Drivers need warning of Esplanade events

Regarding the City Weekly article (GlobeWatch, March 18) about traffic tie-ups on Storrow Drive:

As a city resident, I am thrilled when events are held on the Esplanade, as I think this type of activity is an important part of keeping our community vibrant.

That said, the current lack of any warning for cars on I-93 or Leverett Circle is inexcusable. Driving south on I-93, I normally exit onto Storrow Drive to get into the city, but have the option to continue to Mass. Ave., then come back north into the city. You need to warn drivers when an event is messing up traffic. There is no excuse for not doing so.

Three or four years ago, I called the DCR after some infuriating experiences sitting in this traffic.

I reached a woman in the PR department who told me the problem is that I-93 is not under DCR control, and that DCR and MassHighway (or is it the Turnpike Authority?) had no way to cooperate for these events.

If indeed state agencies operate in such stove pipes, that is perhaps the worst offense - short of all-out corruption - that I as a citizen can imagine.

I thank DCR for proposing to repair the bridges on Storrow and for maintaining our parks and holding events at the Hatch Shell.

But if, as DCR says, the practice of parking on Storrow is over 20 years old, there is no excuse for not alerting motorists so that events don't infuriate thousands in the name of entertaining different thousands of citizens.

SCOTT MABEL
Boston

I learned this word from a dear Cambridge friend - a Townie, not a Gownie.

Caloopin' means shopping (but not buying anything), going to lunch at the S&S Deli in Inman Square, window shopping, just ladies cruising around looking at stuff.

Thanks for the story.

My son, raised in Framingham, schooled at Amherst College, now living in San Francisco, put me on to it.

RUTH HERTZ
Framingham

Expressway is not exclusively a Boston word, unless Mr. Baker means that "expressway" is used to refer to other roads, such as Route 128 or the Mass. Pike or 93 north, etc., and not just the SE Expressway ("My word!" City Weekly, May 28).

There are dozens of expressways in major and even minor cities.

I thought first of two big ones in New York - the BQE (Brooklyn-Queens Expressway) and the LIE (Long Island Expressway).

Also, the ever lovely Cross Bronx Expressway.

In Philadelphia, the "expressway" refers to the Schuykill Expressway, a major route downtown.

Chicago has four major ones criscrossing the city - the Dan Ryan, the Stevenson, the Eisenhower, and the Kennedy.

There are several in Miami.

Here's a list of other cities large and small on which I found expressways on the map: Arkansas - Little Rock, Fayetteville, Jonesboro; Atlanta; Orlando, Fla.; New Orleans; St. Louis; and Toronto. Oklahoma even - in both Oklahoma City and Tulsa.

What we don't have in the East are roads labeled "freeway."

COLLEEN CLARK
Cambridge

I was a Bostonian in exile for most of my life, but I grew up calling a rubber band an elastic - learned it from my Bostonian mother. I do remember, though, asking the Good Humor man for a Hoodsie when we first moved to Washington long ago and being met with a blank stare of incomprehension. I explained that I wanted a paper cup of ice cream, part vanilla and part chocolate or orange, and he said, "Oh, you mean a Dixie cup!" I've learned to call them "sodas," but we never bought them anyway. The word always sounded wrong to me, though.

SUSAN PETTEE
Paris

Recently I went out for breakfast, and the waitress asked if we were "zooing" on her.

I laughed so hard because I hadn't heard that in years.

MIKE FAGONE
West Roxbury