It's nice.
I'm going Boston's news radio.
Well, thank you very much, Madison. Hope you have a good weekend as well. My name's Dan Ray, the host of the program called Nightside with Dan Ray, the aptly named program. Just got back from out of the country for a couple of days. I'll talk about that a little bit later, but I was up dealing with a very serious issue, which I will talk with you about. I want to thank Gary Tangway who sat in with us last night actually Wednesday night and Thursday, and I
appreciate Gary doing that. And without any further ado, I want to go to a great guest talking about a fabulous event upcoming next week here in Boston. I'm delighted to be joined by none o than Jerry Greenfield. Jerry is the co founder of Ben and Jerry's ice cream that needs no introduction at all. Jerry. Good evening, sir. How are you?
I am so excited about the annual Jimmy Fun scuper Bowl coming up next week.
Well, you guys, and because you're now an international phenomenon, but you're a Vermont company, a New England company. How many years have you been involved? You and Ben been involved with the Jimmy fun Scooper Bowl.
Well, you know, I can't even remember. We weren't one of the original companies. We probably came in the third or fourth year. But it's something we look forward to every year. I don't know if people know about this. This is the biggest ice cream event in the universe. It's a fundraiser for the Jimmy Fund and Dana Farber Cancer Institute, and it happens in Boston every summer. It's
the official beginning of the summer season. It's three days Tuesday June third, Wednesday June fourth, and Thursday June fifth at Boston City Hall Plaza. There's not just Ben and Jerry's. There's like ten other ice cream companies h and you pay one fee twenty bucks for adults, fifteen bucks for kids. All the money goes to the Jimmy Fund. All the ice cream companies donate their ice cream and you can eat as much as you want.
It's an unbelievable event. It began in nineteen eighty three and so far the Scuper Bowl, of which you have been such an integral part, has raised for the Dana Farber Cancer Institute seven and a half million dollars to support cancer care and research. And it is a fabulous event, no question about it. I happen to think that Ben and Jerry's is the best ice cream is. Actually, when I was a TV reporter, you will not remember this. We went up to do a story with you in
Ben and Jerry. I'm thinking it's like nineteen eighty five or something maybe, and we actually flew in by helicopter onto the company. We made it kind of an interesting arrival and the helicopter land and safe and got us back home safely. But yeah, Ben and Jerry's will be there, that'd be a whole just many of the other ice creams manufacturers will be there. And I don't even want to ask you how much ice cream you have contributed over the years, but you focus, well, can I.
Talk a little about all the other ice cream companies, because as you say, it's not just Ben and Jerry's, and I want to plug all of them.
Let's give them all a plug.
You know, Wigghams is going to be there, EDI's Friendlies hogandas Holy cow Hood, Lactade, McConnell's, Tillamook is there for the first time, and all the companies bring at least fall four flavors, so you are guaranteed to find something that's going to knock your socks off. And as I say, you can eat as much as you want. And most people say there are no calories when you eat ice cream at the Jimmy Fun scuper Bowl.
I happen to be a believer in that, to be honest with you, I have ice cream down. Is one of my favorite health foods because it's refreshing, it's dairy based, and all of those food pyramids that I saw growing up as a kid always said dairy was right at the top. And I know they weren't lying to us, and it just makes all the sense in the world. And again next Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, you can buy tickets
in advance. I guess you can buy them there. There's also one a Scoopid Night within a twenty one plus happy hour event on June fifth. I'm not even going to what's going to be going on there, but that's going to be a lot of fun as well. This is this is just just a great event for you guys, for all that you've done for the for the Jimmy Fund.
I mean, yeah, you know, and so it's not just raising money, it's not just eating ice cream. It's a real sense of community and people pulling together. I think you know, pretty much all of us have been touched in one way or another by family friends we know who've had cancer, and it's nice to be able to come together and celebrate, eat ice cream and also raise some money for a great cost.
Absolutely, again, you guys have been great over the years. I know that some of your fans want me to ask this question. I don't want to put you in the spot, but will you be there at the Scooper Bowl on any of the days? I'm sure you got a business to run your copy there all three days.
