Getting crosswalk signals in line

Barbara of Roslindale is a nurse at Uphams Corner Health Center, which stands about 100 feet from the busy and broad corner of Quincy and Columbia roads in Dorchester.

"Adjacent to the center is a new housing development with many families and young children," she wrote. "Also, we have many ailing and disabled folks walking, wheeling, and busing to our door."

And for several months, she said, everyone wheeling and walking was jaywalking across Quincy and Columbia.

Last week, Barbara parked her car about three blocks from the health center and, after having to cross at Columbia and Quincy, realized the problem. The crosswalk buttons were broken.

"After pressing the crosswalk button -- I waited for three changes of lights and the signal did not come on," she wrote. "I wondered why about 10 folks passed me by and jaywalked, not even hesitating or looking for the signal to change. . . . Could it be that these crosswalk lights have been out for a very long time? It is difficult to believe that the city would do that in this area considering the amount of foot traffic and that folks may be slow crossing the street due to sickness and disabilities.

"Can you shed any light on this?"

Well, Tracey Ganiatsos at the Boston Transportation Department did, quickly dispatching a signal repairman the same day we forwarded Barbara's e-mail. Sure enough, the push-buttons were not working.

"Fortunately, he was able to make the necessary repairs on-site and, when a BTD investigator double-checked the work Thursday morning, the pedestrian walk cycles were working properly," Ganiatsos said.

Barbara checked it out later that day and confirmed all was working well, though she and other workers suggested the city replace the Walk/Don't Walk signs, which are bent and mangled and in some cases hard to see. Still, she was very pleased.

Ganiatsos wanted to remind neighborhood residents and Boston drivers to contact the department directly at 617-635-4680 or, after 5 p.m., report malfunctioning traffic signals to the Mayor's 24 Hour Service at 617-635-4500.

"I would like to extend an invitation for your company to participate in this on-site Fast Lane sign-up initiative," Cogliano wrote in a letter sent out April 30. "Members of my staff would travel to your company's headquarters on a specified date and time to register your employees into the Fast Lane program. Everyone who joins the program at this session would immediately receive their transponder and could begin to enjoy its benefits immediately."

Cogliano then offered a hook.

"Currently, Fast Lane members receive a discount on the Boston Extension and Tunnels and are also eligible for a commuter tax deduction on their Massachusetts income tax," he wrote.

He failed to mention that the discounts are only funded through the end of June and may go away completely unless a permanent funding source is found. But anyway, we'll keep the pitch going. Businesses interested in participating in this on-site sign-up can call Laurie Caruso at 508-721-4431 .

Fast Lane has 622,431 accounts and 920,550 transponders collecting 57 percent of the total tolls paid.

"I've been wondering this for years: What is the spur to nowhere off I-93 north right after the Zakim Bridge? It looks like it was originally meant to go somewhere towards East Somerville," he wrote.

That ramp is a small piece of transportation history in Boston. We hope we do its story justice, thanks to Erik Abell at MassHighway and www.bostonroads.com for details.

Proposed as early as 1948, when road building was booming around Boston and the nation, this ramp was meant to be the northernmost interchange for a megaproject known as the Inner Belt, a six-lane, limited-access highway that would run in a tight half-circle inside Route 128 through Boston, Brookline, Cambridge, and Somerville. Its highway designation was to be I-695.

It was slated to run around Ruggles station, and the Routes 2 and 16 intersection around Alewife station in Cambridge was to be one of its interchanges. Melnea Cass Boulevard runs along the Inner Belt's right of way . Due to money constraints, it stalled in the late 1950s.

As traffic congestion grew on the old Central Artery, officials renewed calls for the Inner Belt to be built, and the road moved forward in the early 1960s. But when demolition began in Roxbury and the South End to build the southern end of the road, protests soon followed, led in part by Frederick P. Salvucci, who was then a transportation consultant to Mayor Kevin H. White.

The protests caught the attention of Thomas P. "Tip" O'Neill Jr., then a US representative, who said the project would create "a China Wall" and dislocate 7,000 people "just to save someone in New Hampshire 20 minutes on his way to the South Shore." O'Neill, who died in 1994, became a major proponent of the Big Dig.

Several years later, the project was canceled outright by Governor Francis W. Sargent when he ordered a now famous moratorium on all new expressway construction within the 128 corridor.

"Four years ago, I was the commissioner of the Massachusetts Department of Public Works, our road-building agency," Sargent said after the decision was made. "Then, nearly everyone was sure that highways were the only answer to transportation problems for years to come. We were wrong. Today, we know more clearly what are real needs are: what our environment means to us, what a community means to us, and what is valuable to us as a people."

Eventually, in May 1974, pending federal money for the unbuilt project was exchanged for transit funds.

Exit 23 (Purchase Street) off I-93 south will close 11:30 p.m. to 5 a.m. Thursday to Saturday morning.

Exit 20B (Pike west/Albany Street) off I-93 south will close 11:30 p.m. to 5 a.m. Thursday to Saturday morning.

The Essex Street onramp to I-93 south will close 10 p.m. to 5 a.m. Tuesday to Thursday morning.

Two to three lanes of I-93 north through downtown and Charlestown will close 11:30 p.m. to 5 a.m. Tuesday to Saturday morning.

Exit 27 (Tobin Bridge) off I-93 north will close 11:30 p.m. Tuesday to 5 a.m. Wednesday.

The underpass from Storrow Drive east, and the ramp from Leverett Circle to I-93 north and the Tobin Bridge will close 10 p.m. Tuesday to 5 a.m. Wednesday.

Exit 26 (Storrow Drive) off I-93 north will close 11:30 p.m. to 5 a.m. Wednesday to Friday morning.

The Essex Street onramp to I-93 north will close 11:30 p.m. to 5 a.m. Tuesday to Saturday morning.

A section of the Pike east at Exit 25 (South Boston) will close 11:59 p.m. to 5 a.m. Thursday to Saturday morning.

Exit 24 (I-93/South Station) off the Pike east will close 11 p.m. Tuesday to 5 a.m. Wednesday.

Exit 24 (I-93) off the Pike east will close 11 p.m. to 5 a.m. Wednesday to Friday morning. Access to Kneeland Street and South Station will remain open.

Access from South Boston to the Pike east and Logan Airport will close 11 p.m. to 5 a.m. Tuesday to Thursday morning.

The onramp from Congress Street to I-93 in South Boston, and Exit 24 (I-93) off the Pike west will close 11 p.m. to 5 a.m. Tuesday to Saturday morning.

The Frontage Road northbound onramp to the Pike west will close 10 p.m. to 5 a.m. Tuesday to Saturday morning.

The ramp at Exit 20 (Pike west) off I-93 north will close 10 p.m. to 5 a.m. Tuesday to Saturday morning.

The HOV ramp from the Pike west to South Station will close 11:59 p.m. to 5 a.m. Wednesday to Friday morning.

The Sumner Tunnel onramp to Storrow Drive will close 11:30 p.m. to 5 a.m. Wednesday to Friday morning.

The Congress Street onramp to I-93 south and the Pike west will close 11:30 p.m. to 5 a.m. Thursday to Saturday morning.

Route 1A north near Logan Airport will close 9 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. Thursday and Friday.

Complain to us at starts@globe.com . Don't forget to send us your hometown. Outside the paper, the column can be found at boston.com/starts with daily updates on the Starts & Stops Blog at boston.com/starts/blog. Our mailing address is Starts & Stops, P.O. Box 55819, Boston, MA 02205-5819.