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By Jim O'Sullivan It has discouraged senior citizens from using it, last week had transportation officials shaking their heads, and southbound drivers trying to turn left onto Rte. 93 have run clear out of curses in the time it takes to navigate "the Intersection from Hell." According to Mass Highway Chairman John Cogliano, the intersection of Columbia Road and the on- and off-ramps of the Southeast Expressway ranks statistically as the 35th-worst intersection in the state. "Oh, I have a feeling it's worse than that," said Gavin Sherman, a Roseclair St. resident and member of the McCormack Civic Association. "An elderly person can't walk across that intersection. Depending on the formula you use for rating how bad an intersection is, I think this is worse than [35th]." A $569,000 project slated to begin this weekend, later than transportation and elected officials had promised in July, is designed to rearrange the traffic patterns at the convergence of the two off-ramps with three lanes of westbound traffic and three lanes of eastbound traffic. Newly installed "smart lights" are expected to detect traffic build-up on the I-93 southbound off-ramp and dictate light changes accordingly. The reconfiguration of traffic flow, officials said, should create a physically safer intersection, with the project expected to be complete by July 2004. Andrea D'Amato, Boston transportation commissioner, said the intersection was "not designed to handle the traffic that wants to be here, like so many intersections in Boston." The oft-maligned crossroads pumps through roughly 35,000 vehicles every day, give or take, hit or miss. At an October 9 groundbreaking, Paul Nutting, head of the Columbia-Savin Hill Civic Association, brandished "All Roads Lead to Dorchester" T-shirts to hand out as thank-you gifts, then said, "It seems like all roads lead to this intersection right here." Nutting explained the intersection's genesis, pointing out how highway construction during the 1950s walled off much of Dorchester from the waterfront. "Not only don't they have a view of the water," Nutting said, "they can't even walk to it without running a guantlet of traffic. "It's time to reconnect the neighborhood with the waterfront." State Senator Jack Hart and state Representatives Brian Wallace and Martin Walsh joined coffee-sipping neighborhood dwellers in recognizing the lobbying of the late Sharon Yokaitis, whom Sherman termed "the fear factor" for officials who would try to railroad her demands for a safer intersection. "This was a neighborhood project that began out of problems that people in the neighborhood saw," Sherman said, and pointed to other tangible improvements in Dorchester that claim similar roots. "As each of these little pieces gets put into place, it makes Dorchester a much better place to live," Sherman said. "I just hope it doesn't take until the Democratic National Convention 2004 to get this done."
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