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Turnpike completely re-opened near BU Bridge

MassDOT says the turnpike is back to four lanes on each side under the Commonwealth Avenue bridge, 24 hours earlier than scheduled.

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Comments

Same thing happened last year. Good of MassDOT to over estimate the closure time. Although last year once the bridge "reopened" they still kept working on it for a month at a much slower pace while the inbound right line remained closed.

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"Reopened" to the public. "Public" meaning people stuck in cars.

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Yankee fans beating a hasty exit before the brooms come out!

(Ok, still a ways to go, but it's been a fun weekend so far!)

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Because the BU Bridge was never closed to bikes and pedestrians.

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Only the east sidewalk of the BU bridge is open, not the roadway itself, at least when I visited there last week. You need to walk your bike across the bridge.

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The BU Bridge is closed to cyclists.

It is open to pedestrians, even those pushing or pulling dollies, wheelbarrows, wheelie bins, and bicycles.

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It is an interstate highway but feel free to go for a stroll.

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!

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Perfect example of a well funded lobby working against the public interest. Slowing down Boston traffic to 3 miles an hour while somebody wobbles around a lane is not good public policy.

I will be interested to see if this comment is published or not

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Slowing down Boston traffic to 3 miles an hour

Speeding it up to 3 miles an hour, more like, you silly person.

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Motorist in giant vehicle taking the space of 10 cyclists claims that cyclists cause traffic. Not bloated giant personal transports jamming the roads.

Okay.

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On a regular day on Comm Ave, the two lanes of cars are moving slower than my bicycle... I don't think the bikes are slowing down traffic. And this construction project was not about building a bike bridge or something, the finished condition has 8 lanes for cars, so... maybe this whole project is about car infrastructure, not bikes.

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backed up, horrendously, slowed to a 2 m.p.h. crawl! It's horrible!

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That's because there are too many people taking up too much space with their single occupant vehicles all at the same time. So they have to take turns.

It has been thus for decades.

There are alternatives. You don't have to contribute to the mess.

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First of all, I'm not such a little goody-two-shoes as you are.

Secondly, if I have to take my pet Congo African Grey Parrot to Angell Memorial Animal Hospital in Jamaica Plain, either for an emergency or a routine veterinary check-up, there's no way I can take her on public transportation, especially since the T station is a ten to fifteen minute walk to the MBTA from where I live.

Thirdly, I generally try to go either before or after the height of the rush-hour has arrived.

Fourth: The reason that there are so many cars is because our public transportation system is often not that efficient, or super-close to where people live.

fifth: Hitchhiking, or picking up hitchhikers is too damned risky; there's no telling who one may get a ride with, or who they may end up giving a ride to. Hitchhiking and picking up hitchhikers was quite common back in the 1960's and 1970's, and there were plenty of nasty incidents, and there still are, of people, regardless of age, being robbed, assaulted, and/or worse. The fact that most people are perfectly normal and honest doesn't negate the very real risk, even nowadays, of getting picked up by, or giving a ride to somebody who's not so normal and honest.

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You don't have to go the whole hitchiking route - makes you sound nutty.

There is this thing called "knowing your neighbors" that can result in carpooling when needed.

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If one knows his/her neighbors and they don't frequent the same place(s) (and my neighbors don't go to the same places that I do.), carpooling isn't the answer. Better public transportation is. I frequently go to places that are either rather far out of the city, or places where I don't end up leaving until quite late at night.

Having said all of the above, carpooling isn't necessarily and always so great, because it, too, can get out of hand.

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The project is about the safety and capacity of the bridge - traffic over which includes pedestrians, bikes, Green Line, and buses as well as cars/trucks.

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The last shock reopening was too unbelievable. This one flies under the radar as believable. If MassDOT had planned this out correctly they wouldn't have needed to shut down anything during the day.

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If the necessary maintenance and repair work had been done years ago, this shut-down wouldn't have been necessary.

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I doubt it.

Comm Av bridge is something like 55-60 years old, right?

30 years ago (jeez.... probably more like 33 years), I visited Boston for college tours, and walked west along Comm Av from the academic buildings. I stood on the bridge at the corner of Comm Av and BU Bridge and vibrated as evening traffic went by.

I don't know if that's what they call "structurally deficient", but it sounds like it to me - a regular load more that it was designed for, such that only 25-30 years into what must've been at least a 50-year design life (if not 75) it was showing these effects.

That the bridge continued in-service for another 30+ years without significant incident suggests that necessary maintenance and repair work was indeed done all these years.

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If the necessary maintenance and repair work had been done years ago, this shut-down wouldn't have been necessary.

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I was just about to leave my house for a trip west, and was trying to figure out the best way to avoid the Pike. Now I'll just take my normal route, thanks to Uhub.

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I ended up getting on the Mass Turnpike West (i. e. Route I-90 West) via the Tip O'Neil Tunnel, after going South on I-93, and crossing the Zakim/Bunker Hill Bridge. Since I'd left home early enough in the morning, I didn't have much of the two-laned traffic on the Mass. Turnpike, which was helpful. I managed to get onto the Turnpike easily from where I got off.

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They may be shutting construction down in the late afternoon/evening hours until the heat wave abates. My son has been working out there (6 am to 2 pm) and they will shut the worksite if the heat index is getting out of bounds.

(My poor little MassDOT college intern sucked down a half gallon of gatorade when he got home!)

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He’s not even being paid to be out there?

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Intern. Not volunteer.

The state pays its interns.

He can't get OT, but he's accumulating some comp time when he's put in 12 hour runs.

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I had a co-worker who took an internship at work. The bottom line was that for one day a week, he didn’t get paid. And he had harder work. But he got college credit.

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