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Maybe the city should just ban large trucks from Summer Street in the winter
By adamg on Fri, 02/20/2015 - 9:27am
Mario N. gives us the bird's eye view of an 18-wheeler that got stuck this morning at Summer and Lincoln streets - the same place where that yacht got stuck in a similar maneuver.
However, he reports that, unlike with the boat, the Boston Fire Department was able to help the driver do the sort of driving that got him out of there.
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Comments
City wasn't designed for 18 wheelers
Or cars or bikes or buses Blah blah blah cow paths, traffic calming engineers feeding off the public trough...
There needs to be a serious look at vehicle-size restrictions and congestion charges/tolls around the city moving forward. We won't always have this much snow but these issues exists even in the best of weather.
We simply do not have enough room on our roads for all these private vehicles. We need to start putting a premium on this and charge market rates for the parking and driving free for all.
Only parking and driving?
Why stop there, all cyclist should be forced to take a safety course at a premium, register their bike and pay a small annual fee. Why not install tolls on all cross walk for pedestrians.
Drivers pay their fair share via gas and excise tax! What do cyclists who dont own cars pay?
unneeded advice
You're new here. Let me give you some advice.
Just Don't Go There.
Seriously.. just don't go there on here.
I'm licensed to drive and drive weekly
Took my safety course at drivers ed. Pay for roads via my taxes and the gas I put into cars. Next.
Also plenty of cyclists own and drive cars.
But I'd gladly pay a small annual fee, if it meant seeing some actual improvements in infrastructure, enforcement of the law and educating drivers/cyclists about the rules of the road.
You want excise tax on my bike? Should I send you the $3 or drop off the check at the State house?
Don't forget
People who don't own cars do pay property taxes that support local roadways, income taxes that go to the general fund and pay for state highway work, federal income taxes that support federal projects, etc.
Gas taxes only pay for about 25% of the cost of maintaining roadways, which cars damage far more than cyclists or pedestrians.
Massachusetts
Tolls 18.2%
Gas Tax 25.8%
License and Excise 14.7%
Total Driver Share 58.7%
That other 41.3%? That comes from the general funds that we all pay into, including those who do not own or drive cars.
http://taxfoundation.org/article/gasoline-taxes-and-user-fees-pay-only-h... (see table 2)
Drivers don't pay their fair
Drivers don't pay their fair share. Parking permits cost $0. The city is spending TENS OF MILLIONS to plow streets. If you think the gas tax covers this then you are severely mistaken. As a property owner who does not drive I am paying for those things.
sounds great.... might i
sounds great.... might i suggest we rate the tax based on vehicle weight? Seems the fairest way to measure the differences in stress on infrastructure and spatial consumption. And since bikes, cars and trucks are made of the same materials (steel, aluminum, a little rubber) it doesn't seem unfair.
I suggest $1 per vehicle pound per year. You tell me where you send your check and I'll send mine too.
There is a truck route to the highway, though
Summer St. down to the Convention Center and the South Boston Bypass will get trucks to the highway without any of these crazy turns. There is an onramp at D street, too, that is truck safe and gets North and South onramps. Perhaps the Fed would spring for some signs on I-93 saying "Trucks Use South Boston Bypass" or some similar thing.
Some signs in the city might help, too, but trucks do need to get to places in the city and there are loading docks all around downtown.
Thats not Purchase St.
That is THE EXACT same spot, notice Chipotle in the background. Thats Lincoln & Summer!
Doh, you're right!
Fixed, thanks!
I looked
If I look out the other conference room window I can see that intersection from my office.
It's gone now.
Yes its the same spot, except the TT is trying to go down Bedford vs Summer (to SS)
Snow way
Neither vehicle would have gotten stuck of those pedestrian islands had the snow removed. Downtown/Financial used to be the first place where snow used to be removed form - now it seems like the last place - still snow everywhere....
yeah
I agree.. snow removal in the financial district is abysmal. That island has been like that for weeks. At least now that island has a path.. it didn't for weeks.
His GPS told him to do it so
His GPS told him to do it so he blindly obeyed.
I seriously doubt that
even the most advanced GPS unit re-calculates routes for obstruction by snowbanks.
Problem on any given day
The snow mounds are an excuse - trucks get messed up there when there is no snow. Just easier for them to seriously damage other infrastructure when there aren't epic icebergs (driving over curbs, etc)
At the risk of sounding like
Markkkk - perhaps we should acknowledge that large trucks need to use downtown streets like Summer, and design the islands and curbs to accommodate them.
After all, it's not like the Financial District is the same as a side street in Allston.
Compromises
I don't think this is a road design problem- the road is perfectly fine for the many uses and constrictions of the ancient street grid, and road widenings have been known to encourage speeding in smaller vehicles. The problem is, like in so many other places around the city right now, the snowbank.
Less Is More
There are only two stores downtown that could not, in and of themselves, fit in the back of a small box truck. So why don't they deliver to those small stores with a small box truck?
No planning for snow
All the recent years: removal of slip lanes, turn radius reductions, curb extensions, and pedestrian islands are straight from new design guides that ignore the realities of snow. Turns more than ever require trucks to cross into other lanes to barely make turns. Add snow and its a fail.
Our cow paths have been made worse and less navigable by new designs ill suited to realities of snow.
Complain about tractor-trailers not belonging as much as you like, but city buses barely make many turns either, without any snowbanks.