South Bay shoppers don't rush home with their treasures

Page 2 of 4 -- Makes sense, doesn’t it?

Sorry to disappoint, but we’re still awaiting an official answer from the Big Dig as to what they will and can do after bringing this question before them two weeks in a row. We thought you should know.

ADVERTISEMENT

Hanchett said he did not know if the paving in that lane, which is 10 years old, could be done anytime soon or would have to wait for spring. But he had no official answer for us last week.

In an earlier conversation, he said Big Dig officials would probably be reluctant to make any changes in the area to suit drivers stuck around the shopping center, a problem he said earlier could be solved by commuters changing their routes home and using the new Essex Street onramp to I-93 south downtown. As for eliminating the bad right lane, Hanchett said it would probably have an impact on southbound I-93 traffic, which he said was flowing smoothly since its introduction.

We’ll come back to this next week.

Savin Hill meets

At the request of the community, the MBTA will meet Wednesday to discuss and provide an update on the rehabilitation project at Savin Hill. The meeting will take place from 6 to 8 p.m. at the Blessed Mother Theresa School (the former St. Williams School), 100 Savin Hill Ave., in Dorchester.

T personnel and the project’s contractor, Barletta Heavy Division, will be on hand to answer questions.

Creative fit

Last year, the Texas Transportation Institute said that the average Boston driver spends 51 hours a year commuting to and from work.

This year, according to a Lemelson-MIT Invention Index study, 20 percent of those surveyed said they do their most creative thinking in the car.

If either of these surveys is even remotely true, then someone out there on the Pike or I-93 has either filled their cellphone’s voice memo with a jabbered version of the Great American Novel or discovered that Starbucks and angst can cure the common cold.

Merton Flemings, 75, director of the Lemelson-MIT Program, named after the late inventor Jerome H. Lemelson, found his inspiration on the road. Specifically, on the Massachusetts Turnpike, outside of Auburn, where he understood for the first time ‘‘what determines the form of a particular microstructure or substructure in cast metals.’’

He said the memory of the event was so important to him that he could probably recall the exact tree he was passing by at the time the thought arrived.

It was a discovery that led to improved ways to produce continuous casting and metal parts, particularly for critical applications like airplanes andtoday’s lightweight automobiles.

‘‘It’s why people talk about the light bulb coming on,’’ Flemings said. ‘‘But there is that moment when suddenly things seem to come together for no apparent reason for the inventor.’’   Continued...