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New lane along the overpass in Jamaica Plain

New lane along the Casey Overpass

Clay Harper, who has been chronicling plans for the Casey Overpass, watched workers smooth out the new temporary lane along the overpass yesterday, in preparation for the demolition of the overpass. The work has also included taking down trees - yesterday, workers chopped down the trees along the upper busway at the Forest Hills T station.

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The first casualty of the Casey Overpass teardown has been the punctuality of the 21 bus. It normally takes about 15 min to get from Ashmont Station to Forest Hills. Last Monday, the same trip took me a little bit under an hour. I have a feeling that traffic is going to be shitty from now on, even after the construction is done.

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Or at least that's what the MassDOT people are claiming, with a chorus of anti-bridgers singing along. Maybe a minute or 2 longer to get from Franklin Park to the Arboretum, but that's it. And there should be no impacts coming from Hyde Park or Roslindale.

That's what they're claiming.

(Of course, to be fair, things like construction and horrendous snowfall should not be taken as the norm, but people will remember what things were like before.)

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My uneducated guess is that when done, traffic will back up to the medical center in one direction and Blue Hill Ave in the other. And, good luck to Roslindale businesses wanting customers from J.P., for instance.

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like its so easy now? Driving through Forest Hills from JP to Roslindale is always a CF. Second--unless you are going to Staples to buy three boxes of printer paper or you're infirm, this attitude is part of the problem. There are how many buses that go through FH to Rozzie? You can bike there in maybe seven minutes. You can probably walk in twenty. Yes, it'd be great if we could magically drive everywhere and encounter no traffic, parking shortages, etc but that's not the city we live in. If we rethought the way we use transport, we could eliminate a lot of the traffic that we--the traffic--complain about.

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Stop using your car? I hope you realize that there are people in Roslindale who would sooner drive to Dedham than through Forest Hills traffic. And this number will increase if the nay sayers are correct.

Not easy to change people's views when there are alternatives to going someplace.

Right now unless my bus in the morning hits a cluster of school buses, I am at Forest Hills from the Square in 8 to 10 minutes (leaving aside the time waiting for the bus.) I walk home, but the time is usually the same. I'll report back come May, and remember that I am just taking a route that intersects with the Casey, not the Casey itself.

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Don't expect using a car in the city to be convenient and fast, or the entire infrastructure to cater to car usage when it physically or economically cannot do so.

Use a car and you are dry, comfortable, and have control of your immediate physical environment. If you want it to be fast and convenient? The US has plenty of habitats that are designed for that. Boston and the surrounding communities were built for people and horses and trolleys and other lower-speed conveyances.

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The tumble weed socialist from JP.

Maybe i should trade in my car for a tandem bike, buy a new pair of keen sandals and tell my kid he cant play sports anymore because the holier than thou drifters from JP have said i can no longer drive.

Maybe i should move to Medford!

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I somehow managed to raise a kid in the city without a car and yes, sometimes it was an unholy pain in the arse, but if you want to be able to drive your little darlings everywhere without them ever having to set foot on pavement or public transport, Medford might not be far enough. Maybe Dallas.

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It involved my boss, my hair stylist, an ex from about fifteen years ago, and my high school French teacher, and it was every bit as connected to reality as this hallucination you just shared with us.

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Don't wreck the infrastructure and call it progress.

Look, do I like sounding like Markk? No, but the fact that concerns about future traffic of many, including bus riders like myself and Michael Kerpan (who I have ridden on a bus with in the past), are dismissed so easily is not a good thing. When somehow the response to those who worry about it taking longer to drive from Jamaica Plain Center to Roslindale Square is to just walk, how does that help? Like I say, there will be people who will stop going from A to B to shop, which will be bad for business. If people don't care, they don't care, but don't pretend that it isn't an issue.

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Come on--it's no newsflash that the infrastructure is wrecked. Crumbling, defunct, falling apart. Just because they are not replacing it with an exact replica of itself doesn't spell disaster. And I honestly don't understand the sky-is-falling attitude from people who are generally pretty progressive and thoughtful about this kind of thing.

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And don't expect the entire state to pay massive amounts of money to reconstruct, repair, and maintain that expensive bit of wreckage because you don't like change - particularly when that bus you are riding and other parts of the public transit system need the funding and benefit far more people.

