And I thought the roads in Boston were bad....

Just an opportunity to vent here...

This is the closest approximation to what I imagine the Seventh Circle of Hell to look like:


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So, Seven Corners (a stone's throw from Oakwood) is quite possibly the biggest beating of all time w/r/t roadways and their various nuances. I would have loved to use another descriptive term, but my wife wanted me to keep it clean. This particular intersection happens to be where pretty much everything you'll ever need while staying at Oakwood is located. Food store, clothing stores, Target, Home Depot, CVS, amazing Asian food, liquor store, etc. are all located in this miasma of urban planning.

I drove regularly in Boston for 8 years. It sucked. This was in the Big Dig's heyday, where traffic patterns changed on a weekly basis. Even on the worst day, no traffic issue in Boston could possibly come close to Seven Corners. 28/3/93/Red Auerbach Way in Boston is a pleasant walk in the park, comparatively.

1) It takes 10 minutes to reverse direction. Lights are incredibly long and not even remotely synced to alleviate "blocking the box."

2) Nothing is clearly marked or identified off of Arlington Blvd. You get off on these little access roads and hope to hell you took the right one. All the while, through traffic is doing 60 m.p.h. in all lanes and getting impatient with you, you silly out-of-towner.

3) Planning on taking a quick jaunt out on a weekend to do some errands? Are your destinations on opposite sides of Arlington Blvd.? Good luck to you, my friend. Block out 3+ hours.

My advice is this: drive around this intersection late at night, reversing directions frequently... only then can you get a feel for which lanes are used for what purposes. And DO NOT TRUST Google Maps. They lie. I know the Google Street View car (or maybe trike) has been through here, but there's no way they actually tried to navigate this area in any logical or sensible fashion.

Welcome to Seven Corners!

Cheers!
Dave