I'm going to be there Monday, the day before to try to get things set up, and I'm going to see if I can stick around, but I don't know, but I'm going to make sure everything is looking good for when we start on Tuesday.
Well. Also, I looked at the long range weather forecast and the weather's the forecast is there's a lot of rain tomorrow because it's a Saturday here in New England. That's all we do with it rain.
Absolutely early in the week.
I think we're going to be moving into some ice cream weather and the lines Ben and Jerry's are going to be great. The ice cream is going to be great. I just want to say thanks. We did this a year ago. I think it's wonderful when a company like yours is so much part of the community and participates and helps a lot of people along the way.
That's thank you for your kind where you know, as I said, we're happy to do it with all these other ice cream companies who all do a great job, and it's nice I can promote them as well as Ben and Jerry's because they really deserve it well.
I appreciate that. That's great a great competitive spirit. It's always good to acknowledge the other guy. But I'm sure people are going to be lined up for the Ben and Jerry. So anyway, thank you so much. Jerry. I appreciate as always your cooperation and a lot of times when we're plugging an event like this, we don't get one of the principles, and you've always been very accessible and available. I just want to say thanks very much.
It is my pleasure.
Right on beginning Tuesday, the scuper Bowl, Jerry Greenfield and Jerry's. When we get back. Not exactly sure we were going into lineup. I think we're going to go to our first guest. We had a little bit of a problem with the phones. It's on us, not on them. We'll be talking with Jack Zach Dowell Doell from US World and News Report about the safest cars. This is the teenagers.
This is a time of year which can be very scary for parents because the young people want to drive, and in many cases they're going to be getting their own car and either going off to work or maybe heading off to college. They want to make sure it's safe. So we get a lot of great information for you. Whether you are a teenager or you are a parent
or a grandparent of a teenager, stay with us. We're going to be providing you with all the information and the safest cars this year's edition of US News and World Report. My name is Dan Ray. Rob Brooks is juggling things back in the control room as always. He's
at the headquarters, the iHeart headquarters in Medford, Massachusetts. Reminds you that if you haven't already procured the new and improved iHeart app on whatever tablets, whatever computers, cell phones, et cetera, you'll want it this weekend, make a point, make a point of getting the new and improved iHeart app,
and make us your first preset. Make WBC Boston's News Radio your first preset, and which means that wherever you are in the world, we will only be a fingertip away the length of your arm to your telephone, or to your cell phone, or to your tablet or wherever you might be your laptop. Anywhere in the world, you'll keep in touch with all of us here in New England. So with that, take a quick break. We're going to be back in just a couple of minutes with Zach Dowell.
I hope that I'm pronouncing that name correctly from the US News and World Report.
Night Side with Dan Ray on Boston's News Radio.
All right. By the way, I didn't ever get a chance in our scramble there at the top of the eight o'clock hour. Before we get to our next guest, let me just tell you that at nine o'clock time, we're going to talk about the newest controversy dealing with the market basket feud family feud market Basket? Is this a repeat of twenty fourteen? We will find out, But we'll talk about that at nine o'clock and then tonight at ten o'clock we'll be talking with the futurist Kevin Surrily.
We spoke with Kevin a couple of weeks ago talking
about the future of medicine. There's some amazing things going on in medicine which we're going to talk about, specifically things that maybe not all, not all of you have heard about these things, and some of these things are going to be predictive, meaning you'll be able to take some tests which will be able to tell you going forward whether you may be vulnerable to this disease or that disease, which raises some interesting moral questions as to
whether or not you even want to know. So we'll do that during the ten o'clock hour and probably a little bit in the eleven o'clock hour tonight. But I am delighted to welcome Zach Dole. Zach, I mispronounced your name because it was spelled d e L. But it's it's spelled like I guess it's pronounced like Bob Dole or Elizabeth Dole.
Correct, no relationship, Yes, yes it is.
