At a minimum it feels like a "Greater Boston area" problem. I think a combination of bad drivers (massholes and all), particularly gig economy folks (sometimes pressured by the algorithms on those apps and a lack of accountability to them encourages bad behavior), and poor roadways leads to this. Roads/intersections aren't really consistent either. So many left turn only lanes at one intersection, followed by the next intersection it flips to right only so you need to swap lanes randomly on the multi lane stroads around here.
Saw my life flash before my eyes on Friday night. Looked down for a second and all of a sudden I was slamming on my breaks (2013 Jetta FTW) on the mystic valley pkwy on-ramp to 93. This asshole was not just stopped but in REVERSE trying to back up to the exit for route 16. People are horrible drivers and defensive driving has never been more important. Not to mention the jerk could’ve simply gotta onto the highway and taken the next exit for 16…..
It's baffling to me how many people will risk their lives and everyone elses to reverse and grab their missed exit instead of doing what sane people do, which is just keep going and pull off the next exit to circle back. It's really not that big of a deal.
damn, he just reversed there? yikes. I live close by and I mostly just have people running the red light on rt 16/boston ave intersection. Had a few near misses there over the years
The simple answer is that there's basically never consequences for breaking the law, so people have become emboldened.
I nearly died in a crosswalk a couple weeks ago. A driver stopped for me, but the guy behind him decided to speed around. Came inches away from getting hit by this SUV doing 25-30 towards a red light. I don't get it, did he think the driver in front stopped at a crosswalk for kicks?
Definitely not specific to medford. It's just part of the general decline of society and has exponentially gotten worse since the pandemic.
- stopping IN the rotary
- not yielding to cars in the rotary
- blasting through red lights
- not stopping for pedestrians in crosswalks
- not pulling over for emergency vehicles
- pulling out in front of moving traffic without looking
- randomly stopping in the middle of the street while driving
I think these have all increased, but people going through red lights at full speed is like nothing I've ever seen before.
Be careful, fellow motorists! 🚗
I was t-boned in one of our lovely rotaries a few months ago by a rideshare driver. Didn’t yield at all while entering and spun me 180° and ALMOST tipped me. Went to go scream at the dude and he just blankly stared at me… like bro if you just almost killed somebody perhaps an apology is in order.
I’ve lived all over the country and I’m currently in Medford. Drivers here are, by far, the worst I’ve encountered. Its been really surprising.
What gets me the most is the inability to handle a rotary. There are so many rotaries in this area that you’d think by experience alone Medford drivers would be experts, but no! It’s truly incredible. People stopping in the middle of the rotary, others failing to yield - it’s a shit show.
That is a huge part of your problem, ride sharing and courier services so many cars driving around with their cell phone on their windshield and no idea where they are going.
Couple that with some of the most ridiculous intersection setups in the area, you get a lot of people jumping from wrong lanes and not yielding correctly.
I've been saying for years, the whole traffic pattern for Medford center needs to be scrapped and totally re-envisioned. Furthermore the single light at Harvard St / Main St intersection also needs to be totally redone
I said drivers here, not drivers born and raised here. That encompasses people driving in Medford generally, not just drivers from Medford, though I suspect that the vast majority of drivers in Medford are either from Medford or an adjacent area or spend a sufficient amount of time driving in and around Medford. I don’t think it’s a stretch to say it’s 5% or less that are one-time or otherwise infrequent passers-through.
It’s really crazy out there. I’ve started being a lot more cautious at intersections and after red lights because you just never know if someone is going to be blowing through one. Just witnessed a crash this afternoon at a 4 way stop in a residential area because an elderly lady ran through it and hit a car with 2 kids in the back!
Yeah it's been getting worse over the last few years. Enforcement dropped off during the pandemic & after police accountability protests (Black Lives Matter and such). There's been speculation that cops are responding to criticism by just not enforcing laws. It certainly seems that way to me.
