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Car crash, oil slick shut Jamaicaway
By adamg on Fri, 08/21/2015 - 11:34am
The aftermath of the Jway crash. Photo by Isabel Rey.
A bad crash on the Jamaicway between Perkins and Castleton around 11:15 a.m., had firefighters getting out the Jaws of Life to get two people out. Then police and firefighters discovered a long oil slick that forced them to shut the road between Perkins up towards Rte. 9 so it could be cleaned up.
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Comments
I Can't Make Out The Writing In The Street—Is It A Graffiti Tag?
It's that super absorbent "sand" that Fire Dept. soaks up oil
Although it would be pretty creative if BFD member tagged the road at the same time
Standing There In Their Bright Red T-Shirts And Black Suspenders
( a certain adjective comes to mind )
Hope everyone is OK
That corner is wicked. I wonder if the cabbie was gliding a little over the line. I've always said, if I have an accident on that road, it will be because the oncoming car was over the line in my lane. Scary!
Probably
I'll leave it to our resident traffic wonks to argue about the best way to fix it, but that road is just too damn narrow and curvy for 4 lanes.
I've taken to staying in the right lane as much as possible, no matter how slowly the person in front of me is going, because the left lane on the J-Way is just terrifying.
Ditto for Alewife Brook Parkway
What is it with "cram in too many lanes that are too narrow to use" and DCR roads?
Come again?
Well, the general reason roads are widened is usually because of the increase in traffic. It's, as they say, a "no-brainer".
So it is not cramming but necessity.
But... it's not wide
At least, not nearly wide enough to prevent drivers from constantly crossing the center line while negotiating all those curves.
It's not a "no-brainer" to create an objectively dangerous situation.
No Brain, indeed
Adding lanes does not "increase traffic capacity" when cars cannot pass each other while staying within lane. You get a staggered one lane road with occasional spectacular disasters.
Whyaduck is also assuming that "number of lanes" is the determinant of throughput, and not intersection capacity - a common mistake. Putting in a 4' diameter pipe leading to your shower head won't increase your shower flow rate.
There is a safer alternative to this poor and dangerous design - wider single lanes with turning lanes - that does not reduce capacity on this type of roadway.
http://safety.fhwa.dot.gov/road_diets/info_guide/rdig.pdf
Exactly! — Bottlenecks Occur At Intersections
Adding more thru-lanes is no different than a having a bigger bottle. You can accumulate more cars inside, but they won't get through the bottleneck any faster.
Narrow the bottle to a single lane of traffic and it'll flow much better— like water through a hose.
The intersections need to be wide however
Cambridge did this recently on Broadway in Kendall in front of the Volpe Center. Made the road like an hourglass. since the intersection only operates a bit under 50% for a direction to flow, it needs twice the capacity of the pipe in the middle.
In many places needing more traffic flow, the answer is to widen intersections with more lanes for either through or turning lanes. Unfortunately, some think that pedestrians having a longer crossing distance means more danger for them, but there is very little data for it, so they impede progress and cause more greenhouse gas emissions via continued, unnecessary traffic congestion.
This road design has been all
This road design has been all over New Hampshire, especially routes like 3, 3-A, and 28, for years. The road will be one lane in each direction but widen up at an intersection, sometimes having up to four lanes in (left turn, right turn, two straight) at the stop lines. For a few hundred feet after the intersection, the outbound road will be two lanes, then the right-hand lane merges into the left, returning the road to a single lane in each direction. Sometimes it gets a bit tricky for people to merge back into a single lane when there's a lot of traffic, but you don't end up with mile-long jams piling up behind an intersection and people becoming enraged at sitting through green-light after green-light with nothing seeming to move.
The pedestrian complaints sound silly. Even if it does increase danger for them, other things could be put in place to mitigate the danger back to the same levels as a two-lane intersection.
Highly dependant on traffic pattern
Your claim is only true when there is sufficient turning volume. When its mostly traffic going straight, then its not true. A similar thing occurs with rotaries - they are most efficient when the dominant volume only goes at most half way around.
Where a second lane was replaced with a turn lane on Mystic Valley Parkway (MVP) in Medford (rt. 16 & 38) traffic backs up for a mile 16 hours a day, 7 days a week because of it. People like me shortcut through congested west Medford center full of pedestrians because that is much quicker than the long line of traffic on MVP where there are no pedestrians, businesses, or other hazards. Its a net safety reduction move by DCR.
Riddle me this, Markk
So, what, exactly, explains the westbound backup along the river? It widens out to "two lanes" near the Whole Foods going west - by your logic it should flow happily in that direction.
