land Boulevard over the Broad Canal in Kendall.

Related lane closures for preliminary testing work this week:

https://www.mass.gov/doc/dcr-traffic-advisory-edwin-land-boulevard-3/download

Project itself ~2026:

Projects

I hope it's a replacement so that the bike path has that pinch point removed at the bridge.

 

[bigpicture7]

I hope it's a replacement so that the bike path has that pinch point removed at the bridge.

Completely agree. From what I can tell, this is still in design. If you wanted to send design input, you could try the contact person listed in the DCR press release (linked above).

 

[TheRatmeister]

Boston-25 News Report on the recent increase in speed limit on Rt. 3 between Burlington and Nashua, NH to 65 mph.

Took them long enough. I have a feeling way more people would actually respect speed limits if they made at least some sense.

 

[bigeman312]

Boston-25 News Report on the recent increase in speed limit on Rt. 3 between Burlington and Nashua, NH to 65 mph.

Another reason to extend the Red Line to 128, in my opinion.

A high speed funnel for automobiles between New Hampshire, the Merrimack Valley, Bedford, and Burlington, with no good way to bridge the 6.9 mile gap between the 3/128 interchange and Alewife.

 

[ceo]

It might have to continue to be a drawbridge. From 33 CFR § 117.591:

(e) The draws of the bridges across Broad Canal, mile 0.0, need not open for the passage of vessels. However, the draws shall be returned to operable condition within one year after notification by the District Commander to do so.

Of course, the same regulations say of the East Cambridge Viaduct drawbridge, "the operating machinery of the draw shall be maintained in an operable condition" and I'm pretty sure it's not even before they laid continuous welded rail straight over the thing.

 

[Delvin4519]

Paywalled article from the Globe:

Pedestrians in Boston face speeding motorists and scooters. The city focuses on safety, but work remains. - The Boston Globe

On Monday, Boston marked its fifth pedestrian fatality this year after a driver struck and killed a woman in the South End. Seven people died on city streets last year, and nearly 600 were injured.

www.bostonglobe.com

We still need new 30 KMH (20 MPH) mandatory speed limits across Boston, extending into Malden, Revere, Medford, Camberville, and Brookline. A 5th pedestrian fatiality just in Boston's streets within municipal limits this year alone. 600 people maimed by mostly cars. As the saying goes "twenty is plenty", but "twenty five is too high"

 

[393b40]

Paywalled article from the Globe:

Pedestrians in Boston face speeding motorists and scooters. The city focuses on safety, but work remains. - The Boston Globe

On Monday, Boston marked its fifth pedestrian fatality this year after a driver struck and killed a woman in the South End. Seven people died on city streets last year, and nearly 600 were injured.

www.bostonglobe.com

We still need new 30 KMH (20 MPH) mandatory speed liits across Boston, extending into Malden, Revere, Medford, Camberville, and Brookline. A 5th pedestrian fatiality just in Boston's streets within municipal limits this year alone. 600 people maimed by mostly cars. As the saying goes "twenty is plenty", but "twenty five is too high"

Changing the speed limit does nothing without enforcement. There is no enforcement of existing traffic laws in Boston.

 

[RandomWalk]

The legislature needs to get over itself and pass a bill permitting comprehensive red light camera enforcement.

 

[SlothofDespond]

The legislature needs to get over itself and pass a bill permitting comprehensive red light camera enforcement.

Assuming you mean red light cameras, aren't they generally regarded as a terrible, horrible, bad thing that don't improve safety but rather disproportionately impact poorer drivers, lead to predatory behavior like shortening yellow lights, allow insurance companies another way to justify charging drivers more, and increasing the rate of rear-ending accidents.

I don't suspect running red lights is actually the issue. Rather, drivers with awful driving skills and too many drivers not paying attention. The frequency at which I don't see drivers looking out their windshield is kind of frightening. Designs that protect bike / pedestrian areas and cool speeds more naturally seem like the ticket.

And if you mean in any way increasing the rate of driver - police interaction. That's a really bad thing too.

Edit: also, 20 mph is absurdly slow. But our mph limits are in a bizarre state of not actually being limits, but sort of like thresholds that suggest how much faster you can go without getting in trouble, and allowing police to pull anyone over with cause who happens to be above the number, which happens to be everyone on the road because the numbers are lower than anyone would ever drive (wonderful!).

 

[bakgwailo]

Assuming you mean red light cameras, aren't they generally regarded as a terrible, horrible, bad thing that don't improve safety but rather disproportionately impact poorer drivers, lead to predatory behavior like shortening yellow lights, allow insurance companies another way to justify charging drivers more, and increasing the rate of rear-ending accidents.

