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North End residents might be forgiven their smug little smiles today
By adamg on Sat, 06/01/2013 - 12:16pm
NorthEndWaterfront.com watches the news about the overturned gasoline tanker in Arlington and reminds us why North Enders fought to restrict tanker traffic on their streets.
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Comments
I can't imagine that anyone
I can't imagine that anyone in the North End is smug about what happened in Arlington.
Oh jesus christ
35mph on city streets isn't the same as 60 on the Mystic Valley Parkway.
And their facts on what
And their facts on what happened yesterday seem to be at least a little off...
For the love of St. Pete...
whose calling now?
Truck was on HIgh Street
From what I've heard, the truck was on Route 60 (High Street), not on Mystic Valley Parkway, when it overturned in the rotary.
Also, I ride my bike often on that part of Mystic Valley Parkway. It is a meandering, scenic two-lane park road. Nobody goes 60 mph there.
Speeding Gas Trucks
I've seen them plowing through Medford and Arlington. They are not making local deliveries, but short cutting to Rt. 2 on local roads.
BTW: THE SPEED LIMIT ON THAT SECTION OF ROAD IS 30MPH ON MV PARKWAY AND 20MPH ON ROUTE 60!
I've even seen one nearly plow a bunch of pedestrians in a crosswalk in Medford Square because he was too special to slow or stop, then badmouthing people out the window, only to have townfolk surround the truck until a cop came.
Enough is Enough is Enough is Enough! Time for the state to 1) designate truck routes and 2) enforce them with $1000 fines. These vehicles DO NOT belong on these roads and SHOULD NOT be on them.
Route MA-60 is a truck route along with US-3
The alternative is polluting the environment with a much longer and slower path. These trucks probably only get 4-6mpg, so that is lots of wasted fuel, more particulate pollution, and global warming! See, we need the inner belt!
Perhaps North Enders would accept a safety compromise - trucks only go through their neighborhood during the day when empty or nearly so. Less fire risk. Less rollover potential.
I'm surprised that the truck could leak the whole load. Gasoline trucks often have many compartments to limit leaking. Photos of the crashed truck show two compartments, a lesser requirement for diesel fuel and heating oil? Perhaps the valve between the two tanks was left open or both tanks were damaged.
Also, there is some possibility that the driver experienced a medical issue resulting in the excessive speed crossing the river and parkway, otherwise, the roundabout would have made him slow down.
I-93 to I-95 works, too.
Route 60? Seriously? Going through Medford Square two trucks, two buses, or a truck and a bus have to flatten their mirrors to pass by in opposite directions.
Of course, this would be far less of an issue if firms like Noonan - a common offender - were required to record trip data and fire anybody who exceeded speed limits and drove aggressively. Or if trucking companies transporting hazardous materials were required to record trip data and demonstrate, under threat of being prohibited from local routes or barred from travel, that their drivers followed the rules and operated safely.
How are gasoline trucks
How are gasoline trucks supposed to get from the tank farms in Everett and Chelsea to I-93?
Even if they don't go through Medford Square, it requires taking local streets pretty close to some residential blocks in Medford.
And if they're going to Arlington, Lexington, or Belmont, it's much easier to take Route 60 for the 4 miles between Medford Square and Route 2, than to take a 23 mile detour on 93 and 128.
We stopped the construction of highways like the Inner Belt and Route 2 eastward extension. Stuff has to get delivered. That means the trucks are taking local streets.
1947 called...
-Markk02474 - June 1, 2013
Fire?
Fire? People fleeing from burning houses?
I must have missed all that. Could have sworn there were no flames involved!
I wondered about that part, too
I mean, I have friends who live over there and they were seriously inconvenienced and the river is messed up, too ... but no explosions.
On the other hand, the folks in Everett weren't so lucky last time.
It was a fiction piece
I had to re-read the article. It is a work of fiction extended from a few facts. Kind of like a Lifetime Movie Channel feature.
So ...
My friend's neighborhood didn't burn up a couple years back when a truck operating unsafely rolled over and spilled gasoline. That was just a conspiracy/fiction.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a049O0EiacE
Except this isn't about your
Except this isn't about your friend's neighborhood. This is about the northendwaterfront.com's fiction in reporting that there were houses on fire and people were forced to flee.
It's about a hazmat tanker truck rollover and fuel spill
I wrote the NorthEndWaterfront.com post that referred to reports of the Medford hazmat truck rollover and the contamination of the associated fuel spill. I misread a reference to a fire from a past incident and removed it within hours of the original post, with a public correction.
Congrats to those in the trucking industry lobby for making this about something other than another hazmat truck tragedy.
This is a problem intersection
This is right near me and has been a bad intersection for a long long time. See a story where A cab speeding flipped, caught in flames and broke through the bridge wall. The part that broke off the bridge still hasn't been fixed. The rotary is one of those ones that keeps traffic moving fast but the fact that you can basically go straight through without slowing down makes it a shooting match. Couple that with no crosswalks and weeds blocking sight lines as you enter from the east and it's a recipie for disaster. When you come from the west the rotary arrives quite abruptly so a lot of people have to slam on the brakes once you see it.
Whoever is in charge of cleanup (DCR?) seems to be doing a great job with that... in fact a much better job at that then actually maintaining the area in general. Also while it hasn't been confirmed they suspect a medical condition being a cause