Keller @ Large: Don't Get Too Excited Over Third Cape Bridge
BOSTON (CBS) -- Did you enjoy your ride on and off the Cape this weekend? Unless you made a run for it ungodly early or late, chances are you experienced enough traffic to make you think twice about making the trip again.
Sitting in a crawl for hours on end is not my idea of a relaxing getaway, and I trust it isn't yours, either.
But we can take hope from the fact that our state government is trying to do something creative to ease the situation, which has gotten steadily worse during the 40 years I've been going down the Cape.
According to The Globe, the Baker administration is in the very early stages of exploring a third bridge over the canal built with private dollars, a three-lane toll road for traffic headed on-Cape only. The concept is that the Sagamore Bridge would become off-Cape only, no tolls charged.
Now, I don't want to be one of those stereotypical nattering nabobs of negativism Boston is accused of spawning, so let me say I applaud and encourage the effort here.
But before anyone gets too excited, I do need to inject some good old Bostonian skepticism into this discussion.
Here's my question: how will another bridge help ease congestion, when there are already too many cars trying to get to the Cape as it is?
Adding more lanes won't ease the crush on Routes 3 and 6 approaching the Sagamore any more than the flyover really did; it will just attract more visitors to an area already nearing the saturation point. And much of the summer will continue to feature gridlock on the Cape's highways.
Maybe we need ingenious new ideas for helping people get to and around the Cape without cars instead.
Too bad we can't make developing those ideas an Olympic event.
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