Billings Square is where Grafton, Hamilton, and Orient Streets come together.The traffic island in the center of the square isn't a rotary, but rather a sorta-kinda rotary. Traffic outbound on Grafton Street has the right of way for the traffic circle, but only halfway around...
Where Hamilton and Orient begin, it seems to act like a rotary. But that's only if you want to take a right off of Orient, or go straight off of Hamilton. In that situation, you have to yield to the traffic that's already in the traffic circle.
If you want to go left off of Orient onto Hamilton, there are no signs saying you have to go around the traffic island. It looks and feels wrong, as if you're turning into a rotary going the wrong way. But it's perfectly legal.
Then, just to make things even more confusing, if you want to go outbound on Grafton St from either Orient or Hamilton, you have to go around the traffic island. Unfortunately, though, once you're in the traffic circle, you have to yield to the outbound traffic on Grafton St, instead of the other way around (the way it would be in a real rotary).
Confusing? You betcha! But that's Worcester.
And the real Grafton Square? It's down at the beginning, where it crosses Franklin.
2 comments:
But isn't the bottom of the hill Brosnihan Square?
At the bottom of the hill (where Grafton, Water, and Winter intersect) is called Posner Square. From there, as you go towards Washington Square on Grafton Street, when you hit the last set of lights (at Franklin Street) you're at Grafton Square.
Brosnihan Square is the intersection of Millbury, Harding, Quinsigamond, Cambridge South Harlem, Harlem, and Stone, but is completely closed off at this point, due to the I-290/rte 146 interchange construction.
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