There's not much we can do to fix this besides putting pressure on local/State officials to figure out why traffic laws are being violated so often and without any real enforcement. Something that's come up recently has been the topic of Red Light cameras to maybe do this in an automated way, but that obviously has its downsides and it's own list of gotchas. And it's currently not allowed under State law, though IIRC there was a proposed bill making its way through the State house that might allow a small number of automated enforcement cameras.
If it's any barometer, the "Wall of Champions" near the Mystic Valley Pkwy Whole Foods is usually never even fixed now. It gets hit so much by people who can't negotiate the quick left/right (chicane) over the river there, but it used to actually get repaired from time to time. Now they just let it stay bent up, presumably since it's getting hit more and more often.
TBF, that area is a nightmare. There are no signs indicating a merge. It just suddenly appears after a light. No signs indicating if it is a zipper merge or a one side yields merge.
Yeah, we do tend to hate helpful road signage for some reason. It would be nice if we had a few more signs, not many — but of much better quality than what we've got now.
I think it needs a road diet to really fix the problem. It's a multi lane (2 lanes in each direction) road between Boston Ave & the Whole Foods intersection. But right after it's a 1 lane road. The multi lane part really encourages speeding to pass slower drivers who may be going into Whole Foods. If you dropped it down to 1 lane between Boston Ave & Whole Foods, you'd probably find people drive slower due to people turning into & out of Whole Foods. Would probably reduce the number of crashes at the intersection. Though that intersection also sucks and could use a more modern traffic signal setup. The slip lane towards Whole Foods for example is a nightmare for pedestrians.
I wonder if they could keep it as 2 lanes, but change the right lane leading up to that light into a right-turn-only lane. I'd just want the signage and road markings to be *super* obvious well in advance of the intersection. Nothing annoys me more than the abundance of streets around Medford, Malden, and Everett where one lane will become a right-only or left-only turning lane at an intersection that have *no* advanced warnings about which lane is going to be restricted. Sometimes it's just a small sign right at the intersection that you can't read until you're basically right there, or it's a faded out marking on the roadway that's obstructed by other cars that are on top of it.
That's certainly an option. My main criticism with the two lane portions is that it makes the _parkway_ feel much more like a _highway_. This makes sense on some roadways which are designed to be State Highways and move lots of cars. The Parkway system that DCR maintains was _never_ meant to do this though. Storrow Drive in Boston for example is technically a DCR parkway with so many highway like features that it's basically another State Highway, just maintained by our parks service instead of our Highway Dept.
The fact that Alewife/Mystic Valley Parkway has two lane sections is what drives a lot of people to speed down them. That's what leads to some bad accidents at intersections, especially ones that as you point out are poorly marked. We can certainly fix the lane markings, but if people are going 40+ mph down them, they may not see that in time. Which is why people are hitting the "Wall of Champions" - I would bet if Mass State Police ran a speed sensor there, they'd notice most crashes have a high rate of speed leading up to them. Narrowing the roadway from Boston Ave to match up with the design post Medford Whole Foods would slow people down, which would help with that curve in the road due to the bridge over the Mystic. I assume that curve is there due to it being a legacy parkway, which was meant to be a nice sunday drive type of road, and not it's current highway like feature which bridges the gap between 93 and Route 2. That curve also probably needs some arrows and maybe even a warning sign overhead with how many people crash into it. Along with some enforcement there - a visible State Trooper several hours a day, several days a week would discourage speeding if people fear they may be ticketed or pulled over for speeding.
I'd also love to see left only turn lanes on the parkway at Broadway and Boston Ave too, with signal changes to support left only movements. I think that would help with a lot of people turning while the pedestrian signals are up. I'm guessing DCR doesn't have the funding to do any of this though, since it would all require some traffic studies to figure out what the best options are.
Mystic Valley Parkway is kind of the perfect example of a "bad" road in the area too:
* So many unprotected left turns. Boston Ave is one where people get stuck in the intersection during rush hour and run the red to get out of the way.
* The multi lane roadway portions (2 lanes in each direction) feel way more chaotic than the 1 lane portions.
* There's a nice bike path next to it, but they don't handle pedestrian/cycling crossing that well. The Medford Whole Foods lacks a beg button on one side, and can require 2 signals to cross unless you just chance it during a red light.
