Interesting thing happening on Boylston St./Rte 9 at the Wellesley border: there are Jersey barriers (indicated by the grey line) preventing traffic on the main two lanes of eastbound westbound traffic from turning right onto Williams St. to head into the Wellesley Office Park.
Backing up …
About a half-mile west of Eliot St., the four lanes of Boylston St. become a flyover* and there are surface streets adjoining in each direction. Going eastbound westbound, the flyover ends just past Quinobequin and just before the entrance to the Wellesley Office Park. This creates a dangerous blending area.
The flyover is indicated in blue. The Wellesley Office Park is indicated in white, the blending area is indicated in red.
Traffic from the main travel lanes that wants to go right into the Wellesley Office Park has to blend with and then cross traffic from the surface lane that is continuing west towards 128/95 and beyond to Wellesley.
The mustard-colored line indicates traffic turning right onto Williams St. from the right lane of the flyover. The red line indicates traffic merging left from the surface street (also called Boylston St.) to enter traffic on Boylston St. and head west.
The traffic barriers are cutting off the movement from the main lanes crossing over the surface lanes onto Williams St. and into Wellesley Office Park. What it means is that drivers from east of the office park need to got onto the surface road before the flyover begins, just before Cragmore at the “exit” to Chestnut St.
This completely eliminates that blending conflict between traffic entering Boylston St. from the frontage road and traffic exiting onto William St. to go into the Wellesley Office Park.
This is a great resolution of the blending problem. It’s not at all clear if this is a permanent or temporary solution and how it relates to the new Route 9/128 interchange. Regardless, this solution — to remove a blending conflict — has interesting implications for other examples of blending problems, as I’ll describe in later posts.
* Crossing over Chestnut and Quinobequin/Ellis.
My dentist is in Wellesley Office Park. I always go onto the surface road first. It is much safer.
I too was wondering if the barriers were part of a solution or a trial or just a temporary part of the construction. They were not part of the original plans.
Still, this solves only part of the problem. The interchanges under the overpass are almost as dangerous. And there’s still a blending problem where Williams Street traffic exits on to Route 9 and Route 9 WB traffic exits to 95/128 north.
At rush hour, there is also a police car blocking the right lane of Rte 9 going West, just at the Office Park exit; that means that anybody coming out of the Park HAS TO merge into the two main lanes of Rte 9 (not the lane-ramp about to go North on 128 because that is blocked) AND anybody coming out of Chestnut or Quinobequin also has to merge into the main lanes.The way to do it? There is a hole between the barriers and the police car big enough for one car but NO WAY to ease into moving traffic: you have to wait until a driver on Rte 9 stops and lets you go in front of him/her. Very very scary! I don’t know what they were thinking. I hope it is recognized as a stupidly dangerous idea.
Newton highway division under Bill Paille had recommended lengthening buttress opposite WOP to DOT when at drawings phase. Subsequent division head deemed final drawings and construction detail of buttress to be sufficient for greater safety of all movements on ramp and exiting from Wellesley office park.
I am most concerned about conflict between drivers exiting ramp to join westbound traffic on Rte 9 and drivers exiting Rte 9 westbound for 128 northbound.
There is an electric notification on Rte 9 west,directing drivers to
exit Chestnut St./Quinobequin to access William st.
I think you meant to say westbound traffic in your observation.
Maureen,
Good catch. Fixed.
Making all the office park traffic get off at Chestnut Street means more traffic at the Chestnut Street intersection and the Quinnobiquin Street intersection. Local traffic is now mixed in with office traffic.
Coming rt 9 east bound from 128N is a nightmare . . . cars coming onto route 9, cars exiting at Chestnut Street.
Welcome to the subordination of rt 9 to its big brother rt 128. Maureen and i railed against the wellesley office park crossover…Bill Paille felt extending the barriers between rt 9 westbound and the quinobequin entry would solve the problem. I have assumed that the barriers are DOT’s trial of his suggestion from our observations of the plans for the intersection. @Isabelle: i thought the police car was gone from WOP once the longer barrier went up.
It’s a reasonable action, but not a real solution. Route 9 is old, underdesigned and overburdened. William Street is in Wellesley; the other roads are in Newton. MassDOT is in charge of Route 9, but clearly prioritizes the 95/128 mega project. With so many jurisdictions and priorities focused elsewhere, there aren’t many god options here.