Shattuck: Marty Walsh, IndyCar dare us to think fast

The Boston Herald ^ | 05-22-15 | Tom Shattuck

[calvincaspian]

In 2009, the eulogy for the Boston driver rang out over City Hall Plaza.

“The car is no longer king in Boston” decreed Mayor Thomas M. Menino. And with that was born an Emerald Necklace of biking and pedestrian accommodations that suffocated every major travel route in the Hub.

Travel went from slowish to stoppish. Though Logan International Airport is 2.5 miles from downtown, there are days when it is quicker to get to Worcester. The Big Dig was supposed to make this better. It didn’t.

Ponytailed boomers and dandified greenies preen openly, sheathed in exhibitionist spandex, as they cycle past the great unwashed like conquering Napoleons.

The lack of movement — of stagnant cars and agonized drivers — saps the morale of all of us who make the dreaded trip into town. A few years ago, you could do things like make the jump to Memorial Drive if Storrow Drive was a parking lot. No more. Progressive know-it-alls have installed traffic lights on the Cambridge side of the Charles River and so all hope of progress is gone.

Likewise, all hope on all of our roads has disappeared.

Until now.

[calvincaspian]

And we can go back to laughing at the cyclists on those reclining bikes you see around MIT, clutching their kale, shooting us indignant looks for daring to travel less nobly than they. Soon they will be reduced to reluctant court jesters.

Because, beginning Labor Day weekend in 2016, the car will be king again in Boston.

[Don Corleone]

I used to travel to Boston extensively in the 80’s-90’s . Traffic there was horrible by anyone’s standards. Sometimes it was almost impossible to go from the airport to a downtown hotel and stay within the city limits. The people of Boston, at least to me, always seemed to look downtrodden and unhappy. They smoked heavily and just looked depressed. JMHO.