Two tunnel-related stories in today’s Globe command our attention.
- Too many accidents in the O’Neill Tunnel. Kudos to diligent citizen activist Vincent Zarrilli, who put together information gained through public records requests to prove that far more accidents occur in the O’Neill tunnel than in the Sumner and Callahan tunnels, and (much more impressive) got the Turnpike Authority to notice.
There were 614 crashes in the new O’Neill tunnel in a two-year period ending in February, compared with 28 crashes in the same period in the Callahan and Sumner tunnels, according to statistics that Boston activist Vincent Zarrilli obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request, which he supplied to the Associated Press…. [Update: the Turnpike is now saying that the correct number of crashes in the O’Neill tunnel is 408.]
“The Massachusetts Turnpike Authority has launched an evaluation of the accident data and the geometry of the highway and tunnel,” authority chief of staff Stephen Collins wrote in a July 20 letter to Zarrilli. “This engineering evaluation includes an assessment of the pavement condition, horizontal and vertical curvature, sight distances, signage, lighting, and all engineering aspects of the roadway and tunnel,” Collins wrote…. Zarrilli, a longtime civic activist who once proposed an alternative project to the Big Dig, said he wants to see the speed limit in the O’Neill tunnel reduced from 45 miles per hour to 30 miles per hour.
Actually, at least in my experience, the issue isn’t speed limits or lighting. It’s that you have to constantly change lanes (by contrast, the Sumner and Callahan tunnels are straight shots — no exits, no lane shifts). For instance, anyone traveling south on I-93 — especially if you took the HOV (leftmost) lane — and then needing to get off at the airport exit has had the frightening experience of having to cut across about five lanes of heavy traffic over a very short distance. The same scenario replays itself over and over again in both the north- and south-bound tunnels: lanes unexpectedly become “exit only,” requiring quick lane changes to stay in the tunnel, while simultaneously drivers wanting to leave the tunnel are constantly swooping across the lanes, belatedly realizing that they are about to miss their exit. The problem is heightened by the fact that the exits are not numbered consecutively — heading south, for instance, the exit after 23 is 20, so drivers needing to get off at exit 20 and who think they’ve got a little ways to go after passing 23 are in for a nasty shock, and another quick lane shift.
I’m not sure how you solve those problems, but I do wonder whether it was necessary to have all those “exit only” lanes. They really screw things up.
- Storrow Drive tunnel was never waterproofed. Oops. Remember those clever plans for not breaking the bank or creating horrific traffic nightmares while the Storrow Drive tunnel is repaired? Never mind. It now appears that no one ever thought to waterproof the tunnel when it was built. Result: the tunnel probably has to be replaced.
Among the remarkable features of this story is that it almost never came out. It took an 82-year-old retired traffic engineer coming into some old documents practically by chance to reveal the defect.
[Cranston R.] Rogers, 82, a prolific structural engineer who designed the Harvard Square underpass in the 1970s, did not design the Storrow Tunnel…. Rogers said he had recently made a mental note to study the Storrow Tunnel plans but didn’t look at them in detail until this summer, when they “fell in my lap” at a meeting of regional planning officials.
Wouldn’t it have been nice if someone whose actual current job it was to know these things had figured this problem out first?
Department [of Conservation and Recreation] officials, who met with Rogers Friday, said yesterday that they had not been told about the lack of waterproofing by Simpson Gumpertz & Heger Inc, the private firm they hired to develop options for the tunnel. They said they have asked the Waltham-based firm to investigate.
“That’s certainly an important piece of information that we’ve asked our engineers to review,” said Jim Baecker, the department’s project manager for the Storrow Tunnel. “If [Rogers] is correct, it might be very unwise to consider that particular option,” to repair the tunnel.
Yes, you might call the fact that the tunnel is porous an “important piece of information.” Good grief. One has to sympathize with the community organizations, who are trying to be diligent about keeping an eye on this constantly-shifting target.
Members of neighborhood groups who heard Rogers speak Wednesday said they were stunned. Some of the groups — including the Back Bay Association, which represents 300 neighborhood businesses — had been pushing to repair the tunnel and avoid a more costly and disruptive construction project.
“A lot of time and effort has gone into considering the options presented by Department of Conservation and Recreation, and it’s surprising that one of those options is not feasible,” said Meg Mainzer-Cohen, president of the association.
Yeah, pretty much.
It’s my understanding that Mr. Storrow left the land along the Charles to the state on the condition that it remain a park, and that Storrow Drive was initially constructed to be a Sunday drive kind of road, not a transportation artery.
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If this is true, how long until somebody sues the state for breach of whatever contract/will/trust left by Mr. Storrow? I have no idea how these things work, nor do I know for sure if this myth that the Esplanade land was left by Mr. Storrow for recreation is true.
