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A lot of frustration has been building up over the big slowdowns happening on streets throughout the city over the past year or so.
What with bridge closures due to GLX development, general road repair and ongoing restructuring, and now the designation of dedicated bus lanes, separated bike lanes, and various other mobility upgrades, it seems to some that getting across the city in a reasonable amount of time is a thing of the past. A fond memory from a distant age.
Work is underway to install bright red “Bus Only” lanes along both sides of Broadway between McGrath Highway and Main Street, one of the city’s most congested commuting corridors. These dedicated travel lanes are meant to enable the MBTA to provide more efficient, reliable bus service.
Such “upgrades” are fine and good, but many are bemoaning the price to be paid by the average motorist when confronted with fewer regular traffic lanes in an already barely tolerable traffic grid.
Some are blaming recent vehicular accidents on the changes made to the roadways. Common sense and a sense of civility informs us that impatience and frustration does not grant anyone a license to drive recklessly, no matter how irritating the conditions may be.
All one can do is let the planners know how they feel about it and hope for the best. These are, after all, our streets.
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It seems utterly ludicrous to create these new bus lanes, but to create them for only a few blocks seems totally meaningless. The amount of time it will save is miniscule. The lanes aren’t only for buses by the way. They are also for bikes, school buses, and other small transport buses. How will a bus save time when it is behind a bike, or a school bus stopped to pick up someone? This is a solution in search of a problem, nothing else.
One thing that isn’t mentioned here is that there are very few buses to even use these new lanes. The dirty secret is that the MBTA bus service in Somerville is inadequate and is not meeting the ever-growing demand.
The only lines which run from McGrath and Main are the 89 and the 101. And both are notoriously underscheduled. It is not uncommon for there to be gaps of up to 50 minutes between buses of a particular line during off hours. And it can often be 25 minutes or more before any bus passes a particular stop. Meanwhile, other primary roads that the MBTA serves may see buses pass a stop every 4-8 minutes.
So the result is, drivers are shut out from important travel lanes that they rarely if ever see a bus actually utilizing. It’s no wonder people are upset. But the solution isn’t fewer dedicated lanes, but more bus service to actually use them.
The red bus lanes do not work in this area. The traffic was backed up to Magoun Square so the buses cannot even get to the special red lanes. Plus the Temple and School Street backup is causing the same problem. Buses cannot get there. Then at the intersections they go to 2 lanes once across the intersection it goes back to one lane making another traffic jam. We need to use some common sense here. Broadway needs to be put back in workable order. Not the mess we have now. This afternoon they have a police car there. Why? Some people are getting warning tickets for being in the so called wrong lane when it is not being used for anything. Another famous city hall screw up. Can’t we get anyone in office who has some sense?
I agree. I live right off Broadway and this a city hall nightmare. There is hardly ever buses there. Now Temple street is worse, Thurston etc. this is foolish. All the parking taken away. I have a driveway but I am lucky. Worse parking, no spots at retail & more traffic.
Thanks a bunch City Hall & how much did it cost to put in parking meters last year and now I assume your going to rip them up because there’s no more parking on the other side Broadway. Spend our money on making things worse!
They have that brand new building on the corner of Temple and the stores on the bottom and now they take away their parking. People that are not so mobile can no longer go to the nail place. I don’t recall if their are other businesses in there yet but that is really going to be a game changer. And it’s tough when you go through all the work and money getting started. It’s hard to believe no one desiging this did not see all the harm and trouble they brought to Winter Hill.
I agree with Chris. Twice over the last week I witnessed several 89 buses on or attempting to transit Cedar st. @ broadway stuck in standstill traffic. When the bus reaches the point to intersect with traffic, there is no place to go. Temple st. @ Mystic Ave backed up in all directions during the afternoon commute.
When I saw the headlines “Somerville’s first bus lane accident” I said to myself, so there will be more? Think about the side streets that traffic overflow will be using. Two schools abut Broadway where kids will be walking home or to school. The recent deaths with hit and runs were tragic to say the least. Were they a result of traffic pattern change in an already congested city? Who’s to say that a student on the way to school isn’t next! Are we truly willing to take that chance?
One last thing about bus lanes. I’ve witnessed fire department ladder trucks trying to get as close as possible to a building on fire. How far away will they be now if their ladder cannot reach someone waiting to be rescued. Great thing about these comments, it creates a record. Someday someone will get seriously hurt or die as a result and there will be accountability.
We are having more automobile accidents now. I find out by followers on my petition site otherwise we would not know. The city has data for reported accidents but is behind a year. 4 car accidents and some pedestrian from the cars that are away from the street. People are complaining. But nothing is happening. There is no real bike traffic. Most is about 5 to 6 in a 2 hour period as that is the amount of time I spend at a time on Broadway. And out of that only 1 uses the bike lane. I go up for 2 hours at different times to see how it is working. Working it is not. Bus lane is for buses and dpw. The others are drivers that give up and use it from what I have seen so far. Some people are using it in protest. The city admits to the mistake and instead of correcting it they tell us we just have to learn to live with it. Election is coming. We have someone with good momentum now. Lets make a change.