General Thoughts/State of Southeast Expressway

[bosma]

There is alot more overpasses and already elevated portions of this highway than many people notice which would make it very costly for a lane addition. Also parts of the highway not elevated are bordered by marsh/wetlands so I canot see getting approval for another lane in those potions.

I agree with those above about all the choke points on SE Xway and that something needs to be done. Its unfortunate we spent all the money on the big dig and X-way between about Columbia Road and Mass Ave was designed as it was or could not have been improved as part of the big dig.

Speaking of the big dig we could always SE Xway underground and put a park over it!!!!!

If the HOV lane on the X-way is successfull then why when there is a breakdown blocking the HOV lane is the Xway smooth sailing, there is nothing that makes my day than seeing a breakdown lane in HOV and knowing my commute will be cutdown by 20 minutes.

 

[omaja]

On a highway without breakdown lanes, plus the MA mentality, no one is going to follow this.

They'd see $380 first-time fines, increasing with the number of violations.

But that is a moot point as I know the land of the freeway, California, has never taken a general purpose lane and converted it to HOV, for instance. I believe it might even be a state law; HOV/HOT lanes are only allowable as added capacity, not replacements for general purpose lanes.

At the very least they ought to discontinue the zipper lane completely. It does very little, if anything at all, to alleviate congestion and costs $1+ million per year to operate.

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

They'd see $380 first-time fines, increasing with the number of violations.

But that is a moot point as I know the land of the freeway, California, has never taken a general purpose lane and converted it to HOV, for instance. I believe it might even be a state law; HOV/HOT lanes are only allowable as added capacity, not replacements for general purpose lanes.

At the very least they ought to discontinue the zipper lane completely. It does very little, if anything at all, to alleviate congestion and costs $1+ million per year to operate.

Replacing the zipper lane with regulation-size shoulders probably does more to improve flow than anything. It's the disabled vehicles that kill the highway hardest. Traffic's got nowhere to go. I've got relatives on the South Coast, and I don't even bother with 93 on a Saturday morning anymore because 1 stall--not even accident--slows it just as bad as if it were a Tuesday early afternoon. I do 2-128 to get to 24, because even with the lane drop and construction in Needham causing a perpetual slow zone all of the shoulders--left and right--are still full-size and functional.

They can make it as many discontinuous chunks as it takes since bridge renewal schedules mean it's 20 years before enough decks get replaced to put shoulders on most spans. But grab every strip of barren crabgrass on the side of the road that's available, put in those shoulders, and do away with this unrealistic fantasy that a truck turnout every 1.5 miles is gonna cut it when 85% of the disablements don't have the luxury of driving that far. Every foot of shoulder counts. Inside shoulder, too. You think you're playing it smart taking the left lane northbound through the Braintree split and avoiding all the merging from 3...then that bulky zipper barrier suddenly shows up inches from your driver's side mirror while you're doing the speed limit on a tight curve. It's a hairy couple of minutes till you're past the Furnace Brook ramps and all the weaving's sorted enough for you to change lanes. "Official" interstate standards say there has to be minimum 4 ft. left of the yellow line. We're counting in inches here because the folded zipper takes 2-1/2 times the space of a normal median. Even 2 ft. more breathing room is the difference between a left-lane accident hosing 2 lanes every single time.


It's obvious...the zipper's where the majority of all this extra space is going to come from. But I contend nobody at MassHighway's got the guts to eliminate an HOV lane it opened with much fanfare. HOV failure after failure in the region it's still an ultimate taboo for state DOT's to reverse it at the policy level. Probably because they get to claim arcane fed funding on grounds that painting a faded diamond symbol on the pavement equals doing something for transit.

 

[cden4]

If the Southeast Expressway used to be 3 lanes with a breakdown lane but was restriped as 4 lanes with no breakdown lane, it can easily be striped as it once was. I find it amusing that once a shoulder is eliminated, the only solution people have to solve the problem is to further widen the road. By reclaiming space for a shoulder that can hold broken down vehicles and longer acceleration/deceleration lanes, I suspect that road will actually operate better and more safely than it does today. No need to eliminate the HOV lane either.

It's funny because MassDOT claims it has to widen Route 128 in order to eliminate the rush hour driving in the shoulder allowance due to safety issues. Actually all it needs to do is adjust the striping and take down the signs so that it's no longer allowed. It's certainly a lot cheaper than expanding the footprint of the highway!

