Deck The Pike Herald St. Extension

[stick n move]

I liked the columbus center proposal but i didnt think it did anything to improve the fabric of the city it just decked the pike. My proposal decks the pike but also gives another way to get from the back bay to downtown other than stuart street. My proposal is to extend herald st up to copley square and also deck the pike. This creates a lot of places for development, and the pike had already been planned to be decked so its not that far fetched. All that would be different is that the roads would be a little bit different. I also connected a couple of the side streets that abruptly end for the garage. The shape of all of the parcels are just thrown in randomly and could be changed any number of ways. Herald st would be turned into a 2 way street. It would be beautiful also because coming west the road would dump you out right at the copley tower which would be a nice ending to a street. The good thing also is this creates tons of blank parcels for towers and anything else needed in the area.

 

[hockey92]

Is the new Fenway redevelopment project going over the pike at all?

 

[stick n move]

Is the new Fenway redevelopment project going over the pike at all?

Yea right next to fenway.

 

[choo]

I think there is a great opportunity with stuff like this to implement a visionary public private partnership.

The open pike sucks. It would serve the larger city and many private developers of both existing and potential development to cover it up. But as we saw with Columbus Center, a private developer decking can run into numerous challenges, and we may have to wait a long long time before any can align all the stars and do it all with private money. A curse of the commons.

If building air rights buildings is too expensive, a long road deck like you propose is much cheaper. But this could open up new development opportunities. The state could work with the owners to take advantage of this and secure funding. For example, what if the state was given equity positions in the buildings and land of the city that will be opened up. Then when the decking spurs new development and value, the state can get some cash back. Probably not full recovery, but more than nothing. If the state was given, say 10% equity of the plots that would be opened up, the owner has to just over come the hurdle of "Does a new state-built boulevard increase the value of my side lot by over 10%?" That's just one hypothetical, but something that could be tested for this type of project. Otherwise, we wait a real long time.

 

[Proposition Joe]

Herald Street seems wider than it needs to be, if the area is going to be reclaimed from the Pike then it should be reclaimed from heavy automobile traffic altogether. Either a skinnier street or a continuation of the SW Corridor Park that involves interaction with the buildings adjacent to it would be even better.

Also, I would rename it from Herald Street because the Herald is gone from the area and is a tabloid.

 

[choo]

Agree, this does not need to be all cars. In fact, it could be another comm. ave mall with dedicated bike lines and smaller developments on it that don't require massive support decking. Almost a bike highway at points, but with integrated things like, restaurants, beer gardens (obviously), open theaters etc. Plus then you have a whole new street wall on the herald street and other side. Build front facing housing and height on those sides with commercial first floors.

There should be no expectation for this to be a road, since it won't be removing capacity.

 

[davem]

I threw this up a while ago. Same basic concept, deck over the pike with a road so the developers can build on terra firma, hopefully offsetting the immense costs of building over the pike canyon. My proposal ends at Arlington Street in a 3/4 interchange with the pike (no EB access).

 

[vanshnookenraggen]

That's kind of brilliant. The deck would be much cheaper and probably easier to fix and the development stays on real land so it's cheaper. And as stick pointed out it creates a quick way from the Back Bay to Downtown. Someone send this to everyone running for mayor.

 

[davem]

I would imagine the value of the land reclaimed from Marginal Road and Herald Street would put a nice dent in how much it would cost to do this too, not to mention the taxes once its built up.

 

[Ron Newman]

Anyone know what Herald Street was called before the Herald was built there? And, for that matter, Traveler Street?

 

[vanshnookenraggen]

Herald St used to be Castle St, hence the area being known Castle Sq. Traveler St was one of the New York Streets, Rochester or Troy. Hard to tell because of the urban renewal that cleared the whole place.

 

[Proposition Joe]

I threw this up a while ago. Same basic concept, deck over the pike with a road so the developers can build on terra firma, hopefully offsetting the immense costs of building over the pike canyon. My proposal ends at Arlington Street in a 3/4 interchange with the pike (no EB access).

This could be paired with a Storrow Drive downgrade.

 

[stick n move]

Herald Street seems wider than it needs to be, if the area is going to be reclaimed from the Pike then it should be reclaimed from heavy automobile traffic altogether. Either a skinnier street or a continuation of the SW Corridor Park that involves interaction with the buildings adjacent to it would be even better.

Also, I would rename it from Herald Street because the Herald is gone from the area and is a tabloid.

