Which Way To Wherever

Now that the spring weather has come, there's been some serious construction going on at the Charles/MGH T stop. You can see the outline of the new station starting to form up and I'm kind of happy that its a little closer to my apartment. Once its finished, I think you'll actually be able to get off the T, without being dropped right into the middle of one of the most ridiculous traffic circles in Boston!

One thing I've recently noticed, is that there are now full time cops on duty at this traffic circle "directing" traffic. As far as I can tell, the assignment is to stand at the intersection waving cars through when the light turns green and holding up a hand to stop them when the light turns red. Now to be honest, once or twice during rush hour, i have seen the cops "free style" it a little. When the heavy traffic got things out of whack, they did stop the green light traffic and wave some people through the red lights. Mostly, it seemed to just confuse the people who were getting waved through a red light, but the cops did a lot of yelling and very loud whistling to get them going. I don't know how they whistle like that.

More often than this helpful direction, however, i've noticed people stopping (during their green light) to try and ask directions from the cop. This does not help anyone! For one thing it blocks all the traffic, and for another, the directions are probably almost never helpful!

I went home for lunch today and as I walked back to work I shared a moment with a random stranger at this circle. We were both waiting for traffic when a car stopped, during it's green light, and asked the cop how to get to the Museum of Science. The answer he yelled back was so incomprehensible that both the stranger and I laughed out loud. "Good Luck" said the woman as the car slowly pulled away. I smiled back and stated the obvious..."They have no chance".