Rhode Island names and other odd naming conventions

[Paul Hopfgarten]

Ari....not a native, are you?

128 will aways be called 128 to those of us that grew up in the 128 corridor. In fact, IIRC, the stretch from the 95/93 intersection in Canton to the 93/3 intersection in Braintree is CALLED 128 even though it is no longer formally recognized as such (I believe 128 from Canton to Peabody is still formally recognized as 95/128).

You can thank Gov Francis Sargent for that, indirectly...I 95 was supposed to cross 128 and continue into Milton, Hyde Park, Roxbury and connect to the current Expressway (93/3/1) at Mass Ave. They had already bulldozed the Roxbury section, but the Milton people had the influence and money to stop the project.

The feds insisted that I 95 had to be unbroken from Ft Kent to Miami, so 128 became 95 about 1990 for continuity.

BTW: The current Orange Line runs along the old I-95 roadbed in Roxbury, so at least they used it for SOMETHING.

OH...and for radio connection...YES the Traffic Reporters still say 128, because that's what everone over 35 knows the road as..(Think of Kiss 108 for what is actually 107.9 WXKS-FM Medford)

-Paul Hopfgarten
Epping NH (Boston Native)
----- Original Message -----
From: Ari Alpert
Sent: 04/05/13 06:53 AM
To: Kevin Vahey, Chris Hall
Subject: Rhode Island names and other odd naming conventions

I grew up in RI and recall being confused by the naming convention in that part of the state (frequently called South County, which does not actually exist as an official name). As far as I know, there is no Kingstown, RI. URI is in Kingston (which is south of North Kingstown and east of West Kingston). http://www.uri.edu/home/visitors/Map/kingston_direction.html There seem to be so many odd naming conventions around here. Another one that comes to mind immediately is the section of road frequently referred to as 128 (described that way on traffic reports). Much of this stretch of road is part of I95 by exit number convention and then it suddenly becomes to 1/I93 in a different direction. I can only imagine how confusing traffic reports must be to people who move into the area (roads with odd names, counties that don't exist, etc.). -Ari ________________________________ From: Kevin Vahey <kvahey@gmail.com> To: Chris Hall <chris2526@comcast.net> Cc: boston-radio-interest@lists.BostonRadio.org Sent: Friday, April 5, 2013 4:58 AM Subject: Re: URI shooting scare WJAR and WPRI did the same It is very murky http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingston_Railroad_Station_(Rhode_Island) On Fri, Apr 5, 2013 at 1:47 AM, Chris Hall <chris2526@comcast.net> wrote: > I have to shake my head in disbelief, both WCVB-TV and WBZ-TV reported and > are still reporting URI as being in Kingston rather than > Kingstown, RI. Its astounding that two major market TV stations would > misidentify and continue to misidentify a community 55-60 miles from Boston. > Its not like it’s a town in Kentucky, they both had helicopters swarming > the campus. It’s a total lack of attention to details that were once common > place, the proper pronunciation of cities and towns and other things > unique to New England. One would have thought that there would be a New > England native in both newsrooms that would have caught such an > embarrassing error >