What’s the best way to fix Boston’s notoriously bad traffic? How about an app?
That’s what six IBM engineers worked on for three weeks this month in City Hall as part of IBM’s Smarter Cities Challenge, which awarded Boston and 32 other cities around the world each with $400,000 worth of its technical know-how. The program helps cities find innovative answers to tough urban problems.
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Mayor Menino could have gotten free subjective suggestions by talking to Bostonians who have been in traffic in many other cities and seen them work so much better. Traffic light cycles, fixing the streets, ticketing taxi drivers who cruise for fares going 10 mph on busy streets, telling the cops to enforce existing laws like yielding on Left Hand Turn, not passing on the inside, leaving intersections open for cross traffic, the list goes on and on. Brookline and Newton are the worst in the inside 128 Belt for poorly timed lights and anally-retentive traffic control that slows everyone down. Boston may rank 10th for traffic problems on some scale, but I'd bet on a per capita basis, Boston would EASILY rank 1st. I've ben in 49/50 states and I can tell you there are very few cities, and none as small as Boston, where getting around is so difficult. Talk to the users, Mr. Mayor. All due respect to IBM's smart people, but they don't LIVE here.