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Bit of a tight turn at Broadway
By adamg on Tue, 11/25/2014 - 8:44pm
Justin Holmes captured the scene at Broadway shortly before 8 p.m. when a truck driver had a bit of trouble with a turn.
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Comments
way to long
I think that many of these trucks are way too long for city streets and I'm guessing the trucking companies are using them to compensate for the fact that Massachusetts doesn't allow the double trailers seen in other states, which is fine with me. I rather see the freight trains on rails not on the Mass Pike.
Too big
We need to start a conversation about the size of trucks allowed on the city streets. Trucks above a 40' wheelbase have no business in an urban environment. Interstates - fine. Industrial areas near the ramps - fine. Local deliveries should be restricted to smaller trucks.
Large trucks like this trying to navigate tight urban environments either hit and damage our public infrastructure (see above), cause traffic issues when they block an intersection, or cause safety issues for anybody else trying to drive/bike/walk around the city. Anything you do to try and design around something this big makes the environment worse for everybody else.
You think companies WANT to drive big trucks in Greater Boston?!
I've yet to meet a single trucker, or hear of a single trucking company, that wants to drive tractor-trailers in and around the City of Boston! Between the narrow streets, numerous street restrictions, rude drivers, un-synchronized light cycles (constant shifting!) and potholes big enough to damage tractors and shift loads, there's zero incentive to send a driver through the area in a large truck--unless you have to! If you're an owner-operator you're probably working for a company that doesn't have a regional distribution center, like UPS or FedEx, where the large trucks come in and the load is transferred to "city-size" trucks--what you drove the load across-country with is how it gets to its final destination.
In a very compact city like Boston where do you honestly draw the line sometimes between "urban" and "industrial"? Dorchester Avenue at Broadway is barely two blocks from I-93. It would be entirely different if the truck got stuck making the turn form South Huntington Avenue onto Perkins Street in JP.
Except that there are thousands of examples where it does work, like Manhattan. I know, like with a street-level replacement of the Casey Overpass the sentiment is "OMG, wide streets--no good!" but Manhattan is a good example of how to make it work: many thoroughfares now feature bike lanes
with bike-only signals in advance of the regular traffic signals.
This is an industrial area
Of, if I have directional perspective off, was. I'm seeing this as a truck going from the Gilette plant to the highway. That's the first step of the process that will end with your razor blades or whatever on the shelves of your local CVS.
So, unless everything you use is made within a mile of where you live/work, you might want to get used to trucks like this.
Please note, this has nothing to do with the "last mile" of consumer goods logistics, but the miles that lead up to the distribution center. The size of trucks delivering to your local CVS or whatever is another thing.
No trouble finding such items in European Cities
I had no trouble buying razors in Munich, and saw no shortage of them in other places where trucks are seriously restricted.
There is no requirement that such items be delivered by gigantic vehicles. A lot of what we see (like gigantinourmous McD and Dunk trucks downtown) is driven by bean counters in far off corporate offices who can't imagine that it may be more efficient to make deliveries with more people and smaller trucks in tight urban areas (after all, it wouldn't be more efficient in Peoria!).
But this is where the razor factory is
Look, there is probably a UHub type website in Leverkusen where people gripe about trucks leaving the Bayer AG factory hitting light poles of whatever, but trust me, when it comes to the early part of the logistics chain, North America is a lot more environmentally friendly that Europe. They move people by train and goods by road while we do the opposite.
Again, a truck hitting a light pole in J.P. or downtown, sure, it's time to make the point, but I think when you are at beginning of a good's journey to market, no.
Also, you do realize that the United States, along with England and the Soviet Union, helped Germany a lot with the redevelopment of their city centres. Mostly the site clearance, but sometimes that is the impetus one needs to rationalize.
(also, Gillette has factories in Europe, so the razors bought in Munich were probably not shipped from Boston.)
Not headed to Gillette
If that truck was headed to Gillette, it would have proceeded straight through the intersection on Dot Ave. This one was making a right onto West Broadway, and it is a very sharp turn. When the Red Line bustitutes at Broadway, even the buses have a hard time making that turn, and MBTA police usually put cones on West Broadway to allow a better turn radius.
I see the USPS semis have the same problem when trying to make a right from Dot Ave. onto West Fourth St. One of the local neighborhood associations installed one of those Big Belly trash/recycling bins last year at that corner too close to the intersection and it lasted one day before being taken out by a bus or truck.
Point taken
However, the whole area was once industrial. Trucks were able to do these things in the 1950s and 1960s.
EDIT-ish On second thought, back in the day, they probably used a different route in the area. Probably A Street.
Stupid road changes
have made streets nearly impassable by vehicles they must accommodate. Some idiots put the signal post too far into the intersection, causing the problem seen here (with help from the median on Dot Ave. preventing a wide swing out). Not the truck driver's fault, but the civil engineers who got the geometry of the intersection very wrong, using bad computer simulations.
Anybody designing roads needs to have both motorcycle and truck licenses and experience driving those vehicles prior to being allowed to have any of their designs taken seriously. Bicycle experience isn't enough.
Trucker GPS
Truckers typically have special GPSes that tell them which roads are compatible with trucking. I would guess these guys are cutting corners and using normal passenger-vehicle GPSes (or their phones) and, behold the consequences. Remember the one that dove right into Boston Common a few months ago?
GPSes aren't a cure-all for ANYTHING
In this particular situation, the driver was attempting to turn from Dorchester Avenue, a wide, thru-trucking thoroughfare onto Broadway, another wide, thru-trucking thoroughfare--I highly doubt a trucking GPS would said, "no you can't take these roads." The driver needed to set up much better for the turn since it was so sharp--GPS had nothing to do with it.
The one that dove into the Boston Common lost its brakes--driver error, yes, but completely different scenario.
This road has always had a tight angle
Traveling from Dorchester to Broadway. It would never be a good angle for a large truck. It hasn't been for a long time. The truck could have continued on and turned around where appropriate instead of forcing the turn and taking with it a light post and whatever other items it damaged. Pretty sure the lamppost did not start out in the middle of the road.
This is an old city. There are some odd angles - I like that. I don't want some truck focused designer removing all character from the streetscape.
Road changes?
Like, paving?
Like, oh, signals and widening the street?
You need to learn a whole lot about the road networks in this area. Boston isn't Saskatchewan - our roads were built CENTURIES before even cars were around, let alone trucks.
So many clues, so little get.
Not that broad a way huh
Not that broad a way huh.
What were they protesting?
What were they protesting?
Parking
If there were more parking spaces for the restaurants in this area, cars would not be parking on the street encroaching on the intersections. At the community meeting on the restaurants, this topic was brought up but not fully addressed. Not everyone takes the T there.