Boy, has traffic gotten incorrigibly bad around the Boston area of late! Granted, it has always been bad. But this Fall has seen an unprecedented surge in bottlenecks all around the region, extending up to and beyond the I-495 ring.
This morning set a record of sorts. After 42 minutes of driving, I was still 30 minutes away from work. On a trifling 20-mile distance. In the good old days, which were essentially about a month or two ago, 40 minutes would have been considered par for the course for this same commute. When school is off during the summer months, this even dropped to 35 minutes occasionally.
Now, 75 is the new 40.
Most vexing of all is the total incompetence of the traffic engineers at the level of towns and cities, to get even the most basic and obvious strategies right. Their response to traffic problems has always been to prevent people from taking "other" routes. My guess is that wealthy/connected/elite people own homes along those "other" routes. More on this side of the matter in the coming days.
But bring on Amazon and their HQ2, with 50,000 more high-end jobs added, driving up congestion and the already bloated home prices. Cannot wait for that quality-of-life surge!
This morning set a record of sorts. After 42 minutes of driving, I was still 30 minutes away from work. On a trifling 20-mile distance. In the good old days, which were essentially about a month or two ago, 40 minutes would have been considered par for the course for this same commute. When school is off during the summer months, this even dropped to 35 minutes occasionally.
Now, 75 is the new 40.
Most vexing of all is the total incompetence of the traffic engineers at the level of towns and cities, to get even the most basic and obvious strategies right. Their response to traffic problems has always been to prevent people from taking "other" routes. My guess is that wealthy/connected/elite people own homes along those "other" routes. More on this side of the matter in the coming days.
But bring on Amazon and their HQ2, with 50,000 more high-end jobs added, driving up congestion and the already bloated home prices. Cannot wait for that quality-of-life surge!
