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Today's traffic nightmare: Hyde Park Avenue in Forest Hills
By adamg on Fri, 01/30/2015 - 8:37am
Still narrowed lanes, trash pickups and school buses are all combining to bring a bit of downtown gridlock to this more suburban neighborhood. ColdSummer reports:
Traffic is so bad on Hyde Park Avenue MBTA bus riders are getting off and walking 3-4 blocks to Forest Hills Station.
Neighborhoods:
Free tagging:
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Comments
39 bus is out of wack
No 39 bus for 40 minutes through Central JP.
L Street on S. Boston too
L Street in South Boston is completely clogged too. A lot of South Shore commuters decided to cut through S. Boston on their way to downtown + there is a large convention at the BCEC. No traffic is moving on L Street and traffic on East Broadway is stuck for blocks on either side of the L Street intersection - cars blocking the box there and no enforcement/police presence. Have to take the #7 bus into town, but that route is impacted by this mess - will wait for a later run!
Once again...
The Suburbs for the win!
Remember the guy who used to post on here calling people "suburbanauts" all the time?
No, it's drivers that are the losers
If there was ever a time to NOT drive, this is it. The medical area and Fenway were gridlocked last night. Plenty of places are bad today. And yet my commutes the last three days on the Needham line were all blissful.
Don't try to drive into the city, but if you want to ride the train, it's (mostly) smooth sailing. (Yes I know that the red line was an incendiary mess yesterday.)
Sorry Timmy About Your Surgery
I know it's a struggle but Gary says we have to take the Green Line today to Children's. Just make sure you avoid the ice with your crutches.
I have to keep harping here
Nobody, for the most part, wants to have to be in The LMA. I've had to bring my wife on for the birth of my kids. I've had to bring one of my kids in for surgery. I had friends last week have to have quasi emergency treatment for their son's cerebral palsy. Your are one arrogant arse to think that you are so damn superior that you took the T over people seeking medical treatment. The T should hook you up to one of the diesels so you can power the train with your smugness.
Workers and patients
The patients have every reason to drive as they need to.
What used to annoy me was that the Big Employers in the area were too busy trying to fit more cars into their lots for day shift workers, and too dismissive of such simple requests as a shower for the hundreds of employees who biked, roller-bladed, walked and jogged to work. They also didn't subsidize passes for the T nearly as much as they did parking, and they didn't shuttle people to commuter rail - just parking lots by Ruggles.
Things have improved more recently, but they could do a lot more to relieve congestion for the buses and for those who have little choice but to drive if they had less privileged policies for day-shift drivers.
Ruggles
Many (though not all) commuter trains stop at Ruggles.
And more to come
Family gave up on the #32 this morning. After 45 mins waiting for a hitch to Forest Hills they went home since traffic was already backing up or slow as molasses (and on the cold day) already, and that's only a mile out from the station. The only bus coming by was dead and out of service. That meant the next 1-2 buses would be chock full and passing people.
At the risk of starting the foolish wars of words over the Casey overpass again... hey... get used to this. This is the kind of traffic Forest Hills is going to be seeing for the next few years during construction. The same thing happened when the current Forest Hills Station and the current traffic configuration (which was supposed to fix all of the congestion problems) from the mid-80s was underway.
On Thursday other family taking the #10 from South Bay to Back Bay found that bus being diverted up alternate streets simply because their regular route was blocked by poorly plowed streets and oddly parked cars.
About those bridge wars ...
You do realize that no matter which option the state chose, it was going to have to tear down the current overpass, right?
I've got one for you
Let's all be thankful that the overpass didn't up and fall down with the snow. Then, there'd be no way to get through Forest Hills.
I might be pro-bridge, but yeah, my beloved Casey Overpass is coming down, and better through controlled demolition than through a sudden act.
And now, of course, I am happy that demo probably won't begin until March.
it's one of the busiest transit hubs in the entire city
plus a bunch of different major roads coming together. they can reconfigure the roads again, but if they actually want to solve this problem they need to extend the orange line south.
back ups on washington street are the weird signal timing of 4 closely-spaced intersections plus people double-parked to drop someone off... hyde park ave problems are mostly people going in and out of the parking lots and double-parked drop-offs...
Extend the orange line
Past F.H. The problem is HP Ave and Washington St are too congested, primarily due to F.H. station and all the buses.This is 2015, and the orange line should have been extended past FH by now, to relieve this congestion of passengers transferring to the subway at FH, and all the bus traffic this incurs.