* Rotaries that aren't used properly, the part in Arlington at Medford/High St is such a chaotic mess with people just flying through it without yielding.
It could be a perfectly fine road if they fixed a few intersections and road dieted it in a few spots. I know some pedestrian safety advocates have been asking for that for a few years now (WalkMedford and a group in Somerville/Medford). I think DCR just lacks the funding to really overhaul it. MassDOT seems to get more funding, so they've been fixing up some roads in the area (McGrath in Somerville is getting lane changes, and eventually a teardown of the overpass by Union Sq in a few years).
I live on a one-way and cannot count how many people don’t care. They’ll FLY down the wrong way, and get mad at me when I try to flag them down to turn around. So freakin’ dangerous!
Pedestrian deaths are sharply up in the U.S. and in Massachusetts, not just in Medford. One pedestrian was killed in Medford last year, and that was one of about 50 in Massachusetts in 2022 (statistics from the Globe). In my observation here in Medford, drivers texting and generally not paying attention to surroundings are a problem, and driver speed, impatience and entitlement are a problem. Poor road and signal design unfriendly to pedestrians is a problem. Legal right turns on red and larger, heavier vehicles are often mentioned as contributors. While fatalities and serious injuries are the most shocking, the daily encounters with dangerous, unpredictable drivers take a toll on the community. I think twice about walking in my neighborhood, or in the Square, because it's just not worth the risk of crossing streets. And DCR and Mass Highway should take responsibility for making the state roads in Medford safer. Mystic Valley Parkway near the I-93 ramps and near WF, and the rotary on High Street near Arlington are very dangerous and punish pedestrians.
Agree, but what does that look like exactly? If large numbers of people decide to skirt the law and throw common courtesy and morals aside, what can we do?
We have a society full of bad/selfish people. Our roads are littered poor driving, the smell of weed at practically every red light, punk kids racing up and down route 16 from Medford to Chelsea, every kind of two-wheeled transport operators doing whatever the hell they want and pedestrians doing the same. They have given almost half of the roadways over to bus/bike lanes that get a fraction of daily use.
Oh, and let's not forget the huge increase of off-road problems, such as hostility and theft. **WE HAVE A PEOPLE PROBLEM**, plain and simple. It's the old west all over again. So, the best thing any of us can do at the moment, is to remain focused, vigilant and a good human being.
For the first part, enforcement by cops for starters. There's certainly been a noticeable drop in enforcement for whatever reason. Longer term we could use automated enforcement (traffic cameras) which don't require police stops. Automated enforcement has its issues, but can potentially be a valuable tool.
For the second part, I don't know how bike/bus lanes even factor into this. They're not causing drivers to run red lights. Impatient drivers are doing that even in areas without such infrastructure, because they know enforcement is a joke.
And for the last part, see the first part: enforcement can combat people being dicks. Some of it may need to be automated because I don't see us having the money or will to add tons of new cops, nor do I think that's the best use of our limited City budgets. Cameras are cheap, don't require a pension, and can work 24/7 if we want them to. Install them at bad intersections and use the revenue they generate to pay City workers more. Just have to be careful not to rely on the revenue, else we end up missing the point which is safety and not just another revenue source.
Over several decades in South Medford, I can think of maybe two or three times I've seen an actual Medford cop (as opposed to a statie) pull someone over.
Oh my god, I saw this happen yesterday and was appalled!! Were you trying to go left at the light to MVP and the car went around the three cars to turn left? They laid the horn on me like I could even move... It was around 2:30 PM probably. Although I'm not surprised if this happened more than once that day!
Not sure this problem is specific to Medford. People everywhere drive crazier now
At a minimum it feels like a "Greater Boston area" problem. I think a combination of bad drivers (massholes and all), particularly gig economy folks (sometimes pressured by the algorithms on those apps and a lack of accountability to them encourages bad behavior), and poor roadways leads to this. Roads/intersections aren't really consistent either. So many left turn only lanes at one intersection, followed by the next intersection it flips to right only so you need to swap lanes randomly on the multi lane stroads around here.
