Storrow Drive

At 10:50 a.m., Bobby Main tweeted:

Uhaul stuck at bridge on Storrow heading east by Mass. Eye and Ear.

Yep, things are quickly returning to normal. Around 12:30 p.m., Charles O'Brien reported:

East bound Storrow Drive, truck can't clear BU footbridge. Major back up.

Paul Levy considers the weekend bus crash and recounts how the state solved the problem 30 years ago - by hanging cowbells from the warning signs at the entrances to Storrow Driver and Soldiers Field Road, after then MDC Commissioner Bill Geary told his underlings to call a cow farmer to ask where they got their bells:

The frequency of crashes in the underpasses went from one per week to less than one per year. ...

The Commonwealth of Massachusetts solved the problem of bus crashes on this road 30 years ago. A lack of maintenance or will or understanding on the part of the state administration caused this problem to recur this past weekend. It was, in a sense, inevitable.

And it will happen again and again unless the state agency gets it act together.

Meanwhile, Charles Bahne, who has led bus tours of the Boston area for 30 years, explains why he had trouble getting to sleep after hearing about the crash:

Clearly the driver was completely lost. He had not bothered to plan his route or to ask directions from anyone locally. When you, the bus driver, are responsible for the safety of 40 or 50 other people, that is the utmost of irresponsibility. And despite being lost, he was traveling at an excessive rate of speed.

The Storrow Pool is all fun and games until the top of a bus is peeled back, sending nearly three dozen people to the hospital.

Is there any way to prevent this in the future? Clearly, the signs aren't working. Bring back the cowbells the old MDC used to attach to poles across onramps? Station troopers at every entrance? Suggestions?

Here are some thoughts from Twitter last night as the events unfolded:

At 5:54 a.m., MassDOT tweeted:

Traffic Alert: Boston- Storrow Drive tunnel at Leverett Circle, overheight truck stopped @ tunnel entrance. Traffic back up both ramps.

At 6:12 a.m., the agency alerted those who were awake that the truck had been removed (but that traffic was still heavy as a result).

Relive the moment.

A driver with impaired reading skills plowed his truck into the ceiling of the Storrow tunnel eastbound this morning. The ceiling refused to yield, forcing the top of his truck to peel back like a sardine can and backing up Storrow Drive onto Soldiers Field Road way back by the Harvard Business School in Allston and causing similar delays on Memorial Drive when Storrow refugees flooded that road, lord!

Michael Nichols tweeted shortly after 9 a.m.:

Just drove past it. Box truck stuck with most of its metal roof bent back from colliding with underside of tunnel.

Hillary tweets a big rig sardine-canned on Storrow Drive westbound tonight, spilling crap everywhere.

UPDATE: I've been informed in no uncertain terms it doesn't count for the pool unless the truck is actually stuck (preferably with its top ripped off).

At 11:25 a.m, Hillary tweeted:

Moving truck stopped on Storrow WB near Copley.

OK, so we had a stuck truck on Saturday, but really, that was just a prelim. Place your wagers on times and spots for the Labor Day Weekend Storrow Pool.

GlenDiesel, meanwhile, suggests a new Boston fall tradition:

I want to drink a pumpkin beer on top of a bridge over Storrow Drive that has a moving truck stuck underneath it

But around 3:10 p.m. this afternoon, Galen Moore noted a truck stuck in the Storrow tunnel eastbound. And that means Allston Christmas is right around the corner.

"Who won the pool?" Dave Hodge promptly wondered.

Matt Karolian, who got delayed inbound from East Boston due to a work crew in the tunnel this morning, had to hit the brakes again as he got onto Storrow Drive outbound, thanks to a dangling sign - no doubt taken down by another truck driver, like the one who took out a couple of lane indicators in the O'Neill Tunnel the other day.

Andrea Karis reports a Bud Lite truck got stuck on Storrow just before the Fenway exit this morning. John Beattie reports the location near BU, says it's too bad school is out.

