Gateway Center — Attraction in Everett

nice place but i HATE the Layout its always congested with Traffic from Routes 16, 28, and 99 all within about a .25 of each other all of these major roads are FILLED with cars/traffic and Buses and people pretty much ANY time of the day you are right near the Wellington T Station and 5 bus routes pass this place all of them bypass except the 97 & 99 ( Saturdays only) which i REALLY hate this place needs AT LEAST one other bus that 97 is Limited and TERRIBLE it stops after 6/7 o clock so after you are forced to walk back (OR to the Nearest Bus stop which is a 5 minute walk away near the Best Buy but with traffic its tricky to get to so watch out! people FLY on RT 16!) unless you have a car and people in this area mainly take the Bus because it is SO close they need to add more transit! other than that its OK nothing too special it has your Basics like Home Depot Target, Famous Footwear Old Navy Panera Petsmart Costco Office Depot Sleepys and a few others that arent really that interesting whoever designed this place didnt do a great job for people who dont drive! i dont even see islands in the parking lot which can be very dangerous but apart from that if you need to do a little shopping your OK there is a few places after this Center and Boston Wellington Malden and Sullivan stations are all within 10-15 Mins away the farthest being Malden but with no traffic its fairly close so the area isnt too bad. you are also not far from Medford, Chelsea And Charlestown none of these places are more than...

The Gateway Center is the EPITOME of bad suburban shopping plaza design: there is ZERO wonder why "traffic" is the most popular buzzword when it comes to Reviews of this place! But as much as you can put all the blame on the original developers, the bottom line, as transportation/climate Progressives is the lack of interest in FIXING (retrofitting) any designs into the traffic flow to make it better, especially given its proximity to Wellington Station, a major subway and bus hub:

*Build a "back driveway directly out to Route 16 near Chuck E Cheese and TGI Fridays. It's ridiculous that you can see Route 16 from the parking lot in that location and then know that it will take 20+ minutes to get out of the complex! *Expand Mystic View Road (there's plenty of land!!) and put in a bus lane so that the buses can get in and out more easily. *Expand Mystic View Road to accommodate cycle tracks so cyclists can get in and out without mixing it up with traffic flow. *Better bike parking around the various businesses within the Center. *Build a pedestrian bridge over the Malden River to connect directly to Wellington Station so pedestrians don't have to walk all the way out to Route 16 and then walk along Route 16 up to...

Captains log: it has been 20 minutes since I last attempted to join the queue of cars waiting to exit the parking lot. A nice jeep was going to let me pull in front of her, but 15 minutes had passed, and a space large enough for my hatchback never materialized. I fear that I may be stuck in this labyrinth forever. I have aged significantly. I miss my family.

Honestly though, who designed these roads? Even when there’s no traffic, the roads are stupid. IKEA has signs, lanes, striping, lanes with specific purpose…here, we have a left handed exit out of Costco to a dead end. But people treat it as two right handed exit lanes that merges into one lane. Stupid. Put a sign up. Entering the mall, you have two lanes, and the right lane that goes to Costco has no speed limit and no pedestrian use signs/lights. you can’t see anybody crossing due to the traffic in the left lane going to target. Everything about this lot and the roads in it scream out incompetence in design. How hard is it to put an exit only access road by Michael’s that leads to Everett? Thanks goodness no one is having an emergency because no services would be able to get in or out of the...