HIGHWAY FROM HELL: Route 24 has earned reputation as deadly roadway

By Cody Shepard/The Enterprise
Posted Mar 6, 2019

Route 24 has earned reputation as deadly roadway

Mike Amaral has driven Route 24 at least twice daily for more than two decades, but every time he wonders if it might be his last.

“I like to call it the Autobahn. Sometimes it’s like Nascar, you have to draft behind other cars to just get through. I always see people on their phones not paying attention. I hate it,” the Middleboro man said. “I also call it death highway. I tell my wife I’m destined to die on this highway because of the way people drive.”

The north-south freeway, which spans 40 miles from Fall River to Randolph, is considered one of the most dangerous and deadliest stretches of road in Massachusetts.

And the number of crashes is on the rise.

Reviewing several years’ worth of statistics compiled by the Massachusetts Department of Transportation, there was about a 14 percent increase in crashes in 2016 over the previous year on the local stretch of Route 24. That is the last year the department has complete data for.

In 2016, there were about 590 crashes from just Randolph to Berkley, including on some interchanges and ramps, resulting in 286 injuries and two fatalities. The crash total in 2016 was the highest of any year since at least 2002 in that same area. There were an average of 445 crashes per year during that 15-year stretch in the same 25-mile area.

Since 2010, at least 27 people have died in that stretch in crashes on Route 24. There have been at least 6,684 crashes on the 25-mile stretch of the road since 2002.

One of those fatalities on Route 24 was 20-year-old Cory Wasilewski on Feb. 27 2017 – two years to the day this past Wednesday.

Motorists who drive the highway northbound regularly likely see a memorial in Wasilewski’s memory on the side of the road in Avon. It was erected by his parents, Thomas and Jessica Wasilewski of West Bridgewater, as a place for them to remember their son.

But Thomas Wasilewski also hopes it will serve as a reminder for drivers to slow down. The man who struck his son’s vehicle was driving upward of 85 mph. And he acknowledges his son was likely speeding.

“The road is like a racetrack. Everyone is in a rush to go nowhere,” Wasilewski said. “This is still a nightmare for us two years later. Kids don’t want to put their parents through this. People in general don’t want to put their family through this. Nothing is so important that you have to drive 100 miles per hour.”

But people who travel Route 24 daily say speeding is not the only problem on the road. They say distracted driving has also become rampant.

“I used to take the bus into Boston from Taunton,” said Rosemary Heath. “We’d be in the high-speed lane and I’d look over at the people next to us eating cereal while steering with their knees, texting, using a laptop on the center console. I seriously will not take a job if I have to go up 24 during crush hour, as I like to call it. I’m not going to die.”

The highway is entirely a straight shot from Randolph to Brockton. There are then just slight curves almost all the way to the Rhode Island border.

But it was designed in 1951 as the Fall River Expressway and even Massachusetts State Police acknowledge the design is antiquated.

“The route has historically been the site of a high crash volume,” said agency spokesman David Procopio. “In our view, the contributing factor is not absence of police presence, but the narrowness of the road and quick merges required at the ramps. There is little margin for error. The straight-away nature of much of the road also encourages speeding to motorists who are inclined to drive dangerously, especially when traffic is light.”

While some commuters said they see little state police presence on Route 24, others said they see troopers daily.

“To say patrols are common on Route 24 is an understatement,” Procopio said. “We run multiple patrols up and down 24 on each of our three daily shifts. ... Traffic enforcement is one of our highest priorities. We do not divert field patrols from traffic enforcement for other calls unless the other call is a critical incident like an ongoing shooting or search for an armed suspect, those type of calls.”

A road safety audit conducted by the Brockton-based Old Colony Planning Council and University of Massachusetts Traffic Safety Research Program in 2008 for the state acknowledged the number of crashes would increase due to growing traffic volumes and limited upgrade opportunities.

