My new favorite street

[dmaze]

I have finally conquered North Cambridge! Arr! This makes my new favorite street Walden Street: it goes from Porterish to Concord Ave. by the Twin Rotaries Of Doom, which gets you over towards Belmont and Watertown without actually experiencing the joy that is Mass Ave. and Alewife Brook Parkway at the 2/3/16 interchange. Google Maps thinks it's even noticably shorter going this way, which is useful. Not stupidly narrow, not overwhelmed with traffic, not too many lights.

Comments

Like I said, I'm the only person who prefers it.

[chenoameg.livejournal.com]

Union Square is so horrendously designed that it's worth avoiding, though.
I find that traffic from Summer->Bow Street->Somerville Ave->Webster flows quickly all times except Saturday afternoons. Also Washington ->Webster via a right turn is also good.

I definitely don't recommend going through Union Square to get to Everett; that's just goofy. From your house I would take Summer to Central to Broadway because the left turn from Highland onto McGrath tends to get backed up. (I agree that it seems like 99 should be a more useful route to get to the Gateway Center than it actually is.) And I don't go through Union Square via Washington St from the direction of McGrath; that direction takes forever.

I can't think of a compelling reason you wouldn't prefer to go up Highland than go through Union.
At 8:30am and around 3pm on school days Highland is a bad road. To get to Kendall at other times we'll usually take Highland to the second exit from McGrath, under the railroad tracks next to the Target, turn right after the old folks home, and then jog across Cambridge St. I don't consider McGrath to be a good way to get to Kendell because of the perpetual congestion around Lechmere.

Beacon Street/Hampshire Street is a road that gets horribly bottlenecked at all times of day, and both directions during rush hour. If I'm driving from my house to MIT between 5pm and 7pm I'll definitely get there faster if I go through Union than if I take Beacon, and on Friday/Saturday nights Beacon also gets bottlenecked because of Inman Square.