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Until the T is fixed up?

Part of my problem is that what is being sold is that traffic will not get worse. I've written it dozens of times, and will probably write it dozens of more times, but I don't buy it. I may just be proven wrong yet, but being right in this case is much worse than being wrong.

Also, if spending massive amounts of money to reconstruct, repair, and maintain a road to keeps cars off a busy street is bad, why did they do the Big Dig rather than just ending the Southeast Expressway at Dewey Square and starting the highway up again at the Charles. It would have saved billions, and drivers would have adjusted.

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But we shouldn't be wasting massive amounts of money replicating extremely costly failures when less costly solutions are available because some people fear that "well thought out change" = "sky is falling panic".

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The Overpass Should be refurbished and crafted into a jewel at the end of the emerald necklace. The Zakim Bridge in the north and the Casey in the south.

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My advice to car drivers is stop voting down gas tax increases to pay to improve infrastructure. The less expensive option was chosen for many reasons (people who live there over people passing through is one), but another is cost. Drivers have had the tax tax increase 3 cents in 20 years, that isnt going to buy much.

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I'm fully aware that not everyone can hop on their fixie and pedal to work but small changes in attitude and behavior can make a huge difference. Again--for people driving in cars to complain about "traffic" is nuts--they ARE traffic. To expect to cruise seamlessly from Roslindale to Copley Square in your car is just kind of nuts. And to try to redesign an urban landscape purely to accommodate more people who expect to be able to do that is kind of nuts too.

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... and buses use roads too. And perhaps some of us are not able to use bicycles instead of buses.

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If the people driving would get on the bus with you then that would solve the problem, no?

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... are generally at or near capacity during busy periods.

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Maybe work to improve routes and increase the number of buses with the goal of reducing the number of drivers on the road...who slow down the buses. I commuted by bus across boston for years, so I have every sympathy (and lots of great stories...) but the roads are not the problem. Too many cars is the problem.

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Bus from Forest Hills to Rozie Sq have you (or vice versa)? It takes about 30min to travel a little over a mile.

The MBTA insists that all 10 buses make every stop (Aprox 6) along that mile stretch of Washington, add school buses and the fact its a one lane street; you're better off using a Pogo stick or driving the back roads to the Sq.

So ya, no such thing as a quick trip to Rozie Sq. via the MBTA!

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Come on. That's just hooey.

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And despite your thoughts on people ditching their cars, your points on time and distance to/from Roslindale Square are spot on. It takes me 18 minutes from the busway to Adams Park walking, and admittedly I am a fast walker, so the walk can be done in 25 minutes without breaking a sweat. A 30 minute bus ride is possible, but only in a worst case (rush hour when schools are in session and the roads are narrowed by snow or an accident has occurred) scenario. If you don't count waiting, which to be honest is nothing on the line, it's a 10 minute ride, maybe 15.

Of course, the future is where we part company, but I cannot see the ride going longer than 25 minutes for an average commute in a worst case scenario when all this is done.

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Trust me--I've always depended on cars in some way, and leaned heavily on Zipcars, friends with cars, etc. for all those getting to X meet in Brighton or picking up five teenagers from a party in Hyde Park. But it's kind of like eating meat--we know it sucks for the planet, it's unsustainable, etc. but I wouldn't say "no more meat!" I would say though--lets find a way to do without it a couple days a week. Let's get creative; let's discover the joys of veggies, and think about a different plan for the future. Because yeah--if just ten percent of people start taking the 20 minute walk from Rosi Square to FH--or Hubwaying or whatever, then you get ten percent fewer cars on the road.

Apologies in advance for the most JP analogy ever...

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I don't think it's what the folks are thinking of, but if a station was in Adams Park, I think a lot of people would use it. Sadly, as commuters (and I count myself in that bunch) more than quick trips en lieu of car/bus, but still.

Remember Roslindale people, they say 30 minutes exercise a day. That's 20 minutes right there!

(btw, not the most JP analogy, and though we disagree on the bridge/no bridge, no need to apologize)

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... going from Metropolitan to Forest Hills for as long as 45 minutes, and there have been points (when light timing has been especially screwed by the traffic department) where it has taken pretty near 30 minutes to go from Roslindale Square to Forest Hills (or vice versa).