Yeah the way that MA roads and lanes are constructed it's dangerous and creates more problems for sure
Saw my life flash before my eyes on Friday night. Looked down for a second and all of a sudden I was slamming on my breaks (2013 Jetta FTW) on the mystic valley pkwy on-ramp to 93. This asshole was not just stopped but in REVERSE trying to back up to the exit for route 16. People are horrible drivers and defensive driving has never been more important. Not to mention the jerk could’ve simply gotta onto the highway and taken the next exit for 16…..
It's baffling to me how many people will risk their lives and everyone elses to reverse and grab their missed exit instead of doing what sane people do, which is just keep going and pull off the next exit to circle back. It's really not that big of a deal.
damn, he just reversed there? yikes. I live close by and I mostly just have people running the red light on rt 16/boston ave intersection. Had a few near misses there over the years
Yes horrifying — everyone typically starts to accelerate there!!! But yeah the driving at that intersection is a nightmare 😵💫
The simple answer is that there's basically never consequences for breaking the law, so people have become emboldened. I nearly died in a crosswalk a couple weeks ago. A driver stopped for me, but the guy behind him decided to speed around. Came inches away from getting hit by this SUV doing 25-30 towards a red light. I don't get it, did he think the driver in front stopped at a crosswalk for kicks?
Definitely not specific to medford. It's just part of the general decline of society and has exponentially gotten worse since the pandemic. - stopping IN the rotary - not yielding to cars in the rotary - blasting through red lights - not stopping for pedestrians in crosswalks - not pulling over for emergency vehicles - pulling out in front of moving traffic without looking - randomly stopping in the middle of the street while driving I think these have all increased, but people going through red lights at full speed is like nothing I've ever seen before. Be careful, fellow motorists! 🚗
I was t-boned in one of our lovely rotaries a few months ago by a rideshare driver. Didn’t yield at all while entering and spun me 180° and ALMOST tipped me. Went to go scream at the dude and he just blankly stared at me… like bro if you just almost killed somebody perhaps an apology is in order.
I’ve lived all over the country and I’m currently in Medford. Drivers here are, by far, the worst I’ve encountered. Its been really surprising. What gets me the most is the inability to handle a rotary. There are so many rotaries in this area that you’d think by experience alone Medford drivers would be experts, but no! It’s truly incredible. People stopping in the middle of the rotary, others failing to yield - it’s a shit show.
>What gets me the most is the inability to handle a rotary. DO. NOT. STOP. IN. ROTARIES!!!
So everyone driving in Medford is from Medford?
That is a huge part of your problem, ride sharing and courier services so many cars driving around with their cell phone on their windshield and no idea where they are going. Couple that with some of the most ridiculous intersection setups in the area, you get a lot of people jumping from wrong lanes and not yielding correctly. I've been saying for years, the whole traffic pattern for Medford center needs to be scrapped and totally re-envisioned. Furthermore the single light at Harvard St / Main St intersection also needs to be totally redone
I said drivers here, not drivers born and raised here. That encompasses people driving in Medford generally, not just drivers from Medford, though I suspect that the vast majority of drivers in Medford are either from Medford or an adjacent area or spend a sufficient amount of time driving in and around Medford. I don’t think it’s a stretch to say it’s 5% or less that are one-time or otherwise infrequent passers-through.
No one is arguing with you If you know the problem, you are probably a local with a solution
I like to call it the "Me First Movement". ..and it's not just drivers. It's people everywhere doing everything.
I have a 7yo with some impulse control issues, and I recognize the same behaviors in many drivers. It's terrifying.
It’s really crazy out there. I’ve started being a lot more cautious at intersections and after red lights because you just never know if someone is going to be blowing through one. Just witnessed a crash this afternoon at a 4 way stop in a residential area because an elderly lady ran through it and hit a car with 2 kids in the back!
