Boston Airport: commuter advice...?

Parent Cafe
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<p>OK, Bostonians, I won’t belabor this, but you can solve ALL my immediate problems with my entire extended family if you’d please give me some commute times.</p>

<p>We’re having a Bat Mitzvah up in Concord, New Hampshire this weekend. Nice!!</p>

<p>S and lovely girlfriend’s plane lands Logan at 5:20 p.m. Friday. I want it smoooooooth for them.</p>

<p>My NH family is fussing with me because they feel Friday rush-hour traffic will make the 3 of us “late.” Yes, we’d be late…but how late is the question. We’d miss a 6 p.m. dinner, but I think we’d make the 8 p.m. evening service, don’t you? Also, her big Bat Mitzvah/Shabbat service is Sat a.m. and then we gather the rest of the weekend.
(I’m getting in Thursday, so no problem).</p>

<p>My question is: HOW MUCH LONGER do you guess it could be during this coming Friday rush hour? Figure I’d be positiioned at the airport at 5:20 with a car; we’d drive up Route 95 for what’s normally a 90 minute highway drive to Concord, NH. </p>

<p>I looked at alternatives (limosine, Logan Express or Concord Trailways) but they seem to add time RIGHT when they don’t want to lose time. Conc Trailways pulls them into town at 8:50 p.m. near the end of the evening. Logan Express appears to slow them down (circling the terminal) if I tried to meet them in Woburn, plus it’s another stressor. </p>

<p>Private limo is likely expensive to Concord, NH (does anyone know?), but even more it’s no faster than myself, right? I drive for free. </p>

<p>We’re not concerned about sundown; it’s just everyone is eager to see everyone else!! To know why they’re all second-guessing me, well, you know families. I need to fight back with some factual info. “Once” someone went to Logan and it was slow…so…I must suffer now??</p>

<p>Help appreciated.</p>

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<p>LOL - well, probably, you must (smile). The airport can be a real challenge at times. The Big Dig hasn’t solved all of our problems either.</p>

<p>There is a lot of traffic going north to NH from Boston so your family is correct that you could be cutting it close. I just checked the distance from mapquest and laughed when I saw that it said driving time was 75 minutes - definitely add some time to that calculation. When I pick up my son at Logan, which I do frequently, I cannot park anywhere near the pick up - the state police make me keep moving and circling. You could park in the central parking area and cell your son directions or meet them at the ticket area (what airline is it?). You will have to deal with the Boston commuting traffic getting onto and moving up early 93, later with the commuters who work in Boston returning to NH. It tends to bottleneck getting out of Boston and again as you approach NH. While you should make it there by 8:00 - you could get hung up in a few places - the airport, early 93 and later 93, the tolls to NH, etc. This is not a holiday weekend so let’s hope the moon and stars are in alignment and you make it smoothly. When we go up Friday nights to ski we find it takes a good bit longer because of the traffice. This is probably not a big ski weekend - although the snow is still good and still falling…</p>

<p>Good luck and enjoy the Bat Mitvah, and the visit with your son and his girlfriend!</p>

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<p>paying3tuitions - I forgot to mention that I would not choose the other options you mentioned (meeting them in Woburn, etc). I think your plan is best unless you want them to rent a car for themselves, etc., which they probably can’t do because of their ages, anyway. I am sure you are aware that the airport is busy on Friday evenings but that is when I normally pick up my son. He has typically been ontime and we have gotten out of the airport fairly quickly.</p>

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<p>Many airports now have cell phone lots where you can park for free while waiting to hear your arriving passengers are walking out the terminal door. A slight change that I might add (and I’ve never been to Logan, so take this for what it’s worth) - it seems to me that most of the time the line for passenger arrivals is much longer than the one for passenger departure. So I often tell whoever I’m meeting to go to the passenger departure level for pick-up rather than the passenger arrival. There’s not as much traffic. But I’d check and see if Logan has a cell phone lot.</p>

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<p>This was easy to find…</p>

<p><a href=“http://www.massport.com/logan/parki_cell_lot.html[/url]”>http://www.massport.com/logan/parki_cell_lot.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

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<p>Traffic from Logan to NH is a crapshoot. You could be stuck forever, or you could breeze through. Luckily, ski season is over and spring hasn’t really begun, so you’ll miss a lot of the “let’s spend the weekend at Loon Mountain” type of traffic.</p>

<p>Your plan is as quick as it gets. If you can rent a GPS, it might make it easier to move around traffic. Listen for traffic reports on AM 1030 (WBZ), although the multiple names given to each road may make it confusing.</p>

<p>Best of luck with traffic (and next time, have them fly into Manchester, NH if possible!), and mazel tov on your simcha!</p>

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<p>Thanks for these tips, RIleydog, Teriwtt, Chedva! Really helpful. </p>

<p>GPS, that’s interesting. Maybe I’ll buy a blackberry to text CC for navigating…j/k</p>

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<p>My suggestion would be: from the airport do NOT get on route 93. Go up Route 1–you’ll avoid the tunnel into the city–and then cut over to 93 at Route 128. It’s longer but you’ll avoid a whole lot of traffic.</p>

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<p>dmd is giving away all the native tricks! </p>

<p>also you can google map the Boston area tonight (now ish)and hit the traffic button, it won’t be a Friday night but may give some clues.</p>

