i spend a lot of time in my car which gives me an intimate view of the layout of the streets around boston. there are two specific intersections that get me particularly frustrated. i dont land on the road rage end of the spectrum but i have personally witnessed how other drivers get escalated to this level.
intersection #1 - cross st and north washington st, north end
this intersection is one of the errors resulting from the big dig. there are two lanes on cross st coming out of the north end, making a soft right hand turn onto north washington st. immediately after making the turn, the left hand lane (labeled A in the photo) becomes a left hand turn lane allowing drivers to make a u-turn to head back towards i-93 south. the light is timed so that A lane drivers get a left hand turn signal and the straight traffic lane (labeled B) remains at a red light. thankfully boston drivers dont recognize lane A as a dedicated turn lane so once the light turns solid green, all lanes proceed straight. unless of course youre stuck behind a car that needs to turn left. so the frustration arises in two lanes of traffic trying to merge into one lane while making a turn. an additional issue is that some drivers, either out of frustration or confusion, make an illegal u-turn instead of waiting for the light.
my simple solution is simply to keep two straight lanes and add a dedicated left hand turn lane.
intersection #2 - university rd and comm ave, boston
this intersection has more personal meaning to me as another driver actually threatened me here one day, all due to the layout of the road. coming from the brookline direction, there are two lanes that intersect with comm ave. the lanes are clearly marked during the turn to indicate that the left hand lane (labeled A) makes a left onto comm ave towards the bu bridge. the right hand lane (labeled B) goes straight onto university rd toward storrow drive. the problem comes from both lanes trying to make the left hand turn. this wouldnt be as big of a problem if there were still two lanes to turn onto the bu bridge. however, for an unknown reason, the city has instead decided to create a giant median and only one turn lane. you could argue that the reason is because of the bridge construction reducing the traffic to one lane. but isnt this construction temporary, meaning it eventually will have two lanes in each direction again?
i see two solutions. either strictly police enforce that only the left lane can turn left onto comm ave. or allow both lanes to make the left hand turn but reduce the size of the median and return to two turn lanes onto the bu bridge.
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