Memorial Drive Greenway Phase III

ccole said:
The irrelevant 2.5 year resurrection of this thread prompted me to look for recent developments on this project. Unfortunately, there is some disappointing news: https://mass.streetsblog.org/2022/01/18/dcr-announces-scaled-back-memorial-drive-road-diet-for-2024/.
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I think the resurrection of this thread probably stemmed from this:
http://archboston.com/community/threads/general-infrastructure.4590/post-420476

It so happened a different poster took it upon themselves to comment on something else once here ; )
 
Is there any plan to fix this part of memorial drive?
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The center median is a huge waste of space. Theres definitely huge potential here to move the road to the left and create a Cambridge esplanade. If they move the lanes on the right over to the left the leftover land would create a lot of waterfront park space. Theres a lot to work with here and it seems like its long overdue. It seems obvious so not sure why its not in the works?
 
stick n move said:
The center median is a huge waste of space. Theres definitely huge potential here to move the road to the left and create a Cambridge esplanade. If they move the lanes on the right over to the left the leftover land would create a lot of waterfront park space. Theres a lot to work with here and it seems like its long overdue. It seems obvious so not sure why its not in the works?
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100% agree. Memorial drive down there needs to go on a diet and be rebuilt. Bring the eastbound lanes together with westbound then turn this into a lovely park from road to water.
 
393b40 said:
100% agree. Memorial drive down there needs to go on a diet and be rebuilt. Bring the eastbound lanes together with westbound then turn this into a lovely park from road to water.
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Anecdotally, it feels like the road is way overbuilt for all times except the peak of peak rush hour. Plus theres so much signaling (i.e. lights) for side streets for the sole reason that you can't have a uncontrolled intersection across 2 lines of highway traffic (even the traffic levels don't warrant a stoplight). Almost all of memorial should be down to 1 general travel lane in direction with more use of small roundabouts, uncontrolled ped crossings, and traffic calming so that traffic can flow at a consistent 25mph rather than wide, straight, highway-width lanes signed for 45mph just so we can hit a red light every 2 blocks.
 
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With regard to the project to JFK St, I'm really glad they're getting rid of the parking on Memorial Drive westbound. That's always struck me as insanely dangerous.
 
ccole said:
The irrelevant 2.5 year resurrection of this thread prompted me to look for recent developments on this project. Unfortunately, there is some disappointing news: https://mass.streetsblog.org/2022/01/18/dcr-announces-scaled-back-memorial-drive-road-diet-for-2024/.
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It's dumb cuz that's literally the stretch with the least impact since the park on the river is wide there.

Even dumber, it looks like they want to put some of the reclaimed greenspace on the campus-side of the road. Why is it that Boston designers cant get into their thick heads that you don't make greenspaces appealing by building lots of tiny squares and sharing shitty ten foot wide strips on both sides of a road. Build ONE BIGGER PARK in your mega projects and put all the greenspace on ONE SIDE OF THE ROAD for this sort of project. Yeah, we get your 10-year-old developmental level of brain idea to make Mem Drive oh-so-pretty with more trees on either side. But for fucks sake, there's a wide sidewalk there and nobody needs to use it anyway. Keep the whole road up against Harvard, they have enough goddamned greenspace behind the walls anyway, and put it all on the river side where it belongs.
 
This is going to be a good project, but it's funny that this is almost happening because boston can't rid itself of Storrow. Alternate timeline where Memorial drive exists but Storrow is a local road, you suddenly "can't" road diet this thing. We're lucky Memorial has not been induced-demanded enough to be a "vital" artery. Speaks to how duplicative the roads are.
 
Longfellow said:
This is going to be a good project, but it's funny that this is almost happening because boston can't rid itself of Storrow. Alternate timeline where Memorial drive exists but Storrow is a local road, you suddenly "can't" road diet this thing. We're lucky Memorial has not been induced-demanded enough to be a "vital" artery. Speaks to how duplicative the roads are.
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Back in the early 1960s, I recall at the time the idea was floated to make SFR one-way eastbound, and Memorial Drive one-way westbound, for only that portion of those roadways west of River Street. This was to be done in conjunction with the roadway underpasses to be built on Memorial Drive, which fortunately never happened.
As it stands now, SFR and Storrow Drive have been informally designated as the de-facto through-route expressway connecting Rte 2 northwest of Cambridge to the Central Artery at North Station. So, they will never be road-dieted. However, Memorial Drive will be road-dieted, as it is viewed as more of a local access road.