Thanks for having welcome. Sorry about our confusion we had some trouble with our phone lines. It was not on your end whatsoever. So US News and World Report does so many surveys, and the one that we're talking about tonight is very timely, and that is the Safest Automobiles twenty twenty five Best Cars for Teens. What what? What? What actually standards did you use to decide not you weren't going like the fastest cars, the car that could kick it up to ninety five and twenty seconds already day.
I assume right, safety must be a young factor.
Yeah, absolutely, So we created these Best Cars for Teams awards to help parents and teams make an informed first car purchase, and we focused on safety, affordability, and reliability. So to even be considered for an award, these vehicles have to rate highly for crash test safety. They have to have advanced safety features like forward collision warning, automatic
emergency braking, things like that. They have to have a good reliability rating, which we get from our partner Jdpower, and they also have to be affordably christ So all of our winners start between twenty and forty thousand dollars. So, oh, I'm sorry.
And these are new cars. We're not talking about used cars. We're talking about new cars here, So let's let's kind of go through some of the categories because you do have both SUVs and more traditional models. You have small SUVs, small cars, mid size SUVs, and mid size cars. Let's just start off with the twenty twenty five best New Cars for teens. So in the category of the least expensive but one of the safest cars is a Kia Soul.
I'm not familiar with that car. Tell us what makes that so attractive?
Yeah, So in the basically going from cheapest to the most expensive, we've got the Kia Soul, the Hondai Tucson, Hondai Tucson Hybrid, and Super Forester in our SEV category.
And like you said, the Soul is a great starting point because it starts around twenty thousand dollars, you're really going to have a hard time spending vehicles that are our price less than that nowadays as far as new cars go, and it's really packed with safety features, it's got great reliability, and it's just an easy car to get in and drive. So we think that's a great option for kids starting out. And in the new car category, we have the Toyota Corolla Hybrid, day A Lantra, the
Honda Civic Hybrid, and Toyda Camera. So again a great jumping off point for younger drivers getting used to the road and wanting to have something that's safe, affordable, and something that the parents can like as well.
I want to ask a question I'm sure is in the minds of some of our listeners right now, and that is that whenever I get a new car, even though I've driven for many years, it's a little overwhelming, particularly with a lot of the electronics that are now almost standard on some of these cars. Are these cars that you've identified which are safe and reliable in all of that, Are they also, I guess, consumer friendly for
kids who are getting in a car. I mean, they're gonna have They're gonna have to pay attention on the road, they got to look out, they got to learn to drive defensive. He's a lot going on. Are they so computer literate. We're talking kids now eighteen to twenty two years old who are going to be getting that first If they're lucky new car either somehow they've hit the lottery of their parents are going to be very nice
to them. Are any of these cars sort of knew what cars might have been when you and I were younger, or maybe when I was younger and there was very little electronics. There was the phenomenon and cigarette lighter and radio and that was about it. I'm just wondering, so is this a factor at all in your decisions?
So yes and no. All these cars are going to have features that that we think we'll keep driver's attention up instead of looking down at their phone. So you have Apple car Play and Android Auto, which are a really great way to integrate smartphone features into the dashboard of the car. So you know, it's good to stay connected. It's good to have your gts right where you can see it in your line of sight. We don't want people looking down at their laps, at their phones or
or what have you. So yes, there's going to be a lot of new technology in any new vehicle nowadays. But we feel very confident that these are are more approachable than most. But as a personal note, I would say, when you're buying a vehicle, it's really important to just get behind the wheel of anything that you're interested and
just see what feels right to you. You know, you may really like one vehicle and really hate another, and they can both be great, safe, reliable vehicles, but there's just you never know until you get behind the wheel, behind the vehicle and drive.
Now. One are the things I think. What are the tips I would give to anyone who's getting in the car behind the car for the first time. Are your sidelines, depending upon you know where you're more comfortable looking, what is precluding your your line of vision? I think sitelines are just really important when you when you fimiliar your eyes yourself with a car, tell me I'm right, tell me I'm wrong. What do you say?
