четверг, 1 января 2015 г.
Park your car in the lot, grab your suitcase, and ride the T ( Boston's subway ) to your hotel. Over
If you're planning to visit and drive in the city, use these Boston driving tips to get a flavor of the city's thrifty car rental international reservations driving and pedestrian culture. You'll have a safer, saner, and and pleasanter experience!
Puritans carved out lanes around rocky outcroppings, hilly areas, and coves as they drove their cattle from the common - what we now know as Boston thrifty car rental international reservations Common - to the town spring thrifty car rental international reservations located near the intersections of current-day Water Street, Devonshire Street, and Spring Lane.
And then there's the congestion. Central Boston is small and compact - great when you're walking, but a nightmare when filled with cars, bicycles, and pedestrians, all vying for the same space while going in different directions.
Boston pedestrians embrace a culture of jaywalking - sometimes rather aggressively. If you're driving, you must anticipate that we will step out right in front of your car - and expect you not to hit us!
Boston streets can be hazardous for bicycle riders, in part because many streets don't have bike lanes - they're already too narrow. Where bike lanes do exist, some car drivers pull into them to make right hand turns, others double park in them, and still others use them as very narrow driving lanes.
Also, be aware that pedestrians, cyclists, and drivers routinely disregard traffic signals. This is normal in Boston, and if you're visiting, you need to get used to it. If you're from a place where drivers, walkers, and bike riders obey traffic signals and cross streets only at corners, you may find the anarchy here a little unnerving.
Walk or use Boston public transportation instead, especially if you're planning to visit our enticing thrifty car rental international reservations bars or clubs. (Note - we do have some really great sports bars. ) You'll be much happier taking the subway or a cab than calling a Boston DUI attorney.
Here's another way to save money on a car rental and parking while you're in Boston (assuming that you absolutely must have a car): unless you need a car for your entire visit, rent one for just the days or hours you'll need it.
If you're driving to Boston but won't actually need a car while you're here, you can save a ton of money and avoid the hassle and potential liabilities of driving in Boston by parking your car at one of the Boston subway stations that allow overnight parking (go to the MBTA's website and click on parking to find a list).
Park your car in the lot, grab your suitcase, and ride the T ( Boston's subway ) to your hotel. Overnight parking costs about $8 at most of the stations where it's allowed - much, much better than the $44+ that some Boston thrifty car rental international reservations hotels are now charging. (Actually, I've heard $50+ but don't want to believe it.)
For example, if someone mentions Prison Point Bridge when telling you how to drive from Cambridge to Charlestown, thrifty car rental international reservations you've just heard the historical name for the overpass where Land Boulevard (usually called Memorial Drive, the name of the road along the north side of the Charles River before it morphs into Land Boulevard) near Route 28 (locally called O'Brien Highway ) and Route 93. Famed Boston architect Charles Bulfinch designed a prison built near here in the early 1800s - now long gone.
Similarly, someone may give you directions that involve crossing the Charles River on the Saht and Peppa Bridge (said without thrifty car rental international reservations a Boston accent, that would be the Salt and Pepper Bridge ). This is actually the Longfellow Bridge (Route 3, a.k.a. Cambridge Street), originally called the West Boston Bridge, but Salt and Pepper is the colloquial name because thrifty car rental international reservations its towers resemble salt and pepper shakers.
GPS can be a huge help for most driving situations...but not always in Boston. Sure, GPS will help you get to Boston and will usually get you to the general vicinity you're trying go, but it can lead you seriously astray just as you think you're about to reach your destination.
Closely related are places thrifty car rental international reservations where you can't turn left, or right, sometimes because the street is one-way in the opposite direction but other times simply for mysterious reasons thrifty car rental international reservations known only to the Boston Road Gods. Since GPS can't read the mind of a BRG, you'll be told to turn. GPS also fails to detect the police officer who will pull you over after you've made the turn.
