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NativeMasshole t1_iy6dut3 wrote

Reply to comment by Kirbyoto in What is something that if built would improve the city overall? by HRJafael

Which also makes it difficult to drive across quickly and adds to surface street congestion. I'm not sure most people would list lack of highway access as a good thing.

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Kirbyoto t1_iy8ebxp wrote

>Which also makes it difficult to drive across quickly

Good. It's easier and safer to drive more slowly instead of plowing along at 65mph and then having to switch lanes to get off the highway on one of eight thousand looping exits. And we have a blessedly low number of stroads in the city itself.

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NativeMasshole t1_iy8flmx wrote

That's completely false. It's actually statistically safe to drive on highways, since everyone is driving in the same direction.

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Kirbyoto t1_iy8h4yg wrote

If you're just driving straight it's fine. The problem comes when you have to swerve across traffic at high speed to get into the right lane, which is common in Providence, Springfield and Boston. In fact if you think "driving in the same direction" automatically provides good results I suggest you go check out the Saugus-Peabody section of Route 1.

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New-Vegetable-1274 t1_iydik9x wrote

I agree. The problem with most of the highways in New England is that they were built in the 1950s and 60s. They were built for 50s and 60s traffic, it was a time when most households only had one car. The number of cars has increased exponentially and these highways are woefully inadequate. It is difficult to retrofit these highways and so the answer is better mass transit or highway expansion that would mean bulldozing enormous swaths of land currently occupied by businesses and housing. That would take decades and in the meantime create a far worse traffic situation. I think the case for better mass transit is beyond argument. There are thousands of miles of abandoned rail beds throughout New England alone. There's something like sixty thousand miles nationally.

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