If you live in the New Bedford area, you are familiar with The Octopus.
“The Octopus” is the well-deserved nickname for the intersection of Route 6, Mill Street, Kempton Street, Pleasant Street and Sixth Street in downtown New Bedford. It is referred to as the Octopus since this is exactly what it looks like when viewed from above.
The Octopus has seven separate legs or ‘tentacles’ that extend out to Fairhaven to the east and Dartmouth to the west and to both north and south ends of the city.
As most drivers and pedestrians are probably aware, this focal point of vehicular and foot traffic in downtown New Bedford experiences significant traffic delays, especially during the early evening rush hour.
Cars and boats
The situation only worsens with the regular closings and re-openings of the New Bedford-Fairhaven Bridge that provides access to the harbor for the fishing fleet and other vessels.
The long lines of vehicles overwhelm the westbound approach to the “Octopus” intersection when the bridge re-opens and traffic flow resumes. In other words, the boat traffic only worsens the car traffic.
Congestion and safety
This convoluted intersection experiences more than its share of rear-end crashes, side-swipe crashes and lane departure crashes. In addition to these, since 2008 there have been 3 pedestrian crashes here, and tragically, one of these was a fatality.
read the entire story in the August edition of South Coast Insider