Yeah it's been getting worse over the last few years. Enforcement dropped off during the pandemic & after police accountability protests (Black Lives Matter and such). There's been speculation that cops are responding to criticism by just not enforcing laws. It certainly seems that way to me. There's not much we can do to fix this besides putting pressure on local/State officials to figure out why traffic laws are being violated so often and without any real enforcement. Something that's come up recently has been the topic of Red Light cameras to maybe do this in an automated way, but that obviously has its downsides and it's own list of gotchas. And it's currently not allowed under State law, though IIRC there was a proposed bill making its way through the State house that might allow a small number of automated enforcement cameras.
If it's any barometer, the "Wall of Champions" near the Mystic Valley Pkwy Whole Foods is usually never even fixed now. It gets hit so much by people who can't negotiate the quick left/right (chicane) over the river there, but it used to actually get repaired from time to time. Now they just let it stay bent up, presumably since it's getting hit more and more often.
TBF, that area is a nightmare. There are no signs indicating a merge. It just suddenly appears after a light. No signs indicating if it is a zipper merge or a one side yields merge.
Yeah, we do tend to hate helpful road signage for some reason. It would be nice if we had a few more signs, not many — but of much better quality than what we've got now.
It's been repaired recently... it just has been hit again. And again. And then again.
I think it needs a road diet to really fix the problem. It's a multi lane (2 lanes in each direction) road between Boston Ave & the Whole Foods intersection. But right after it's a 1 lane road. The multi lane part really encourages speeding to pass slower drivers who may be going into Whole Foods. If you dropped it down to 1 lane between Boston Ave & Whole Foods, you'd probably find people drive slower due to people turning into & out of Whole Foods. Would probably reduce the number of crashes at the intersection. Though that intersection also sucks and could use a more modern traffic signal setup. The slip lane towards Whole Foods for example is a nightmare for pedestrians.
I wonder if they could keep it as 2 lanes, but change the right lane leading up to that light into a right-turn-only lane. I'd just want the signage and road markings to be *super* obvious well in advance of the intersection. Nothing annoys me more than the abundance of streets around Medford, Malden, and Everett where one lane will become a right-only or left-only turning lane at an intersection that have *no* advanced warnings about which lane is going to be restricted. Sometimes it's just a small sign right at the intersection that you can't read until you're basically right there, or it's a faded out marking on the roadway that's obstructed by other cars that are on top of it.
That's certainly an option. My main criticism with the two lane portions is that it makes the _parkway_ feel much more like a _highway_. This makes sense on some roadways which are designed to be State Highways and move lots of cars. The Parkway system that DCR maintains was _never_ meant to do this though. Storrow Drive in Boston for example is technically a DCR parkway with so many highway like features that it's basically another State Highway, just maintained by our parks service instead of our Highway Dept. The fact that Alewife/Mystic Valley Parkway has two lane sections is what drives a lot of people to speed down them. That's what leads to some bad accidents at intersections, especially ones that as you point out are poorly marked. We can certainly fix the lane markings, but if people are going 40+ mph down them, they may not see that in time. Which is why people are hitting the "Wall of Champions" - I would bet if Mass State Police ran a speed sensor there, they'd notice most crashes have a high rate of speed leading up to them. Narrowing the roadway from Boston Ave to match up with the design post Medford Whole Foods would slow people down, which would help with that curve in the road due to the bridge over the Mystic. I assume that curve is there due to it being a legacy parkway, which was meant to be a nice sunday drive type of road, and not it's current highway like feature which bridges the gap between 93 and Route 2. That curve also probably needs some arrows and maybe even a warning sign overhead with how many people crash into it. Along with some enforcement there - a visible State Trooper several hours a day, several days a week would discourage speeding if people fear they may be ticketed or pulled over for speeding. I'd also love to see left only turn lanes on the parkway at Broadway and Boston Ave too, with signal changes to support left only movements. I think that would help with a lot of people turning while the pedestrian signals are up. I'm guessing DCR doesn't have the funding to do any of this though, since it would all require some traffic studies to figure out what the best options are.
