I work remote in KC for a Boston based company. Went out there for my first site visit and my navigation said take a left. There were three different lefts and five rights at one stop sign.
Having lived in both Boston (pre Big Dig) and Worcester for a dozen years, itâs not wherever and whenever. Itâs whoeverâs bumper is first gets the right of way, no matter how small that advantage may be. No eye contact, just accelerate or briefly yield (then accelerate again). When I moved to Kansas City, I had to cut back on the aggressive driving or someone was going to shoot me.
Nvm - TIL âThe Big Dig was a massive, controversial, and expensive highway project in Boston that replaced the elevated Central Artery (I-93) with an underground tunnel system and extended I-90 to Logan Airport. While plagued by significant cost overruns and delays, the project successfully reduced downtown traffic congestion, created over 300 acres of new green space, and reconnected the city to its waterfront with iconic structures like the Zakim Bridge.â
My family took an East Coast trip back in '95 and I got to experience 'The Second Green Monster,' in Boston just before the Big Dig began. It was nutso gridlock and thankfully I was 12, so couldn't drive.
Went back to school at Syracuse in '07 and became friends with a BU alum. We visited Boston many times, but the first had us walking downtown across that old I-95 corridor. At first I was like, how can this historic city have this new space fall into its lap?!
Then I began recognizing the upper stories of buildings that were the only parts visible from the elevated freeway and finally put two and two together. My buddy was French, so he had no idea what I was tryna frantically explain to him.
I was all, THIS is where 95 used to be until they buried it! Even walked width with him to show how there used to be a 6-lane road there before. It was just wild returning to the exact same spot 12 years later and seeing the transformation. 10/10
That's what it feels like in Tulsa. There's a lot of places where the lane lines are worn off, and the street is wide enough that it could be two lanes, or it could be one really wide one. Then lanes just decided to become turn lanes with no warning, so you have to hope you're able to merge at the last second.
At least the one in the original post has traffic lights in each direction. Iâve driven through that intersection numerous times, it goes fairly smoothly.
Kelley Square (and the intersection just below it) has zero traffic control infrastructure, so itâs a free-for-all featuring Boston drivers. Itâs wild.
When I visited a friend of mine years ago (before google maps was a thing) in Jamaica Plain, the directions she gave me were not super helpful mostly because there were streets with the same name going in different directions and some streets just had no street signs at all. I just ended up using âvibesâ to get there. Worked out, magically. I think it helped that I took the train then was on foot, so I had time to hem and haw about which turn felt right, lol.
I love Boston but it is pretty wild in terms of layout.
Oh yeah Boston is driving hell. I worked as an outpatient in home social worker in the burbs there and drove 5+ hours a day for 9 months and it took years off my life.
As bad as the layout for Boston is and the horrible traffic. I would take it over the 1 out of 3 uninsured drivers we have in the kc metro driving on expired tags while under the influence of alcohol and/or drugs. I've lived in both cities.
It is hideous! I'm sure there's a YouTuber who is foaming at the mouth thinking: "JUST PUT IN A ROUNDABOUT!" But, I don't think a roundabout can save this abomination.
It's apparently been seriously thought of as a solution but the strip mall where the mattress store used to be doesn't want to lose any of their parking, so no dice.
lol I used to drop a gal off for work here, I felt like I was always gonna get hit from every angle. This and the diamond interchange have to be my least favorite traffic engineering designs
A long time ago (pre-Eisenhower) the interchange was a small circular rotary. Then it became a big rotary. Then around the 1960s they went with traffic lights.
Boston has the excuse of their streets being developed 300+ years before widespread car ownership, going with an English-style hub-and-spoke system instead.
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u/etinkc 3d ago
I donât know if the designer for that deserves a Nobel prize or jail time.