INTERSTATE 93: A MODEST PROPOSAL by J. Mark Lennon

Interstate 93 needs to be widened. Soon. Now.

It is tough to believe that thousands of commuters – or anyone else – will get out of their cars to take a train.

It is tough to believe, even with high-and-getting-higher gas prices, that thousands of commuters will carpool.

It is tough to believe that hundreds of companies will institute flex time to spread out the morning and evening commute. Or that thousands of commuters would take advantage of the flexibility if they had it.

It is tough to believe that weekend skiers or hikers or boaters or snowmobilers will do something other than herd north en masse on Friday nights, and herd back south Sundays.

Interstate 93 needs to be widened.

But eight lanes, at a cost of $440 million and up to ten years of construction, are a dumb idea.

Eight lanes will turn New Hampshire’s tree-lined threshold into a bleak, Jerseyesque eyesore. Take a drive through Secaucus for a glimpse of this future.

Four hundred forty million dollars will consume, for a decade or more, practically every bit of highway money in the state. Dozens of other projects, equally needed to accommodate growth and enhance safety, will be pushed aside. Most disturbing, a widened I-93 will bring rapid growth to 50 or 60 communities in southern and central New Hampshire, but the $440 million price tag will preclude or delay dozens of local highway improvements needed to accommodate the growth. The result, once you leave the interstate, will be more congestion, more delays, and less safety.

And six to ten years of construction is a long time. It’s nice to think of a smooth, wide high-speed thoroughfare into and back from Massachusetts, but the reality will be years of construction, worse congestion, diversions, frustration, and delays. And at least two of the eight lanes will be, for the foreseeable future, futile. Coming north from Boston, I-93 drops from eight to six lanes a few miles south of the New Hampshire border. Unless Massachusetts can be persuaded to widen this stretch of 93 to eight, a bottleneck will remain. You can’t speed sand through an hourglass if you leave the skinny part. If widening I-93 is necessary but dumb as proposed, is there a better alternative? There is:

First, slow it down. Speed is the greatest contributor to accidents and fatalities – to the unsafe traffic which is the primary justification for widening.

The State should invest in a few dozen electric speed limit signs that can be set to read “55”, maybe even “50” during rush hours, and “65” when traffic is light. The State Police should enforce this speed limit. To do this would have multiple effects.

A. Accidents would be reduced. B. With accidents reduced, major delays would be reduced. C. Accidents would be less serious. Fatalities and serious injuries would be reduced. D. Drive times would be reduced. An interesting finding from traffic research is that free-flowing traffic at a lower speed goes faster than accelerate-and- brake traffic trying to go at a higher speed. Anyone who travels I-93 often in rush hour (as I unfortunately do) knows that the worst traffic is slinky traffic – up to 60, down to 30, up to 70, down to 40. Free-flowing traffic at 55 would get you to Manchester and north (or to Methuen and south) a whole lot faster.

(Even if traffic flows freely, with no congestion, dropping the speed limit from 65 to 55 over 18 miles would increase drive time by three minutes and one second – not a high price to pay to save $440 million, not a few lives, and hundreds of millions in injuries and property damage.)

Second, widen to Windham. To three lanes in both directions. From Manchester to Boston, anyone who has driven I- 93 south in the morning rush hour knows that traffic comes practically to a halt at the Windham on-ramp, rarely before. Traffic unclogs again when you pick up a third lane in Salem. A third southbound lane from Windham to Salem would eliminate most of the morning congestion. The situation reverses at night. From Boston to Manchester, anyone who has driven I- 93 north in the evening rush hour knows that traffic is glued from Salem through the Windham off-ramp, where ten or fifteen percent of northbound cars exit, and traffic frees up. A third northbound lane would do wonders.

Third, fix the on- and off-ramps. Three sets of ramps, in North Londonderry, Windham, and the north end of Salem. Cars entering I-93 don’t have enough room to accelerate to highway speed. They get onto the interstate at 45 mph, and they jam the flow in the travel lanes. The uphill southbound on-ramps in North Londonderry and Windham are particularly egregious, as are all three northbound on-ramps, in Salem, Windham, and North Londonderry.