 

[datadyne007]

If the Southeast Expressway used to be 3 lanes with a breakdown lane but was restriped as 4 lanes with no breakdown lane, it can easily be striped as it once was. I find it amusing that once a shoulder is eliminated, the only solution people have to solve the problem is to further widen the road. By reclaiming space for a shoulder that can hold broken down vehicles and longer acceleration/deceleration lanes, I suspect that road will actually operate better and more safely than it does today. No need to eliminate the HOV lane either.

What? That would mean the opposing direction would be squashed down to only 2 lanes when the HOV is open. Have you seen the jam that gets created in the opposing direction with only 3? Boston has massive rush hour volume in both directions.

 

[whighlander]

Car Pooling and HOV lanes are perpetrated on the public based on a faulty premise -- that there are lots of people who live relatively close together and work relatively close together

That might be true for behemoth companies who draw their employees from a few local communities. There are very few real examples of this in the Boston Metro area except perhaps at Hanscom and Mitre's Bedford campus in the burbs and possibly a couple of the 'white shoe" law firms in the Financial District whose top level people live in a handful of towns.

1st) put open road RF tolling on all of the major highways accessing the inner area where the Inner Belt would have provided access (e.g. Cambridge, Alston, Longwood, Beacon Hill, Back Bay, Fin Dist, SPID, BU Med, etc.)
2nd) Make the HOV lanes "market priced" lanes accessible to anyone willing to pay a premium toll (could include private vehicles, limousines and even private buses)
3rd) Make the pricing depend on the demand for the roads (e.g. rush hour, Summer rush to/from the Cape, etc.)

 

[Kahta]

It's funny because MassDOT claims it has to widen Route 128 in order to eliminate the rush hour driving in the shoulder allowance due to safety issues. Actually all it needs to do is adjust the striping and take down the signs so that it's no longer allowed. It's certainly a lot cheaper than expanding the footprint of the highway!

The 128 add-a-lane was supposed to be completed in the 1970s or so-- the project was cancelled due to funding issues.

This project is long overdue, but without further capacity enhancements and interchange improvements, it's just going to shift congestion to: I-90, Newton Corner, and Waltham. If the I-90/128 interchange was improved, it would have a meaningful impact on traffic on the SE Expressway because it would make it substantially easier to go I-95>128>90>downtown

A major reason why the SE expressway is so bad is because of the cancelled southwest expressway-- which would have in reality, due to air rights and being built below grade, would have had a minimal impact on many of the neighborhoods it was scheduled to go through.

 

[vanshnookenraggen]

A major reason why the SE expressway is so bad is because of the cancelled southwest expressway-- which would have in reality, due to air rights and being built below grade, would have had a minimal impact on many of the neighborhoods it was scheduled to go through.

That is easy to say that when you didn't live right next to it. It's a massive 8 lane highway. Even depressed it will still cut you off from what was once across the street and dump tons of pollution, both emissions and sound, into an already depressed area.

It's easy to look at how well the Southwest Corridor worked out but the Southwest Expressway would not have been so well integrated into the city.

 

[mass88]

The 128 widening project is very necessary and I am glad it is happening. I am also glad to read the 93/95 interchange in Woburn is getting redone as well as the 93/95 interchange in Canton.

Both of those interchanges are amongst the worst I have ever experienced. I don't get why stacked interchanged were never built here.

Adding a full breakdown lane in each direction on the SE Expressway can easily be done and would go a long way to helping things. I lost count when thinking about the number of times a car breaks down and cannot be pushed to the side.

 

[Ron Newman]

Do that many people really fail to plan ahead, and run out of gas on the SE Expressway?

 

[datadyne007]

I am also glad to read the 93/95 interchange in Woburn is getting redone as well as the 93/95 interchange in Canton.

Both of those interchanges are amongst the worst I have ever experienced. I don't get why stacked interchanged were never built here.

I was just about to comment on the 93/95 in Woburn. I drove it tonight and was shocked at the ridiculously sharp turns (95N exit to 93S) and layout of the change. The exit comes up with relatively no warning either.

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

Do that many people really fail to plan ahead, and run out of gas on the SE Expressway?

No, but plenty of people get in minor scrapes in stop-and-go traffic. And lane widths at the narrowest legally allowable with zero shoulders mean bumps get amplified into steel pingpong balls hitting jersey barrier and other moving steel. Then the potholes and small flotsam upchucked off of trucks blowing out tires, suspensions, and dragging sparking mufflers behind cars.

