Winter weather and two car accidents on the other side of the Harbor in Boston brought East Boston’s traffic nightmare back to forefront on Tuesday morning.
Many Eastie commuters experienced delays of up to 45 minutes just to get into the Sumner Tunnel during Tuesday’s morning rush hour commute.
Over winter vacation and since local elementary and high schools resumed class following the Christmas breaktraffic had improved slightly, especially in the early morning hours between 7 to 8 a.m.
However, many universities were still on break and just resumed class last week, so Eastie residents just started to report increases in traffic again as college students descended upon Boston and are now again part of the morning commute.
As promised, Rep. Adrian Madaro will be hosting a MassDOT meeting on Wednesday (tonight), January 23 at 6:30 p.m. at the East Boston High School auditorium.
“This meeting is finally on the calendar,” said Madaro. “I hope everyone that has an issue with the morning commute attends this meeting and expressed their frustration with MassDOT. This is an issue that has been affecting the neighborhood for two years now and I want to make sure your voice is heard on this matter. I urge all who can attend to please do so and share your stories, concerns and ideas so MassDOT can find ways to improve traffic flow in and out of the neighborhood.”
For those living in Eastie it seems that every week there’s another issue at the mouth of the tunnel and each issue and excuse has not been enough to quell the angry residents that have to sit in traffic for almost an hour every morning to get out of East Boston.
The natives are restless and are now vowing to take action.
Recently, flyers were circulated in the community with the names, phone numbers and email addresses of elected officials, MassDOT officials and transportation officials. Residents were asked on the the flyers to flood these offices with pictures and videos of Eastie’s traffic nightmare.
There was also talk of taking to the streets like Eastie residents did in the 1960s and 1970s to protest Logan Airport expansion.