The idea to re-designate the highway to an interstate was supported at the time by the Taunton-based Southeastern Regional Planning and Economic Development District, but the estimated costs for converting Route 24 to interstate standards were about $200 million.

Experts point to poorly designed interchanges that are short and sharp, with little room in many places to make them safer. In many cases, on-ramps curve sharply, forcing drivers to abruptly slow down, but the merging lanes ahead are short, giving them little time to pick up speed. But, to their left, motorists are often going 80 miles per hour or more down the straightaway road.

“As far as Route 24 goes, you have 21st-century vehicles on 20th-century infrastructure. It was built a while ago,” said Raymond Guarino, senior transportation planner for the Old Colony Planning Council. “There is a combination of factors — it’s driver behavior, as well as the physical constraints of the road.”

A spokesperson for the Massachusetts Department of Transportation said some of the recommendations from the 2008 audit led to projects that have been completed or are in the plans for Route 24.

“MassDOT has completed several roadway construction projects over the past several years to make improvements along the Route 24 corridor,” said spokeswoman Judith Reardon Riley.

From suggestions in the audit, the department has extended the acceleration and deceleration lanes to the ramps at Route 44 eastbound at the Raynham-Taunton bridge and at the Padelford Street bridge in Berkley; installed glare screens on concrete median barriers from Bridgewater to Brockton; and installed overhead variable message boards, traffic cameras and real-time traffic displays between Fall River and Randolph.

The department has six other projects currently planned — from resurfacing in Brockton, Bridgewater, Stoughton and Avon to merge improvements at Routes 24 and 79 in Fall River to interchange improvements at Route 140 in Taunton.

But commuters say the road itself isn’t the problem — they believe it’s the people who drive it.

“I drive 24 at least twice a day. It’s awful. It’s always been a bad highway, but now it’s worse than it’s ever been,” said Karen Sampson of Raynham. “People, they just speed. Even if you’re in the right lane going 65 to 70 miles per hour, they’re right up your butt. You almost have to go 80 because everyone is going 100. Nobody uses blinkers, they’re all weaving in and out of traffic and they’re on their phones. It’s crazy.”

Jill Ledin Casey is an emergency room nurse who took Route 24 for years from Raynham all the way to Boston, but now drives a shorter stretch to Brockton.

“I despise driving on Route 24,” she said. “It’s almost like doing dodgeball while driving, people swerving all over the road texting and driving. It’s nonstop. I’ve seen accidents straight-on, rollovers coming from the opposite side. I just want to avoid it. I’m afraid to even pass sometimes because people are weaving back and forth without ever using blinkers.”

Cari Ann Davenport of West Bridgewater has commuted on Route 24 for the last 20 years. She said it’s simple — it’s a busy highway with more vehicles than it had 30 years ago.

“I’ve seen people texting, FaceTiming, taking selfies, to reading the paper and putting on makeup. I also recently saw a man eating a bowl of cereal,” she said. “I’ve seen motorcycles weave in and out of cars during traffic and a few doing wheelies. I’ve witnessed fender benders daily on the Route 44 stretch of highway that I’ve lost count.”

Beth Jones of Middleboro goes from the Interstate 495 interchange all the way northbound to the top of Route 24 daily. She thinks what makes it dangerous is how predictable it is.

“It’s not the road itself, but the people who drive the road. Part of the problem is that there are few highways so straight for so long,” she said. “People just take advantage of it because it’s so predictable. You know where the traffic will be, you know where the police will be. It never gets any better.”

The bad news for commuters? Despite the effort by MassDOT to make several improvements, the 2008 audit noted that “the opportunities for safety improvements for Route 24 may be somewhat restrictive or expensive as compared to other roadways.”

“It is not up to interstate standards, but that is something that is expensive and a long-term project if the state ever decides to do it,” Guarino said.

https://www.southcoasttoday.com/news/20190306/highway-from-hell-route-24-has-earned-reputation-as-deadly-roadway