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I can't comment on the Metropolitan to Corinth backup, but I would say that on an average day, 30 minutes is only in people's minds.

Back when the Firth/South lights were screwed up royally I used to pass buses walking home from the station. To be clear, I am talking buses that left the station before my train arrived. Nowadays, the walk is more exercise, but it was once, and perhaps might once again be, the quicker way.

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... on just how much school bus impact. If you are on a bus traversing this route at a school bus maximum time, you are very very screwed.

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I often like to play the game - "can I walk faster than the bus?" if I can see traffic is backed up in the evenings. usually you can't tell until the bus makes it past ukraine. It's part of the reason I had started biking to work - which I hope to start back up again soon.

and getting to forest hills - some mornings maybe 3 or 4 completely full buses will pass you - then you wait another 15 minutes and there are 10 buses all clumped together with another 2 or 3 completely full - then you'll get to maybe archdale and traffic won't be moving - if things are moving the trip to FH from my house via the bus is about 10-15 minutes (includes walking and waiting for bus) - this morning it was 45. Really - the T should extend the orange line to rozzie square - it would solve so many problems.

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This morning?

Today I got on the bus at Corinth Street at 7:30 and got to Forest Hills at 7:40, give or take on either side.

Unless you hit the jackpot of school buses, trash pickup, and something else, 45 minutes is a flight of fancy. I've never seen that on a normal (no snow narrowed roads or similar obstacle) day, even getting to the Square at 8:05, which was Monday (again, 10 minute ride, with a medical emergency on the Orange Line almost making me late.)

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... for me is around halfway to Forest Hills. Anon might be in a similar situation. ;-}

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At the bus stop at 8:09, running to get the bus. It made all stops, though it was crowded. Got to Forest Hills by 8:18. No school bus traffic, and trash pickup was yesterday.

You are a bit screwed in that there is but one bus for you to take, but for people close to the square, there are buses galore. My rule in general is to avoid the school bus times. I would imagine that if I were 10 minutes later the situation would have been different, but then again there was no gaggle of schoolkids at Archdale to indicate that the yellow buses were due.

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...to design roads and regulate traffic that work to the advantage of buses. Maybe that's what you should be calling for?

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Stop shopping and eating out in Jamaica Plain, since that is not necessary.

I don't expect to be able to drive anywhere with ease, but if the fears of the bridge folk are true (admittedly, a debatable point, but that don't mean they won't be wrong) why would people go through a chokepoint that will be more choked unless they have to? South of Forest Hills is full of households with cars. If people want convenience, they won't want to go that way.

I know the overpass is coming down one way or another. I just don't see the sense in reducing capacity. I'm not asking for more road capacity, just to keep the capacity we have.

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and in relation to your first post, not every human being, obviously, is able to ride a bike and/or walk to their destination. So many people tend to drive a car to get from point A to point B.

Our current culture operates around the automobile and we, meaning the collective "we", generally cater to that fact. Yes, Boston has been open to accommodating other modes of travel, like bikes, which is great and wonderful, but getting around via car is still paramount.

Culture is difficult to change, in general, and takes time. So until then, we need to accommodate the car drivers which means considering how well car traffic can flow through an area, in designing our urban landscapes, so it will not be considered "nuts" to expect not to experience a CF in certain areas of the city.

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... mean major bus transportation problems.

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n/t

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If you've designed your infrastructure so that buses and cars have equal priority, you're doing it wrong.

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Cars are dominant because transportation policy made them that way.

By insisting that they remain so, you are perpetuating a dismal failure and a historical mistake.

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This doesn't seem to directed to my observation that (private) car congestion imperils (public) bus transportation. But maybe I am missing something.

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The problem is that there is no "for now." Building for cars means planning the future for cars, and a city designed around making it easy to drive everywhere is just not sustainable. Fifty years ago very few folks in JP or Roslindale owned a car but since then the idea of living without one or even with only one per family has gotten more and more rare. Luckily I think a lot of people have seen the futility of the course we're on and are doing their best to reverse this trend.

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Making things easier for people to get around without a car means that more people who are able to do so will leave cars at home.

More people using bikes, walking, and transit for short trips means fewer cars on the road.

Fewer cars on the road means greater convenience and more parking options for people with disabilities, people making deliveries, etc.

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> Fifty years ago very few folks in JP or Roslindale owned a car

I have no idea about JP, but I strongly suspect this is totally not true of Roslindale.

