Speaking of Road Issues

[duffless2323.livejournal.com]

This reminds me of a question I've been meaning to ask. Who do you talk to if you feel an intersection needs a light or sign change?  Is it the city, or the alderman, do I just call 311?  Anyone have experience with this?

The intersection in question might technically be Arlington - - has anyone else noticed an issue at that 4 way intersection between Broadway and Rt 16/Alewife Brook Parkway?

If you are going down Broadway from Somerville going towards Arlington and need to make a left onto 16 you get a green light and the traffic coming the opposite direction is stopped. 

However, since you have a green light if you haven't driven through there a bunch of times you don't know they are stopped on the other side until you wait a bit and they don't go.  I have seen people needing to go left stop at this green light expecting traffic from the opposite direction to go and this seems dangerous.  I feel like if the traffic coming from Somerville has the right of way there they should have a green arrow not a green light.

Thoughts?

Comments

[thetathx1138.livejournal.com]

Wait, help me out here. Are you saying:

A) that traffic on Alewife Brook is stopped in one lane, but not the other?

or

B) that sometimes the traffic on Broadway is stopped in one direction, other times not?

[duffless2323.livejournal.com]

If i'm on Broadway in Somerville (Foodmaster is on my right) and I'm in the left lane making a left onto Rt 16/Alewife brook pkwy I have a green light. However oncoming traffic seems to be stopped - I think they have a red but I can't see. I feel like I should have a left arrow and not a green light. I feel like I need something that tells me that the oncoming traffic can't to - so I won't be hit.

[duffless2323.livejournal.com]

that should read "oncoming traffic can't go" not "to"

[unferth.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it's a protected left turn that's not marked as such. It's really disconcerting until you're used to it.

The eastbound traffic on Broadway waiting to cross 16 indeed do have a red light while the westbound traffic has a green. Normally I'd expect a green left arrow.

[qwrrty.livejournal.com]

The signal on that street allows eastbound traffic on Broadway (i.e. from Somerville) to proceed before westbound traffic (i.e. from Arlington).

In particular, that means that if you have a green light, and you're turning left, you actually have the right of way since the traffic in the other direction has a red light. But there is NOTHING at the intersection to clue you in to this.

The intersection needs a green arrow or at the very least an "opposing traffic has delayed green" sign. There are a bunch of other lights that really need this, for that matter, but that's one of the ones I find the most aggravating. It's not surprising that drivers around here act so crazy, when they learn driving from fucked-up intersections like that.

[pierceheart.livejournal.com]

"opposing traffic has delayed green"

this.

[nonnihil.livejournal.com]

It's a fairly general problem (see, eg, Mass Ave and Lake St. in Arlington) that there are no "leading green" signs around. Arlington in particular seems to have a lot of leading greens at which out-of-town left-turners tend to freeze up.

[duffless2323.livejournal.com]

I probably only notice that intersection because I drive that intersection all the time and it's so trafficy...but really if you are going left you have no way of knowing you won't get hit unless you've driven that intersection a ton of time, and even though I have I still find myself freezing up a bit.

[zmgmeister.livejournal.com]

I think Arlington has a lot of drivers that tend to freeze up no matter what's happening on the road. i.e. the ones who drive twenty mph on Broadway, block the left lane on Mass Ave, and flat-out refuse to take corners.

[x-bluerose-x.livejournal.com]

Yup, I drive around there all of the time and it's a dangerous interaction. Can't tell you how many times I nearly got into a car wreck because someone decided to swerve around the guy in front of him at 80 mph and try to hit me as I make a left hand turn. There needs to be a left turn signal there.

[pierceheart.livejournal.com]

try to hit me

you mean tried to assert his right of way?

[x-bluerose-x.livejournal.com]

No, dear. I was already turning when the car came whizzing around.

One point for smooth, two points off for assumption.

[pierceheart.livejournal.com]

three off for still thinking you have right of way when there is on coming traffic.

[x-bluerose-x.livejournal.com]

Another four off for additional assumption. There WAS no oncoming traffic when I made my turn.

[pierceheart.livejournal.com]

80 mph
Five off for hyperbole.

and try to hit me

Four off for assumption of motive on the part of the other driver.

[x-bluerose-x.livejournal.com]

Right, Morgan, I forgot you have nothing else better to do.

However...I do.

[pierceheart.livejournal.com]

wtf-ever.

which personality is this you are using on LJ today?

[x-bluerose-x.livejournal.com]

At least I have one.

Bye now. :)

[pierceheart.livejournal.com]

you mean multiple.

[teele-sq.livejournal.com]

please don't let this thread stop. i'm so bored right now.

[ifotismeni]

i have that exact same issue with that intersection! i'm so used to massachusetts drivers banging a left now that i just assume they're going to do it.

[qwrrty.livejournal.com]

And I have no doubt that it's because of intersections like that that drivers learn to think THEY SHOULD turn left as soon as they get the green. Grar.

[ifotismeni]

yep, most likely!

[http://users.livejournal.com/_mattt/]

Or, it could just be massholism.

[boblothrope.livejournal.com]

Not necessarily. People still try to turn left at the beginning of the green even in cities where there aren't have secret protected lefts, like New York, Philly, and DC.

[zmgmeister.livejournal.com]

That's the way New England natives do it.

Remember, a lot of the roads outside the city are blue highways with one lane in each direction. It makes a lot more sense to let the people going left turn first, so that the one car taking a left turn doesn't hold up an entire column of traffic.

Of course, when you mix natives and newcomers....