Yeah, no, one hundred percent. And you know there are features nowadays like blind spot monitoring that can sort of take some of the harder to see areas out of the equation and you can just you know, there's a camera there where they're never used to be ten fifteen
years ago. But absolutely it's good to get behind the wheel, see what you can see, see what you can't, and identify those blind spots because if you, you know, buy a car today, drive it for ten years, you're going to be living with those blind spots.
Yeah, and then you also have four cars A Best twenty twenty five Best Used Cars for teams, a small suv, a mid sized suv, a small car and mid sized car, and a couple of them. They're twenty twenty two cars except for one, which is a twenty twenty one. Let's talk about let's say the small suv, the small suv or the best suv is the as you have listed is the Hyundai to Sun Hybrid, that yeah, twenty five version, which is going to run anyway between thirty and thirty five.
If you drop back three years and get used Hondai Tucson Hybrid, drop back to a twenty twenty two used what will that cost you?
It's really going to depend on mileage and where you are in the in the country park, but you can usually knock you can probably knock ten thousand dollars at least off off the stick or that. So that's that's a pretty good savings of over just three years of
you know, the lifespan of the new vehicle. So yeah, in our use category, we're highlighting the twenty twenty two Hondai Tucson Hybrid, the twenty twenty two Hondai a launch A Hybrid, the twenty twenty two Hondai Santa Fe Hybrid, and the twenty twenty one Subrew Legacy.
So Honday's really.
Hondai's really had a good showing in that category, and I think that really stands to show that they have a lot of value proposition built in.
Now it's funny. I'm looking at these cars, both the best new cars and the best used cars. So I see Hyundai, I see Toyota, Subaru, a Honda, and a Kia. Kia is a Korean car, correct, Yes, Toyota is. I'm not a car expert. Toyota is that Japanese?
Yes, yes it is.
Hyundai is Korean?
Yep. You're beatty thousands so far right.
I'm not gonna keep rolling there. Subaru Subaru is that Japanese?
Yep?
Yep.
Man, I've heard all of these that I'm really guessing here. But the point is, you don't have a bunch of American car You don't have any American cars here, which says a lot about where we are in the world. You're looking at the best and the safest, which I respect. And I'm not asking you why American cars aren't included, but are American cars. We have a ways to go to catch up with some of these foreign automobile manufacturers, I.
Don't think so. You know, we had eight spots to fill in this, and we took the best of the best. So when you have, you know, hundreds of vehicles really on sale and only eight spots to highlight the best of them, it's kind of going to be a look at the draw sometimes. These are all fantastic vehicles.
You know.
Chevy Tracks is another great small suv. It didn't quite make the top here, but you know, if you're going out you want to buy an affordable, safe, reliable, small TV Chevy Tracks. There you go. Okay, you know, the American brands have shifted away from some of the smaller cars, so you know, by nature they're just not participating in those segments anymore.
Okay, that's great. Look, this was a good interview because I learned a lot from it, and if I learned something from it, my audience will as well. Jack Dole US News and World Report. This was released just this week of mistake in May twenty eighth, So this is hot off the presses and it's available. What's the website where can people go?
It's cars dot usnews dot com. You can read about all these cars and more.
Sounds great, Zach. I appreciate your time tonight, your great interview. Appreciate it so much. We'll talk again.
Thank you very much, thanks for having me.
You're welcome when we get back on to talk with Jack Dougherty, the CEO of College Hype, celebrating Dorchester Day this Sunday. For those of you in Dorchester listen up, or those of you who might be going to Dorchester on this Sunday you want to listen up. We got some really interesting news for you.
It's Night Side with Dan Ray on Way Boston's news Radio.
Delighted to welcome a friend of many years, the CEO of College Hype, which provides all sorts of assistance to the Shadow Fund and to everyone here on Nightside, Jack Dougherty. Jack, welcome going to Nightside.
How are you, sir, Dan?
I'm doing excellent and as always, thanks so much for having me on the show. Really appreciate it.
Well, let me tell you you're a great company. You produce wonderful products. Dorchester Day is this Sunday, and you've been participating as a Dorchester based company in Dorchester Day. I guess now for what thirty five years?
Yeah, thirty five years. You got it, Dan, What were you doing.