(member of a 5 person household with only one car -- for 17+ years)

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But the demographics may have shifted.
50 years ago if you lived in Roslindale it might have been with a full family unit with one car.
Now in that same property you might have a young couple with 2 cars, or a few roommates each with their own car.

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... full families (with lots of kids) already had 2 cars, one for each parent.

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I'm sure other folks will know stats or have personal anecdotal info on Roslindale fifty years ago but I'm pretty certain that visually no middle class families of that era would have had two cars. Where did Mom need to drive? And who could afford it?

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A lot of them didn't know how! My MIL didn't learn until she was nearly 40 even though she had moved to the 'burbs nearly ten years before. Around 1970, when she got a job outside the house.

She wasn't unusual in the least for urban women of her generation. The family had one car, and men drove it.

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2 car families was the norm. Didn't live in Roslindale then, but large swaths of it are (and apparently always have been) rather poorly served by public transportation.

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My mom learned to drive as a teen in Oregon - late 1950s. Most women knew how to drive, even if the family had only one car. My grandmother was a similar story twenty years before that.

My husband's mom, Dot Rat to the core? Learned to drive in the 1960s. She's now in her 80s, so it was around the same time that her eldest learned to drive. Some of her friends and relatives never learned.

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During the 50's-60's, we, a family of 11, never had more than one car. Sometimes, we had no car. I moved to JP in the 70's. My family of 5 has gotten along fine with just one car since then. Many days, it sits in the driveway. My husband and I chose to only work where we could travel by T. It can be done.

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... during the 50s-60s the norm (so far as you could tell)?

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People just didn't have to travel as far. There were jobs and factories and offices right in the city. You went to school in your neighborhood and shopped at the local market. No mall, no office parks. In my (limited) knowledge, people were just much more likely to live near where they worked and to schlep across town on the train, bus, trolley, etc.

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Traffic has been backing up to the medical center and Blue Hill Ave for the last year, ever since the lane restrictions on the overpass went into effect. It doesn't seem to have ushered in the apocalypse for businesses in the area. During construction, it's going to be a clusterfuck of epic proportions, but that was going to happen regardless of what was built. Meanwhile, the new plan may indeed make the commute from Franklin Park to the Arboretum a couple of minutes slower, but I'm guessing it will make the drive from Egleston Square to Roslindale, or from Center Street to Cummins Highway, quicker. It will also make Forest Hills a much friendlier place for bikes, buses, and pedestrians, which is a net win.

They've done pretty exhaustive studies of this, and have presented all their findings openly. Every projection they've done has shown that traffic in the area is not going to be appreciably worse. Unless you can point me to something stronger than your gut feeling, I'm inclined to believe the engineers.

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Look, I don't drive or take a bus down Morton Street during rush hour (can't walk- no sidewalks), but I'm guessing neither do you or the other commenter. First, Forest Hills to Blue Hill Ave is 2 miles, so there is no way traffic is backed up that far on a daily basis without anyone noticing until now. If there were a 2 mile backup with only a lane in each direction in one small part of the route closed off, I would hope that MassDOT would be rethinking the street option. Second, where is the "medical center" on Morton Street?

The first person posting on this takes the bus every day and has recently started seeing backups, so your theory that the lane drop, which has been in effect for several years, is not valid.

You are not the spokesperson for the project, but comments like that reinforces my view that the numbers are all smoke and mirrors.

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the medical center was a ref to the "medical area"

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I commute across the Casey Overpass every day, as it happens--I live just up the street in JP. The lane closure on the overpass happened more than a year ago, but was only causing minor backups until recently, when they rerouted traffic to make the right lane exit-only to Forest Hills. The Arborway has been reliably backing up to the Centre Street rotary at rush hour. It's ugly, and it's going to get uglier during construction, but like I said, there's no way around that--the bridge is coming down, either by demolition or by collapse.

