A Wider 93 in NH May Not Fix Much

---by Micheal

I commute every day from Exit 4 (Londonderry) to Boston. For better and worse, 93 is a big chunk of my life. The commute one way usually takes an hour and a half. It can take three hours on bad days. Talk of widening 93 to three lanes promises to reduce my commute time, though not without controversy (see Dave Buhlman's recent article) You'd think, given the promises, that I'd be yelling, "loose the bulldozers!" but I'm not.

I'm starting to think that it may be a huge waste of money. Many millions will be spent. Years of construction-related snarls endured. In the end, it may not have mattered one whit. The commute to Boston will still take one to three hours. Why spend huge bucks and be no better off? Who'd buy that?

Imagine if a house-cleaning service said they'd clean your house for $500. Sounds like a lot, but if it got the house really clean, it might be worth the pain. You pay the cleaners. When you come back home, the house is just as dirty as when you left, would you think "Oh well, maybe there's a bit less dust on the shelves"? Bet not. Bet you'd want your money back. The trouble with government highway projects, however, is that you can never get your money back. The only option is to not spend it in the first place.

The reason for my growing doubt that more lanes from Exit 1 north will help ease traffic came to me this week. This week, the commutes to Boston have been under an hour! That's very rare. Weather is a variable ("Is that a raindrop? Slow down to 30mph!!"), but it's been clear and dry rather often during slow weeks and this week. Weather's not the reason. Crashes (most often the stupid getting caught being stupid) are a variable too, but we've seen the usual blue lights and tow trucks this week. No big change there.

What changed? Mass is on school vacation week. There are fewer Mass commuters because they're out having fun with their kids instead. 93 is the same width. The weather is the same. The crash rate is the same. The only variable that...well...varied, is that there are fewer Mass folk on 93.

Widening 93 to three lanes -- or even 33 lanes -- won't solve the underlying problem: There are too many Mass folk on 93. A rail line from Concord won't fix that. Mass already has a rail line. It isn't fixing things. I'm beginning to think that the trouble with 93 lies in Massachusetts, not New Hampshire. Why waste millions, perhaps over a billion NH dollars to "fix" the part of 93 that isn't broken? We'll never get our money back when it's all done and the commute still takes two hours.

Just say no.