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My point: maybe the tunnel doesn’t have to be repaired. Maybe instead the state will dig up more pavement and restore the park to it’s initial intent — not a place where the majority of acreage is devoted to motorists.
well, never mind. Sorry to be flip, but that will never, ever happen. Whatever the Storrow family’s original intentions were (and I have no idea about that either), (a) there’s still a big ol’ park there — one that you yourself have said justifies the IMHO barbaric practice of closing down a lane of Storrow Drive during events, and (b) it’s just not feasible to permanently redirect that much traffic. Some ships have sailed, and the Storrow-Drive-as-Sunday-drive-road ship sailed many years ago.
after all, the SJC ruling that gay marriage is required by the state Constitution will “never, ever happen” 30 years ago.
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But, at one point just west of the Smoots/Harvard/Mass Ave bridge, the (a) big ol’ park narrows down to 13 feet of parkuser’s access, whereas autos are afforded about 360 feet — right at the clover where Storrow “meets” the Fens/Charlesgate/whatever they call it. The big ol’ park is more road than park, and so I do take umbrage with calling it a big ol’ park. Take away the junction of west moving Storrow and Boyleston, and you could reclaim 100,000 square feet of park — over 2 acres. Get rid of access in both directions [include east moving Storrow] and you’d get an additional 300,000 square feet between Charlesgate E and Charlesgate W. Merely removing the Boyleston-Storrow connector and keeping the rest of Storrow would yield over 9 acres of parkland [subdivided by Beacon, Comm Ave E, and Comm Ave W]. Technically, cars would still have access to Storrow east, but they’d have to use Charlesgate E/W instead of the flyovers.
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I’m not holding my breath, merely playing “what if”.
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As for (b), I have no idea how much traffic we’re talking about, or what would happen if there was a sudden or a gradual closing of Storrow [coupled with improvements for the MBTA and an expansion of quality housing and quality schools nearer MBTA commuter rail and subway stations].
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P.S. I think “barbaric” is more than a bit strong when referring to parking cars on a road with a 40 mph speed limit, which serve as a effective physical barrier to other cars making the Esplanade look like a farmer’s market in California, complete with old dude in big ol’ Caddy just “passing through”.
From the Globe article:
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Assuming that traffic is roughly the same heading west, we’re talking about 200,000 cars a day. I think it’d be tough for the surface roads to absorb that.
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re closing Storrow, I’m not going to reopen that subject for further debate, other than to note that your farmer’s market analogy has lost me. Suffice it to say that we disagree.
just thinking “out of the box”.
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Careful on the numbers: 103,000 one way likely means 103,000 the other way, but they’re likely to be many of the same cars [commuters], and the rush in one direction may not be at the same time as the rush in the other direction. In terms of a master plan to eliminate Storrow as a commuter path, it’d be “better” if the flow was about the same in morning and evening, since that means that it’d be easier to disseminate the usage on other servers [roads].
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The farmers market reference was referring to the seemingly annual news article of some senior citizen mowing down a group of people at a local market with his car. The parked cars along Storrow serve as a really good wall [and the fence and barricade there now might not do as well depending on speed and angle].
Could it be because in their infinite wisdom designers had 3 streams of traffic enter at the same point, at which the further most left stream has to merge right across four lanes of traffic to get to the storrow offramp, or the right most stream of traffic has to merge across 4 lanes of traffic to get to the tobin offramp. Na that wouldn’t have ANYTHING to do with it!
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‘cept I didn’t do the spiffy graphic.
thought a graphic would help. Just agreeing with you. I know that’s hard to take đŸ˜‰
… for a graphic that shows the topology that you are describing in your graphic. I am not that familiar with the layout since I commute from the train and usually come into town from the north. I’m having trouble seeing where you are refering to.
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http://www.massturnp…
I’m not really sure what spot EaBo’s talking about either. But the point I made in the post stands: there are many places in the tunnel that require rapid lane-changes, either to stay in the tunnel or to leave it. That’s a recipe for accidents.
… with the lane changes of the elevated highway?
It does not show actual on-ramp information.
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The spot I am talking about is affectionately called “Times Square” by the MTA, because the traffic pattern resembles Times Square in NYC.
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If you enter the tunnel from the Greenway just before Rowe’s wharf, you enter on the left hand side. Coming from South Boston(the entrance either from the Ted or from near the Seaport Hotel), you enter on the right hand side. These two merges are almost exactly in the same spot.
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If you are coming from the greenway entrance and you want to to go to the Storrow drive you cut across four lanes of traffic.
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I tried to find a graphic, that’s why I created one. My graphic is not to scale, but this all happens in about a 1/2 mile.
what’s the distance between the triple entrance and the Tobin/Storrow off ramps? I have no clue… are we talking 0.5 miles, 1.0 miles, 2.0 miles?
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I’m wondering how much of the problem could be handled with better signage. Not necessarily more signs…
… be tricky be cause of sight-distances and speeds. For Calahan and Sumner with no curves or exits it is obviously not an issue.
The signage in the tunnels actually is not bad, nor is the lighting. But signs can’t help when drivers are too worried about changing lanes safely (or avoiding other cars trying to shift) to read them. Terrific signs can mitigate the ill effects of a bad design, but they can’t eliminate them.
