WTF is wrong with the Mass Pike!?!?

The BBQ Pit
1

Ok, so I’m in Boston until Tuesday for a conference. Most of our activities are at the Hynes convention center, which is basically right next to the Prudential building.

I’m staying at least a bit of this with my cousins who live in Charlestown. To get there, they told me, “get on 90 East, hop on 93 North, get off, cross bridge, blah blah blah.”

So, when I pull out of the garage, I ask the guy there where to find 90. Maybe it’s my rural, hick-ish nature, but I’m used to there being both North/South or East/West entrances/exits paired together 95% of the time. Aparently the other 5% of the cases occur in Boston.

I find 90, but it’s only 90 West, but I get on, considering it’s dark, there’s a lot of traffic, and I don’t really know the area all that well. I should be able to get off at the next exit and turn right around, no?

Well, the next exit is 4 miles away, and I’ve got to pay a toll to get off, and then a toll to get back on, once I find my way back on, which is not that easy. Then, as I’m finally driving east on 90, I realise there are many exits off 90 going east, none of which were there headed west!

Today I needed to do the same thing, but I went a different way off the exit off of 90 and got to Storrow Dr, which is at least a road I know and can navigate. But really. Where are all the exits on 90 West? Where are all the entrances to 90 East?

I spent maybe 45 minutes driving around in traffic today looking for at least a sign indicating the general vicinity of 90 East to no avail before I finally caved and followed the plentiful signs for 90 West.

You people have a screwed-up system down in Boston (though I must say, I like the new underground part of 93 North).

2

Dude, Orange Line inbound, change to any Green Line train at North Station or Haymarket, get off right at Hynes.

Never drive in Boston. Never.

3

It could be worse. I once missed exit #2 on the Mass Pike. The next exit on the Mass Pike is 30 miles east of that at Westfield and it’s illegal to make U-turns.

I think the deal with I-90 in Boston is that it’s designed to get people into Boston (thus the exits) and out of Boston (thus the lack of exits). That, and it was designed by idiots.

4

But the Mass Pike has really good food at the rest areas! Boston Market, Ben & Jerry’s, D’Angelo, a wide variety of yummy food. As opposed to the Florida Turnpike, which has a damn Burger King at every. single. service area. Barf.

5

Hi, Geobabe. I saw your name and I thought “why are all these Floridians in such a hurry to come in here and rag on our turnpike.” Thanks for sticking up for us.

I think part of your problem, Eonwe, is that they try to keep the number of on- and off-ramps to a minimum precisely because it’s a toll road. Every on-ramp either needs its own tollbooths (and room for all the cars queueing up), or has to lead you unavoidably to the tollbooths on the main road. (I found one exception to this. I get to use two miles of turnpike for free when I drive to and from the city.) Going eastbound from the Hynes, though, you’re out of luck.

Besides which, all the merging and lane-changing around highway ramps slows everybody down. We’ve spent $15 billion to build a tunnel with the same number of lanes as the elevated highway it replaces, but fewer ramps are supposed to help keep things moving.

If you can get a decent map of Boston, I think you can work your way southeast from the Hynes and get onto 93 North in South Boston.

6

Massholes drive there. Next question.

Then again, this is from a guy from Jersey…

7

Damn, I forgot this guy ;). No offense MADopers. My best friend is from Foxboro and the Yankees suck.

8

UncleBill, that actually was my original plan. Back ‘in the day’ I used to just take 95 around Boston, and park at the Braintree stop on the red line. But, I figured this time, since I have driven in the city a fair amount and never had too much trouble, that I’d just go right in. I’ve never had to drive around the city much though. It’s usually been getting to my destination and parking, then getting back to the highway and leaving.

Plus, I’ve got to get to where I’m staying in Charlestown, which isn’t really T accessible.

Wolfian, though I know you’re being faceitous, I’ve found that as long as I’m patient and not jerking back and forth between lanes that the drivers are pretty considerate.

Robot Arm, that makes sense, I suppose. Just wish I had known ahead of time (or that I had a map of Boston. I found 6 maps of Montreal and Quebec, and not one of Boston in my glove compartment. Sheesh).

9

lol

and here I logged in to see a thread on how the marshalls are limiting mass pikes from the field in the Antir-West war ( http://www.antirwestwar.org/war.php?page=scenarios )