SoBOS to MHT Get Home Bicycle Route - Need review by Locals for Safety

[MaverickNH]

I work in SoBOS and have my car in a parking garage at 12 Dry Dock Ave near the Design Center in SoBOS. I have a folding bicycle and Get Back Home bag in the trunk of my Subaru Forester in case traffic makes transit by car impossible.

I have Googled bicycle routes from the above address to MHT but don't know the area well enough to know if it routes me through areas dangerous on a normal day, let alone a day when an E&E Get Back Home effort would be required. I would appreciate it if a few locals might run the Google and comment on the route(s) generated. Aside from not riding through Dorchester, I'm not very familiar with the bad parts.

I'll probably ride a few routes on a day-off after taking the bus to town, just to get familiar with the terrain. My usual weekend ride is 50-70mi, so it will be a hard day with a Montagu Paratrooper Pro folding MTB and Get Home Bag. Maybe I'll start from a Park-and-Ride half-way to break trials up into easier chunks.

Also likely is the need to bail part-way home from the SUV if things hang up on I93, which is my main route home driving. I'll have maps, compass & GPS handy, along with an earbud radio to monitor the situation. GHB has food blocks, water pouches, water purifier straw, first-aid, misc survival essentials, firearm(s), clothing and light bivouac gear if the E&E takes some time.

Aside from a devastating power outage due to major storm (in which case I would likely shelter-in-place at work with in-office supplies), the only event that comes to mind that might trigger a sudden need to bug out is a terrorist event in Boston like a dirty bomb or powergrid destruction. An economic collapse will give enough notice that I can just stay home, which is Bedford, NH - just west of Manchester.

Thanks for the help!

 

[Business]

couldn't you just drive the route one day to see if it takes you through a "dangerous area"?

 

[MaverickNH]

couldn't you just drive the route one day to see if it takes you through a "dangerous area"?

That would be the hard way...

When young and foolish, I drove west from uptown Baltimore into some really bad section of town where some Brothers sat on my car hood at a stop light. An older man chased them off and told me to drive away and not stop for stop signs and stop lights until I was out of town. Not an experience I wish to repeat.

 

[colt_fan]

http://www.bikemaps.com/

Get the Boston and Eastern MA map. They show the better roads to ride on. If you are using a folding bike you might want to change your gearing if it has little wheels. Most of the are geared way too low to travel a long distance effectively.

Sent from my SGH-T999 using Tapatalk 2

 

[Boghog1]

don't go through Lowell or Lawrence if at all possible

 

[MaverickNH]

Thanks - I'll get those maps and avoid those cities. The folder has 26" wheels and 27 gears, so I should be good to go.

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2

 

[Ken]

If you do not mind; What foldup bicycle do you have? Been thinking of getting one.

 

[appraiser]

You need to plan your route to get over the Merrimack in the safest manner,

Personally I'd get over to the Surface Artery, up to the N Washington St Bridge area, than you can decide NoWash or go around to the Gilmore bridge by Benny Hill CC, up McGrath & O'Brien or Rutherford to get you towards Medford, up Rt 38 to Woburn Sq, then decide if you follow 38 up into the Merrimack Valley or get over to Woburn 5 corners and follow 3A north and start working up to one of the Merrimack river crossings. How you get anywhere really counts on how you get over the biggest obstacle, The river.

Rt 28 is always an option to get North, but you really want to avoid Lawrence, probably more so than Lowell.

Remember you can always carry the bike over a railroad bridge if you had to, so don't discount non traditional crossings, including a rubber raft.

 

[MaverickNH]

If you do not mind; What foldup bicycle do you have? Been thinking of getting one.

Montague Paratrooper Pro

 

[Ken]

Montague Paratrooper Pro

Thankyou.

 

[Kevin_NH]

I was thinking of suggesting a "rail bike" (modifications to a regular bike to enable riding on railroad track), but I don't believe there are any functional rail lines that go anything close to directly from Boston to Bedford, NH.

I'm just west of Manchester myself, and my plan is that if there's a hint of anything bad going down, not to be anywhere near Boston at the time.

 

[Fitz]

I rode home (Merrimack, NH) from Umass Lowell a few times when I was in college. I stayed on the east side of the river into Nashua and then crossed the river by the canal st bridge. From there, up main st to Daniel Webster Highway straight into town. Pretty painless route for the most part. I was trying to make good time and stayed on the main roads, but there are plenty of side roads if the main road became avoidable. Regardless of which side you come north on, there is a rail bridge which connects Brown Ave in Manch to Daniel Webster as well as rail tracks which run on the west side of the river all the way down to the MA border. The bridge is passable. There's also a new pedestrian walkway from Daniel Webster to MHT via the Bedford toll exit. I can't comment on much south of Lowell.

Fitz

 

[garandman]

This really, really depends on the scenario. If it's a weather-related event the trip is riskier than staying put. If it's some other sort of cataclysm, ditto. Do you mean something that is affecting Boston but not the rest of the region? Because a folding bike can be taken on the subway, train or bus if those are running, and if they aren't, that's The Big One, isn't it?

I work in SoBOS and have my car in a parking garage at 12 Dry Dock Ave near the Design Center in SoBOS. I have a folding bicycle and Get Back Home bag in the trunk of my Subaru Forester in case traffic makes transit by car impossible./

Just come to my house, instead? I used to live .9 miles away and now live 2.5 mi away. Just get the recognition signals straight....

You need to plan your route to get over the Merrimack in the safest manner,

Personally I'd get over to the Surface Artery, up to the N Washington St Bridge area, than you can decide NoWash or go around to the Gilmore bridge by Benny Hill CC, up McGrath & O'Brien or Rutherford to get you towards Medford, up Rt 38 to Woburn Sq, then decide if you follow 38 up into the Merrimack Valley or get over to Woburn 5 corners and follow 3A north and start working up to one of the Merrimack river crossings. How you get anywhere really counts on how you get over the biggest obstacle, The river.

Rt 28 is always an option to get North, but you really want to avoid Lawrence, probably more so than Lowell.

Remember you can always carry the bike over a railroad bridge if you had to, so don't discount non traditional crossings, including a rubber raft.

This is about right IMHO. Route 28 is pretty direct out of the city North - but all the main Merrimack bridges are in Lawrence and Lowell!

The more-suburban route would be North closer to the coast. There are a couple of bridges in Haverhill (I495 crosses the Merrimack twice in Haverhill), one in Groveland and one in West Newbury. That would also keep you out of Salem, NH.

But here's what I've learned from commuting from Boston to Manchester for more than 10 years: if everyone else thinks it's a good idea to go home, it's a bad idea, and vice-versa. I left at 1pm once and it took me five hours to get from Manch to Boston in a bad snow storm in 06. If I'd waited in my nice cozy office until 7pm that night, I could have driven home in an hour or two. You know what the normal rush-hour commute out of Boston North is like, even without so much of a rain drop or snow flake. I'd hole up until the early morning hours the day following.