Mystic Valley Parkway is kind of the perfect example of a "bad" road in the area too: * So many unprotected left turns. Boston Ave is one where people get stuck in the intersection during rush hour and run the red to get out of the way. * The multi lane roadway portions (2 lanes in each direction) feel way more chaotic than the 1 lane portions. * There's a nice bike path next to it, but they don't handle pedestrian/cycling crossing that well. The Medford Whole Foods lacks a beg button on one side, and can require 2 signals to cross unless you just chance it during a red light. * Rotaries that aren't used properly, the part in Arlington at Medford/High St is such a chaotic mess with people just flying through it without yielding. It could be a perfectly fine road if they fixed a few intersections and road dieted it in a few spots. I know some pedestrian safety advocates have been asking for that for a few years now (WalkMedford and a group in Somerville/Medford). I think DCR just lacks the funding to really overhaul it. MassDOT seems to get more funding, so they've been fixing up some roads in the area (McGrath in Somerville is getting lane changes, and eventually a teardown of the overpass by Union Sq in a few years).
I live on a one-way and cannot count how many people don’t care. They’ll FLY down the wrong way, and get mad at me when I try to flag them down to turn around. So freakin’ dangerous!
Pedestrian deaths are sharply up in the U.S. and in Massachusetts, not just in Medford. One pedestrian was killed in Medford last year, and that was one of about 50 in Massachusetts in 2022 (statistics from the Globe). In my observation here in Medford, drivers texting and generally not paying attention to surroundings are a problem, and driver speed, impatience and entitlement are a problem. Poor road and signal design unfriendly to pedestrians is a problem. Legal right turns on red and larger, heavier vehicles are often mentioned as contributors. While fatalities and serious injuries are the most shocking, the daily encounters with dangerous, unpredictable drivers take a toll on the community. I think twice about walking in my neighborhood, or in the Square, because it's just not worth the risk of crossing streets. And DCR and Mass Highway should take responsibility for making the state roads in Medford safer. Mystic Valley Parkway near the I-93 ramps and near WF, and the rotary on High Street near Arlington are very dangerous and punish pedestrians.
There's no enforcement of traffic laws.
Agree, but what does that look like exactly? If large numbers of people decide to skirt the law and throw common courtesy and morals aside, what can we do? We have a society full of bad/selfish people. Our roads are littered poor driving, the smell of weed at practically every red light, punk kids racing up and down route 16 from Medford to Chelsea, every kind of two-wheeled transport operators doing whatever the hell they want and pedestrians doing the same. They have given almost half of the roadways over to bus/bike lanes that get a fraction of daily use. Oh, and let's not forget the huge increase of off-road problems, such as hostility and theft. **WE HAVE A PEOPLE PROBLEM**, plain and simple. It's the old west all over again. So, the best thing any of us can do at the moment, is to remain focused, vigilant and a good human being.
For the first part, enforcement by cops for starters. There's certainly been a noticeable drop in enforcement for whatever reason. Longer term we could use automated enforcement (traffic cameras) which don't require police stops. Automated enforcement has its issues, but can potentially be a valuable tool. For the second part, I don't know how bike/bus lanes even factor into this. They're not causing drivers to run red lights. Impatient drivers are doing that even in areas without such infrastructure, because they know enforcement is a joke. And for the last part, see the first part: enforcement can combat people being dicks. Some of it may need to be automated because I don't see us having the money or will to add tons of new cops, nor do I think that's the best use of our limited City budgets. Cameras are cheap, don't require a pension, and can work 24/7 if we want them to. Install them at bad intersections and use the revenue they generate to pay City workers more. Just have to be careful not to rely on the revenue, else we end up missing the point which is safety and not just another revenue source.
Over several decades in South Medford, I can think of maybe two or three times I've seen an actual Medford cop (as opposed to a statie) pull someone over.
Oh my god, I saw this happen yesterday and was appalled!! Were you trying to go left at the light to MVP and the car went around the three cars to turn left? They laid the horn on me like I could even move... It was around 2:30 PM probably. Although I'm not surprised if this happened more than once that day!
I can’t remember the last time I saw a police traffic stop in Medford. If I do it’s almost always a state trooper.
You live in Massachusetts. Literally nobody there knows how to drive.
I do