davis_square | Best route to Mass Pike at rush hour?

I'd guess 16 to route 2 West to 128 south to Mass Pike. It'll suck, but if you try to get onto the pike at Cambridge/Boston, the news always says it stinks horribly.

Oh, get a fast pass too.

I wonder if getting on the Pike at Newton Corner (after going through Belmont and Watertown) might be better?

My guess is no. Newton Corner gets INCREDIBLY backed up as well, even if this is a reverse commute. I would second

koshmom's route. (And you save slightly on the tolls if you enter at 128 rather than Newton.)

Also, FYI, you can deduct daily toll payments as an employment expense ONLY if you have a FastLane pass and the ensuing paperwork statement to document them. Sucky, but true.

Also, though, maybe explore going out Rte. 30 instead of the Pike? Traffic patterns might make it worthwhile. Or will you be working *right* off the highway?

Not that sucky - Fastlane passes are 100% free. You can pull over on the Pike to pick one up. You save money at some tolls, you can get all your statements online. And worth more than that, you don't have to wait in line or keep change in your car. I only commute on the Pike twice a week, but it boggles my mind that anyone who drives more than once a year would NOT get a Fastlane.

/rant off :)

I am opposed to it on political grounds, which is a rant I do not intend to start here. >:-)

That's fine :) In these situations, my politics tend to get boiled down to "Hmmm...am I willing to wait 25 minutes in line so that nobody has a record of what tolls I used? Nope, not today!" But I can understand how that kind of thing would make someone uneasy.

"you can deduct daily toll payments as an employment expense ONLY if you have a FastLane pass" -- to clarify, it's only a deduction on *state* income taxes, so you're only saving 5.3% of the toll. And there's no deduction for the first $150.

While it's called the "commuter deduction", the tolls don't have to be employment-related -- any tolls paid via a FastLane are deductible.

The same applies to monthly and weekly T passes.

The bigger benefit to FastLane is the 25 cent discount at the two tolls inside 128, and the 50 cent discount at the harbour tunnels.

Agreed.

Actually, that's not the route you want to take; the traffic lights near Alewife at the 16/2 junction are a nightmare in the morning.

Follow Mass Ave up to Route 60, and get onto 2 from 60. You'll deal with Route 60 traffic, but it's not the parking lot that Route 16 is between Mass Ave and 2 in the mornings.

I used to take the 79 to work, and it would take as long to get to Alewife as taking the 77 to Porter. (I live just over the border in Arlington.)

Iiiinteresting. Good to know. I occasionally take route 2 out to 128S for my morning commute, but am often frustrated at the stretch of 16 between Mass Ave and the Route 2 no-longer-a-rotary Alewife intersection.

In the mornings, Lake Street is a very viable alternative to trucking all the way into Arlington Ctr to pick up Rt. 60. Though in weekday evenings it tends to be very often a bad choice, with a ton of traffic due to a) the oodles of 'no left turn' and 'no right turn' signs that force everyone coming from Rt 2 to stay on Lake St., b) the light cycle at the school and the narrowness of the road that means that anyone turning left there automatically holds up all the traffic behind them for *at least* one light cycle, c) traffic to and from Thorndike Park, and d) traffic halting for bicyclists on the bike path. (I should note here that Rt. 60 also has many of these defects combined with it being a major route through Arlington.)

When I lived in that area I had a 'super secret' back route to keep from sitting in Lake St. traffic for 15 minutes or more every day.

The total inability of our transportation planners to reduce the huge afternoon backups in that area is one of my peeves. 2 east->16 north is bad, 16 north approaching Mass Ave is much worse. Lake Street or 60 northbound approaching Mass Ave are both disasters.

We thank people who take public transit by giving them a half hour traffic jam getting out of the Alewife garage onto Route 2, or a very slow, unreliable bus ride because of the traffic on 16.

If Cambridge got rid of the all-way walk phase at Mass Ave and 16, which most pedestrians don't wait for anyway, it would be a start.

Whittemore Avenue provides a very useful shortcut from 16 north to Mass Ave. Entering Whittemore used to be prohibited from 4-6 pm; a year or two ago Cambridge changed it to 3-7 pm. The cop guarding the street usually goes home around 6:30.

If Cambridge got rid of the all-way walk phase at Mass Ave and 16, which most pedestrians don't wait for anyway, it would be a start.

Cambridge doesn't control that intersection. Blame my favourite whipping boy, the DCR, for the horrible setup.

For some reason, the Mass Ave/Alewife Brook Parkway light is maintained by Cambridge, even though the parkway is a DCR road.

There are signs on the light poles saying to call Cambridge Traffic and Parking if the light is malfunctioning. Plus the signal heads are yellow, not battleship grey.

Whittemore Avenue provides a very useful shortcut from 16 north to Mass Ave. Entering Whittemore used to be prohibited from 4-6 pm; a year or two ago Cambridge changed it to 3-7 pm. The cop guarding the street usually goes home around 6:30.
I literally shifted my working hours to go in slightly later and stay later at the office so that I will arrive at Alewife at exactly 7 pm from Rt. 2 East every day when they made this change. I am always careful to drive extremely slowly and respectfully on Whittemore since it is a residential street, but waiting 15 minutes at that one Rt. 16/Mass Ave light every day was driving me crazy. I would love it if the city could do something to relieve the congestion there and make it easier to get on or off of Rt. 2.

I do Rindge to Rte 2 at Alewife myself -- I find that Rindge moves faster than Mass Ave, and it gets to Alewife so close to Rte 2 that you spend very minimal time in the Alewife maelstrom of suck.

I do, however, completely second that the 16 is an awful way to get to 2 at rush hour. (Great when it works, but it can also take 20 minutes to get from Broadway to 2 if the dice roll against you that morning...the variance is very high.)

My sweetie does exactly this to Framingham and it's not too bad, it IS worthwhile to try to travel to work at slightly less than regular times (8am or 10am, for example) to avoid serious rush traffic. And YES get a fast pass :)

95 South isn't a mess at that hour? My roommate commutes to Lexington and is always complaining about a) getting on Route 2 in Cambridge and b) 128. She says 128 is a total crapshoot in the mornings in both directions.

From Porter Square, I usually take Beacon/Hampshire to Prospect to Western and go over the Western Ave. bridge to the Pike, but I don't use it during rush hours. Coming from Ball Square, you can easily pick up that route if you come down Cedar/Mossland and make the left on Somerville Ave.

Tried this but the Beacon-Hampshire-Prospect-Western is a total no-go during rush hours. Too much traffic at Inman Square and on Prospect.

It depends on where in Lexington, but I think your friend can likely find some back roads to Lexington if she got out one or two exits before the Rte 2/95 Xn.

No reason to use Prospect Street at all if you do this -- instead turn right from Beacon/Hampshire onto Inman, jog across Mass. Ave. onto Pleasant Street, then bear right onto Western Ave.

Inman approaching Mass Ave is very bad in the PM rush. Is it ok in the AM?

Best route to Mass Pike at rush hour?

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