Do you know where Route 128 is?
Apparently Traffic Reporters, like me, don’t know. While that’s not technically true (I know everything) we don’t refer to Route 128 in the “correct” way when we are talking about the road that runs between Braintree to Canton.
In actuality, Route 128 extends from the I-95 Interchange in Canton to Gloucester. But from the late 1940’s up until 1989 Route 128 ran all the way to Braintree. In 1989 the state re-designated the section between Braintree and Canton, no longer calling it 128. The change was made because the state moved the official designation of Route 1 off of Storrow Drive and the VFW Parkway over to 93. Rather than have the confusion of having Route 128 NB run in the same area as 93 SB, they dropped the reference of 128 entirely.
But not everyone made the change. The general public led by Traffic Reporters and the media have been calling it 128 ever since.
At first this wasn’t really a problem because everyone knew what we were talking about. The signs and maps may have said one thing, but if you grew up here, you knew it was 128, even if the signs said 93.
But that was a full generation ago. There are no signs that show that section of road as 128. In fact there are signs in Canton, near Route 95 that say “END 128”. Maps don’t refer to that section of road as 128. On-board navigational services don’t refer to it as 128. A generation of new drivers has learned the roads by looking at highway signs, none of which refer to 128. And a huge number of people have moved to the area and have never known that stretch of road as 128.
Channel 5 is taking a poll. Should we, as Traffic Reporters, and our general assignment reporters stop calling that section of road between Canton and Braintree as 128? Should we call it by it’s officially designated number of I-93, should we go on as we are, because it's not a problem, or should the state change it back to the way it was originally?
We’ve debated this for years in our Operations Center. Here’s your chance to influence the debate.
http://www.thebostonchannel.com/traffic/12997467/detail.html