Thirty five years ago? It was a little different college hype back then than it is.
Today, right, Yes, that's a good point. It was a little different. Thirty five years ago. I had just gotten out of Westfield State College. We had started our business there selling funny T shirts. At least we thought they were funny, and we'd sell a couple hundred shirts junior and senior year, and we kind of wanted to keep it going when we got out, and so we decided
to come up with a shirt for Dorchester Day. And we did a basic shirt that had on the front to gentlemen having a coffee and it said Dotchesterday, two pm. And then on the back it said Dotchester Day two am. And the coffee was spilling. Might have had a little Bailey's and the coffee was spilling everywhere, and they were
they were having a little tussle. So that that began thirty five years ago, off first Douchesterday T shirt, and since then we've been we've been, we've been selling shirts up and down Dorchester av I will tell you, Dan, just when we started, we back in the back in the day, we'd come up with an idea. We'd print them in my mother's basement or at Beacon Sports with Frank Brellow and blob Boneaz. We'd get the shirts, we'd
put them in Duffel bags. We'd walk up and down the street for four or five six hours, and then we'd go to the parties at night and try to sell, you know, our one hundred hundred and fifty shirts. And uh, it was just a lot of fun and it was exciting, and we would get all our friends involved, and you know, when it came time to pay them. I didn't really know much about business. I was a history major coming out of school. So we'd get them a free T
shirt and a beverage and on we would go. And then another year we would do it all over again.
Well, this year's going to be a little bit different, so you won't have the college high tent out on Dorchester Avenue or anything like that. But tomorrow, no tomorrow, if people decide to stop by your business, which is right on Gallivan Boulevard, I think everybody in Dorchester, right near Adam's Corner, if they you got a deal. So, if anybody still has one of the Dorchester Day shirts from the nineteen nineties.
This goes back to nineties.
Yes, George Bush and Bill Clinton president, and they either wear that shirt or bring that shirt in. You got a deal for them. What's the deal?
Yeah, So the original there was thirty five percent off. But if they are nice enough to so they get thirty five percent off of anything in the store, because we've been doing this for thirty five years. But if they come in in they wear wearing a shirt that they purchased and they still still have it, we'll give them thirty five percent off, but we'll also take an additional fifteen percent off if they mentioned the godfather of talk radio, Dana, so they could get fifty percent off.
So you could spend a couple hundred bucks with ha. Somebody spend four hundred dollars today in the store. So if you spend four hundred, you're really paying a two hundred because you're getting fifty percent off. So again, you have to have a shirt.
They have to wear too.
Godfather.
Yes, they have got to wear it.
Okay, they have to wear Yeah, they have to wear it.
If they want to bring it in, that's.
Fine too, but it has to be one. From nineteen ninety to nineteen ninety nine, and back then we did some funny t shirts. One was Bears Bears, Bouts.
And the Boys.
The other was a perception reality shirt. The perception was all these big strong men on the on the front and on the back. The reality was they they were a little bit, a little bit out of shape and they were having a long, long day on Dutchester today back in the day. So if they wear one of those shirts, we'll we'll take again fifty percent off. And if but they have to man the godfather of talk radio, Dan Rey and and it will be a great, great, great great discount for them.
Well that's a moniker. I might adopt that. I've always thought of myself as No.
We talked about that. I thought, yeah, we talked about that.
Yeah, Jack, your company has been a huge success as a Boston based company. You you now have a significant number of people who you employ. I'm not going to have to go into the UH to the to the specifics of the company, but you're growing. You you provide all sorts of services, just encapsulated real quickly so people UH refresh their recollection. You'll you have a I know a place in Weymouth, a printing area in Weymouth. Do you also have a store down there at this point or no.
No, So what we have in in Weymouth is we have our screen print facility. We have four two automatic machines and a couple of manual machines, and then we also have six embroidery machines which we were able to print. We're able to sew out eighteen shirts at the time. So we do a lot of work with corporations, we do work with charities, and we do a lot of work with sports teams as well.
And of course for you, the mothership is right there on Gallovan Boulevard.