I don't suspect running red lights is actually the issue. Rather, drivers with awful driving skills and too many drivers not paying attention. The frequency at which I don't see drivers looking out their windshield is kind of frightening. Designs that protect bike / pedestrian areas and cool speeds more naturally seem like the ticket.

And if you mean in any way increasing the rate of driver - police interaction. That's a really bad thing too.

Edit: also, 20 mph is absurdly slow. But our mph limits are in a bizarre state of not actually being limits, but sort of like thresholds that suggest how much faster you can go without getting in trouble, and allowing police to pull anyone over with cause who happens to be above the number, which happens to be everyone on the road because the numbers are lower than anyone would ever drive (wonderful!).

Red light cameras can be fine, provided there is transparency. When done well, they do reduce accidents. Also, not sure if you actually live in Boston, but, I can assure you that even at the light in front of my house drivers just blast through the red light as if it were nothing. Years ago we used to have a cop stake it out giving tickets which worked well, but I haven't seen that in years. Personally, I'd rather see more focus on speed cameras to actually enforce speed limits. The city is implementing, as the article points out, a ton of speed bumps and other physical infrastructure to slow cars down. That said, it is a combination of enforcement and street design that will solve this, and, in the end, pedestrians have the right of way, and streets in the city should be designed around them as a whole, and not drivers and other vehicles.

20 mph for a city street is not absurdly slow, and, the speed limit in Boston is 25 mph, down from 30 mph years ago. This was done due to the wealth of data showing a drop in 5mph greatly decreases pedestrian fatalities. And, as we are discussing: our speed limits don't matter as there is no enforcement of them, hence either need a bunch more traffic police or using things like speed cameras to do the job.

 

[The EGE]

^ fully agreed. Like any traffic control device, they have to be implemented responsibly, with safety rather than revenue as the guiding principle. Bad practices like shortening yellows go against every safety principles; there needs to be stronger controls to prevent politicians and bean-counters from overriding engineering. Best practices are to place traffic control devices (including enforcement) in locations where a specific safety need is known to exist. You're not going to put red-light cameras at every single signal; you're going to put them where a known pattern of red-light running is a bigger issue than potential rear-ends (or where there's a known pattern of illegal turns on red).

Until we adopt income-based traffic fines, there will always be a basic level of inequity in any kind of traffic enforcement - both in that lower-income drivers are more likely to have a fine cause them serious issues, and that higher-income drivers may not be dissuaded by a fixed fine. Moving to primarily automated systems in locations where specific safety issues are known to exist (with systemic checks to ensure that distribution is not inequitable), and using engineering and education to the fullest, is about as good as we can get for now.

 

[as02143]

Assuming you mean red light cameras, aren't they generally regarded as a terrible, horrible, bad thing that don't improve safety but rather disproportionately impact poorer drivers, lead to predatory behavior like shortening yellow lights, allow insurance companies another way to justify charging drivers more, and increasing the rate of rear-ending accidents.

There are places where the whole implementation has basically been led by the owner of the traffic camera systems. Those have tended to be the places with these predatory behaviours. However, there's a difference between an increase in the rate of rear-end crashes versus T-bone crashes. A T-bone crash is mostly going to obliterate the car and result in a major injury or death while a rear-end crash is much less likely to do so. Anyone who is caught running reds or speeding on urban streets should have their insurance increase and we all pay for those drivers to be insured no matter how many infractions they get.

And if you mean in any way increasing the rate of driver - police interaction. That's a really bad thing too.

Driver police interactions are reduced with penalty tickets. Drivers have more 'law enforcement system' interactions though, which, has its own hazards, but, like-for-like, you're decreasing interactions with armed officers of the state.

Edit: also, 20 mph is absurdly slow.

30 kmh/20 mph is about right for central areas of greater Boston and in business districts. There are 'quiet zones' that I saw in parts of continental Europe recently where the residential speed limit is 10 or 20 kmh and the entire city, except for motorway tunnels or massive arterials is 30 kmh.

 

[Delvin4519]

Changing the speed limit does nothing without enforcement. There is no enforcement of existing traffic laws in Boston.

There's something still missing. Even if police officers could issue tickets, or if the traffic cameras of tomorrow were given authority to issue tickets: It would still be impossible to ticket drivers going 22 MPH (35 KMH). Even if traffic camers were given the ability to issue tickets tomorrow, can they, or police officers, ticket drivers going 22 MPH (35KMH)? Our speed limit signs still display "25 MPH". How is a police officer or a traffic camera supposed to ticket drivers going 21 MPH (33 KMH)? Or 24 MPH (38 KMH), if a speed limit sign reads "25 MPH"?

Give me a answer to this question above. Enforcement of traffic laws is not enough to rectify the disaster of Boston today.

20 mph is absurdly slow.

