I’ve complained many times about the drivers in the Boston area. But there are several other unique idiotic things DPW does that makes driving in New England more challenging.
#1 - Advanced green to turn left. There are many traffic lights here in New England that have an advanced green so drivers can turn left while the oncoming traffic is stopped. Great idea. Problem is there are many that don’t have an arrow indicating you have the advanced green or even a sign. Unless you are familiar with that specific light you don’t know you have the advanced green. At first, I always thought it was just an old light that hadn’t been upgraded, but NO…I know of at least 2 new lights (installed within the last 5 years) that were built this way. Some lights do have an arrow telling you it’s safe to turn left.
#2 - Not knowing which side to enter a highway. When I’m approaching a highway and I have to cross (over or under) the highway to get on that highway - the ONLY sign telling me where the entrance is in many cases is when I’m under or over the highway. Most states will have a sign indicating where the entrance before I approach the highway. Example. I’m on rt 133 heading East and want to get into I-93 heading North. I’m not very familiar with that area so I’m not sure if I need to turn right or left onto the highway. The sign telling me isn’t until AFTER I’ve passed the I-93 South entrance. Very annoying and causes many traffic problems.
#3 - Roundabouts/Traffic Circles (whatever you call them in your part of the country). New England LOVES their Roundabouts. They work great in low to moderate volume traffic…but we have several that see well OVER 50,000/day. There are traffic problems and accidents at these roundabouts daily.
#4 - Very slow to upgrade anything. There’s a road in the town next to me that is FINALLY being widened. I’ve seen traffic going through that area backed up for 5-10 miles just due to volume. Come to find out the widening project has been on the town/states project list since 1966.
#5 - Many rural roads are way too narrow, and towns refuse too widen them. I’ve seen roads where trees have grown wider and are right next to the road (inches away). One road that was recently repaved the pavers actually just paved around 4" of the tree that was now in the road. The road is unlit, and you could easily sideswipe this tree without leaving the road. Luckily this road is very low traffic…but still.
#6 - Parking spaces. In NY when a retail business builds a building, they must also have enough parking spaces to accommodate their business. There are no such ordinances in New England. I can build a restaurant that seats 500 people and only have 10 parking spaces. Granted most smart businesses wouldn’t do this. But some have and they count on their customers parking on the street or in other companies parking lots. People just live with it. And one town built this beautiful new soccer facility for youth soccer.5 soccer fields and two of them lighted. However, they didn’t build any parking area. You need to park on the street in front of people’s homes and walk to the facility. I have a good friend who lives in one of these homes and more than once in the past 10 years he had to call a tow truck to tow someone who parked in front of his driveway.
1 - Interesting, I have never seen that elsewhere.
2 - That is a serious pet peeve of mine. Even if they are signed, they never seem far enough back. Michigan has lots of these.
3 - In the areas I have lived, there seems to be very limited understanding of just how to deal with roundabouts. More are being installed so hopefully that will change.
4 - Not an issue in Ohio or Florida. Both seem to embrace the orange barrel. Ohio world seemed to take forever! Florida is a mixed bag. Some quick, some slow.
5 - That is some scary stuff! Not seen that anywhere but Europe!
6 - Common problem, it seems. I have seen that most places.
Likely most areas have their traffic quirks. I blame Florida tourist season traffic on those quirks. Many of those quirks run counter to other quirks… Accidents are the result!
Thanks for letting us know what to watch for as NE tourists!
The proximity of trees next to, and protruding into, the roadway is something that took me by surprise when I moved here 24 years ago. I came from SE WI where they do not hesitate to cut down trees a fair distance away from any roadway or power lines. Here, it seems a sacred right for trees to grow right next to a road with zero shoulder. I had a road that went past my prior house that was a curve with the outer lane leaning heavily toward what would have been the shoulder. Instead, there were 150 ft tall trees lining that edge, inches from the pavement. And these are very narrow streets to boot. Talk about a white knuckle ride in the winter…
I don’t know about advanced green but we have the flashing yellow left turn. Turn ok when it is clear to do so. So green for through traffic and flashing yellow for turn with caution but I’ve been nearly hit several times when people turning don’t pay attention. I like them but you need to proceed with caution on green unless you like getting t boned.
Once a road is carved out though it can be really expensive and disruptive to try and widen the road. Not sure what the answer is.
Some of our lights have the flashing yellow. I actually like that. But having an advanced green and NOT letting you know you have an advanced green is extremely annoying.
It’s for turning left. You’re heading North on a road and stop at a red light. The lights turn green heading North before the lights turn green for the traffic heading south. Some lights will have a green arrow pointing left telling you that you can turn left because the traffic heading south light hasn’t turned green yet. Some lights will have a sign telling you that you have an “Advanced Green” (their terminology). Others (which I complain about)…the light for the traffic heading North turns green before the light for the traffic heading south does. And for people unfamiliar with the area if you’re trying to turn left you sit there thinking the south bound traffic’s light has turned green - it hasn’t. The advance green gives the people who are turning left the ability to turn left.
OK, understand how that would be confusing. Without a green arrow I wouldn’t know that I had the right of way to turn left. Is there any way to know when opposing traffic gets their green light?
Our green arrows across traffic are solid and mean that that the oncoming lanes have a red light. We have flashing red arrows at a few intersections. This means that oncoming traffic has a green light and the turn lane may turn across traffic after stopping and only when there is space to do so. The intersection I’m thinking about has solid green arrows, blinking red arrows, and sold red arrows. The solid red arrow is lit when intersecting roads have a green light.
That’s the way MOST other states intersections work to give drivers an advanced green. And we have many intersections like that too here in New England. But we also have far too many where one direction gets green light before the opposite direction and there’s no way of knowing it.
Back to the 60s. Signs, signs, everywhere a sign. Do this, don’t do that etc. sometimes confusing. My wife was from South Dakota. It took a while to convince her that stop ahead didn’t mean to stop ahead of the sign
