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Just inches away from a storrowing

Truck on Storrow Drive

Neil had plenty of time to photograph the truck whose driver was too stupid to comprehend the CARS ONLY signs but smart enough at least to avoid plowing into the Silber Way pedestrian bridge eastbound, shortly before 5 p.m.

Dan Ryan notes it was a Budget rental truck, wonders how Labor day snuck up on us like that.

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Comments

..at least for a few more feet. :)

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the day when everything moved in on labor day moves out?

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to signs with yellow lettering on black rubber that have text that doesn't appear anywhere in the MassDOT or Federal signing standards, and look like they were made in Fred's garage.

Now, if the DCR bothered to put up REAL traffic signs and place them in the proper locations (i.e. on intersecting streets well before the trucks and buses can get onto Storrow Drive in the first place), then perhaps we may have a real shot at reducing these types of incidents.

Perhaps we should seriously consider allowing MassDOT to take over the "parkways". Then we may get a real chance at having proper signs put up.

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Yes I do expect people to pay attention to signs even if they are black letters on a black background.
To the contrary however the existing CARS ONLY signs could only be made more blatantly obvious by making them hot pink.
Stop making excuses for stupidity.

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black on white (the proper colors), change the legends to No Trucks Or Buses (the proper text), and place them well prior to the decision points to enter or continue on Storrow Drive (the proper locations), instead of telling the driver they can't use the road when they've already committed to the ramp or lane and would have to make a risky maneuver to change their course. It is a well established principle that signs that are non-standard in any or all of these categories command far less driver attention than proper ones do.

Plus, given the number of times these sorts of incidents happen, it should be fairly obvious to most reasonable people that the knee-jerk "blame it on driver stupidity" response isn't working. Time to find a legitimate solution to what is a legitimate problem.

Now, I'm not saying that proper signing would eliminate all of these incidents. However, in my opinion, it would greatly reduce their occurrence at relatively low cost to the State (and much cheaper than lowering the roadway - which is actually the correct solution to the clearance problems). It also would eliminate the majority of excuses the driver's lawyer could use in appealing the ticket and denial of insurance coverage (defense lawyers LOVE things like non-standard or improperly placed signs).

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As an air safety expert once said to me, "Yeah, they're all 'pilot error' accidents, but if aircraft design X has pilot error accidents at 10x the rate of aircraft design Y, it does kind of give one pause to think, no?"

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Yup. It's SOOOOO Boston to just leave it the way it is and assume people will know. YOU NEED SIGNS? YOU AIN'T FROM HEAH.

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shouldn't that be enough warning, if you aren't a totally inattentive driver?

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as to the real reason the road is restricted to Cars Only, and are placed so they don't wang your vehicle until you've already committed to using the road and would have to make a very awkward, if not dangerous, maneuver to not do so. Therefore, it shouldn't be much of a surprise that drivers ignore them, even after the signs hit their windshield.

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Tear down Storrow Drive.

Using the pike = no more accidents.

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Replacing Storrow with a well-designed surface boulevard would have the effect of not needing the low bridges, and could be made with the necessary capacity.

Eliminate Pike tolls and half the demand for Storrow would dry up, anyway.

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That's a ped crossing that was almost storrowed.

But sure, take the ped crossings away and replace them with crosswalks. Nothing bad will happen then, eh?

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You can't actually tear down Storrow Drive; it's not an elevated highway.

Tear it up if you wish; replace the Charles/Longfellow, Arlington/Berkeley, and Charlesgate interchanges with signalized intersections if you must; but please don't even think of replacing the pedestrian bridges with crosswalks!

Replace them with new pedestrian/bicycle bridges that have no or minimal switchbacks, and that are high enough to not be a target for trucks and busses. Something like this would be a Wonderlandful replacement for many of the Storrow Drive pedestrian bridges:
IMAGE(http://elmercatdotorg.files.wordpress.com/2014/04/wonderlandbridgedanglingcables.jpg)
IMAGE(http://elmercatdotorg.files.wordpress.com/2014/04/wonderlandbridgeoceanavenorth.jpg)

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How about this swrrly, when you drive your gas guzzling behemouth, read the road signs and follow the rules like the thousands of us who do every single day without getting into car accidents or getting stuck under low clearance bridges!

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No. 50 mpg on my last road trip.

I have never had an at fault accident and, even stranger yet, have had my car rear-ended once in 31 years.

My last traffic ticket was 19 years ago - and it was dismissed.

So the driving part isn't my problem.

But the extreme expense of Storrow Drive to the taxpayers compared to its value as a roadway, and the decrepit and inadequate infrastructure which breeds these accidents IS my problem .. .and yours ... and everyone in the Commonwealth and Boston Area's ...

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that Storrow Drive should no longer be classified as a "recreational parkway" and acknowledged for what it really is - an important arterial roadway. Then perhaps we'd be able to finally get some proper signing and geometric improvements to facilitate the adequate and efficient movement of traffic - which is the purpose of highways.

Closing the road completely and stating "well, eveyone should use the Pike instead" doesn't actually solve anything, it just shifts the issues elsewhere.

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the Silber footbridge would snarl at oncoming overheight trucks.

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it still wants to be called the Sherborne footbridge. Bridges don't like being renamed for silly reasons. They're persnickety critters.

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Last week I finally was able to see my first almost storrow'd tractor trailer truck - it was pulled over in one of the few pull over gaps on Storrow heading into the city right before the BU Bridge , I wish I could have stayed to see what happened cause that's a looooooong way to back up.

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If you see a sign reading Silber Way, you know you need to duck while keeping one hand on your wallet.

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