Marc Fortier

Storrow Drive Traffic Changes Leave Commuters Frustrated

The goal was to improve some of the traffic along Storrow Drive. But drivers say it's only made things worse.

The stop and go traffic that has long plagued Storrow is now driving new frustration.

Commuters like Cain Dufrene said they were surprised to see their usual route redesigned last week.

"It's very confusing," Dufrene said. "It makes everything a bottleneck, and Storrow is not a good road to avoid traffic and avoid the congestion."

But congestion is what prompted this. A pilot project unveiled by the Massachusetts Department of Transportation that took three lanes on Storrow Drive down to two.

The idea was to create more options for drivers who previously only had one righthand lane to go westbound. That was creating backups, so they closed it and opened these lanes up to include a westbound option.

They thought it would give drivers more room and improve traffic, but critics say it's gotten worse.

On Tuesday, the state's highway administrator, Jonathan Gulliver, acknowledged they did not properly publicize the changes. 

"Not nearly as smooth as we'd like it to be," he said.

They have since added signs and plan to put in more direction.

Gulliver said whenever traffic changes of any kind are made, it usually takes 10 days to two weeks before drivers start to understand the new configuration and start settling into new habits.

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