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<p>We live in southern NH and H often flies into Logan on a Friday night (can’t always get a flight into MHT). He thinks you should count on at least 2 1/2 hours travel time. A limo would run about $125 including tip. On a Friday afternoon, it can also be the same commute time from NH to Logan so leave in plenty of time. Every road in and out of Boston will be bumper to bumper at that time of day. I hate to tell you this, but you may also have some weather to deal with on Friday as the NH forecast is calling for a wintery mix. </p>

<p>I’m sure you’ll have a wonderful time whenever you arrive. Just relax and enjoy the celebration.</p>

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<p>More good advice. Thank you. You must be founding fathers or mothers or something. Terrific tips.</p>

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<p>inquiring minds want an update… did you make it on time?</p>

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<p>JUST returned this evening! </p>

<p>What a wonderful time. I had the CC parrot perched helpfully on my shoulder throughout this trip.</p>

<p>As predicted by CC posters above:</p>

<p>Car rental was a non-starter due to kids being under age 25 (legal but financially prohibitive before age 25). Limo costs were as described, and we checked some out but I managed to convince my strong-minded Mom that I’d be better able to manage the situation in the event of flight delays, and at least could visit with them meanwhile. </p>

<p>Cell-phone wait area was an ideal place to wait for the plane (Teriwtt, 2008), especially after I printed out that map of the terminal (ibid). The written directions there guided me very well.</p>

<p>I left NH an extra hour early (thanks, My-3-sons) because indeed there was a wintery mix (ibid). In NH itself, they beat their own 124-year-record that day for snowfall, with an additional 6" of new snow that morning. What luck! So I left an extra hour early (2:30 pm) to meet a plane that would land 5:20 at Logan, originating from LaGuardia (NYC). </p>

<p>Fortunately, by the time I got to the Mass border, the NH snow had became Massachusetts rain, a miracle of physics.</p>

<p>Positioned at the cell-phone waiting lot ("You may stay 30 minutes; engines on only 5 min max) near a hotel (Marriott, I think), my cellphone rang. The two were on the plane, still taxi-ing in NYC, but only for one hour. “Boston wasn’t ready to receive…” so they just sat and chilled. I hoped they wouldn’t be returned to the terminal, and was overjoyed when the plane actually took off just an hour late.
The landing was normal.</p>

<p>So this gave me a moment to stop into that hotel, see its beautiful restaurant overlooking the Hahbah, got some food (knowing I’d miss the dinner, not minding) and having learned my smart kids ate in the Laguardia terminal already.</p>

<p>Picked them up happily at 6:20 p.m. We opened the trunk to find my Mom had not only two tires, but two beach chairs there, so we were ready for all possibilities. By 6:20, the very worst of the rush hour traffic had cleared and we had many good choices (Rileydog, 2008). </p>

<p>Had been listening to traffic reports on WBZ (Chedva, 2008), and therefore knew I’d be slightly better off using the tunnel and leaving the magnificent alternative of Route 1 (dmd77, DeniseC) for another day. I felt like a real insider listening to that stuff for an hour, “traffic on the 3’s…” Many years ago, I’d lived in Belmont and then on Cape Cod, so I could recognize street names. This phrase, “on the brakes through Braintree” didn’t register until I figured they meant stop-and-go traffic. </p>

<p>We had GREAT LUCK and got to the Concord NH temple 8 minutes before the service began (at 8:00 p.m.). We scarfed down the leftover lasagna and managed to avoid entering the sanctuary during the hymn welcoming the Sabbath Bride. That’d be too much. Still, we settled in within the first 5 minutes of the service.</p>

<p>Unbelievably, the next day I had to drive my D roundtrip on Sat. afternoon from Concord NH to Providence, RI because she had to work that very night.
So I got to use all this good advice again on a clear, bright sunny day.</p>

<p>On the way back from RI, coming up on I-95 to I-93 all the way through downtown Boston (south to north), I emerged from the tunnel and gasped at your beautiful new bridge. There’s currently discussion of a similar bridge in our region, to go between Buffalo and Canada, alongside our old Peace Bridge. For me, it was especially interesting to see such a structure in place. I found it very uplifting, although I’m guessing it’s got a mixed reaction in the Boston area. I found it beautiful and thrilling, but of course I was in a fabulous mood. </p>

<p>I did get the Wildwoman-Mom award for the weekend, but just kept holding my own that this was the way these busy kids could participate in the extended family weekend. I loved every car minute with them, and they said they had a GREAT time being with extended family. </p>

<p>Other nutty things happened, which is par for the course in these lifecycle gatherings, but in general it was a beautiful, beautiful time. My niece was extremely well prepared and had a meaningful experience, plus a friend-party in the evening at the family home. My H gave a special address to her as an added sermon and was dubbed “Uncle Rabbi” forever. So sweet. </p>

<p>Thank you, posters, for helping me with this journey. I absolutely could not have had the chutzpah to pull this one off alone.</p>

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<p>wow… you’ve had a busy weekend! Am glad it all worked out. I didn’t realize cell phone lots had a time limit on them, though. Doesn’t that kind of defeat the purpose?</p>

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<p>At least in Boston, they don’t want people using the cell phone lots as free long-term parking. If the flight is delayed, they want you to leave and come back, freeing up the lot for people whose flights aren’t delayed.</p>

<p>p3t, thanks for posting! I was about to bump up the thread to ask!</p>