Boston traffic is a nightmare. Here’s a guide to help you master it. - The Boston Globe (2024)

“I have found that when I need to get somewhere into the city, you really do have to have a very intense knowledge of where all of the streets and roads go to,” said Kristen Eck, the helicopter reporter for WBZ NewsRadio, who has been reporting on Boston traffic from a 900-foot bird’s eye view for over two decades.

So we put together a new driver’s guide to Boston traffic, with a breakdown of the basics: the major roadways, bridges, and tunnels, as well as some neighborhood-specific insights.

Highways and bridges and tunnels, oh my!

Perhaps the most notorious highway in these parts is Interstate 93, the north-south route that stretches from the Dunkin’ capital of Canton, through downtown Boston, up into Somerville and Medford, and on to New Hampshire.

I-93 was the focus of the oft-bemoaned Big Dig, the mega-project that took an elevated slice of the highway downtown known as the Central Artery and shoved it underground into the newly constructed O’Neill Tunnel.

Then there’s a portion of I-93 that runs from downtown Boston to Braintree known as the Southeast Expressway. Unless you like hours-long traffic jams, avoid it at all costs.

“That really is the worst road in the state,” said Eck. “If you’re a morning commuter coming in from south of the city, if you don’t get to that highway by five o’clock in the morning, you’re going to be sitting on it at some point.”

Moving right along: The Big Dig also gave us the Zakim Bridge, the wishbone-shaped overpass that carries I-93 across the Charles River between Boston and Charlestown, and the Ted Williams Tunnel, which travels from South Boston to East Boston underneath the Boston Harbor.

If you need to go to the airport from Boston, you’ll either take the Ted Williams or the Callahan Tunnel, which begins in the North End. Coming back to Boston from the airport, you’d either take the Ted Williams or the Sumner Tunnel (if it’s open, that is).

Another portal to the north (Revere, Saugus, Danvers, etc.) is Route 1, perhaps best known for being the home of the beloved tiki-themed Kowloon Restaurant. Route 1 also means crossing the Tobin Bridge, the hulking green monstrosity that spans the Mystic River between Charlestown and Chelsea.

Heading east-west, we’ve got Interstate 90, which in local parlance is known as the Massachusetts Turnpike, or simply the Pike. It’s the highway with “the greatest chance of you actually getting a morning off from traffic,” according to Eck. In case you were wondering, The Ted Williams Tunnel is technically part of the Pike. (Is your head spinning yet?) The Pike also runs next to Fenway Park.

For a gorgeous vista of the Boston skyline, take a trip over the Longfellow Bridge, which crosses the Charles River from Kendall Square to Beacon Hill. This suggestion is courtesy of Mike Garvey, a cab driver with Green Cab and Yellow Cab of Somerville who has been taxiing people around the city since 1990. “It’s just a nice scenic, quick, smooth ride right into Mass. General or to Government Center, to the North End,” he said.

If you’re looking to travel in the city’s western outskirts, the two main interstates are Interstate 95 and Interstate 495. Most of I-95 near the Boston area can also be referred to as Route 128 (don’t think too hard about it), and it encircles close-in Boston suburbs like Dedham, Newton, and Lexington. Around Peabody, on the North Shore, Route 128 officially breaks off of I-95 and heads on its own toward Cape Ann.

Further afield, I-495 traces municipalities like Mansfield, Marlborough, and Lowell. “Greater Boston” is a loosely defined region, but if a town is inside the so-called 495 loop, chances are it qualifies.

Other roads to know

Outside of the major interstates, there are some local roads you should keep in your mind’s GPS.

In both Boston and Cambridge, there are the “river roads,” which trace the Charles River — though they (unhelpfully) change names several times en route.

On the Cambridge side, Memorial Drive begins around Kendall Square before jutting out and turning into Fresh Pond Parkway northwest of Harvard Square, then becoming Alewife Brook Parkway, which winds into Somerville and then becomes Mystic Valley Parkway, and on, and on...

On the Boston bend, Storrow Drive kicks off around Beacon Hill before transforming into Soldiers Field Road as it travels into Allston–Brighton.

Never, ever, ever get on Storrow Drive if you’re in a U-Haul or other large truck, lest you end up an item in the next day’s Globe. Thank us later.

The river routes aren’t the only roads with something of an identity crisis. Many of the area’s main thoroughfares carry official state highway names — for instance, Massachusetts Avenue in Boston and Cambridge might show up as Route 2A on Google Maps, and the Monsignor O’Brien Highway/McGrath Highway in Cambridge and Somerville may carry Route 28 signage. Don’t fret, you have not lost your way.

By and large, you should call surface roads by their non-numerical names — and a lot of them are truncated even further:

• Commonwealth Avenue = Comm. Ave.
• Massachusetts Avenue = Mass. Ave.
• Dorchester Avenue = Dot. Ave.
• Blue Hill Avenue = Blue Hill Avenue (hey, they can’t all have fun nicknames.)

If it’s any consolation, there are pockets of logic in all the chaos. In Back Bay, for instance, the streets are laid out in a grid for a stretch. “The cross streets that go across Comm. Ave. and Newbury Street and Beacon Street, they all go in alphabetical order,” said Eck. It goes: Arlington Street, Berkeley Street, Clarendon Street, Dartmouth Street, Exeter Street, Fairfield Street, Gloucester Street, and Hereford Street. (Then there’s a gash, with the alphabet continuing in the Fenway neighborhood — it’s a long story.)

If all else fails, Eck says, there is one tried-and-true method to getting more comfortable with the city’s layout: walking.

“If you try to throw yourself into Boston traffic full-speed, rush-hour, in a car, you might find yourself overwhelmed,” she said. “Whereas if you can find half an hour, maybe even an hour, to go out for a walk every day and block a new set of streets and see where they go, I think that’s really helpful.”

Have a tip to add? Join the conversation through the No Stupid Questions newsletter on LinkedIn.

Read more from the Globe’s No Stupid Questions series:

• Deciding where to live? Here’s your Greater Boston Neighborhood Vibe Check™.
• Taxes are a pain. Here’s how to make them a less expensive pain if you live in Massachusetts.
• How to find a good mechanic, dentist, or dry-cleaner in the Boston area (Hint: it’s not just Google)
• New to the Boston area? Here’s the best advice our readers have to share.

Dana Gerber can be reached at dana.gerber@globe.com. Follow her @danagerber6.