Edit: fixed one typo.
 
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Charlie_mta said:
Back in the early 1960s, I recall at the time the idea was floated to make SFR one-way eastbound, and Memorial Drive one-way westbound, for only that portion of those roadways west of River Street. This was to be done in conjunction with the roadway underpasses to be built on Memorial Drive, which fortunately never happened.
As it stands now, SFR and Sorrow Drive have been informally designated as the de-facto through-route expressway connecting Rte 2 northwest of Cambridge to the Central Artery at North Station. So, they will never be road-dieted. However, Memorial Drive will be road-dieted, as it is viewed as more of a local access road.
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Ideally Rte 2 should be routed over the Eliot bridge and Storrow and Exit numbers added on storrow and SFR
 
Badusername said:
Is this satire or a Robert Moses fan-fic?
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Yeah, it may sound pro-highway, but I think cubbe8 was just saying that as long as we have the road system that we do, the route 2 numbering for SFR and Storrow would make more sense, as it is a more major traffic route than Memorial Drive.
 
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Charlie_mta said:
Yeah, it may sound pro-highway, but I think cubbe8 was just saying that as long as we have the road system that we do, the route 2 numbering for SFR and Storrow would make more sense, as it is a more major traffic route than Memorial Drive.
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I guess, my concern is that would lock in Storrow as a major state route and add further hurdles to reducing the amount of pavement that consumes the Esplanade. I understand it is a major state route now, but it shouldn't be permanently and this would be going in the wrong direction.
 
Badusername said:
I guess, my concern is that would lock in Storrow as a major state route and add further hurdles to reducing the amount of pavement that consumes the Esplanade. I understand it is a major state route now, but it shouldn't be permanently and this would be going in the wrong direction.
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Yeah, I think this is a valid point. Storrow, de facto, takes much of the Route 2 traffic, but I agree that if it were officially designated as such, any efforts to narrow or eliminate it would become far more challenging.
 
The question is what route and exit numbers are for. If they are meant to aid wayfinding and properly direct the flow of travel and commerce as it exists, then yes, they should follow the road people will typically take. If they are meant to be aspirational and direct the flow of traffic as it should be, then the Route 2 designation should end at Route 16 near Alewife and neither Memorial Drive nor Fresh Pond Parkway should carry any route numbers (as US-1 no longer follows VFW Parkway, etc. on the south).

Given the negative percentage chance Storrow is ever actually removed in my lifetime, I'd side with the former.
 
I mean... the segment of Memorial Drive thats being dieted is technically US RT3 and MA RT2 - yay concurrency. MA RT2 technically departs Mem Drive at the BU bridge and continues to Boston Common down Comm. Ave, and actually makes the loop around the Public Garden.

Meanwhile, The entire segment of US3 between Burlington and Cambridge is surface streets, but technically still has a US Route number. MA RT3 continues along Memorial from the Mass Ave Bridge, across the Longfellow to join Storrow and I93 until Braintree, while MA RT 2A is technically routed down Mass Ave through Cambridge.

As for whether any of those roads should have a route number is a matter for debate, as there's definitely an argument for renumbering or removing numbers entirely in the urban core. But all those RT2 signs down Comm Ave do is serve to confuse out of town visitors who want to get to Concord and have been told to take RT2, when they should actually join Storrow - and no one is clamoring for a highwayfication of Comm Ave through Back Bay. Besides.... Storrow used to be signed as part of US 1 pre big dig.

I think you could totally denumber Mem Drive and 2A - but in this case I think the more appropriate RT2 routing downtown is off Comm Ave and onto Storrow.
 
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The only underpasses I'd want built now are the bike/ped ones for Storrow. It's a shame that those never got any more momentum.
Charlie_mta said:
Back in the early 1960s, I recall at the time the idea was floated to make SFR one-way eastbound, and Memorial Drive one-way westbound, for only that portion of those roadways west of River Street. This was to be done in conjunction with the roadway underpasses to be built on Memorial Drive, which fortunately never happened.
As it stands now, SFR and Storrow Drive have been informally designated as the de-facto through-route expressway connecting Rte 2 northwest of Cambridge to the Central Artery at North Station. So, they will never be road-dieted. However, Memorial Drive will be road-dieted, as it is viewed as more of a local access road.

Edit: fixed one typo.
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