If they can't do that, at least make the commuter rail stops in HP, Roslindale, and W. Roxbury all zone 1A, so it's compatible with a link pass and encourage more people who use the buses to FH to use the trains. The vast majority of people who use buses from W. Rex., Roslindale and HP going to FH, are going directly to FH to catch the train. Express buses from especially W. Roxbury and HP would also help.
There's always one of these.
There's always one of these. It used to be fluoride in drinking water that brought them out.
Agree
I think the original plan during the Sargent administration was to have the Orange Line go all the way to 128. But, you know, we have a better chance of seeing flying cars first.
Plan goes back further
I want to say the state did a study back in the 1950s that proposed the Orange Line to Hyde Park and Dedham via West Roxbury (and perhaps a loop for the whole thing.) It was part of a plan that included a second trolley tunnel through the Back Bay. It's surprised what was built and sad what wasn't.
Just to clarify
As MassDPW commissioner, Sargent was in favor of the Orange Line extension - the tracks would have run down the median of the proposed Southwest Expressway (I-95).
As Governor, Sargent did a classic flip-flop for purely political reasons and eventually cancelled the highway project, which also meant no Orange Line extension.
Ah! I didn't understand that
Ah! I didn't understand that the OL extension to 128 was contingent upon the Southwest Expressway
It's ridiculous that it costs
It's ridiculous that it costs so much more to get on the comm rail at Rozzie Square than the bus. It's literally encouraging people to cause more traffic up and down Washington. With all those bus lines and the RoW already established, the MBTA would be breaking close to even if they extended Orange.
Express busses would be a great interim solution, too. Leave one line doing the local Washington stops and the rest don't stop until the Square (at the soonest)
I've got the solution
There's already a right of way - just add a bike path along the west side of the tracks from the Roslindale stop to Forrest Hills. That would be infinitely better than the 'lanes' on Washington St.
Great idea!
It heartened me so much that I won't even start on the fairness of commute rail fares.
Nice and level, and an onramp could be added at Archdale. Heck, I would be tempted to buy a bike if that went up.
if it's maintained by DCR or the arboretum
it would never get plowed, though... even so - it would still better than the lanes on washington street.
DCR does a pretty damn good job
of keeping the SWC path plowed, despite that kerfuffle last winter about ice on the path after the series of snow and ice storms. A bike path continuing to Roslindale Sq would be fantastic.
doesn't matter if buses went express
because they'd still be stuck in the same traffic as everyone else.
buses
For over 24 hours, a T bus has been stuck in front of Sullivan's Pharmacy in Rozzie Square, snarling all traffic for blocks in all directions. Why is it still there?
Huh?
I was driven by Sullivan's at 10 last night and drove by it twice this morning, and I saw no bus.
Do you mean the past 24 minutes?
Yesterday afternoon
There's something about the 14 bus ...
Yesterday, around 1:30 p.m., Corinth was blocked by a 14 that tried and failed to make the turn and it was just sitting there. I managed to get out of the turn lane from Belgrade, circled around the square via Washington and by the time I got back to Corinth, it was gone.
This morning, another 14 was in the same basic position.
Ah
I can say that at 10:45 I took that turn and it was bus free.
My gut is that parked cars were the culprit. I was on a 30 once that had to wait until someone was done with their haircut before being able to make the turn. When the guy got to his car, the scene was not pretty. Mind you, this was not in winter.
Still a nightmare!
Here we are, nearly a month later, and Hyde Park Avenue is still a nightmare. I walked this morning from Blakemore to Forest Hills and passed SEVEN #32 buses that were stuck in traffic.
To be fair
HPA does have a free lane in each direction. Yes, there should be 2 lanes in each direction, and the traffic warrants it, but trust me, there is worse out there.
On the other side of the tracks, Washington Street got so tight that there was a traffic jam at 7 PM on Friday as the buses could not pass each other.
Complain here, but send a line to Citizens Connect. The squeaky wheel gets the grease.
And I will be happy when Hyde Park Ave is clear curb to curb. But I will be more excited when the city does the other side of Washington Street.
Washington St. south of Roslindale Square....
... was (and is) an unmitigated disaster.
I kind of disagree
I would say it have been upgraded from unmitigated disaster to mitigated disaster.
That said, I could not figure out the backups at 7:30 this morning, as opposed to the lighter traffic at 8:05 yesterday.
I've griped to the City. I hope others are.