Could it be too many cars trying to use the roadway at once.
ALSO - I live very near that named intersection. It only backs up about six days a week, for a few hours each day. Nice try.
you forgot - and not for a
you forgot - and not for a mile either. Which would be well past Whole Foods or past the 93 overpass depending on the direction.
I've been backed up to Boston Ave
(when making the mistake of not cutting through west Medford center)
...not even reaching Whole Foods, though its two lanes worth of backed up cars in that section. Once at Whole Foods, its possible to go right(straight), getting off MVP, wind around on to Rt. 38 and short circuit the string of cars waiting on MVP. From the other direction, one mile of backup is divided over three lanes prior to merging down to one, so it doesn't look as long. It also flows better because essentially traffic can go right on red at the traffic light, something needed again on our streets to reduce carbon emissions.
That's nice dear
I've seen backups the other direction well past the (currently closed) off ramp to Medford Square and west all the way through Somerville.
The Medford narrows doesn't cause the backups - too many cars cause the back up.
There are also 27,000 ways to entirely avoid this piece of road. I suggest that you consult a map.
Oh, but you can only drive 20mph on some of it - much better to sit on a 30 or 40mph road at 0mph than look out for people walking around their neighborhoods.
Concord, NH used to have this
Concord, NH used to have this ridiculous downtown stretch that was four lanes (two in each direction) with head-in parking on both sides; the outer lane in each direction though was practically unusable without driving over the white line in order to avoid rear-ending a parked car.
Fortunately people drive politer up here, and the dozen+ crosswalks keep people from getting up to any decent speed, but I've seen plenty of near-accidents, especially if someone has to quickly swerve around a longer vehicle or one trying to back out.
The city has been completely rebuilding this finally, turning it into a single lane in each direction with bike lanes.
No armed insurrection?
Is this not New Hampshire?
Speed and inability
Those are the issues that prevent people from staying in their lanes. If you go the speed limit and pay attention, the lanes are easy to stay in, if narrower than typical.
Maybe, but so what?
"Everyone should be a better driver!" is a sentiment I agree with, but it's not a solution.
This road sees an unacceptable number of head-on collisions. That is, by definition, a design flaw.
Multi prong
Multi prong solution.
Teach better driving skills from the outset. Re-review road design. Better traffic enforcement.
I don't think it is a one solution problem.
I haven't done the research, but I'd be curious to know if in countries (mostly Euro) that have similarly narrow lanes and better / harder driving license requirements have similar head-on collision numbers. If it's possible to compare and contrast, that is.
And I agree with you - the road does see an unacceptable number of head-on collisions.
Building your systems to deal
Building your systems to deal with human nature as it is, rather than trying to alter human nature to fit your systems, is always a better solution.
Even if you could alter human nature, improving driver training is something that would take a few generations to have an effect. A year or two of construction fixing the road sounds a lot better than waiting for all the people who learned to drive under the current system to age and die off.
Just a little reminder
There is no right to drive.
While you are largely correct, MA has an aging population and doesn't do a very good job training the younger drivers, let alone insuring that drivers remain up to the task and screened for common and preventable illnesses that impair driving as they age.
We will never be able to compensate for people who don't know the rules and are losing their faculties.
I disagree
But I don't think how people drive today is 'Human Nature as it is'. I think skills have been allowed to go to pot, and/or not taught as well as they used to be. Thus, altering the infrastructure to match the current skills is akin to allowing the dumbing down to reign supreme. That's just lazy and more costly than teaching people to drive better.
For example, my mother's father made my mother drive up and down their flat driveway with a full glass of water on the hood. She was not allowed to spill a drop of water. This was the early to mid 50's, it was a stickshift vehicle. My father's father made his kids drive and deliberately aim for apples in the road. While neither of these examples speak to the skills required to drive in a much more crowded world and the associated pedestrians and other vehicles, it does speak to teaching people to know their vehicle and operate it with that knowledge. Something completely lacking today.
People can't drive a manual, use DOS, or a shell
I wonder what percentage of Mac users have ever used the terminal. All this GUI human interface design crap makes computers look too easy, luring in innocent victims who are helpless to figure out what to do when challenged. Now the crap is on cell phones and idiots waste away their lives on them.
Okay then
It should have cellular phone suppression technology, speed humps, and be restricted to people who can demonstrate capability on a simulator test.
Sounds really workable.
Maybe
Make it one way and start charging tolls? (kidding)
Boston could close it every so often and hold TTs, a la Isle of Man? Moneymaker!
