It’s party time baby

It's chaos. Human sacrifice! Dogs and cats living together! Mass hysteria!”

Traffic is at its worst Tuesday through Thursdays now because that’s when the WFH “flexible” commuters from NH and RI and the outer burbs all decided they’ll go into the office

[removed]

This Thursday was particularly very bad.

Bruins game?

[deleted]

Prospect St in front of the union sq station was closed. When that happens the main union square intersection backs up so easily that it cascades through the rest of camberville.

Yep, I think this was it. Went by today and it was causing residual backups all over.

Oh yeah they're taking down the crane aren't they!

[removed]

As someone who used to live in Somerville until a few years ago and left partially because traffic was complete ass (but mostly because I couldnt afford to buy there), my theory:

1. Somerville became the 'it' place to live. It's cool, it's fun, it's hip, etc.
2. A bunch of wealthier people with cars displaced poorer people without cars.
3. Now the two way streets which can barely fit one car down them have people parked absolutely everywhere with no room to get by.
4. The rising property taxes and influx of yuppies meant more money to fix things. Yay! Let's reconstruct Union Square, and god knows what else, so more people are forced down a few one way horse-paths.
5. The Redline continues to be a dumpster fire, so even if you want to take public transit if you need to be on time for work, better drive!
6. Now that Somerville is super progressive, they are emphasizing things like making the city more pedestrian/bike friendly. Which is not a bad thing, but means 'traffic calming' measures like: don't paint lines anywhere, let's put curb extensions that jut out into the middle of the street. And oh yes, more bike lanes. Right where those curb extensions are *. So it forces the cyclist right into traffic. And there's already no room to pass anyone on those horse-paths.

TLDR: Got too popular for it's own good. Thank you for coming to my TED talk.

* Curb can extensions can block or NOT block bike lanes. I'm not saying don't build bike lanes, perhaps that wasn't clear. I'm saying putting a curb extension that blocks a bike lane and forces cyclists to veer into the middle of traffic is fucking stupid, and not how it's done in other cities.

It’s those bike lanes

[deleted]

[deleted]

Absolutely, bike lanes and bicycle traffic interfering with already narrow vehicle lanes.

I'm gonna get down voted to hell on this sub for the slightest mention of a negative externality of bicycle use but here goes.

It's not bicycle lanes themselves, but the "no right on red" signs that go up with bike lanes that definitely cause more traffic.

Yeah. Webster was backed up all the way to Cambridge st when I rode through on my bike last night around 6. The bus was nice enough to park themselves directly across the middle of the intersection with Cambridge st to block traffic in every direction

Judging by all the down-votes, I'm guessing people think I'm anti-bike. I'm not. I think putting traffic curb extensions so a bike lane is forced to veer into traffic is dangerous for both the cyclist and shitty for traffic. It's probably indicative of poor planning. See the area around Muskrat Studio as an example: https://www.google.com/maps/@42.3945437,-71.1107064,3a,75y,223.07h,68.33t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sJcZX86qjZyfil0BGZhoJ3g!2e0!7i16384!8i8192

You can actually protect a bike lane BEHIND a curb extension, but it's just weird shit like this all over https://bikeportland.org/2015/10/30/postcard-from-austin-curb-extensions-that-dont-block-bikes-167143

Right!