The lights are active at Boylston St./Rte. 9 and, worse than predicted, traffic on Parker Street northbound was backed up all the way up Parker and down Wheeler to the junior high schools. Obviously, it’s just day one, things might get better. They might get worse. We’ll need to see who, if anyone, complains. While the backup was huge, northbound traffic north of Boylston/Rte. 9 was actually generally better. Red lights on Parker created some gaps to get out of and onto side streets. But, southbound traffic north of Boylston/Rte. 9 appeared to be backed up nearly to Newton Centre.
Oddly, this morning’s traffic suggests that the city was premature in reconfiguring Cypress/Centre. With the new lights stopping and releasing traffic, Cypress/Centre might not have ended up being a meaningful bottleneck. In which case, losing the pedestrian and other benefits and spending money to redo the intersection might have been a mistake.
I must confess, I didn’t see that particular connection between the new lights and Cypress/Centre, though it appears obvious now. Which is to say, traffic is complicated. And, we need to see how things play out for a while before we rush to judgment.
Hi. Does anyone know of an ETA for the utility work and detours being over on Dedham and Parker Streets? Thanks!
Sean, I’m glad to see that you are starting to appreciate that traffic is complicated.
The new lights (with their 1mi+ backups) wouldn’t have fixed the flaws with the narrowed Centre/Cypress junction. That would still have gotten plugged up, because the “old new” design maximized the amount of stoppage caused by people continuing on Centre, or making left turns off Centre street onto beacon.
The current layout (which is not the original layout) continues the problem by forcing two lanes of traffic on Centre St to make a very sharp (<16ft of turning radius) perpendicular left turn into the continuous traffic from Cypress. At least it doesn’t narrow Cypress at exactly that point.
The original zipper configuration although it was confusing actually lead the smoothest traffic flow because people going straight on Centre St. were able to quickly move out of the intersection, leaving only the people making lefts onto beacon/cypress to block the flow on Cypress.
Putting a set of electronic speed limit signs on Cypress and Centre street, and pulling in the bumpout on Beacon street is all that was really needed. That would have smoothed traffic flow while not reducing the carrying capacity of the roads.
The problems will become much worse in winter when the roads narrow even further due to snow accumulations. The whole thing has been a massive waste of tax payer money, and it continues to inconvenience the thousands of people who commute through Newton Centre, with little benefit to pedestrians or anyone else.
The people who provided the advice and analysis supporting any of the flawed changes in Newton Centre should be ignored in the future.
Robert —
Three things.
First, I was unclear if I suggested that the lights cured the “problems” with the B intersection design (A is original, B is the now-removed change, and C is the current). I intended to suggest that the B intersection would not actually cause backups to Dedham Street because the rate of flow north of Parker would be less intense, because of the lights. The lights smooth out some of the peak volumes. The B intersection was not a traffic clogger, except at some relatively narrow peak times.
Second, I’m a little confused about some of your analysis. What does it mean to make a left turn into the continuous stream of northbound traffic from Cypress. There are three very clearly marked lanes. If you are going left on Cypress, you go past the northbound two lanes and have a very clear path southbound.
Third, you make no mention of pedestrians or safety. Not everyone thinks that the highest aim with the intersection should be to maximize vehicular flow. Nobody disputes that the B design was not optimized for Cypress-bound or -originating traffic flow. The B design was meant to tighten the intersection and make the intersection more pedestrian-friendly, while shifting the right-of-way to Centre-bound or -originating traffic (which is where the larger volumes are). The B design almost entirely rid the intersection of Centre-originating traffic driving around each other to jockey into the right lane. (Car A ahead of Car B, both going north on Centre. Car A stops at the intersection. Car B goes around Car A to the right to get into the right lane.)
Anyway, based on the first bits of evidence, had the B design change come after the light activation, it seems likely that there would not have been the same response to the intersection reconfiguration. But, we’ll never know.
Sean,
http://www.epa.gov/otaq/stateresources/policy/transp/tcms/traff_improv.pdf
When thinking about a traffic system, you want to minimize Waste == Delay^2 * Num_people_involved^2 . As a result delays during peak flows are by far the most important consideration because of the number of people involved. As the EPA reports notes there are very real costs associated with travel time and delays.
The “relatively narrow” times where the Plan B layout caused serious backups were the morning and evening rush hours. As you admit, the Plan B was really about pushing a secretive agenda to make driving more difficult in Newton Centre. The behavior of the people involved is really not that different from the NSA making “helpful” suggestions to weaken internet security.
As for safety and pedestrians: Pedestrians and bicyclists can stop the flow of traffic at any time by activating the walk signal. Making the intersection more difficult for cars to navigate actually decreases everyones safety, because drivers who are focusing on avoiding curbs and other cars will be less able to pay attention to other roadway hazards.
Regardless of good (or misguided) intentions behind the Plan B design, it failed in the real world. That is why the BOA voted to tear it up.
I misspoke about Centre/Cypress, right now someone coming down centre street (off of Needham St, or Rt 9) needs to make a very sharp left off of Centre followed by a very sharp Right turn in order to continue down Centre St or to go the remaining 20ft on Cypress Street to the Beacon St left turn island. This 90* right turn just about maximizes the ability of the two streams of traffic to interfere with each other.
The bump outs on Centre St are a still an issue, but they have more subtle effect. The bump outs reduce Centre St’s off take capacity by increasing the delays caused by drivers making left/right turns on Pelham/Langley St while also forcing bicyclists into the main flow of traffic. They exacerbate the local slowdowns caused by trucks and other wide vehicles and can reduce Centre street to a single lane road if anyone attempts to park in the adjacent parking spaces.
All these changes (the sharp S turn, the bump outs) also disproportionately harm older road users due to changes in functional ability (head and neck motion, reaction time, diminished ability to share attention, reduced ability to make sharp movements) experienced with normal aging. Not exactly the smartest or nicest thing to do in an area with two major pharmacies.
To sum up, the people who provided the advice and analysis supporting any of the flawed changes in Newton Centre should be ignored in the future.
http://blogs.wickedlocal.com/newton/2013/09/16/just-how-bad-was-traffic-today/
I live on Parker St. and this traffic light has created a traffic nightmare. Sean, I’d like to complain but don’t know who to complain to. Any ideas?
Lisa, you’d probably go to the Mayor’s office, but I suspect they’re well aware of the situation. Newton is guilty of approving the plans, but unlike the Newton Centre construction, this design was all MassDOT. However, there was a legitimate safety problem here. It was one of the most frequent crash locations in the city. Hopefully adjustments will be made to improve the timings, so I guess we have to give it a little more time, but I’m not optimistic either. Robert, in terms of whom to ignore in the future, try MassDOT, VAI and New England Development, creator of Chestnut Hill Square, which proposed the whole thing.