"Medical Center," as I understood it, meant Centre Street backing up coming into the rotary where you peel off for the Jamaicaway or the Arborway. When the Arborway backs up far enough, it disrupts rotary traffic, too. At rush hour, I've seen it back up past Faulkner, so my guess is the original poster meant the Brigham/Spaulding area in West Rox. That's a ~2 mile backup, as well. I don't commute on Morton Street, so I can't comment on that, but a backup like anon is describing isn't impossible during construction. (Which I should emphasize again is a totally different configuration from what it's going to look like in a year. There's literally a single lane, crossing Washington and Centre Streets. It will be terrible, but it is only temporary while they build the six lane setup that will be plenty able to handle traffic)

I doubt very much that Forest Hills is going to be generating traffic as far back as these two spots, once construction is done. People will reroute, and the new layout at Forest Hills wasn't scrawled out on a napkin in crayon; they knew what traffic patterns here look like at 5:15 PM.

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I could totally see traffic backed up to the rotary. Both rotaries, excepting that Shea Rotary (by Franklin Park for those not in the know) will thankfully be going away. In this whole thing, I would say that I am happy that rotary will be tamed. Easier access to Franklin Park finally.

But yeah, neither Blue Hill Ave nor the Faulkner or Longwood Medical Area will be directly affected by this thing. Indirectly? Maybe, but no lineups for 2 miles. Now, my fears as I keep on droning on about the is that Washington Street from Egleston to Roslindale Squares, South Street to the Monument, and Hyde Park Ave back to maybe the senior housing will be feeling this. We'll see.

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they specialize in substance abuse treatment but also have primary care for lower-income people, a homeless shelter, and there's a preschool. I know many staff, patients, and parents with kids walk and/or take public transit to the area. I am among this group - I regularly take the 16,21,or 31 bus there - or - if it's nice out, will occasionally walk there from FH. My experience over the past several months is that the backups have only been when they're doing something along the arborway yard or there's some other issue (collision, malfunctioning lights, snow...) - and its only heading toward FH.

btw - The crossing from the bus stop on Morton street is extremely dangerous - people drive about 20 mph over the speed limit and will not stop for people in the crosswalk - even if they're carrying a small child.

Personally - I'm glad the bridge is coming down - with the improvements it'll make it a lot easier to walk to Franklin Park - I'm especially glad they're getting rid of Shea Circle.

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will be for the area.

Yes, construction is going to suck, but it is going to be light years better than what we have now, and the solution takes all modes of transportation into consideration.

Anintersection that gets a similar amount of traffic is the one at Roxbury Crossing (I believe it gets more actually). Would we ever build a bridge there to accomodate pass through traffic?

Forest Hills is a major transit hub for so many T commuters, bus commuters, walkers, bikers, runners, etc. It makes sense that it is a big picture solution as opposed to simply, "How fast can *I* pass through this one mile stretch?"

And If you don't think this will ultimately help local businesses by fostering walking traffic from the stony brook neighborhood and south street to make the trek south much more often, then we will have to agree to disagree.

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... for some people in JP, but what it makes life a lot tougher from people south and east of Forest Hills?

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I think it will be much *less* pleasant to walk once the overpass comes down. They're turning narrow surface roadways with moderate traffic into wide roadways with heavy traffic.

Removing the bridge reduces capacity. So they're throwing extra surface lanes at the problem.

And every additional lane to cross makes things exponentially worse for pedestrians.

This is *exactly* what has happened in other recent projects (McGrath at Broadway and Pearl in Somerville, and the Sullivan Square overpass removal).

I haven't seen the details of the proposed traffic light timing. But typically more lanes go along with longer red lights. Compared with a narrow road with a simple moderate-length red/green alternation, an intersection handles the same number of cars per hour when you have red arrows in all directions and long reds/short greens with a lot of lanes, but you've turned the place into a wide expanse of idling cars.

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Exponentially worse?

I'd rather cross six lanes that are side by side with a long enough signal than four lanes that are separated by sprawling islands and weird patterns/poor sight lines and the general disarray that exists with the bridge and the inlets and outlets at present.

How could it possibly me more unpleasant to walk from the busyard area to south of the Arborway than it is now?

That is *the* shi**iest walk ever.

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Where will the traffic coming from the Arborway be redirected? Currently, it comes down on the road next to the overpass. That road cannot accommodate all the overpass traffic, especially when the Washington Street drivers block the box - which is always.

I know some of you are believing that if it gets bad enough some of us will stop driving - not gonna happen. I need to use my car and will not apologize for that need. I'll just learn a different way to get home and so will the thousands of others who use the overpass daily.

