It should be MassDOT taking these roads over from DCR. Many of these roads are numbered as state routes, plus they are major arterials for through traffic. The only reason these are in DCRs hands is history and tradition, a holdover from the early 1900s when these roads were actual parkways, and not the through arterials they became in the 1940s and 50s.
I would definitely rather see roads like this in DCR's hands than MassDOT's, and while the City of Boston would certainly do a better job with this redesign, there's only a handful of municipalities I can confidently say that about. DCR, at the very least, is willing to reduce roadway capacity. We've seen this on Hammond Pond Parkway and the proposed improvements to Memorial Drive. I doubt MassDOT would have come to the same conclusions.
Outstanding points are raised in that discussion, right on and correct. Pedestrians and bicyclists are screwed with the new design, traffic lanes are increased compared to the existing roadways, and urban heat islands are greatly increased with this so-called design.
MassDOT has traditionally been auto-centric, but the recently released preliminary designs by MassDOT for the Rutherford Ave and Grounding the McGrath projects are very much multi-modal "complete streets", moreso than this latest offering from DCR.
I certainly agree that the MassDOT plans for Rutherford Ave and McGrath are better than what DCR has put forward here. However, MassDOT expects the Rutherford Ave redesign to save drivers time, and has admitted that McGrath is overbuilt for the traffic it serves. When MassDOT is worried about congestion, they put out plans like we've been seeing for the Allston Multimodal Project and the Route 2 corridor study. I am unaware of any project MassDOT has endorsed that results in a reduction in roadway capacity in an already congested corridor, but would love to be proven wrong.
The missing crosswalks and unsignalized slip lane in the current condition aren't safe either.
Eh, it's done all over the city. It mostly works, mostly in the same way as in the NYC area - people do basically zipper merge, but do it 1 inch away from the other car, yielding only when it is mechanically impossible to continue fitting 2 cars into the space. Slows down traffic on the other side of the light at least!
The obvious counter argument is that the green space in the middle of the rotary is a waste of green space. It's inaccessible to everyone and has no landscaping of substance. Better to your have your parkland where....people can get to it for recreation and where it can actually buffer river path from road.
I agree that this is an improvement. This would re-wild a good chunk of parkland, increasing the parkland from ~100 ft to ~300 ft between riverside to road. That’s a huge win.
For better or worse, the decision to keep Leo Birmingham but shrink it down to two lanes has been finalized. You can see the meeting info here, and construction is already under way on those plans.
At least theyre removing some on leo birmingham