The Boston Driving Song

[charlie8575]

WBZ, our major news-radio station, started a series on traffic problems in Greater Boston today, and as part of the series (and to add a little humor) introduced me to this wonderful piece of music.

You don't have to be from Massachusetts to get a few laughs out of it.

Charlie Larkin

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yBqaXwamF0o

[slusher]

Thats really cool Charlie. l got a good laugh..

[PappyD340]

I think I'll pass on that action, and just stay right where I'm at!!

[Ju Ju]

It don't be looking like them Baa-ston driver knows how to drive to good.

[ToyLvr]

During my years in business, I used to travel quite a bit throughout the USA.

People always talk about traffic problems in big cities like L.A. or Chicago, but the absolute *worst* traffic I ever encountered was the times I visited Boston! Don't know how you guys live with it, Charlie.

[Foxer]

Now my secret is out ... why I live in Western Mass!

[Rob Hall]

Pretty funny.. though a lot of the footage in the video is Russian dash cam footage, it looks like. My sister lived in the Boston area in the '90s (Billerica then Weston), I visited several times and remember the interesting traffic patterns and congestion driving in the city, to/from Logan airport, driving in the suburbs, out to the cape, etc... beautiful part of the country with 4 actual seasons...and so green.

Edited November 19, 2013 by Rob Hall

[Harry P.]

Isn't a big part of the traffic mess in Boston the fact that the city was laid out several centuries ago? Lots of weird angled and crisscrossing streets that were ok when horses and oxcarts were the only traffic... not so good for thousands of cars, trucks, and buses.

[charlie8575]

Now my secret is out ... why I live in Western Mass!

And why I stay out of the City as much as possible. Even Marlborough (35 miles west) can get really screwy over the last few years because for whatever reason, 495 has become a real problem. I'm just waiting to see what happens when the office parks go to full occupancy instead of the 30-50% they're at now....

When one of the cars is sick, I ride in with Dad to the VA in Jamaica Plain where he works, and let me tell you, they should've worked in a verse about Rt. 9. As you well know, Mike, even in less-dense areas, 9 (which goes from Downtown Boston to the New York line), can become a massive trainwreck (proverbially, of course), with little provocation.

Charlie Larkin

Edited November 19, 2013 by charlie8575

[charlie8575]

During my years in business, I used to travel quite a bit throughout the USA.

People always talk about traffic problems in big cities like L.A. or Chicago, but the absolute *worst* traffic I ever encountered was the times I visited Boston! Don't know how you guys live with it, Charlie.

I stay mostly in the western section of Middlesex County and Worcester County and avoid the mess....

Charlie Larkin

[charlie8575]

Pretty funny.. though a lot of the footage in the video is Russian dash cam footage, it looks like. My sister lived in the Boston area in the '90s (Billerica then Weston), I visited several times and remember the interesting traffic patterns and congestion driving in the city, to/from Logan airport, driving in the suburbs, out to the cape, etc... beautiful part of the country with 4 actual seasons...and so green.

I had noticed that, too, Rob, but going in and out of Town on Rts. 9 and 20, and the occasional use of the Pike, and, if coming from someplace besides home, or needing to go to a different part of Boston, 128/93/95/3 (depending on what part of the road you're on and if you're in the part that you're magically heading north and south at the same time), those Russian dash-cams do a pretty good job of capturing the flavor of stupidity you'll see in rush hour here.

Billerica to Weston- that's a nice (and big!) step up. Weston is a pretty little town, I'm about 25 minutes west via Rt. 20. Weston, which was expensive then, I believe is now in the top 10 or 20 for average home prices (tear-downs start at around $800,000).

Charlie Larkin

[Harry P.]

Did they ever finish that tunnel project they've been working in for decades?

[Rob Hall]

I had noticed that, too, Rob, but going in and out of Town on Rts. 9 and 20, and the occasional use of the Pike, and, if coming from someplace besides home, or needing to go to a different part of Boston, 128/93/95/3 (depending on what part of the road you're on and if you're in the part that you're magically heading north and south at the same time), those Russian dash-cams do a pretty good job of capturing the flavor of stupidity you'll see in rush hour here.

Billerica to Weston- that's a nice (and big!) step up. Weston is a pretty little town, I'm about 25 minutes west via Rt. 20. Weston, which was expensive then, I believe is now in the top 10 or 20 for average home prices (tear-downs start at around $800,000).

Charlie Larkin

I remember it being a nice area...she had a condo there for about 5 years before making the insane decision to move back to Phoenix..

[charlie8575]

Isn't a big part of the traffic mess in Boston the fact that the city was laid out several centuries ago? Lots of weird angled and crisscrossing streets that were ok when horses and oxcarts were the only traffic... not so good for thousands of cars, trucks, and buses.

They don't help.

The Back Bay section of Boston is actually a grid, very much like you'd see in New York, but 400-year-old narrow streets and big, grand buildings from the 19th Century that made them narrower add to the problems. The outlying neighborhoods of the city, most of which were originally their own towns (like Mattapan, Dorchester, Hyde Park, Readville, Charlestown, South Boston (not to be confused with the South End), West Roxbury, Roslindale and Jamaica Plain) add to the silliness in their own respects. Allston and Brighton (so cheek-by-jowl, they're usually referred to as Allston Brighton, despite being two separate areas technically), have the added problems of large college student populations (B.U., Wheelock, Emmanuel, and a couple of other small colleges), and they're a zoo nine months of the year.

If you go to Beacon Hill or Downtown Crossing (right near Boston Common), you'll see the type of patterns you're talking about. The other sections have unique problems, too, mostly very narrow streets. Beacon Hill, Charlestown, the North End, the South End, Roxbury and Dorcester, I believe are the oldest sections of Boston and Greater Boston, and it shows in their street, ahem, "system."

Incidentally, Hanover Street, in the famous-for-Italian restaurants North End, is the oldest street, existing centuries before the Pilgrims, as it was the main path the Indians used to get to the water.

Charlie Larkin

[charlie8575]

Did they ever finish that tunnel project they've been working in for decades?

The Big Dig is finished, although there's still a lot of little ongoing projects and maintenance.

The original $2 billion price tag will now be $22-24 billion with interest, etc.

The general consensus is that it's helped, especially north-south travel, where most of the traffic comes from. I've often thought, though, that as much as the new Rose Kennedy Greenway is, which resulted from them being able to tear down the old elevated Central Artery (I-93, which is the tunnel now), I've thought that they should have kept at least one of the two decks for extra capacity, and it's starting to show we probably should have.

The other major problem that's accompanying this is that the long-promised improvements to the subways and commuter rail, which were supposed to accompany the whole fiasco, never happened, and probably never will. If they do, traffic will ease considerably.

Charlie Larkin

[charlie8575]

I remember it being a nice area...she had a condo there for about 5 years before making the insane decision to move back to Phoenix..

What- she doesn't like trees and quaint New England village commons?

If I ever hit the lottery, Weston is on the "consider" list.

Charlie Larkin

[Rob Hall]

What- she doesn't like trees and quaint New England village commons?

If I ever hit the lottery, Weston is on the "consider" list.

Charlie Larkin

She loved it there...moving back to AZ was the big mistake... but she got married to an old friend from AZ that was living in Boston and then he wanted to move back to AZ... They got divorced 4 years later, and she stayed in AZ..

[Harry P.]

There's no place like home!

That's only true if you're from Kansas...