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When the westbound (towards arboretum) overpass is closed in a few weeks, demolition of that side between South Street and the Arboretum will allow for the creation of a surface lane to replace the Eastbound (towards Franklin Park) overpass lane.

No lanes will be taken away until new ones are created.

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Thank you! My mind is eased...for the moment.

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Construction will surely have an impact on traffic through the area some of the time, but it's important to note a couple of things:

No lanes will be taken away without first creating a replacement lane. That's what the photo shows: the beginnings of widening the ramp/abutment portions of the surface roads to the north/city side of the overpass to accomodate (at first) two westbound surface lanes throughout. Once that is accomplished in the coming weeks, the westbound (towards the arboretum) portion of the overpass will be closed and demolition of some parts of it will begin. It is my understanding that one of the first parts to go will be west of South Street (again: towards the arboretum). That demolition will eventually create enough space to divert Eastbound overpass traffic (towards Shea/Franklin Park) onto the surface as well, so that the rest of the Overpass can close and demolition of it can continue. Give or take weather and unforeseen delay, that is expected to be accomplished by May of this year.

Soon, the mid-block pedestrian and cycling crossing in front of the T-station at the end of Southwest Corridor Park will be closed and that foot-powered traffic diverted to the corners. That change enables a couple of things: diversion of the 39 bus terminus to the upper busway and construction of the new central plazas and head house. But it also eliminates a traffic signal that isn't currently coordinated with the other signals in the area. MassDOT says that soon all the lights at the two major intersections will be coordinated in ways they aren't currently, and that they will be actively tweaking the cycles during construction to ensure that the final sequences are as efficient as possible. Or so they say.

Folks are welcome to their feelings, their guesses and their fears but the data and the expertise doesn't support that skepticism. And those hunches aren't going to be helpful to surviving the construction period. As to the end result: the peer-reviewed data and (generous) traffic projections out to the year 2035 for this project show that almost all possible routes will be markedly improved from what is there now. It's all available here:
http://www.massdot.state.ma.us/caseyarborway/Documents/DesignandPlanning...

-Clay Harper

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Currently the west end is a mess between the traffic lights for South St, Ukraine Way and the two on each side of the overpass for the on/off ramps. The timing on all of these is a disaster currently.

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(aside from unrest in the East and the Crimean fiasco)

The left turn light is great, in the evening. I cannot figure out why it is so long in the morning, when the traffic at that time doesn't justify it.

I have to admit, if they can solve the lights, the plans just might work. But if they could solve the lights, it would be solved by now, no?

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... because the lights aren't currently connected to each other for sequencing.

The most important factor contributing to improved future flow, in my opinion, is using the footprint currently taken up with the overpass, the abutments, and the ramps to straighten out the N-S and E-W flow. No longer will local residents need to make 3 or 4 turns to get around that crumbling structure as they currently do exiting the Arborway.

And... here's a look from at same general area as the photo above from 1909 showing what the overpass was built to span when it was constructed 60 years ago: the elevated Orange line and the beautifully arched heavy rail viaduct of the Providence line (both now sunk in the SW corridor trench).

http://twitter.com/ArborwayMatters/status/575016809876840449

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Or why couldn't the lights have been sequenced, say, 10 years ago?

This is the kind of thing that has me worried. Think about it. When they reconstructed the area 30 some odd years ago, they had transportation planners and engineers to work out good traffic flows. Zero new traffic lights ave been added, yet what do we have today?

As I am given to say, I could be proven wrong, but why should I trust these engineers and planners any more than those a generation ago, since we are living with their "great" design?

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... past performance of Boston's traffic engineers (in our neck of the woods, at least) does not engender confidence in their current performance (or their future predictions).

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and every day since, the overpass and its ramps have stood on top of what *should* be the eastbound Arborway. It's the fundamental impediment making the rational flow of street-level traffic impossible. Its presence causes extraordinarily convoluted zig-zag routes through several light sequences for what should be simple turns. Those gyrations end up interrupting the flow of N-S traffic as well since it must stop to allow all the options for those vehicles exiting the Arborway and trying to reach their destinations in JP, Rozzie and West Rox. And then there is the disruption caused by the current location of the 39 bus terminus: it needs to cross that N-S flow and hold up ramp traffic. Simplifiying, straightening and coordinating the street-level network of intersections is supposed to fix all that.

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