Yes, yeah, five Fony Galvin Boulevard and you can get there a number of ways online too, with Dorchester Apparel dot com or College Hype dot com.
And it goes. I always pushed my listeners to go to Nightside gear dot com because Nightside sweatshirts and the Nightside hats and hooded sweatshirts and T shirts and coffee mugs.
You've been a great partner for us over the years, and the proceeds of any Nightside material sales goes to help out the Shadow Fund, which is I know a charity that you guys have have helped out a lot, and the charity that my listeners have contributed to and helped out, and it says that's a great, great success story for a guy to come out of Westfield State. When you were at Westfield State, that's when your business really started, right.
Yes, Yeah, we had some you know, like I said, we were doing some work with the football team and we did some shirts towards the end of our senior year and one of the shirts was the potties over Now what do we do? And that was a big seller. And that's what, you know, kind of fueled us getting into selling the Dotchester Day shirts and also then we you know, threw it into sealthy apparel dot com selling
shirts and sealthy. But but I will say Dan this weekend, we have a lot of nice shirts for people for all over Boston, but the parishes of Dorchester is a big success. The all roads lead to Dorchester t shirts, the mugs, the Triple Decker T shirts and one of our biggest shirts right now that's selling as well as Dorchester Day shirts is our gas tank shirts where we were able to donate five thousand dollars to the Boys and Girls Clubs of Dorchester for their new Dorchester Field House.
So every shirt that's sold there we raise a few pennies for the the organization to help out.
Well, you've been very supportive. I know of Martin Richards family and Bill Richards. Richard you work very closely with and you're very charitably inclined. Jack. And by the way, you played football at Westfield State, so it wasn't you were you. You not only were a participant, but also you were printing some t shirts for the football teams.
And the reason I printed shirts, I think I told just before. The reason is I was always the third stringer. When I made it the second string, it was like hitting the number. I think I started one game my senior year. So for all your listeners, if you try to google me, you probably won't find anything. I did have ten tackles on special teams, but other than that, we don't we don't talk about us.
Anyone who has ten tackles and special teams is considered sort of a special sort of player.
That's sure that over four years, Dan, that's what.
No, No, still, that's that's sort of like the Kamakazi squad, you know, what I mean you were, Yeah, that was you can survive anything.
I know. I do want to give a quick shout out. Our friend Joe Fuley turned fifty today. People thought he was I think you thought he was party you said, but yeah, he turned fifty. So we had a big party from at Weymouth facility.
You say how to Joe, and say ha to Kathleen Hickey and all everyone else over there who treats me so well.
So will Kathleen. Kathleen and Margaret. Kathleen's only fIF forty eight, and Margaret, I think is forty nine so and Jody's Jody's going to be fifty soon. So we get a lot of people under fifty. Joe's one of the older.
A lot of people have stuck with you times as well. Jack, you have a lot of friends. Because everybody will say to me when I when I mentioned in the show that they'll say, do you really know Jack Dougherty. I'll say, yeah, I know Jack Dougherty, trust me.
Base Thanks man, Yeah, Dan, thank you so much. Great chat, and we'll talk to him all right, Thanks very much.
We get back. We're going to talk about a very serious situation that you need to avoid. This weekend and actually later on during the month of June. That is the reconstruction of the Newton Wellesley Bridge at the intersection of one twenty eight and the Massachusetts Turnpike. We're going to be talking with Jonathan Golliver of the Massachusets Department of Transportation about why why everyone should stay at least twenty miles away from that intersection if you're smart and
can avoid it. We'll be all with Jonathan Galliver right after this.
It's nice eye with Dan Ray on Boston's news radio.
Well, we have a traffic alert. Hearken close to your radio, keep your eyes on the road, but you want to listen to with Jonathan Golliver, my guest. He is the Massachusete Department of Transportation Highway Administrator, and in about thirteen minutes the Turnpike is going to be impacted, as will one twenty eight. Jonathan, I'm sure this is an evening that you've looked forward to for some time. Welcome back to night's side.