I believe it should be a two way street, but if it was going to be a one way it would have to go from downtown to the back bay. I believe this because there are two roads to get to downtown from the high spine area of the back bay but there really isn't a way to get back. To get back to the back bay you have to get on and off of a bunch of different streets until you end up on St. James ave. I believe that it would benefit the growth of the city having a direct route to get to the back bay the same way that boylston and stuart are direct routes to get downtown. Not only would it help residents and people who work there get around, it would also make it much easier for all of the tourists that we have if they didn't have to take a bunch of confusing roads to get around the city. I think the ultimate goal would be to have a two way so that gives a third option to get downtown and one direct route to get back. Not to mention if its wider is just a deck over the pike and were not worried about building towers over it which is much more complicated.The more I think about it the more I realize that the city would benefit greatly from this and I hope that somebody in a high place has already realized this and has plans laid out. We can only wait and hope though.

 

[stick n move]

I think this would be the easiest route. Cover the pike, extend marginal road and herald street all the way to dartmouth street, and extend the greenway right to the doorstep of the copley residential tower. We all know building over the pike here is damn near impossible to get approved. The one way to please everybody would be a compromise. Yea the people on this forum want skyscrapers built, but I think wed all be happy if the pike was covered here. The people in the south end don't want towers here, but want the pike covered and would love to have some place to go on walks, and parks within close proximity. I think if they extended the greenway all the way to dartmouth it would be a good compromise. It would be very easy to just deck over the pike and put grass and bushes over it. This would give much more options that were intended to go on the original greenway like museums and different small buildings. Just think about how amazing it would be to be able to walk on the greenway all the way from the back bay to the boston garden. This would be a huge selling point for the city. I feel it could keep young graduates in town because they would have a place for their kids to go play and also for them to stay in shape. Also when the copley tower is built they would literally have a couple mile long walking path right out there front door. Also the clarendon is one block away so it would benefit them too. There would also be some blank parcels off to the side not over the pike that could still get developed relatively easy and this would be a selling point for them. Yea I know that the greenway is not the most amazing thing in the world but I always walk on it when I'm walking in that end of town and it is pretty nice. The thing that messes it up is all of the on ramps and off ramps everywhere. This proposal has minimal on off ramps and not that many roads cutting across like in the heart of downtown. I think we can all agree that this would be an improvement over what is there now with the two new roads and the greenway. And I think we can also all agree that this would be extremely easy to do and nimbys would be for this rather than against it. This kills multiple birds with one stone. It adds two very needed streets to get from the back bay to downtown and vice versa. It raises the property value of everyone near it because it is not a scar with loud cars and exhaust fumes pouring out of it. It also adds to the green necklace and makes boston a much more green city. It also would be more likely to retain college graduates and convince more people to move here because young people these days are in to staying fit and running/jogging. It would also make boston a much more bike able city on this side of town. This would keep bikers off some of the busy main roads and allow them to go much farther safely. Also it removes a scar from the middle of the city that is a huge eye sore and divides the city. I think all around this would be an incredible improvement to the area and boston its self, we are building a lot of new buildings but we need the roads to go along with the new residents and workers moving in and also the recreational aspect is needed for all of those people. Not to mention is the christian science tower, copley, and a few of these other big towers are built here we are definitely going to need to give cars and bikes an alternate route to take to ease congestion.

 

[Downburst]

I think expanding the Greenway is a big no. Even if what we have has blossomed into success fairly recently, there are still many flaws inherent to it. In addition, it would be a waste of valuable airspace that can, in fact, be built on top of (at significant cost, nonetheless... I find that issue rectified with davem's separate plan.)

I think using one of those parcels as a park would be excellent, though, if the area does ever get covered over.

 

[stick n move]

Either way herald and marginal should be extended to dartmouth.

 

[MBTAddict]

I threw this up a while ago. Same basic concept, deck over the pike with a road so the developers can build on terra firma, hopefully offsetting the immense costs of building over the pike canyon. My proposal ends at Arlington Street in a 3/4 interchange with the pike (no EB access).

I think this is the best version of decking the pike we've got on the board. It breaks up the newly created parcels for development nicely so we wouldn't need a single mega project and could have some variability from site to site in terms of style and massing.

Ya know, if we had a more focused development agency in the city.

 

[stick n move]

That is a good plan i just would rather have it extend farther up than arlington to be an alternative to stuart street.

 

[George_Apley]

Ack! Dave's Pike plan has been my favorite planning scheme on here since the day he posted it! Seriously needs to be sent to people at the highest levels of City Hall and DoT

 

[stick n move]

I made a 3rd proposal it falls more in line with what DaveM is saying, I just extended it up to copley. It could either do what I showed in this image or it could could intersect with dartmouth and stuart. I think the garage needs to go because it is a huge waste of prime real estate, and it could be recouped with other towers having garages built with them. Also there already was a plan to get rid of the garage so it is not far fetched. I do like this plan more than my greenway proposal because it allows tons of blank parcels that could be bought and developed over time.