Vehicles exiting I-93, meanwhile, don’t have enough room on the off-ramps to decelerate, so they brake in the travel lane, and they clog the flow on the interstate. The twisting southbound off-ramps in Windham and Salem are daily offenders. Even worse during the evening and weekend commute are the northbound off-ramps in Windham and North Londonderry.

The Londonderry off- and on-ramps are a good example of what can be done, and the positive impacts on traffic flow. Until these ramps were reconstructed a few years ago, traffic routinely ground to a halt in Londonderry as drivers tried to enter from or exit onto short, narrow ramps. The ramps were lengthened and the off-ramps widened to provide more room for acceleration, deceleration, and merge. Traffic, in spite of increasing volumes, flows freely on and off the interstate in Londonderry, and traffic on

the interstate itself flows freely as well. With similar improvements, results would be similar in Salem, Windham, and North Londonderry.

Fourth, widen to Londonderry. To three lanes in both directions. Not right away, but a few years down the road, as development inevitably continues northward. Right now, as anyone who drives the rush hour interstate knows, much of the traffic that doesn’t come or go at Windham comes or goes at Londonderry. It’s the next natural choke point. If and when volume and speed say that it’s time, a third lane to Londonderry will be in order.

Fifth, evaluate. Gas prices are headed toward new heights. Worldwide oil production is flat, demand is increasing, and prices are likely to head only higher. Impacts on economic growth, travel and development patterns are unpredictable. This is probably not a good time to add four new lanes of interstate to accommodate future growth based on predictions from past trends.

I-93 is bottlenecked only a fraction of the time: mornings and Sundays southbound; evenings (particularly Friday evenings) northbound. The rest of the time traffic flows well, and eight lanes are transparently unnecessary. Alternatives are available. These include, for example breakdown lanes (including on- and off-ramps) designed to accommodate high-speed travel during rush hour, and lanes that reverse during peak periods (if you’ve driven, for example, on the Tappan Zee Bridge where lanes are reversed twice a day, you’ve seen how effective this can be).

In today’s fiscal climate, given the uncertainty of need for an eight-lane interstate, the huge price tag and time line, and the possibility to improve safety and alleviate congestion with more modest improvements, eight lanes to Manchester, right now, are clearly not in the State’s best interest.

All of the enhancements suggested here, put together, will cost a lot less than $440 million, probably not much more than a tenth of $440 million. And they will take a lot less than six to ten years, perhaps a fifth as long. Maybe that’s their problem, why they won’t get serious consideration from Hazen Drive; they aren’t big and sexy enough to really engage the highway planners and engineers, not to mention the contractors, who haven’t had a decent project since the new Route 101 opened from Manchester to Hampton a few years ago.

But this much more modest project of slowing and expanding I-93 would accomplish a number of things. It would address the most serious issues of safety and congestion. It would speed traffic northbound and southbound. It would conserve highway funds for the hundreds of projects on DOT’s list of badly needed improvements (projects that will continue to be put off if I-93 is reconstructed as now planned). It would allow improvements to local highways to keep pace, reducing congestion and improving safety off the interstate as well as on it. It could be accomplished without the environmental damage that’s at the heart of opposition to the eight-lane interstate. It would almost certainly keep I-93 out of the courts, where it appears certainly now to be headed. And it would hasten the day when I-93 is no longer an unsafe nightmare, which is, after all, the most important goal – not only for those pressing for the eight lanes, but for all of us who spend time on I-93, who enjoy its benefits, and loathe its frustrations.

Mark Lennon is a principal in Draper/Lennon, Inc., a consulting firm specializing in recycling and source reduction, and in the Institution Recycling Network, a recycling, marketing, and purchasing cooperative for colleges and university, hospitals, and related institutions. Before starting these enterprises, Mr. Lennon was employed in environmental policy positions for the State of New Hampshire and as a consultant to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. He has a B.A. from Dartmouth College and an M.S. from the University of Wisconsin – Madison, and has served on the Board of The Josiah Bartlett Center since 1995. You can contact him at [email protected].