Going Nowhere Fast

It's about the traffic.  Really.

The Boston Metropolitan area has this wonderful season called 'Summer', which is when all of the college students from the ten thousand local colleges go home and lucky locals go to vacation homes on the Cape, camps in Maine, or houses in the White Mountains.  Many weeks during late July and early August it can seem that more people are away than those of us who stayed.  Metro Boston follows an academic calendar more than any other place I've ever lived or worked; many people really do take the summer 'off.'

When I'm not having a fit of jealousy because I don't get the summer 'off', I allow my mind to wander and I think "This would be a perfect time to do road work, because no one is actually here."  And many, many municipalities and MassDOT do take advantage of the decreased population, so that summer is also known as 'Road Work Season.'

There are exceptions, and these are a cause of ire for the commuting public in and around.  For example, why would Boston wait to do work on the Fenway ramp off of Storrow Drive until all of Boston University is back in session?  Happily, the Red Sox chose not to repeat a World Series run this year, because that would have just been the cherry on top.  The whole Fenway mess is a complete mystery to me: there is a baseball stadium, several colleges, and five MAJOR hospitals (including Children's Hospital Boston and Brigham and Women's and Dana Farber Cancer Institute) in this area, so the traffic issues are NO JOKE.

Another example is the lovely town of Belmont, which has been systematically ripping up its existing water pipes and installing new ones, making a commute that includes Trapelo Road, Route 60, or Belmont Street feel like driving through a town after a major earthquake.

And then there's my own town of Waltham.  Sigh.  The good students at Bentley University got their section of Beaver Street repaved this summer.  A stone's throw from there, near the intersection of Waverley Oaks Road, where the commuter rail passes through, there has been a crumbled mass of concrete that once held a wooden pedestrian bridge above Beaver Brook.  It's been a crumbled mess since we bought our house in 2002.  Apparently, the City Engineer was unaware that it was a crumbled mess and, rather than continuing the repaving of Beaver Street so that residents can also enjoy the smooth road that the Bentley students got, he is now in charge of fixing a crumbled roadway that happens to be crumbling onto natural gas lines.  The gas lines are currently being supported by tree roots.  The railroad tracks also go over this very weakened section of roadway and, to the best of my knowledge, commuter trains are heavy.

So here's what Waltham is doing: after initially banning heavy trucks from using Beaver Street (which is something that I would like to see all the time), the heavy trucks are allowed back but only in ONE DIRECTION (and I am not talking about the Boy Band.)  So, the roadway is safe enough for heavy trucks and trains as long as the trucks are only going WEST.  Brilliant.

The DPW has done a great job of putting up clear detour signs and communicating the restriction, so thanks for that.  It's the City Engineer who must never, ever come anywhere near Beaver Street, since he was unaware of the problem.  Or maybe he drives with his eyes closed.  I'm not sure.

The City is addressing the issue of the lane closure by stationing Waltham Police officers at the site twenty-four hours per day, seven days per week.  I am so very glad that our officers are getting so many opportunities for overtime, however, why did the City wait until it was a crisis?

Oh, and the gas lines: there is now a fire truck stationed in the American Legion parking lot, near the crumbled concrete, wooden footbridge to nowhere, gas lines, tree roots, and train tracks.  Because if we're having an EMERGENCY, let's have EVERYONE on deck.

This fiasco is taking place about 100 yards from a residential district (to paraphrase, I can see those train tracks from my front yard!)  It's also adjacent to an office park and across the street from a Shell gas station.  More than 500 kids go to school at an elementary school that is behind the office park.  Bentley is right down the road.  Did I mention the commuter rail? So what's at risk when the big heavy truck heading westbound is the straw that breaks the natural gas line?  A lot, that's what.