You could have gotten off and gone on Rt 20. It runs roughly parallel to the Pike but it gets a little dangerous. There’s two lanes going east, two going west with a thin yellow line separating cars going 60mph. Because the Pike still charges, a lot of tractor trailers use 20 to save a few bucks so it makes it more interesting. Locals know to ride the right lane. We were promised the state would put in dividers for the last 25 years, they did do some in Auburn but the state just pulled the funding for farther west (Charlton). Guess the money is needed closer to Boston.
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Maybe just enforce the speed limit?Recommended by: SomervilleTom.
Two lanes each way, double yellow line, no divider?
Speed limit is probably 45. Enforce it, and at least you’ve dropped it from 60 to low 40s. Sure, people tend to drive 10 over, but with 2 lanes no shoulder, any time anyone drives more slowly (because they respect the limit, because they’re turning, whatevs) it slows everyone else from 45 down to something a little less.
If the speed were less, it’d be both more safer and less attractive to those bypassing the Pike.
drikeo says
Use it to skirt around the endless traffic jam at Exit 9 on the Pike. Sometimes take Rte. 20 out to the M-I-L’s place in Palmer.
Never struck me as a structurally dangerous road. Lots of smaller highways like it all across the country. Yet if there’s significant public will behind putting in a divider and you’ve been waiting 25 years, then I suggest blaming local officials and not the Boston Boogeyman. The state yanks everyone’s funds. Good local officials raise a stink and make sure their projects stay at the top of the list. Bad ones shrug their shoulders and decades go by.
On a tangential note, re-engineering Exit 9 should be a priority. It’s jammed seven days a week. I suspect more of those trucks travel Rte. 20 to avoid the 10-mile backup on the Pike and to save on fuel costs than to skirt the toll. That exit desperately needs to be fixed.
Pablo says
I use the US 20 alternate with some regularity when I come from Connecticut heading toward Boston. For me, it is not a toll-saving measure, it is a time-saving measure in that the Pike often backs up on the eastbound side between exits 9 and 10, particularly in the first couple of miles.
You are essentially bringing five lanes down to three at that point (two eastbound Pike lanes and three eastbound I-84 lanes) and the roadway does not have sufficient capacity to handle all that traffic. Enough traffic hops off again at exit 10 to continue on I-290 into Worcester and beyond, so that these ten miles become the choke point.
Interchange improvements (such as the conversion to open road tolling) should help, but the Turnpike Authority should seriously consider spending some of that toll money on widening the Pike between exits 9 and 10.