I agree with you that the accidents are caused by too many required lane shifts over too short a distance. Given that we can’t redo the Big Dig (I shutter at the thought), it would seem like the only feasible solution available is to lower the speed limit. Going from 45 MPH down to 30 MPH over a 1.5 mile stretch would only cost motorists one minute of travel time, and would save many trips to the auto body shop and area hospitals.
Three roads are merging and there isn’t room for traffic to cross. Putting in lights would mean that only peoplpe from one road are driving at a time. There would be no cars in the other lanes, so changing lanes would be easy. An advantage of using lights instead of lowering the speed limit is that they could be left on blinking yellow until traffic picks up enough that they are needed (assuming we have some way of measuring how many cars are entering the tunnel).
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Lowering the speed limit tends to cause cars to clump closer together. This makes it harder to change lanes. But I’m not a traffic engineer and this looks like a difficult problem to solve.
and exits require some well honed Boston driving skills (and the occasional “jail break” maneuver), but if you know where you are going, it’s not too bad. Speed is definitely the issue/problem, but traffic lights would be a fiasco IMHO.
Stop lights on 93 is a recipe for disaster, IE tractor trailers sqaushing cars etc.
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BTW, twice in the last six months (once on St. Pattys Day night), cars have actually left the roadway while trying to exist from 93 North over the Zakim, to get onto Rte 1 North from the left lane. That’s up a long incline coming out of the tunnel and over the bridge, yet twice cars managed to jump the barrier at the turn, go through the fence, and either ended up on the ramp below, or in Boston sand and Gravel some 60 -70 feet down.
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Gotta watch the speed on that turn!
I’m pretty sure that adding [permanent] traffic lights in an Interstate is not permitted, ever.
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I do think that better signage might help. Perhaps it needs to happen earlier, so that when people enter this tricky part, they’ve already read all the information and can focus on their swapping lanes. Perhaps the exit numbering jump is a problem, and that could certainly be changed [the number].
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It’s true that even “perfect” signage won’t make the corridor accident-free, but it might reduce the frequency and/or severity of the accidents… which would be a good thing [tm].
and is practiced in Southern California. Not that I’m advocating that.
Why stop at 30 MPH? Why not 15 MPH?
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If everybody goes 15 MPH, even when there is an accident the impact won’t be very bad. EXCEPT, that if you actually start to enforce a 15 or 30 MPH speed limit, the problem of accidents will move from the tunnel to the rear-end collisions that will start happening when highway speed traffic on I-93 comes to a screeching halt as it approaches the tunnel… or as the backup extends to Stoneham and Milton.
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Sounds like the good old days of the Central Artery.
… to design a tunnel that wasn’t a straight shot with no lane changes if there are no exits within the tunnel. A more apt comparison would be with a similar tunnel with exits and all. The elevated highway used to get accidents for largly the same reasons.
From Wikipedia:
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I’d be interested to know how fast people were going when they got into their accidents, and at what time they occured. Not too many people obey the posted speed limit of 45 MPH- it’s more like 65+ MPH in the tunnel. (Except of course at peak hours- traffic seems only to go about 20-25 MPH.)
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p>(As an aside, if there’s a design flaw anywhere in the system it’s the whole South Bay interchange, especially going southbound.)
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and what is the ratio of traffic accidents. I think it’s safe to say that the design of the tunnel and the traffic flow is a major factor in the amount of accidents. My experience is getting on at Storrow and driving south. Required lane changes is much higher due to the right lane (slow lane) turning into an exit lane, not a turn to an exit. If you are in the right lane and want to stay on 93 you need to change lanes repeatedly.
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I have three kids and tend not to drive on the left lane with them in the car, but know enough after the first experience to move the middle left when entering the tunnel so I can stay in one lane. It’s just poorly designed. You have to figure that none of this is new territory, how the hell to you screw up building roads and tunnels? We didn’t just start building infrastructure in the United States recently.
most tunnels built for auto traffic are straight shots — no exits nor entrances, and few turns.
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Some are built with an entrance or an exit, but very few [none?] have the amount of turns, entrances, exits, and had to be built under large buildings and around oodles of easements that couldn’t be disturbed [gas, water, elec, telco, etc].
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Is that an excuse? A justification? A reason not to have ever started the Big Dig? Meh. It doesn’t matter.
But, in terms of traffic engineering, it was a lot of new territory, balancing cost with safe design. In terms of actual construction, a lot of it was new territory too.
in how to create safe on and off ramps to a highway at this point so it’s shouldn’t be an issue. It evident to anyone driving through the tunnel and the necessary zig/zags and lane shifts you are required to do that it’s design is flawed. How about the Rt. 1 off ramp? I thought that was temporary, was it and then they changed it? I don’t know. How could anyone see that narrow, one lane, sharp turn circle as a safe off ramp to car and trucks. A lot of trucks that that route. It just boggles the mind.