I myself ran into the opposite problem driving in Los Angeles. Out there, they get mad when you floor it to take a left turn on green. On the other hand, i found it disconcerting that they go left as the light is turning red, something that sounds a lot like running a red light to me, and risking a collision with somebody trying to make the light. Of course out there, even the residential streets are six-lane boulevards comparable to our Rt. 28, so the "backing up a whole column of traffic" doesn't apply.

[boblothrope.livejournal.com]

Most lights on the parkways, including this one, are owned by the DCR, a state agency. (For some reason the light at Mass Ave and Alewife Brook Parkway is owned by Cambridge.)

[two-stabs.livejournal.com]

lol. Efficient state govt. at work.

[schpahky.livejournal.com]

I know that intersection well. Call 311 or email them, they have been really good when I've emailed them about street sign problems. I am on a one-way and when a tree began obscuring the sign, we got lots of wrong-way cars. The city came out within 24 hours of my email and trimmed the branch. Probably the issue you mention is more involved but definitely call/email them. One cool thing about using the email is that you can track all the channels through which your query travels.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_mattt/]

Agreed 100%. The traffic signalling in Massachusetts is generally very poor (and IMO not on par with the rest of the United States, or even the developed world for that matter).

I distinctly remember that turn when I first moved here, going: "wait, what?"

So yeah, it needs an arrow, but I don't think the DCR has any money to do anything.

[ceo]

The delayed green is a fairly standard configuration in MA, for good or ill. (Less ill if it's signed as such, but we all know how likely that is.)

The real problem at that intersection is that left-turning traffic on 16, a somewhat busier road, gets nuthin': no left arrow, no delayed green. If you don't floor it the second the light changes and cut in front of the oncoming traffic, you will literally sit there all day.

However, because the intersections is right by the Somerville-Arlington border, getting anything done about it will require the cooperation of both municipal governments and DCR (which owns that part of 16), and the first part will be getting all three entities to not point at the other two and say "it's their problem".

[pierceheart.livejournal.com]

Since I moved to the boston area in 1997, the one thing I thought most needed is left turn arrows at most major intersections.

Westbound 60 at rte 28 in Medford ... argh!

[cnoocy]

The real problem at that intersection is that left-turning traffic on 16, a somewhat busier road, gets nuthin': no left arrow, no delayed green. If you don't floor it the second the light changes and cut in front of the oncoming traffic, you will literally sit there all day.

Enthusiastically agreed. I was stuck there just about 24 hours ago.

[spot.livejournal.com]

Indeed. That is a far worse problem for me than the lack of signage advertising the delayed green (valid, but less of a concern).

[qwrrty.livejournal.com]

It's certainly really aggravating, but the delayed green on Broadway bothers me a lot more because it teaches drivers to assume that they have the right of way when turning left on a green.

[spot.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure it is possible to teach drivers in this state anything.

My brief tenure as a MA resident has only taught me that the state motto is "F*ck you! I'm drivin hea!"

[geekpixie.livejournal.com]

I was waiting for you to say, "and I am still there, brief, from my blackberry" =)

[dreamgirly19.livejournal.com]

I feel as though that whole intersection needs new lights. I come home on Alewife/16 and I turn right on Broadway and during rush hour it backs up sooo bad due to all the people who cannot turn left onto Broadway that people try to get in the right lane to go around them and it causes less cars to go through in general. I am used to the light to turn left onto Alewife/16 in the morning but a lot of times I get stuck behind someone who wont go and its aggravating. I do think that if your paying attention you would see the other side goes green first and then they all stop when ours turn green but people are still nervous because of the uncertainty.

[zmgmeister.livejournal.com]

Well, that's a separate issue. Its too bad there's not a dedicated left-turn lane for people going west into Arlington, or if they just nixed that left altogether. But because of the maybe 5% of people who go left there, everybody else has to sandwich into the right lane.

I'm a native, but I see an unusual level of stupidity on the drive from Alewife to Broadway every evening. It starts out with the folks on Rt. 2 who refuse to make two separate lanes at the light to go left. Especially the ones who sit in the left "lane" but take the first right turn into Cambridge that's ten feet past the intersection.

Then we have the folks who sit there for ten seconds after the light turns green, so only five pairs of cars can make it through. Not to mention the traffic merging from the parkway and the little side road which never stops, not even on that tiny part of the cycle when you can actually go left from 2 onto 16.

Next we have the folks who drive slow in the left lane on Alewife so nobody can maneuver, the folks who turn left at Mass ave but refuse to use the cobblestones when the left-turn lane fills up, and so on...

signage

[sundaisy-summer.livejournal.com]

I know where you mean and agree that that intersection and others like it need simple signage. I've seen in some places, a sign that states "Advanced Green" and on the other side for those not moving, "Delayed Greeen". I'm not sure why that is chosen over an arrow but it also gets the point across.

[ravingwanderer.livejournal.com]

It's not actually a delayed green. The two directions of Broadway have separate greens. (They're never both green at the same time.)

And yes, signage (or directional green signals) would help.

[pekmez.livejournal.com]

The signage would help, but only to make sure traffic flows more efficiently there. So sometimes you're stuck behind someone who doesn't realize it's safe to go when their light turns green, even though the oncoming traffic isn't moving, and they wait one light cycle and figure it out.

What's not safe is people assuming the car in front of them waiting with a left turn signal is gong to move at any particular time. When I get there, I figure if I'm first in line at the light, I know it's a protected left because the other direction won't get a green while I have it, and I can go right away; otherwise, the safe thing to do is to wait until the traffic in front of you moves, even if they don't clue in right away. It's like seeing stopped cars (heading straight) in front of you when a light first changes to green as you're approaching an intersection. Even in Massachusetts, assuming they'll be gone and you don't need to slow down at all is a little risky....