Idiots who run out of gas when there's a gas station every exit should be mocked like the idiots they are. But they're 0.01% of the disabled vehicles that mess up the Expressway. The majority of the disabled traffic doesn't have an opportunity to make an orderly lane switch and wait until one of those sparse couple of emergency turnouts to pull over before they're stopped and blocking 1 or more lanes of thru traffic. That's overpowering evidence that the emergency turnouts aren't anywhere near enough padding for basic-most roadway functioning.

 

[mass88]

Do that many people really fail to plan ahead, and run out of gas on the SE Expressway?

It has nothing to do with running out of gas. If your fuel pump goes for example, your car will stop running. If there were a breakdown lane, you could easily be pushed aside and that would allow traffic to flow normally.

 

[whighlander]

It has nothing to do with running out of gas. If your fuel pump goes for example, your car will stop running. If there were a breakdown lane, you could easily be pushed aside and that would allow traffic to flow normally.

Some of it has to do with people panicking at any sign of a problem

Salvage mode driving is not a skill you get taught in school -- you have to learn it from a combination of experience and a general sense of how a vehicle is constructed and functions

I've driven different cars for a number of miles with:
1) VW bug
a) no oil and leak in oil cooler
b) broken clutch cable
c) 1 spark plug blown out
d) hole in the carburetor above the throttle plate -- result of "backfire"
2) Lincoln Continental --
a) broken steering wheel shaft
b) blown heater hose
3) Chrysler Lebaron
a) dead water pump
b) dead alternator
c) broken timing belt -- just coasted
4) Ford Escort Station Wagon
a) suspension problems
b) dead alternator
c) dead battery

and of course lots of dead lights, blown fuses, flats, bumps and scrapes, spin-outs on ice and temporarily stuck in snow, etc.

People just need to be more confident in their own abilities and less dependent

 

[JohnAKeith]

Lord, you're a car accident waiting to happen.

:O)

 

[datadyne007]

...and this is why the SE Exp needs breakdown lanes.

 

[whighlander]

Lord, you're a car accident waiting to happen.

:O)

John -- that list is over 30 years from the first event with an old Lincoln which I drove to Texas with all my worldly belongings to go to grad school

to the most recent -- the Ford Escort about 2+ years ago

Actually since I acquired my wife's old Honda Civic -- the worst I've done is drive with the trunk lid open while carrying away the beaucoup fragments of the tree limbs which came down during the Een of Halloween snow storm

 

[Kahta]

That is easy to say that when you didn't live right next to it. It's a massive 8 lane highway. Even depressed it will still cut you off from what was once across the street and dump tons of pollution, both emissions and sound, into an already depressed area.

It's easy to look at how well the Southwest Corridor worked out but the Southwest Expressway would not have been so well integrated into the city.

The air rights would have been comparable to the air rights over I-90 where the pru is-- in that section, that was hardly an impact to the neighborhood. I-695 through Cambridge had a similar design that would have essentially been cut and cover.

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

The air rights would have been comparable to the air rights over I-90 where the pru is-- in that section, that was hardly an impact to the neighborhood. I-695 through Cambridge had a similar design that would have essentially been cut and cover.

That doesn't take into account what brutalist urban renewal path of destruction would've filled the cleared land after the highway was covered. The lesson of the urban expressway construction orgy was to not blow up decades/centuries-functioning neighborhoods in the first place for the sake of blowing them up for something new. The list of replacement development that has failed to unify as well as what came before it is a lot longer nationwide than the ones that were net-positives. A scar is a scar when it isn't healed. What would've replaced decked-over 695 would've been West End redux through the heart of Cambridge.

And the Pike is instructive about just how hard it is to fill in totality all that air rights space the highway's prebuilt for. It's theoretical land until you do something productive with it. In the Pike's case the canyon didn't scuff things up too irrecoverably because it replaced mostly miles of train yards. Would 695 have fared any better on red tape? Maybe it has its Pru equivalent...in one spot. But I guarantee the BRA would still be showing PowerPoints decades later on all the vaporware things it could be doing there if it were capable of doing anything, while the traffic continues whizzing by in the same open-air cut that destroyed the neighborhood a generation earlier.

 

[Lurker]

The air rights would have been comparable to the air rights over I-90 where the pru is-- in that section, that was hardly an impact to the neighborhood. I-695 through Cambridge had a similar design that would have essentially been cut and cover.

I90 did a lot of damage from Newton to South Station. The railroad trench was lined with housing and businesses which didn't leave street edges open to a trench. The highway trench is divisive in a way that the railroad trench was not in that regard.