MA: Storrow Drive and Soldiers Field Road

[Jim]

I feel like we had this conversation in the CHM days. I don't recall the details of old discussions, but our standard for including routes have evolved, so I'll throw out the possibility of adding Storrow Drive and Soliders Field Road up to Harvard Street (or wherever limited access ends) to usasf.  I've driven this road a lot over the years, and each time I do, I think how I'd like to be able to put that into my TM maps.

[yakra]

The east end of Storrow Dr is MA28, where it becomes Embankment Rd. MA28 has no waypoint here, where it goes & gets lost in a nasty maze of one-way couplets. Reminds me of the fun I had with Downtown Buffalo last year. The Back Bay area could possibly benefit from a similar cleanup, which I'd want to take on concurrently.
For now, I've just added a single shaping point to I-90 to clarify mapview/graphs.

[neroute2]

There are signs pointing Storrow Drive eastbound all the way to I-93. As a street name, it stops short, but as a route it makes it all the way.

[neroute2]

Example at the Longfellow Bridge for Storrow eastbound: https://maps.app.goo.gl/wA5RTJ6Cjc1ZdBzW6

Even the street name makes it to Leverett Circle on some signs: https://maps.app.goo.gl/appkX8y6wVhaC73EA

[yakra]

Oh boy...

[Jim]

While we're in that neighborhood, I can report that I took the Longfellow Bridge from Boston into Cambridge yesterday and got on Memorial Drive WB.  The signs at the north end of the bridge were all US 3, not MA 3.  We have the switchover happening when Memorial crosses Mass Ave and the Harvard Bridge.  I didn't realize until I got home that this might be significant, so I didn't pay much attention to exactly where I saw other US 3s.  I make no claims that the signs I saw are accurate, but throw this out for consideration.  If we did decide to switch that segment, it would affect the 24 travelers who have marked the segment that would switch from MA 3 to US 3.

[froggie]

I get down to Boston a fair bit and on the eastern leg between the Zakim Bridge and the Beacon St exit (we usually stay at Copley when we're in Boston).  Although signs from the Longfellow and Charles River Dam bridges call it Storrow Drive, MassDOT shapefiles officially have Storrow Drive ending where MA 28 joins/departs.  There is also a north/eastbound intersection at Pinckney St (between Beacon St and the Longfellow Bridge) that signs it as David Mugar Way.

Given that this section is already covered by the MA 28 and MA 3 lists, plus the disparities listed above, my preference would be to end a Storrow Dr list at the MA 28/Beacon St exit.


Regarding US 3/MA 3, a couple things worth pointing out.  First, MassDOT has the switchover at the same location the Highway Browser currently has it at:  at Mass Ave.  Second, signage coming over the Harvard Bridge on Mass Ave shows MA 3 to the east and US 3 to the west.  I also don't recall any signs on the Longfellow Bridge or where it crosses Memorial (nor does GMSV show any), though in fairness I haven't been on Longfellow Bridge since the recent rehabilitation project was finished.  That said, given the vagaries of Boston (heck, Mass in general) signage plus the MassDOT data, I'd be inclined to keep the switchover point as-is.

Since we're discussing adding Storrow and Soldiers Field, perhaps a discussion on also adding the Leverett Circle Connector?  This is the set of "really long ramps" running from I-93 Exit 26 to "Storrow Drive", with a connection to/from the Tobin Bridge.  One could argue they're just "really long ramps" from 93 North, but they could also arguably be considered a separate roadway.  Physically it's a separate bridge entirely from the Zakim, and also allows drivers to get between Storrow and the Tobin without having to go on 93.

[Duke87]

I'm going to go with the "Leverett Connector" being a couple of long exit ramps and not its own road worthy of inclusion.

Storrow Dr/Soliders Field Road is significant enough to include, though I'd go ahead and set the east end at I-93 with a MA 28 concurrency. That section of the road is part of Storrow Dr, as the signs linked above indicate.


I agree with keeping the US3/MA3 switchover as is.

[froggie]

^ Officially, it's not part of Storrow Dr (as I noted upthread).  That it is signed from the Longfellow Bridge could easily be chalked up to one of the many sign errors that the state is well-known for...

[neroute2]

^ Officially, it's not part of Storrow Dr (as I noted upthread).  That it is signed from the Longfellow Bridge could easily be chalked up to one of the many sign errors that the state is well-known for...

Or it could be chalked up to it being a logical continuous route that the MDC decided to sign as such.

