I should add that I was raised on the North Shore, I lived directly in Boston/Cambridge/Somerville for 20+ years, I worked on the South Shore for 5 years, and I now live a good deal west of the city, near the NH border.
I guess some parts of MA are less obnoxious than others, but there is no escaping the problem by moving to “the good part of the state”. We don’t have one of those.
The thing that shocked me most when I worked in MA was the amount of traffic
With the amount of tax money spent permile being one of the highest in the country, it seemed to me there should be more roads if that many people want to get some place
It took me 3 hours to get to the airport on the thruway once, with actual stopped traffic every 50 feet for hours.
The trip took 30 minutes (from Lowell) during non-rush hour traffic.
I stopped flying there and drove back and forth, because the extra 3 hours on the road I was halfway home.