Rhode Island names and other odd naming conventions

[Karen McTrotsky]

The problem with naming conventions is they are often mouthed by people who
haven't the slightest idea what they are talking about. Traffic reports on
Boston roads are simply awful; many of the early morning reports simply use
the same script every day. It's worse when people do traffic reports for
areas they have never visited, such as the traffic reports done from Boston
for WCAP before the station went off the air recently.

The good part of naming conventions is that it's a pretty succinct way of
naming landmarks where traffic issues often develop. "Jughandle" is a lot
more succinct than "Route 1 north turnaround in Peabody near Santarpios
north of Dearborn Ave"

And check your history, It wasn't NIMBY's who blocked the construction of
I-695, nor was it people opposed to building anything. It was people with a
concept of urban planning which was more advanced than the Moses/
Callahan philosophy of roads, roads and more roads.  Sargent stopped it and
the money was spent on mass transit, which kept Boston, Cambridge and
Somerville liveable

Forwarded message ----------
From: Bob Nelson <raccoonradio@gmail.com>
To: Paul Hopfgarten <pariho@mail.com>
Cc: Ari Alpert <ari@alpertfamily.net>, Boston Radio Group <boston-radio
-interest@lists.bostonradio.org>, Chris Hall <chris2526@comcast.net>
Date: Fri, 5 Apr 2013 12:01:10 -0400
Subject: Re: Rhode Island names and other odd naming conventions
(Radio related): When visiting Chicago in the 90s I heard radio traffic
reports for "the Edens", "the Eisenhower" and "the Kennedy". It would be
helpful to know, for outsiders, which interstates, etc. they meant! And if
you're not from Pittsburgh you have no idea what the Parkway East or
Parkway West is, etc. In our area we know of "the gas tanks" (off Central
Artery) and "the jughandle light" (Rt 1, Peabody).

There were plans to put I-95 right through what's called "the southwest
corridor", connecting with the central artery, then going up through
Revere/Saugus/Lynn
(you can see the exit to nowhere on US 1 in Revere) as well as an I-695
that would have been an inner loop (another exit to  nowhere off of I-93).
It was pressure from NIMBYs and BANANAs (not in my backyard, build
absolutely nothing anywhere near anything) that killed off these projects.
My Dad would say Gov Sargent had something to do with it, "yeah, 'put Sarge
in charge' was his slogan".

Route 128 pops up in Jonathan Richman's "Roadrunner" and the Dave Dinger
Ford ad jingles, etc. And while I-95 is supposed by unbroken I think it
"disappears" in favor of the N.J. Turnpike