Hey Dan, thanks for having me on. And yeah, we are counting down the minute. Just right about nine o'clock, things are going to get pretty tight out there on the turnpike. Things are going to down in one lane each direction.
Yeah. I watched one of the reports that I with my old colleague Ted Weyman, and he had some people who said they had not heard about this. That has to be your greatest fear. I mean, there's been plenty of publicity about it. Where are these people been that haven't heard about what's going to happen? And for those who haven't, let's go one as you hit it for me? What happens in about twelve minutes from right now? And how long would it last?
All right, Well, hopefully we're only talking to the stragglers at this point, and everybody has heard about it. We've got a pretty big media blitz at this point.
But the.
Yeah, this is so, this is part of a bigger project. There's a four hundred million dollar project. This is a train tunnel that passes underneath the turnpike for the It's the train that runs from the Western Line into Boston and the South station, and that particular train tunnel needs to be replaced. It's at the end of its life. So we are going to be just right at nine pm. We're going to be deploying zipper lanes that have been pre staged out there, going to constrain the pike down
one lane in each direction. That's going to be in place throughout the weekend and right up until five am Monday morning so that we can demolish the first half of that train bridge train tunnel. We're going to come in and bring new prefabricated units into place and restore the road all back to its conditioned by five am on Monday.
That's half of it.
Then we're going to be coming back in three weeks on June twentieth and doing it again for the other half, for the other side. So this week this weekend is all about getting the westbound side of the turnpike on that train tunnel done next time when it's going to be getting the east outside done.
How much is the bad weather, particularly the bad weather in the next twelve hours going to impact this effort, So we'll be.
In good shape the big the next the next few hours are going to be doing the demolition and actually, if anything, the water helps us a little bit. So the if it was if it was winds, especially tomorrow, we'd be very concerned, but we're not seeing anything like that in the weather. We really are contractor this is obviously a really big thing when you have cranes out there when you have bad weather. So they have a special service just to get them make sure that they're
going to be in the clear. And they made that call earlier this week that things were going to be We're going to be a green light for them and we we we're looking forward to it. We're going to be happy to get this done.
So the key for everybody, the word has to people have to understand this is real, This is this is not scaring people. If they're crazy enough to not take advice, they could be tied up on one twenty eight is the Is the pike also going to be impacted as well or is it just primarily one twenty eight, So.
It's actually primarily the turnpike. Yeah, one twenty eight will be impacted as well, but the turnpike is the big one, so that that's where this that's where the main impacts will be. So either if you're going east east to west on the turnpike is when you're going to be really in trouble. But you're going to see one twenty it's going to get a lot of congestion around it too.
So people that would normally get off and on that on that exit from one twenty eight to the pike are going to you know you're going you're going to see some serious congestion. So but the turnpike itself, that's where it really is, and we we've done some projections. You get about one hundred thousand vehicles a day going through there on a weekday, and on the weekend it drops off a little bit, but it's still very very
busy roadway. It's still around seventy five eighty thousand vehicles and if everybody shows up, you're you're looking at delays that that are easily into the two or three hour range.
We've got a really.
Good track record asking with the public, asking them to stay away from areas like this during these critical times, and we're hopeful that people are going to take our advice. They've again we've done this a number of times now, and that they will they will stay away and that'll leave it manage all for people that do actually have to be on the roadway.
Now. I know people have nightmare memories of the Big dig which lasted for years and was cost overruns. This is nothing like that. This is a dramatic impact over I guess it's going to be somewhere around a sixty hour period beginning in about eight minutes from now until Monday morning, five am, So if you all can avoid the one twenty eight mass Pike area. How long has this tunnel that's about to be demolished, How long is it? What was its life span? How many years did it provide service?
So this was put in place right at the beginning of the turnpike when the turnpike was put in, So it's you know, creeping up on seventy five years old, so, which is about what we try to get most infrastructure. We try to get it about between a fifty and a seventy five year lifespan. So it's done its job. We've done a lot of maintenance on this interchange, in particular, if you drive this interchange on a regular basis, we've done a lot of work on it over the years
to keep it open. And it's just the whole thing, not just this tunnel, but that whole interchange. It's why we're replacing. It is just really at the end of its life and that needs this work done.
