He says "overpass", I say ...

[Joel S. Berson]

At 7/12/2010 12:12 PM, Victor Steinbok wrote:
>  True, but "low underpass" is confusing, if it makes any sense at all.
>Yet "low overpass" means something other than what it is used for here,
>so it's not much of an improvement.
>
>Storrow Drive is notorious for low clearance of its many underpasses,
>routinely snagging moving vans coming in to drop off incoming students.
>However, the logical implication here would be of a depressed roadbed in
>an underpass, not of the vertical clearance of the passage. I am not
>entirely sure how I would express it in a short phrase, but "low
>overpass" ain't it.

"Low underpass" is not confusing to me as a nearby resident,
especially when there is a heavy rain.  (And "low clearance" is not
relevant here.)  Several of the Storrow Drive underpasses are quite
low compared to the nearby Charles River, perhaps even below its
level.  (Drains would I suppose require pumps, even if permitted in
these days of ecological concerns.)  And even apart from that, they
often collect water in heavy rainstorms, but the "higher underpasses"
do not.  Only those unfamiliar with Storrow don't know what to
expect, and where.

Joel


>     VS-)
>
>On 7/12/2010 11:41 AM, Joel S. Berson wrote:
>>John M Guilfoil and Sean Teehan, describing heavy rain Saturday that
>>caused flash floods in the Boston area, write:
>>
>>"As rain fell, areas like Storrow Drive and low overpasses in Boston,
>>Cambridge, and Somerville turned into dangerous makeshift rivers; and
>>drivers were not ready."
>>
>>Boston Globe, Sunday July 11, page B7.  Same still on the web site
>>(boston.com).
>>
>>I too would have been unready at the overpasses.  And just think how
>>submerged the underpasses would have been!  (Storrow Drive is
>>notorious for the latter at least.)
>>
>>Joel
>
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