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Citizen complaint of the day: Don't bet on getting anywhere fast on Maffa Way in Charlestown on a weekend night now
By adamg on Sun, 06/30/2019 - 1:34pm
A disgusted citizen files a 311 complaint about the traffic on Maffa Way, off Sullivan Square, now that the casino is open in Everett:
It's 11:25 pm on a Saturday night on Maffa way in Charlestown sitting in traffic to get to my house for 20 minutes. Thanks mayor Walsh and the mayor from Everett for allowing this to happen to Charlestown residents.
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Comments
They are doing this all over
They are doing this all over the city. Money money money. Vote them out. Stop the development.
Do you even know where this is?
I do.
It looks like that much of the time, anyway!
The Casino is merely a convenient entity to blame for all the traffic that was already there. Now it is all "because of the Casino" not "because of my driving".
Indeed.
You're not stuck in traffic. You are traffic.
I'm not traffic when I'm
I'm not traffic when I'm endlessly waiting for a late bus. And I'm not even riding through Sullivan, but the bus still gets stuck in traffic there.
I know exactly where this is...
I'm not the person who submitted this complaint, but I also live less than a mile from Sullivan circle, and I know the area very well. There may be traffic like this during rush hour commutes, but never this bad on off hours or weekends. I sat in the same traffic at 10:30 on Friday and Saturday night trying to get home, this was 100% casino traffic.
Amen, when only 25% of the
Amen, when only 25% of the city turns out to vote.
130,000 New Residents
By 2040. By 2050, Boston will be closing in on its all time population high, not seen since the late 1940s.
They're going to live here if you like it or not (see San Fransisco). Will the current residents and renters be able to if we stop development?
Probably not.
People are fine. It's cars
People are fine. It's cars that are the problem.
We need to figure out how to design the development and transportation infrastructure to make sure most of the new trips aren't by car.
So... a person using a car to
So... a person using a car to drive themselves around a walkable area that has two subway stops is complaining about all of the traffic. The complaint is coming from inside the house!
That said, the more traffic the more profits for Wynn, so they have to be happy at the result.
Oh right... I totally forgot
Oh right... I totally forgot that ALL Boston area residents are able-bodied. No one living here might be disabled, elderly or be transporting themselves with someone who is! Boston isn't just an urban playground for suburbanite visitors (gasp, omg!).
Oh, please, save me the
Oh, please, save me the concern trolling and strawman argument, anon.
And it's the suburbanite set that is moving back to the city and unwilling to give up their car. I lived 20 years in the city without a car. I sat and watched the traffic going into the Eastie tunnel, 9 out of 10 cars were single passenger, with the 1 being an Uber 3/4 of the time. And the people who are stuck in that traffic are complaining when they are the ones not taking public transport to their downtown office.
You car folks REALLY get bent out of shape when you're called out for being lazy and unwilling to walk through your neighborhoods. You have a car here because you're antisocial and or afraid of the people that ride the train.
Know what?
My dad had a handicap placard and drove himself where he needed to go.
He also loved that, at the time, Portland, OR was handling growth in population by encouraging cycling and transit use.
Why?
MORE ROAD FOR HIM!
Today's Lesson: people walking, biking, and using transit reduce the traffic for people with disabilities and some older adults who lack those choices. This makes it easier for people with disabilties to get around and find parking.
Here we go, a few holier than
Here we go, a few holier than thou car drivers lecturing other car drivers who dare complain about the utter stupidity of building a casino in already congested area.
Just stop it with this
Just stop it with this nonsense. These people are just lazy and so is your argument. Virtually everyone is capable of walking a few blocks, or getting on a bus or a subway. They make the stations with elevators you know. If the roads were only used by handicapped people they would be empty.
I don't think Wynn wants traffic....
But I'm also not sure that is what you mean by "traffic". I'm betting a few high rollers drove in from Newton and Brookline this week only to get caught in this traffic. Those guys might just go back to Foxwoods next month.
Sullivan is a traffic funnel.
Sullivan is a traffic funnel. If you're going from much of Cambridge or Somerville to 93, you're passing through there. So it doesn't help that Sullivan has a T stop. Most people driving through Sullivan are headed somewhere else, which quite likely isn't transit accessible.
Is the actual complaint about..
The amount traffic or the hour of the night during which the traffic has gathered?
As swirly notes, this just standard Charlestown traffic otherwise
Charlie Baker where r u?
Charlie Baker where r u? What's your plan to stop traffic congestion in Massachusetts?