What kind of comment is this? What makes 30 KMH (18 MPH), SLOW? Do you know how SMALL Boston is? An e-bike can travel from the core of Boston's CBD at Boston City Hall, all the way to the very edge of the city out by West Medford in 19 minutes and a half, or all the way to Cleveland Circle in 17 - 18 minutes. At a crisp 30 KMH (18 MPH) speed, these travel times are completely possible, within the legal limit of 30 KMH (18 MPH).

18 MPH (30 KMH) is plenty of speed. They call it "twenty is plenty" for a reason. You can travel most of the city within an hour's reach of 30 KMH (18 MPH).

If you truly don't understand how ridiculously SMALL and compact Boston is, here's Boston compared to London, Toronto, Sydney, and Melbourne:

The only reason one is going as slow as snails, is because cars are so dangerous we need traffic lights on 4 minute cycles on every intersection. If we had no cars and only bicycles, there would be no traffic lights, and you would NEVER need to stop, because bicycles don't need traffic lights or stop signs.

Studies have shown that death is basically almost guaranteed if a human being is struck by a driver going faster than 30 KMH (18 MPH). The only realistic chance of surviving a motor vehicle crash is if the driver drove at a speed of under 30 KMH (18 MPH). The inflection point is almost always around 30 KMH (18 MPH).

Speed is not the purpose of our city streets. You are in a city, and therefore the enviornment is expected to be complex. There are buildings, shops, homes, main streets, schools, playgrounds, children, and grandparents all over the place. You are expected to go slow in a city.

If you want to go faster than 18 MPH (30 KMH), go take the metro or the commuter rail trains, or use the high speed rail lines or highways outside of the city. There is NO REASON for private motor vehicles to be going faster than 30 KMH (18 MPH) in a city.

It is a DISASTER to have "Distracted driver travelling at 22 MPH (35 KMH) kills a kindergartener walking home from the park after dusk". "Drowsy driver travelling 24 MPH (38 KMH) hits and kills high school teenager walking to the school bus stop 20 minutes before sunrise, with his car". "Grandma killed by speeding driver going 36 MPH (58 KMH)".

Are you okay with these headlines on a daily basis? If you don't lower the speed limit to 30 KMH (18 MPH) sharp, these tragedies WILL happen. These deaths are all entirely preventable. Boston was essentially bulldozed into a crappy car dependent racetrack, and it continues to eat people's lives and leave hundreds of others permanently disabled for life. The only way to have a real, functional city, is a city with 30 KMH (18 MPH) speed limits.

A reduced speed limit of 20 MPH, down from 25 MPH, is one of the cheapest options available within a recovering city's toolkit to improve safety. It will deliver improvements across the entire city, without forcing residents on many streets to wait for 25 - 30 years for their street to become due for replacements, or costly, expensive, renovations. Yes, of course, we do need traffic camera enforcements, but they alone will not be enough as long as the speed limit signs continue to display 25 MPH instead of 20 MPH. Not until the speed limit is cut across all of Boston. 20 MPH on every single city street from Quincy to Arlington, from Dedham to Medford, from Waltham to Beverly.

 

[Delvin4519]

If they're not enforcing at 30 when people are doing 35-40, heck 50 why do you think they'll enforce at 25 or 20? I mean we could set the limit to 5... it doesn't change the fact there's nobody out there enforcing driving laws. You gotta solve that problem first.


If we took every person driving today and put them on a bike I guarantee we would have fun new problems requiring signaling. What kind of idiotic take is this? By the way, bike's are required to follow stop sign and red light laws in Massachusetts even if there aren't any cars around. The Idaho Stop is also a fantasy.

Well that's how god far behind Boston and Massachusetts are compared to the rest of the world. Also there are still bike traffic signals in Dutch intersections where they exist. It's not like there's no traffic lights over there, they still have thousands around the country. We wouldn't need bike signals on every single block like we do with car signals. Plus you wouldn't need to wait a full 4 minutes for a green signal like with car signals today.


We are so, so, so, so, so, so, so far behind any city in Europe. That includes measuring things in units that Canada, the EU, and the rest of the world uses instead of US units.

 

[TheRatmeister]

Also there are still bike traffic signals in Dutch intersections where they exist.

Pretty much every signaled intersection (that I encounter anyways) has dedicated bike signals. It's very rare (and annoying) for them not to be there, as it should be IMO.

 

[Delvin4519]

Pretty much every intersection (that I encounter anyways) has dedicated bike signals. It's very rare (and annoying) for them not to be there, as it should be IMO.

Yes, that was what I meant from the beginning. All I remembered from the top of my head was from the NJB video that "bikes don't need traffic lights". So that's all I wrote down in the post from the start. It's been forever since I looked at or listened to that video so whatever Jason actually meant I can't recall.