Storrow Drive

Storrow Drive mid-afternoon

The road is notorious for speeding and aggressive driving because police enforcement along the road is difficult without a breakdown lane. Radio traffic reports have warned motorists about "ponding" on Storrow Drive, which occurs when snow and frozen ground prevent water from draining properly into storm drains.[4] The underpasses also commonly flood during heavy rains, sometimes stalling low-riding cars.[5] Additional problems include narrow lanes and very limited visibility on short entrance ramps.

During some summer night concerts at the Hatch Shell, many drivers park their cars in the outbound lanes of Storrow Drive. The free concerts and fireworks displays attract 200,000 people, and many take advantage of the free parking.[2]

There is an abundance of signs giving road clearance height.[6] Despite the signs, a truck or other large vehicle will periodically get wedged under a bridge, which causes traffic to back up for several miles. In one incident a truck full of scissors became stuck and spilled its cargo, causing more than 30 cars to get flat tires.[2] There is a 10 foot (3.0 m) height limit for the entire parkway.[7] Local media has taken to referring to these kinds of accidents as a truck being "Storrowed",[8] and the city of Boston has annual advisories in August to those renting box trucks for college move-ins to avoid the city's low-clearance parkway system, including Storrow Drive.[9]

Because Storrow Drive is a high-speed road way, pedestrian access is limited to only the Charles River side of the road. To connect the Charles River Esplanade and Storrow Drive (a popular park and recreational area along the south bank of the river) to adjacent Boston neighborhoods, a number of pedestrian overpasses have been constructed. Listed in order from downstream to upstream, they are:[10][11]

• Blossom Street bridge (near Massachusetts General Hospital)
• Frances Appleton Bridge (at Cambridge Street, next to Longfellow Bridge)
• Arthur Fiedler Bridge (connecting to the Hatch Memorial Shell near Arlington Street)
• Dartmouth Street bridge
• Fairfield Street bridge
• Harvard Bridge (at Massachusetts Avenue)
• Silber Way bridge
• Boston University Marsh Chapel bridge
• Boston University Bridge

James Storrow had been instrumental in earlier projects along the Charles River, in particular the Charles River Dam. Additions to the Charles River Esplanade had been made during the 1930s only by omitting an important part of the project, a proposed highway from the Longfellow Bridge to the Cottage Farm (Boston University) Bridge, which had provoked tremendous protest.[13] After Helen Storrow, the wife of the now deceased James Storrow, supported a group opposed to the highway, it was dropped;[13] part of the funding was to have come from a million-dollar gift from her.[14] Soon after Helen Storrow's death in 1944, a new proposal for the construction of the highway was pushed through the Massachusetts Legislature. In spite of still strong opposition, and through some dubious parliamentary procedures, the bill approving construction of the highway and naming it after James Storrow was passed in 1949.[15]

Construction took place in the years 1950–1951. As part of the attempt to preserve park land, any land used by the highway had to be replaced by reclaiming new land along the shoreline.[16] Storrow Drive was officially opened in a ribbon cutting ceremony by Governor Paul A. Dever on June 15, 1951.[1]

An on-ramp leading from southbound Massachusetts Avenue to eastbound Storrow Drive was constructed but later removed, leaving an island of greenspace between the inbound and outbound carriageways.[5] Overpasses to Fenway via Charlesgate and in the vicinity of Massachusetts General Hospital were completed a few years later; the Arthur Fiedler Footbridge was completed in 1953.[5] In 1960, high-pressure air from a sewage tunnel under construction caused a geyser-like eruption and damaged the roadway near the BU bridge.[5] The pedestrian overpass near the Longfellow Bridge was constructed in 1962.[5] A "Reverse Curve" sign near downtown was vandalized to say "Reverse the Curse", a reference to the Curse of the Bambino; the sign was removed after the Red Sox won the 2004 World Series.