Baker should do a $15/$15 mil rail station match with Encore
The Everett Lower Broadway rail station has been in the works for decades. The proposed station is now well worth the money, especially compared to an exposed-to-the-elements pedestrian bridge over the Mystic. When Encore holds a big event, locals can get to it by train. When the Garden holds a big event, Encore gamers can get to it by train. Overall, if Baker is willing to spend $650 million per mile on the GLX, he can provide $15 million for a new Everett rail station
Wynn wants both the bridge and the rail station
The question is, how much money are they willing to contribute to making both happen?
The bridge will connect Encore not just to the Orange Line but also to all of the shopping and food at Assembly Row.
Well you have to figure the
Well you have to figure the state agreeing to 2,900 parking spaces there would lead to a mess. Plus taxis/uber. Of course the Globe is still telling us (publishing PR pieces) about how Wynn working hard trying to convince people to take the T.
Of course when you read the details you see they placed a much bigger bet on keeping people in cars!
I think the daytime crowd is
I think the daytime crowd is taking the T/shuttles and traffic has not been too bad. The Friday night/Saturday night mix of high-end gamblers and older "date-night" crowd are going to drive or Uber it.
I'm not walking to and from a
I'm not walking to and from a casino with tons of cash in my pocket via the T.
I'm happy to take the T for many reasons but a casino's not going to be one of them.
If you were actually
If you were actually concerned about losing money you wouldn't go to a casino.
I'd prefer slot machines at
I'd prefer slot machines at local bars, rather than a monolith in the brownfields. People can walk there, and the money stays in the neighborhood, rather than disappearing to a faceless corporation.
But of course we got the opposite, because that's what pays the campaign contributions.
Was the Alford Street drawbridge raised?
That is the only thing that would cause traffic to back up in this area on a late Saturday night.
Why are you thanking mayors?
It's state government who picked winners and decided that there could be only one casino, not city government.
Blame Eastie
Casino at Suffolk Downs would've made a helluva lot more sense than Sullivan Sq. But the NIMBYish was strong in Eastie so they dumped it on the brownfield right on the city line instead.
I lost all respect for Eastie after that vote
You have to be a genuine moron who's never read a map in their life to have voted "no" on that gaming proposal. Did they think that the owners of the property THAT'S PARTIALLY IN REVERE weren't going to shop Revere? Did they think that they had dominion over the city of Revere? Did they think that Revere wouldn't hold their own vote?
Revere said yes. We could have two casinos. Two cities said yes. The state said only one could have one. I'm smart. Every East Boston "no" casino voter is inferior in intelligence to me. Every state-level elected official is inferior in intelligence to me.
I dunno
Eastie residents just off-loaded their problems onto Charlestown. Which is unpleasant, but rational.
The problem was having it be a neighborhood-only referendum. The benefits and problems are wider than just East Boston - as we see now.
O noes, we lost Will's respect! We so inferior in intelligence!
Everyone in Eastie goes to sleep crying because we don't have your respect, Will. It's just boo-hoo central over here.
It's really simple. Everyone wants to go to the house party and have a good time. Only an idiot chooses to have it at their house. What exactly did we miss? Traffic problems? Casino scumbags? Creepy rapist casino owners? Low-wage jobs? Revere may have wanted that crap, but Eastie wasn't impressed.
Take that map you're reading, fold it so it's all points, and stick it your ass, Will.
You would have still had that crap
If the state hadn't decided that there would be only one license. You don't think anyone would be coming through Eastie to get to a Revere casino? Eastie would still have had the traffic problems.
Eastie voted away sway and benefits. I'm absolutely going to take an intelligence swipe for that one. Do you think that zero casino scumbags live in East Boston already? Hell, do you think that zero rapists live in East Boston already?
Wages are low because the growth of humanity is outpacing the growth of tasks to be completed by humans. The US population has doubled in 40 years, while automation is increasing.
Huh?
The US population has not doubled since 1979. Not even close.
Correction
65 years
Lots of things wrong there
In addition to what the other guy pointed out (our population has not come close to doubling in 40 years) I'd also point out that humans are way more productive now than they were in the past, and wages are still stagnant. It's not an issue of there not being enough jobs, it's an issue of companies not wanting to pay workers to do the jobs that they're doing better than ever.
Right
Because more people exist to undercut others for jobs. Same reason I roll my eyes at the gender wage gap thing: Making less than what you're worth is how you keep the job.
It's not that companies don't want to, it's that they don't have to. Apple doesn't have some weird affinity for Chinese people, it's that people in that land of no free press don't realize how much lower their standard of living is than it is in the States.
At one time there were two
At one time there were two tracks in the area, Wonderland and Suffering Downs. The main road is basically the Revere Beach Parkway, which feeds into the new gambling emporium. So , Viva Los Everett !