The opening of the Encore Casino and Hotel in our city has not led to the traffic Armageddon predicted by so many of our public officials, and even by the local media.
We were all mistaken, not so much by Encore’s inability to create a permanent traffic jam with its business running like a juggernaut but rather with its business running like a juggernaut without creating a traffic jam!
Let us be clear.
The place is booming, relatively in almost every way.
These folks know how to run a world class operation.
They weren’t about to be buried by traffic here endangering their enterprise.
Rather, they planned and plotted, studied and reported back, widened their influence by drawing everyone that mattered into the fray in order to have a success.
State Police, Everett Police, Chelsea Police, Boston Police, Somerville Police, Malden Police, Medford Police and on and on with a list that almost has no end they went searching for partners to make this thing right.
The waterway services and ferry from Boston to the hotel and casino is another over the top component showing how these people think out of the box.
Bottom line, traffic is not right now an issue and might never be an issue as it was expected.
The dignity, quiet and efficiency of Encore’s ability to be the master of its own fate in our city is something to behold.
The casino and hotel is quite unto itself, an enormous, over the top expression of having done nearly everything right when it comes to traffic.
It doesn’t get better than this, does it?
Everett Police Chief Steve Mazzie was right some weeks back when he predicted in public that the traffic Armageddon worries were much ado about nothing.
“Remember Y2K,” he said at a public meeting. “Remember when everyone thought time would come to an end and chaos would rule the streets because the century changed?”
He set the record straight with that rather nicely.