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Not a good day for highway driving north of Boston
By adamg on Mon, 07/06/2009 - 6:05pm
First a ginormous crash shut 95 in Newburyport, then, just in time for the evening rush, a truck hit a utility pole, bringing electric lines down on 128 at Rte. 1 in Peabody, shutting the entire road.
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Comments
I made an attempt to get to
I made an attempt to get to Newburyport today and had to turn around after spending an hour in traffic at around 2pm. I moved about 100 feet.
I can only imagine how crazy traffic must still be up there and now with 128 closed. If you do not have to go that way just stay home, I am a master of the side streets up there and even those were packed at 2pm.
Anyone know if 495 was affected at all? I would think it would take less time to drive west to 495 and just go around the problem.
i95 pain
i live in groveland, work in salem ma. today i rode 97 up through beverly to georgetown. a beautiful pastoral ride that only took me 10 minutes longer than it usually takes going to work down the highway.
knowing the traffic nightmares and avoiding them are great. unlike Friday, when i drove down 95 and passed exit 51 (masco HS) to see the big massport sign saying "accident at exit 50. exit highway now" only... there was no exiting, because i'd passed the last possible exit.
put the car in park, turned the car off. sat for 40 minutes reading proposals for work and my kids ran lines for their plays. we made the best of it... but it would have been nice to know.
grrrr.
511 on your cel phone
It isn't always up to date, but unusual back ups may be avoided by calling this.
I was caught up in jam-packed traffic on the southeast expressway a few weeks back - odd, because it was Saturday afternoon. I had my son dial 511 and put it on speaker, and then punch in the route number. We found out that the entire highway was closed due to a roll over accident about a mile ahead, and took the next exit. We scooted around the backup on local roads and hopped on a couple exits past the accident and enjoyed an empty highway.
511 has saved my tail more times than I can count by giving advance notice of exceptional foul ups. I don't commute by highway on a regular basis, so I am in the habit of dialing it to find out what is going on before I leave. If you get caught in a total jam up, it can be very useful. Add a GPS or a couple of Rubel cycling maps and you are good to go!
In my case I think an
In my case I think an electronic sign before the route 1 splits would have made a huge difference in stopping Boston traffic from heading that way and would have given people a chance to divert. Instead there were signs right before the accident, which I did not see until after I was already in traffic.