Death on the VFW Parkway?

After a recent spate of fatal wrong-way accidents on state highways, the Commonwealth has launched a dramatic campaign to eliminate such accidents. At no small cost to taxpayers, officials have launched a drive – if you’ll pardon the word – to minimize, if not totally preclude, such horrible endings. For such expenditures I harbor no grudges but am flummoxed by opposition to such inexpensive preventative measures on the heavily travelled Veterans of Foreign Wars Parkway in West Roxbury.

While all the through, cross streets that run perpendicular to the VFW are marked with appropriate signage indicating ONE WAY and NO LEFT TURN, there are a number of streets in Brookline and West Roxbury that merely end at the VFW without crossing through. Thus motorists are forced to turn right on the VFW divided by an expansive median strip. But at the end of such roads, such as Clearwater in Brookline and Willowdean in Boston – which type of non-through streets go all the way up to Baker Street – there are no prohibitions against making an understandable left turn onto the VFW.

I don’t know whose jurisdiction it is to post signage at these streets dumping motorists onto the VFW, but past attempts to notify the State, City, and Brookline have gone unheeded: perhaps the officials at these respective agencies believe that it is the responsibility of one of the two other agencies to invest in the necessary sheet metal and posts.

Area citizens tell me that EVERYONE knows the divided VFW is one-way on each side, but I’m thinking of visitors, perhaps late at night, who become confounded when entering the VFW on their ride home.

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Is my fear of a local, wrong-way accident that reasonable?