Then there are all the other stump-the-GPS Boston road conditions...multiple streets with almost the same name, streets bisected by a park or building that fails to show up on the GPS (like you're supposed to drive straight through it), and streets that change names every block or two.
I could continue - but you get the idea. Don't expect GPS to be accurate, especially for the last mile, - and don't make turns (or do anything) that the GPS tells you to do without also checking signs. And preferably a real map.
So after a certain amount of trial, error, and observation, I finally cracked the mystery of what turn signals mean in Boston: A turn signal means the driver plans to make the turn whether or not other cars happen to be in the way. Turn signals are reserved for those I'm gonna be fired if I'm late to work one more time or I need caffeine NOW or Just heard the Sox are winning, gotta go celebrate emergencies.
What about all those drivers who don't signal? Well, they're still going to turn, and you're expected to know that and not hit them. The good news is that with no dire emergencies involved, everyone can maneuver their way through the intersection all at once.
Easing out typically happens on roads with faster-moving traffic, such as Storrow Drive and Route 1. Easing out occurs when a driver waiting to get into the road from a parking lot exit or even from the break-down lane pulls slowly into the right lane ahead of on-coming traffic without looking at the cars rushing toward it.
As the driver of one of the faster-moving vehicles, thrifty car rental international reservations you're supposed to anticipate that a car may ease out right in front of you, and you're expected to avoid hitting it. If you do hit it, the accident will be your fault.
thrifty car rental international reservations Although jaywalking is illegal if a crosswalk is less than 300 feet away, the fine for jaywalking in Boston is only $1, although it does rise to $2 after 3 violations within a single year. Drivers must yield to pedestrians in crosswalks, marked or unmarked. (No, I don't know what an unmarked crosswalk is.) You should thrifty car rental international reservations be equally thrifty car rental international reservations careful to not hit pedestrians even if they're not in crosswalks.
Now I have to admit... I really like this. It's sort of like a scene right out of Make Way for Ducklings - but with jaywalkers instead of baby mallards being helped across the street. I've been the beneficiary thrifty car rental international reservations of this practice more than once myself and consider it to be one of the things that makes Boston a civilized place to live, and if you're a jaywalking out-of-towner, a great place to visit.
Boston, and for that matter, much of Massachusetts, has rotaries - circular road junctions thrifty car rental international reservations where typically (but not always) cars go only counterclockwise, entering and exiting thrifty car rental international reservations whenever they think they can do so without hitting or being hit by another car. In other parts of the U.S. except for Rhode Island, they're usually called thrifty car rental international reservations round-abouts.
The idea is that rotaries allow cars to go through intersections faster than they could if they had to stop. This is probably true, especially in larger diameter rotaries where you can pick up a lot of speed while driving in a circle.
Fortunately, traffic signals now make most rotaries in central Boston slightly safer (although Leverett Circle between Beacon Hill and the West End gets hair-raising when traffic moves faster than 3mph; fortunately, this seldom happens). thrifty car rental international reservations If you drive outside of the city, you are likely to encounter many more rotaries.
The Massachusetts Department of Motor Vehicles actually does publish rules for rotaries (short version: drivers already in the rotary enjoy the right of way). You can read the rules for yourself in the DMV manual (see Chapter 4; I highly advise this if you're actually planning to drive here). But bottom line, you need to expect that no one else knows what the rules are, or if they think they do, they're probably wrong.
In fact, I find Boston drivers to be generally courteous, good-humored in situations such as tight jams in parking spaces, and forgiving when one goes the wrong way down a 1-way street and has to back out or make a sudden u-turn. After all, they've probably had to do these things themselves.
So what accounts for the reputation thrifty car rental international reservations for rudeness? Um . . . I believe it comes from the disregard for traffic lights, stop signs, and traffic rules in general. thrifty car rental international reservations What comes across as rudeness thrifty car rental international reservations or aggression thrifty car rental international reservations to someone from a part of the country thrifty car rental international reservations where drivers actually obey traffic rules may just be the normal, good-humored local anarchy on our roads.
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