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Crash involving car, pedestrian shuts Boylston Street in the Fenway
By adamg on Mon, 04/04/2016 - 9:54pm
Doug Sieber looked out his window to see firefighters and EMTs working to help a person hit by a car on Boylston Street outside Jerry Remy's around 9 p.m. Stanley Staco reports the pedestrian was taken away in critical condition.
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Comments
Boylston tough for peds
I'm glad that the neighborhood on that section of Boylston has really improved. Lots of new housing, upscale dining and drinking, lots of fun. Loads more pedestrian traffic.
Trouble is, the road design is still 20th century -- push as many cars through the neighborhood as quickly as possible. That the blocks are so long only exacerbates the rush -- it's "only" 3 lights to get from Ipswitch to Brookline Ave.
I'd love for the city to explore converting Boylston to a proper boulevard. One lane in each direction (with turn lanes?), cycle tracks, quality sidewalks and crossings.
We have a winner
It's a throughway
Way too many vehicles use that stretch of Boylston as a convenient shortcut between here and there, and like any other road in Boston that goes straight for more than 50 feet, they floor it.
(unlike you, I'm not a fan of the new development, but I don't hate it so much that I want its patrons killed ;-))
Shortcut?
OK, let's say I need to go from Roslindale to Storrow Drive. Which roads am I 'supposed' to use? Brookline Ave? Washington St to Ma Ave? People shouldn't get run over and traffic should be optimized but let's not pretend we can just wish away traffic on a major artery in the city.
Read what I wrote
Why did you put "supposed" in quotes? You're not quoting me. You can use whatever roads you want, but a lot of people who use that stretch of Boylston as part of their commute are driving a little too fast and a little too aggressively for travel through a residential neighborhood.
Shortcut?
When you refer to the most direct and largest road route through a neighborhood as a short cut is sounds a bit pejorative. Is Washington St a shortcut too?
Use the roads that were designed for cars
I-95, I-90, etc.
/snarky answer
There was a complete streets
There was a complete streets redesign for Boylston Street funded by the legislature in the mid 2000s.
The BRA/BTD reallocated the money to build the Yawkey Way extension,the Yawkey commuter rail station, and some other enabling infrastructure work for John Rosenthal's Fenway Center project (is this even still happening or do developers get to squat on permits for a decade or two begging for bigger and bigger public subsidies?).
A safety project which had been funded and should have been done 10 years ago is still officially in "planning" because giving sloppy kisses to the Red Sox, hospitals, and filthy rich developers is more important than the lives of Fenway Residents.
This is a legitimate reason for lowering and enforcing speed lim
This is a legitimate reason for lowering and enforcing speed limits on Boylston and Beacon Sts, and other similar throughways in the city of Boston. One person getting hit by a car is way, way too many, imho.
This is a legitimate reason
This
ismay be a legitimate reason forlowering andenforcing speed limits AND other traffic rules for ALL road users, not just drivers.FIFY.
Hey roadman
How many pedestrians have been killed by "other road users" in the past year? In the past five years? In the past ten years?
"It takes two to tango," and
"It takes two to tango," and just because someone is the "victim" of an accident doesn't mean they're not also partially (or wholly) to blame. Boston's public ways try to combine and balance three vastly different modes of travel - walking, cycling, motor vehicles - and you can't always blame the last one when you have collisions between two of these modes.
Who are you quoting?
Not the "it takes two to tango", we all know it's a well-known but irrelevant saying. Why do you put "victim" in quotes?
I disagree with you a little bit, roadman.
Imho, both lowering and enforcing speed limits is really the only way to go!
A witness was quoted in the
A witness was quoted in the Herald to the effect that the pedestrian crossing signal there is fubar. Paraphrasing: 'People push the button and wait for like 2 entire light cycles but nothing happens so they just cross.' If it's true the city should get sued. Shameful. Not world class. More like third world class. Why do the simplest things around here seem to be so hard ? No money or prestige in it ?
If it's true the city should
Not exactly. If the light is not giving you a walk signal, and you decide to cross anyway, it is still your responsibility to check for approaching traffic first. Now, if you got a walk signal to cross the street and approaching traffic still had a green light, then you might have a good case against the City.