This Sunday: Going Green on Route 16!

[ron_newman]

Route 16, from Broadway to Dilboy Field, will be closed to car traffic this Sunday from noon to 4 pm for the SomerStreets 'Going Green On Route 16' festival. Bring your bicycles, your roller skates, your skateboards, your Razor scooters, or just your shoes to enjoy a traffic-free afternoon on the parkway next to Alewife Brook.

The event will include live music, recreation programming, environmental exhibitions, sports demonstrations, face painting, a recycled sculpture contest, free swimming at Dilboy Pool, and more.

(Wouldn't it be nice to do this every Sunday, like Cambridge does on Memorial Drive during the summer and fall?)

Comments

[boblothrope.livejournal.com]

Thanks for posting this. While I'm all for providing space for recreation away from the noise and danger of cars, I don't see how the other streets in the area could handle the traffic without huge backups. I'll be sure not to drive near there on Sunday afternoon.

[ron_newman]

Definitely don't drive there. Walk or ride your bike there instead. I'm guessing that traffic will simply be diverted to parallel North Street - isn't that two-way?

[turil.livejournal.com]

It's pretty much the same as when Memorial Drive closes to motorized traffic every Sunday in the summer. Motorized traffic manages to find a way around things there, so presumably people will figure something out in Somerville, too. But yes, it is going to make driving a car less convenient for a brief period of time.

[boblothrope.livejournal.com]

The immediate road network can't handle the amount of traffic that uses 16. Mem Drive has Soldiers Field Road and Mass Ave as alternate routes.

A big part of the problem is the incompetent way the authorities handle these closures.

Will there be signs on Route 16 at major intersections before the closure, sending you down alternate routes? Or will everyone just happily proceed down 16 until they get stuck in the jam and it's too late to avoid it?

With the Mem Drive closures, even with several decades to figure this out, they don't post any signs on River Street telling people not to turn left onto Mem Drive west. So people who don't happen to know about the closure are forced back across the river at Western Ave, along with everyone else stuck in the jam.

And they don't reprogram the light at JFK and Mem Drive, so it wastes a lot of time giving left arrows for turns you can't make.

(Yes, I've written to the DCR about this, but haven't gotten a response.)

[turil.livejournal.com]

You mean "motorized traffic free", since obviously there will be lots of bike, rollerblade, scooter, and pedestrian traffic, one hopes, anyway. :-)

[boblothrope.livejournal.com]

Also, what is the extent of the closure?

The linked page says Broadway to Dilboy in the first paragraph, and Dilboy to Mass Ave further down.

[ron_newman]

Everything I've seen the city put out lately says Broadway to Dilboy. I've seen old publicity that said Mass. Ave., but I'm guessing the city scaled back its plan after not getting cooperation from Cambridge, or possibly objections from the Serbian Orthodox church at the city line.

[xuth.livejournal.com]

This sounds awesome. I wish this sort of thing would happen more often and in more places.
And of course it would be nice if more information were posted about these closures too. Cambridge could actually post permanent signs about the Mem Drive closures. But Signage around the Boston area is among the worst I've ever seen so this just doesn't faze me anymore.

[boblothrope.livejournal.com]

Cambridge did post a small permanent sign at Mt. Auburn and DeWolfe. It would be helpful if they also posted a temporary sign at Eliot and Mt. Auburn, and if the DCR posted signs at intersections along Soldiers Field Road.

[littlecitynames.livejournal.com]

Ahhh I am really, really glad we aren't moving to ABP until next weekend!

[littlecitynames.livejournal.com]

To clarify: Festival= great, not being able to get into driveway= not so great.

[ron_newman]

Initially I read this as "moving to Au Bon Pain".

[littlecitynames.livejournal.com]

Hah :) We're moving to the Parkway right off Powderhouse, so we would have been right in the middle of the fair.