Local News

There’s a new sign meant to curb Storrowing

The Department of Conservation and Recreation is imploring motorists to pay attention to their surroundings this moving season.

By Chloe Courtney Bohl

August 28, 2023

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In Boston, this time of year isn’t just move-in season. It’s also Storrowing season, much to the chagrin of the Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation.

DCR’s latest attempt to avert collisions between moving trucks and Boston’s lowest overpasses takes the form of a newly-installed reflective sign at the entrance to Storrow Drive designed to bump into too-tall vehicles, warning their drivers of the danger ahead.

The new “Cars Only” sign, positioned on David G. Mugar Way before it becomes Storrow Drive, is big and reflective, with “four extra inches of rubber hanging at the very bottom, intended to provide a soft ‘first contact’ for an over height vehicle,” according to DCR. 

It’s part of a DCR pilot program to alert drivers to low clearances on Storrow Drive and Soldiers Field Road in Boston and Memorial Drive in Cambridge.

Boston’s main arteries are filled with many more “Cars Only” signs warning of low bridges ahead. But a few unwitting drivers ignore them every year, with disastrous consequences.

Last week, DCR circulated a parody of the famous BC SPCA commercial set to Sarah McLachlan’s “Angel,” imploring motorists to pay attention to their surroundings.

“For just $0 a day you can not hit a bridge or overpass,” a DCR employee says in the video.