Friday, June 20, 2008

Traffic Gridlock in Central Mass

On the front page of today's Telegram & Gazette there was an article about gridlock in the Central Mass region, especially around Interstate 495. Two planning agencies, the Central Massachusetts Regional Planning Commission and the Metropolitan Are Planning Council, are joining forces on a study to determine what the future growth for the 495 area will be.

About 100,000 cars travel every day on some parts of the Central Mass stretches of 495.

Well getting into Boston yesterday on the commuter rail wasn't just a tough trip for riders on the Worcester line. North Shore residents got stuck when that dreaded bridge between Beverly and Salem was closed to traffic yesterday between 10:05 a.m. and 11 a.m. The bridge, which had a bunch of operational problems earlier this year, was stuck in an open position. Gosh, not a good time for something like that to happen. You can get the full scope in this article from today's Gloucester Daily Times.

There was yet another article about the increase in ridership across the T. South Coast Today published an article yesterday, written with an emphasis on Middleboro/Lakeville commuters.

Finally, the MBTA continues to garner publicity about their new promotional efforts aimed at getting more people to use public transportation. The DMNews, a publication geared towards the marketing community, wrote an article about the campaign.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I take 495 most weekday mornings to get to the Southborough station and the only traffic problem is that the normal flow of traffic speed is 75 mph and higher. Granted this is around 6:30am, just in time for the P506. For those of you who take 495 between the 290 and Route 9 exits for the morning commute around this time, be advised that there is a trooper on this stretch at least once a week and he WILL nail you for speeds over 70mph. On good days, he and another squad car will each pull over 2 or more drivers (on a related note, there is a similar enforcement grid on 290N between the Church Street and 495 exits).

Occasionally, I allow myself the luxury of taking the later P508 or P512 and there is definitely more traffic on 495 at those times. However, it is generally flowing at 65mph or so, with occasional bottlenecks at the Route 20 exits, but only for a minute or two. On the rare days traffic slows to a crawl, I get off at Route 20 and take the local roads. Going home at night, I rarely take 495 because it's stopped dead, usually northbound. The local roads are empty so I take that instead.

I hope this helps anyone traveling in the region for their commutes.