Plans probably don't include restoring Charlesgate to its early 20th-century state.

State officials hold a meeting tonight to discuss options for the turnpike through the Back Bay and the Bowker Overpass - the decaying hulk that now speeds cars across the fetid remains of the Muddy River between Fenway and Storrow Drive.

At the session, which begins at 6 p.m. in the mezzanine conference room at the BPL in Copley Square, state transportation officials will discuss various options for improving the Back Bay for people encased in metal shells, including extending the overpass to the turnpike for people heading to the airport or just tearing it down altogether and replacing it with a simple surface road. Another possibility is a new offramp to Brookline Avenue.

State officials recently announced plans to tear down the equally decrepit Casey Overpass in Jamaica Plain and replace it with surface roads and parkland.

• Massachusetts Turnpike Boston Ramps Study

Mike Mac took this photo of a truck backing up on Storrow Drive this evening because, you know, those warning signs at the onramps are so easy to miss.

Michael Moura reports on an incident around 1:15 this morning on Storrow Drive eastbound by the pedestrian crossing at Dartmouth Street. The victim was taken to Tufts Medical Center in serious condition:

It is unclear at this time whether it was a medical condition, suicide attempt, or was physically pushed off.

State Police report:

Mike Mac captured the scene on Storrow Drive yesterday.

Steven Ganeles watched the sun come up around 6:30 this morning from 10 Buick St. Click on the photo for a larger version.

Chris W. reports Storrow inbound is shut past the Doubletree, thanks to a tractor trailer whose driver seems to have lost the ability to read.

UPDATE, 3:50 a.m.: NEFirebuff reports another truck managed to get itself stuck at the BU Bridge eastbound.

A Woburn man with an apparent inability to drive sober faces a hearing tomorrow that could have him locked up without bail for 90 days on charges he drove drunk down Storrow Drive and the Harvard Bridge on Friday, the Suffolk County District Attorney's office reports.

Thomas McCue, 42, was arrested early Friday after a State Trooper clocked him doing 85 m.p.h. on Storrow westbound before Mass. Ave:

If students in UHauls can learn to stay off Storrow Drive (well, for the most part), how are we to explain professional drivers with commercial driver's licenses? Such as whoever was behind the wheel of this big rig, which Andrew photographed around 9:50 a.m. stopped just short of the BU Bridge train tracks.

Pancaked truck by the Kenmore exit.

Dennis Atwood took this picture on Storrow Drive this afternoon. But does it count for the Storrow pool if the driver wasn't a student or parent heading to a local college but instead a commercial driver you'd think would know better?

As of 10 a.m., at any rate. New England Roadways reports it will be keeping a close eye on the bridges and will alert us should anybody win the Storrow Pool; remains confident that metal will hit concrete at some point:

It's just a matter of time.

Roving UHub photographers the McGregors captured the scene around 8:50 p.m. on the outbound side of Storrow Drive by Fairfield, where a brilliant truck driver managed to miss all the clues that Storrow Drive wasn't designed for 18-wheelers like his, but at least managed to stop just short of having his trailer sardine-canned.

Firefighters used the Jaws of Life to extract two men from a burning, crushed Infiniti on Storrow Drive eastbound at the exit to Kenmore Square around 4:20 a.m., the Boston Fire Department reports:

The vehicle burst into flames. The impact of the crash trapped the two occupants.

Both men suffered burns and multiple injuries, but were conscious when extracted, the department says, adding at one point, firefighters had four separate Jaws of Life running to get them out. Both were taken to local hospitals, where their condition has stabilized, the Suffolk County District Attorney's office reports.

The DA's office reports the driver, 27, is from North Andover, as is the other occupant, his brother, 29. State Police, who were first on scene but who were unable to get the men out, are investigating the cause of the crash.

This is the second bad accident at that same basic location this month. On Aug. 9, a Needham man died when the SUV he was in on the westbound side crashed and he was ejected. The driver, also ejected, survived.