Create a track similar to the Nürburgring in Germany for driving lessons.
So when can we expect DCR to
So when can we expect DCR to repaint the road with three lanes in each direction?
Two wheeled vehicles only
Ban cars and only have motorcycles, scooters, and mopeds allowed. Bicycles can use the fairly nice bike path that parallels the Jamaicaway nicely.
To widen the Jway they would have to chop down the Olmstead Oaks
I know it's dangerous, but I can't get behind loosing the beads in the Emerald Necklace
The entire impetus behinds
The entire impetus behinds narrow lanes is to nudge drivers to slow down. After all, it's a PARKway, so the park it follows is DCR's main priority. But they become dangerous and have negative side effects when drivers go 20+ miles over the speed limit.
There are all sorts of
There are all sorts of solutions to nudge drivers to slow down, but that has to be one of the most asinine. My understanding is that overall road width and long-distance visibility is what determines how fast people naturally choose to drive. Shrinking individual lane width doesn't make the road "feel" any tighter; people are only going to notice how tight the road has become when someone suddenly side-swipes them. A bit too late, no?
This is why a lot of city centers have been redesigned with wider sidewalks with bump-outs at intersections, small roundabouts and islands, "yield to pedestrians" signs placed directly on the yellow line, and other things like that: Narrow the roads and increase road-side objection congestion (curbs, signage, etc.), and people slow down.
"Too narrow to use"
Part of the problem is the increasing size of some "cars." Even though trucks are prohibited on FPP &c, you'll still see Suburbans and pickup trucks there. I found FPP an adventure in my '57 Chevy, which was almost a foot narrower than a '15 Suburban. At one time, pickup trucks and vans were subject to truck-prohibition enforcement, but then too many cops and legislators started driving them, so now we all have to pretend they're just cars.
I hit a curb the other night
I hit a curb the other night staying in the right lane as another car passed me too close. Luckily the damage was limited to a new tire which was a pain but I guess it's better than a head on collision.
I hope they can keep the oil out of Wards and Leverett ponds
something something Uber
something something Uber something something
If that was an Uber driver
If that was an Uber driver instead of a Metro Cab, this relatively minor accident would've been a front-page story in the mainstream press. "IRRESPONSIBLE UNLICENSED UBER DRIVER CAUSES ACCIDENT, TERRIBLE OIL SPILL"-type stuff.
I pray first then drive it hugging the curb
I have seen several accidents over the years and almost had one when a car nearly rear ended me forcing me into the inside inbound lane. It is one of the most dangerous roads in Boston
And I'm the opposite
The curbs and adjacent trees scare me. I'm happy to stay in that left lane.
:)
A lot of the accidents
seem to occur when a driver is attempting a left turn across oncoming traffic. I think this road is too dangerous to allow for left turns at all unless there is a specific left turn signal, like the one at Pond St.
A Parkway is not a Road
"A Parkway is not a Road. It's a Park with a Road in it." So said the Historic Parkways of Massachusetts Initiative back in the Gov. Swift days. Always liked that as a guiding principle.
DCR could do several things more or less immediately to make this portion of the parkway from Route 9 to Pond Street beyond Jamaica Pond far safer for car travel:
1. Imbed those little knobby reflectors down the center, between lanes and near the curbs so that drivers have an audible warning they are drifting out of their (narrow) lanes.
2. Fix the very dangerous light at Bynner Street: inbound vehicles trying to turn left across the parkway at the Daisy Field baseball diamonds who become stranded in that intersection have no indication at all that when their light turns red the oncoming traffic has a longer green. People nearly get killed there every single day darting in front of outbound (oncoming) traffic.
3. Install permanent flashing "Your Speed is ____" signage throughout the corridor.
4. Get the Staties to enforce the speed limits.
5. Easy for me to say, but: ban all outbound left turns at Perkins.
6. Replace the street lights that get knocked down, clean up the toppled limbs faster, repaint the lanes and crosswalks.
Drop a lane and put up jersey
Drop a lane and put up jersey barriers until a new curb line and plantings can be permanently installed along the narrowed parkway.
Jane, helicopter Swift?
Hey, how many camping areas are there along those parkways? Anyplace to park? Build a camp fire?
Get real. Those are vital roadways that got built with depression recovery dollars on swampland already publicly owned making them shovel ready. This makes them ideal for highways because no privately owned houses and buildings have to be torn down to add needed and safer transportation.
FYI, the standard for these roads is 4 x 10' lanes, an artifact of when they were built and also needing modernization.
Trucks are banned from
Trucks are banned from parkways and the lane width is fine for cars.
