Description
Because of the gridlock at Mt Vernon and East Broadway I just witnessed a driver travel in reverse all the way down Lincoln Ave to turn back to Lincoln St in order to navigate out of my neighborhood. This is after the driver got to the intersection of Lincoln Ave & Mt Vernon and saw the hold up at the light I continue to report. This gridlock is at the point where we need dedicated police presence to facilitate driver through the intersections at rush hour. The light situation can not handle current traffic load and drivers are currently making up their own rules ignoring traffic signs and creating risk (to other drivers and also pedestrians in this East Somerville neighborhood.
4 Comments
Matt (Registered User)
This intersection, including the exit ramp from I93 and intersection at Assembly square/Mystic Avenue is 400 feet of bad design riddle with problems. Sending a traffic engineer or police detail will not fix the underlining issues, it needs a major redesign. If there is traffic issues with regular consistency today, often with no backup caused by Sullivan Square, what will happen when partners adds a 1,000-2,000 cars during rush hour in a few years?
Two easy solutions though.
Put in do not block intersection for the three intersections markings and charge fines. Somerville Police did that for a week straight last summer and drivers blocking intersections stopped. It allowed traffic from Mt Vernon to exit but did not really address the other problems.
2. Eliminate the cycle for pedestrians to cross Broadway and have the walk signal activated by button. The intersection at Mt Vernon has a dedicated cycle to pedestrians crossing both Broadway and Mt Vernon at the same time, which is unnecessary and inefficient. Few pedestrians cross Broadway, and Mt Vernon is a narrow one way street, easily crossed, and already has a red light (when Broadway in green) that stops traffic for pedestrians. That is one of the root cause of the 5 to 10 minute backup heading south on Broadway during mid mornings on weekends. Other would be to have longer than a 10-15 second light, as it takes the first driver 5 seconds to respond and 3 cars only get through.
Another problem is from all of the trucks backing into the Broadway Brakes, they need to back in which stops traffic unexpectedly for a minute or two at a time.
But in general, from the document of assembly row traffic mitigation efforts, the entire Mt Vernon/Broadway/I-93exit/Mystic Ave intersection was a poorly designed, quick and cheap fix that provided more ascetics and benefit to entering assembly, than traffic improvements. Further most of the documents are dated prior to Partners announcing it's intention to take over the IKEA spot, yet no new traffic study was included in their proposals. This intersection needs to be addressed in a major way before it gets much worse.
Theresa (Registered User)
Hi Matt,
Thank you for your context and for sharing on this issue. This is actually (at least) the third time I have raised (some tangible impact) related to the larger issue on this platform (SeeClickFix). My own reported issues (E.G.: #1221581 & #1544818) have in the past been "acknowledged" by Somerville, and in some cases marked "Closed" b/c Somerville has reported to me that, "a work order to the engineering department... (has been submitted) to have this issue checked out (e.g. work order # 320461), with no real successful change in the situation from what I can tell. I was most recently told by "Heather" that "You can follow up by dialing 311 (617-666-3311 from outside Somerville) or via e-mail at 311updates@somervillema.gov."
I have not called 311 in the past month to get an update, in part due to my sincere pessimism that any real effort is being taken and not willing to burst the semblance of hope I have left that someone may try to tackle the overarching issues that are in play here.
I agree wholeheartedly with your main premise - the entire situation is poorly designed and an overhaul needs to be implemented!!! But to be frank, my recent issue postings (including this one) are only scratching the surface as I am now resorting to report every single infraction I personally witness in order to get some sort of 'band-aid' (e.g. a personal police presence that in the short term, granted may cost us extra in terms of police overtime $$$) to provide some semblance of sanity-balance to the over-trafficked vehicles and pedestrians...
which, in the latter case I'm very close to suggesting to the city to start some sort of extreme Los Angeles jay-walking ticketing effort b/c I get so tired of pedestrians escalating the issue by not giving any thought to crossing per the signal and just walking out on Mt. Vernon from (or to) Sullivan without any consideration to the fact that a driver going reasonable speed cannot see a walker coming northbound around the building and it is only a matter of time before someone is hit (with little-to-no fault to a driver following the rules of the road) and seriously injured.
So, a long winded response to your comment, but basically to sum up - I agree with you about overhaul needed but in the meantime the situation is dire enough that something, ANYTHING, to bring some order back to the issue, is needed for this intersection.
Theresa (Registered User)
As a follow up -
I agree with both your near term proposals.
To the 1st point, about no-blocking fines - that should be implemented throughout Somerville. On the most recent Friday (4/3/14) my husband and I witnessed a complete blockage of this Mt Vernon intersection around 3:50pm. No one could move southbound at least 2-3 light cycles b/c of the backup from Sullivan. I have also witnessed in the I93 exit #28 right over the bridge folks running red lights and entirely blocking intersections. Fines will start motivating people to follow the light-rules.
To the 2nd point, I have suggested in the past on my SeeClickFix reports that the automatic pedestrian light at this Mt Vernon intersection is in part causing the gridlock and needs to be eliminated. I frequently walk through this intersection (on a daily, weekday basis walking to Sullivan and oftentimes as a runner on my way to the Assembly Mall via the new road) and never have an issue crossing (within the rules of the lights) on a general light cycle that is NOT the pedestrian-only signal. If there was a pedestrian generated light triggered only by someone pressing the button that would help in cases of higher traffic times.
Closed Heather (Registered User)