Okay, and then when you wrap it up on Monday morning, at five am. At some point it'll get back to normal relative normal on the pike in on twenty eight and then later in June. You do it, you do the other side. What is the weekend in June? And we should talk in advance of that as well, but go when is that?
So that's the weekend of June twentieth, and it will be the exact same thing, just on the opposite side of the roadway and again going in at nine pm on a Friday and opening up by five am on Monday. And you know, one thing to one thing to note da in that's that's that's Uh. We put a ton of work into picking the weekends, not not just planning for the work, but making sure that the weekends that we're picking have the least amount of impacts going on.
There's always something going on in the region. You know, there's this is this is like planning a wedding. There's there's it's going to inconvenience somebody no matter what you do.
But this these two weekends that we've picked have the least amount of events going on and therefore the least amount of traffic statistically, so we know it's going to be an inconvenience for some people, and and and for those people that are inconvenice, we hope that they take a lot of extra time to get to where they're going. But this these are the two best weekends that we could pick to get this work done.
Yeah, the graduation season, I believe is pretty much over, and obviously you want to get that done before we start for the summer driving season. And fourth of July and every weekend in the summer. Ideally, last question, Jonathan, Ideally, if all of this worked perfectly, and I realize that when I asked your question, your answer is going to
be zero. But realistically, if you could cut it down from one hundred thousand cars a day, you know, tomorrow and Sunday, if you could get it down to what fifty thousand cars, would that be considered a success or would still have fifty there's going to be a lot of backup.
Well, even with fifty, there's going to be a lot of backup. We'd honestly like to get it closer to somewhere around twenty five thirty. So if we could get about a sixty percent diversion, that about sixty percent of the people that are normally there'd be someplace else. We're going to consider that a success. And again, it's not going to be without congestion no matter what you do there. When you reduce it by two thirds, you're going to see it. But we want to keep it manageable for
the people who have to use the road. We're really asking if you don't have to be in that area, go be someplace else, take an alternate route, but really don't don't go passing through there if you don't need to.
Oh, Jonathan, I really appreciate it. You have sounded the alarm now twice on night side. Any of my listeners who get caught there anytime, we'll throw them one twenty eight. Now, good luck with that, folks. But get off if you can, and stay off it tomorrow and Sunday, and don't even think about getting back on it until sometime sometime on Monday morning.
I know this.
There's been a lot of coordination, and you're in We talked a couple of years ago about all the work that was done on the tunnels. You know, you're always in these high traffic areas doing very critical work. And I know that a lot of people who are not going to pay attention are going to end up instead of taking four and a half hours to drive to New York, they end have taken eight hours to drive to New York or something like that. But they will
only have themselves to blame. So this is the real deal, folks. Jonathan Gulliver is a pretty serious guy about this stuff, and he's not overstating it whatsoever. You won't find me anywhere near these locations in the next sixty hours, Jonathan, and I wish you. I wish you all the best to you and everyone out there. It's got to be miserable, particularly if you get rainy weather tomorrow. So good luck
with it. I hope it goes if far exceeds your expectations, let me put it like that, and if we've had a little bit to do with it, I'm very happy to have contributed.
I appreciate it.
Thanks Dan, all right.
My friend, we will we'll talk soon, Okay, we'll talk in advance of the June weekend as well. Jonathan Gulliver, he is with the Massachusetts Department of Transportation. He's the highway administrator. He's very clear, stay away, stay absolutely away from that intersection of one twenty eight in the Massachusetts Turnpike. You don't even want to go near it. Please take his caution, and take his caution seriously. Or right, we get back to talk about another big fight, another big
fight for the Demulis Supermarket. And I'm a huge fan of Demoulis Supermarkets, and therefore I'm a huge fan of the CEO, Arthur Demolis. But maybe some of you look at it differently. We're going to open it up and talk about that right after the nine o'clock news here on Nightside. Stay with us. We've got a good night coming up for you folks.