A Rare Shutdown on Route 128 Is Coming
Pack snacks, fire up a good audiobook and start those breathing exercises now: A portion of Route 128 will be closed to traffic between late Friday, Nov. 4 and Sunday, Nov. 6, the Globe reports, and that means if you plan on driving in the area, it’s going to take a while to get around.
Completely closing down part of a major highway is an unusual move, but officials say it’s necessary to keep drivers safe while crews demolish a bridge in Needham that spans the highway—part of the 3.8 mile Add-A-Lane project designed to increase capacity on the jam-plagued roadway.
“It’s not the Big Dig, but for around here, it’s pretty big,” a selectman in Needham, Daniel Matthews, tells the Globe.
Detour routes haven’t been announced yet, but the closure will mean cars will have travel through side streets.
Coincidentally, a new report out today from the Reason Foundation just ranked Massachusetts’ highways fifth-worst in the nation, so keep the long-term in mind while enduring this latest short-term headache. Improvements could come in handy when traffic gets worse by 2030.