If only that ban worked
I drive from Forest Hills to Longwood area frequently and almost everytime I see trucks "sneak" driving on the Jway. I have reported several with license plates to DCR and it does not appear they have done anything about it, the trucks continue to scare the crap out of me by nearly brushing my car as they pass in the left lane
There isn't anywhere to build
There isn't anywhere to build a fire or park on the Boston Common and no one lives on it so by your logic we should pave over it.
So where do I graze my cows?
"During the 1630s, it was used by many families as a cow pasture. However, this only lasted for a few years, as affluent families bought additional cows, which led to overgrazing, a real-life example of the Tragedy of the commons.[8] After grazing was limited in 1646 to 70 cows at a time,[9] the Boston Common continued to host cows until they were formally banned from it in 1830 by Mayor Harrison Gray Otis.[10]"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston_Common
At least the Common was at one point some sort of park unlike this "parkway" bs.
Texas
We can probably crowdfund a move.
You are right. The parkway is
You are right. The parkway is "bs". Its bullshit that a lovely section of Boston along ponds and marshes was marred by putting a road through it where dummies constantly speed and drive into each other.
It's a Parkway
If you've every been there, you'd realize that the Jamaicaway, Riverway, Pond Street, and Arborway do not impact the sylvan beauty once one is in Olmsted's masterpiece.
Whoosh.
Whoosh.
Whatever
The kid doesn't even own a car. Meanwhile, I drive and run the route. I've run other DCR "parkways", and this one is not that bad at all.
Weren't these parkways part of Olmsted's design?
That's many decades before the Depression.
(Also, quite a few houses are located along the Jamaicaway.)
Yes, they were
Just like the carriage paths at Acadia, they were never designed to be used by cars.
You're right
But only because it was the1860's, before the car became ubiquitous. Or even a thing in JP, which was widely serviced by streetcar at the time.
Wholly different era upon inception of the Emerald Necklace. But times they continue to change, and we're not Beacon Hill crying for cobblestones and gas lanterns and "hysterically" accurate warning strips at accessible curb cuts.
And in that vein, do I think things can be improved? Yes, but I also think we as drivers need to improve, too. Even some motorcyclists have trouble staying in their lanes.
The road is safe- if everyone goes the speed limit
I am just back from that very road, not having read this. Coincidentally, I was thinking that back in the day when they cracked down on the speed (once) driving the Jamaicaway was actually kind of pleasant. I don't know how to get people (myself included) to slow down, but if everyone was going 30, the curves would be easy. That said, I've always thought it odd that the limit goes down to 25 when you get to the Route 9 overpass, which is a stretch of road that could handle 35 easy.
It'd surely help
Traffic tends to flow around 40 mph, with the speedier folks pushing 50.
As mentioned above, maybe "Your speed is ___" signs? Actual enforcement via ticketing? Clearly the narrowness of the road itself is not doing anything to discourage people.
It's not odd, it's a speed trap
Frequently a statie is sitting in that little space where the small inner road with brick apartments (cant remember the name) meets the Jway. I should know, I got a ticket there some years back.
In Massachusetts, We Park In Driveways And Drive On Parkways
Simple fixes for jway
There are small improvements that can be made to the jway that would improve things.
Start with signage.There are no orange warning signs along the roadway indicating curves or safety-related speed changes. Perhaps DCR believes that they will detract from the park-like character of the roadway. However, I have driven on some of the most pristine roadways in the San Francisco foothills, and they are perfectly beautiful with standard signage.
At night, I believe there still are some sections with no edge lines, and there are definitely no curve reflectors (even the ones on trees are poor). Road reflectors as suggested by someone else would be a good addition.
Goddard Ave, in contrast to the jway, has reasonable warning signage for its curvy sections. It helps those unfamiliar with the road, at least.
Next, if you are coming from Brookline Ave on the jway, the speed limit (25mph) doesn't match the road look (wide and relatively straight). Drivers are encouraged to exceed the speed limit, just in time for the lanes to narrow and the road to become twisty when the forest starts. This funneling down means higher speeds and shrinking following distance just when things get curvy. A similar thing happens coming from Pond St.approaching Perkins.
So once you fix the signage, you could improve things for everyone by narrowing the lanes over the Rt 9 crossing and providing sidewalks and bike accommodation, finally completing that project and changing the look of the street to match the desired speed limit. Peter Firth at Northeastern had a plan for the crossing some time ago.
But first do the simple stuff.
Perhaps DCR believes that
Ding Ding Ding Ding!! We have a winner!!!!