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How the T could clean up: Rename its service area BostonWorld and offer theme rides
By adamg on Mon, 02/22/2010 - 10:54pm
The BU Bridge was closed for repairs tonight, but apparently nobody told at least one driver on the 47 bus. Marti V. tweeted her ride from the Boston side of the river to Central Square tonight:
Oh good. BU Bridge is closed. No one told the 47 bus driver. She's asking a cop for directions. Adventure time?
She just keeps going 'oh god.' in some carribbean accent while she talks on the phone with someone for where she's supposed to go.
And suddenly we're on the 66's route! It'd be great if she could just drop me off at harvard. Shes also driving like a bat outta hell.
Nope, passed the 66 turn off. Are we back on the other side of the BU bridge?! How did we get here? Where are we? What the hell, boston?
Wait no. We're on that other bridge. And definitely en route to central- mannn there goes my hope for a shorter commute.
A successful trip to central. Sorry for anyone who wanted to stop between BU and Central.
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Comments
What happened to the..
no cell phone rule?
The buses have handsets
that connect to the T's internal network.
the bus driver wasn't tweeting
it was a passenger...
It appears that the cops
It appears that the cops blocking the bridge were at fault, not the MBTA: (note the last line)
"On Sunday, February 21, 2010 through Thursday, March 4, 2010 the Boston University Bridge, which carries traffic over the Charles River between Cambridge and Boston, will be closed to traffic from 9 PM to 5 AM each week (Sunday to Thursday.)
The upstream sidewalk will remain open during the bridge closure for bicycle and pedestrian access. Drivers are encourages to plan ahead and seek alternative routes during the closures.
MassDOT crews will be completing demolition work as part of the first phase of construction on the Boston University Bridge Rehabilitation Project. All Cambridge-to-Boston traffic and Boston-to-Cambridge traffic will be detoured to the Massachusetts Avenue Bridge. Buses and emergency vehicles will be permitted to cross the bridge."
They were at fault if they got the same message
that the buses didn't get.
Yeah...don't let reality stop the cops at BU Bridge
The last time the bridge was closed at night, it was supposed to close at 7 PM (at least this time it's 9PM instead). I work just down Memorial Drive and often leave work around 6 PM needing to cross over the bridge to get home. There were multiple nights where the cops would already be blocking the westbound Mem Drive exit into the bridge traffic circle at 6 PM...even though the eastbound entrance, the Brookline St entrance, and even the bridge itself were still allowed into the traffic circle.
I've seen cops directing cars through the red light onto the bridge from westbound Comm Ave. The light only goes red when cross-traffic is getting the green to cross Comm Ave onto the bridge...so bypassing the red right arrow, the cop causes the cross traffic to back up across all of Comm Ave letting NOBODY go through on Comm Ave...
Just so many stupid traffic control problems at the bridge these days whenever the cops decide to get involved...so for them to send an MBTA bus away when it was supposed to have access? Yeah, color me not surprised.
Kaz
You should have seen it before they decided to hire cops. Carlton St. was backed up to the Riverway, and Comm Ave was backed up to Brighton Ave, and past Kenmore Square the other way. You need someone there to direct traffic. I also go the same way every day. Depends on the cop I have found. (or the trooper on the other side of the bridge; that is the main problem I think)
It shouldn't depend on who
It shouldn't depend on who the cop of the day is. If a civilian flagman was hired specifically for the bridge job, and worked it every day, he'd know the rules pretty well.
Will the police details be there forever?
Slightly off-topic, but I wonder whether MassDOT plans on making the cops a permanent rush-hour fixture at this intersection. By the end of this project, what does MassDOT plan on accomplishing that would reduce the horrific rush-hour tie-ups on both sides of the bridge, especially the Boston side? It seems to me that the entrances to the bridge are the bottlenecks. At the last public meeting I attended, DCR said that the final configuration will include only one lane of traffic entering the bridge at each end. And that's exactly how it's set up right now. As far as I can tell, the only difference we'll have at the end of the project is that each direction will get a second lane of traffic exiting the bridge (i.e. in each direction, traffic will enter the bridge in a single lane and then halfway down the bridge it will spread into two lanes). Is that really going to increase throughput at the entrances? I'm skeptical.
Also
There's plans for a reworking of the rotary on the Cambridge side of the bridge. As I understood it, this would reduce/eliminate the need for the traffic signal at that end of the bridge which would mean better flow over the bridge once you were on it. If they shortened or even used a sensor to trigger the traffic crossing Comm Ave from Mountfort, the rest of the time traffic could more readily flow from Comm Ave onto the bridge to reduce backups on westbound Comm Ave.
Of course, ticketing all of the Massholes who pull out from Carlton when there's no room on Comm Ave for them would also help quite a bit.
Another obvious solution is
Another obvious solution is to correct the failure in design. Currently, drivers have two options to enter the BU bridge when driving eastbound on comm ave.
1) Make a right early onto mountfort street, wait at a light, then cross comm ave and do a half left turn onto the bridge, where you must wait at another light. This is the only option to enter storrow.
2) Pass the first right turn, make a right at the next block (also called mountfort street) which send you into a straight shot across comm ave onto the bridge.
Most drivers take option 1, but for traffic, bikes and pedestrians, this is the worst option and the reason there are so many tie ups.
Option 1 should only be used by those coming from carlton...but with an easy change in the carlton/mountfort intersection, option 1 could be completely eliminated.
It would solve most BU bridge intersection problems.
J
Go sit at that circle some evening and see how many people get choked up trying to take option 2.
There's a third option
3) Take the early right onto Mountfort St. Then immediately (i.e. after about 10 ft) bang a U-turn through the conveniently-placed gap in the median strip. (This only works if there are no cars blocking your path on the other side of the median). Now you're facing the BU bridge and you're first in line at the light. I'm pretty sure I learned this trick from seeing a few cab drivers do it :-)
By the way, you can't eliminate option 1 because then drivers coming over the BU Bridge into Boston would have no way to get onto Commonwealth Ave eastbound. They can't make the left turn directly onto Comm Ave because there's a (non-MUTCD-compliant) "No Left Turn" sign prohibiting it. So they have to be able to go onto Mountfort, bear left at Carlton, then turn right at Comm Ave.