[yakra]

MA2
Signed E of Berkeley. Shapefiles have it continuing to Arlington St, taking a right, and encircling Boston Public Garden to end at the NE corner, at Charles & Beacon. From there, SR2 WB picks up at mile 0. Westbound sign.

MA3
Debating whether to tighten things up a bit around MA28_S, or if that's getting a bit too "rampy".

MA9
Splits into a couplet E of I-90(22).
WB via St James & Huntington, starts at Clarendon (SR28 SB).
EB via Stuart 2 more blocks to end at Columbus (SR28 NB).

MA28
S end of couplet @ Columbus & Clarendon.
NB: Columbus, Stuart, NB Charles & WB Beacon (around Boston Public Garden with MA2 "EB" & "WB")
SB: WB Beacon, Clarendon
N end of couplet @ Beacon St & David Mugar Way
Jct Embankmwent Rd & Storrow Dr
MA3_S


Individual points

MA2 effectively begins/ends at the Public Garden, with no signage directing it around the loop. I see no need to extend it all the way to Beacon & Charles; one single point in or near the Garden is good. In the garden? West edge of the Garden? With MA28 in the mix here, let's keep it simple WRT graphing, keeo an end at "MA28", and use whatever point is best for MA28. Going with between Arlington & Berkeley (see below) -- a block longer, yes, but IMO just a cosmetic change to the existing MA28 endpoint, and thus not a newsworthy extension.

MA9/MA28 is fine as-is IMO. Halfway between the two streets that carry MA9 and halfway between the WB beginning and the EB end. Also does a good job of capturing MA28 splitting off into a couplet here.

MA28
• New point @ end of couplet @ Columbus & Clarendon will help clarify the routing
• Existing MA9 point
• MA2: 3 blocks separating the couplet. Go in the middle of the middle block, between Arlington & Berkeley. Looks good from a visual standpoint, won't go too far W only to hook back E, or hook back E from Storrow to land right on Arlington, which could potentially be confusing.
• A point at the N end of the couplet, on Beacon, might be overdoing it...
• New StoDr point


For simplicity's sake, keeping the E end of Storrow Dr at MA28.

Soliders Field Road up to Harvard Street (or wherever limited access ends)

We could end it at the first at-grade, or the last interchange. The latter option yields Harvard Street, which I like better as there's some driveway access past that point. Full disclosure: this would get me a 100% clinch.


Just noticed: MA28 has the MA3_S & MA3_N labels on the wrong points. Quite a few people are using them, but almost everyone also has MA3 marked here.
Fixing the labels will only harm 3 .list files: formulanone, griffith, & jonfmorse will lose the one segment on the short concurrency.


https://github.com/TravelMapping/HighwayData/pull/2936

[froggie]

MA3
Debating whether to tighten things up a bit around MA28_S, or if that's getting a bit too "rampy".

Given it's a full interchange, and going with "one point per interchange", there's no harm in leaving it as-is.  The only way I could conceivably see you "tightening" it up is adding a MA3 point at Charles St and moving the MA3/MA28 concurrency point to the ramps north of the bridge.

MA28
• New point @ end of couplet @ Columbus & Clarendon will help clarify the routing
• Existing MA9 point
• MA2: 3 blocks separating the couplet. Go in the middle of the middle block, between Arlington & Berkeley. Looks good from a visual standpoint, won't go too far W only to hook back E, or hook back E from Storrow to land right on Arlington, which could potentially be confusing.
• A point at the N end of the couplet, on Beacon, might be overdoing it...
• New StoDr point

Concur with these.

[yakra]

Given it's a full interchange, and going with "one point per interchange", there's no harm in leaving it as-is.

Agreed. This is what I ultimately decided to go with.

The only way I could conceivably see you "tightening" it up is adding a MA3 point at Charles St and moving the MA3/MA28 concurrency point to the ramps north of the bridge.

The presence of the one right turn ramp at the South End of the blob made it easier for me to make that decision.

[Jim]

Thanks for adding these.  They are live on site.  I expect the current 2 travelers for each will be increasing quickly.

Any thoughts of a shaping point to make our SolFieRd trace stay on the right side of the river, which would likely lead to a shaping point on I-90 to keep it on the right side of SolFieRd?  If we wanted all three to follow the shape of the river more accurately, we could also add one on US 3 in that same area.

[yakra]

Thought about that, but the idea of adding 3 new points (4 if you count the US3/MA2 overlap) got to be a bit rich for my blood.
(Even if, in adding a new one to I-90, I could tweak the existing one near Boston University Central closer to Boston University East.)
As it is, the three traces don't cross each other or get smushed in close enough to be confusing; they stay well separated.