I-90 Interchange Improvement Project & West Station | Allston

Can we please get a transit-design team from another first-world country to consult or just design this for the MDOT, who clearly do not understand or have any demonstrated expertise in transit design?

Also, can the Governor's office and the Mayor's office please insist that the Pike be right-sized to align with Commonwealth and City objectives to reduce motor vehicle traffic? No matter how many lanes they build, car-drivers will demand more – so start with fewer and improve the transit connections.
We don't have the public support to even attempt that.

Particularly with the debacle of MBTA deferred maintenance and hence horrible service, we have probably lost two or three decades of positive movement toward more transit orientation in public support. Mayors and Governors only serve if they have public support. You want a more transit oriented future? -- fix the current T first.
 
6 simultaneous bus berths for only 3 proposed jitney routes?

I'll say it again: those busways--either configuration option--are overdesigned to complete absurdity. That station still needs a lot of conceptual work at both the rail and bus levels.
That bus loop, and their prioritization of private transit over public transit, is ghastly. If you want to hear them explain and defend it -
 
I'd be happy to accept an 8 lane pike if it allows for the removal of Storrow and Soldiers Field.

Exactly! This project as proposed is so.... lame. A once in a lifetime opportunity to redesign some of Boston's worst infrastructure mistakes and no one at MassDOT is thinking big.

Merge Soldiers Field Rd. into the 8-lane Mass Pike at the throat. Storrow can remain but as a two-lane boulevard fully integrated into the Back Bay/Beacon Hill street grid, with provisions for an eventual Blue Line extension to Kenmore. Instead of spending millions rebuilding the Charlesgate viaduct, tear it down and build a full set of on/off ramps there to facilitate access to Fenway/Longwood/Back Bay from the Pike.

Can someone PLEASE shake Monica Tibbets-Nutt awake before this opportunity slips away?
 
That bus loop, and their prioritization of private transit over public transit, is ghastly. If you want to hear them explain and defend it -
Why are they waiting on model data, deferring to model data, etc. etc. and then letting that determine the design and how many lanes they are putting in? We should be determining what we want from the project, and then later predicting how that would effect the environment. If you do the model first, then you're saying the only thing in the project worth considering is highway throughput.

Someone 100% need to find out what traffic model they're using and ban it's use at the state level. Because it's totally clouding their thinking about how to approach these projects. How many years left until MassDOT admits they aren't actually planning to cut traffic by half in 10 years?
 
Why are they waiting on model data, deferring to model data, etc. etc. and then letting that determine the design and how many lanes they are putting in? We should be determining what we want from the project, and then later predicting how that would affect the environment. If you do the model first, then you're saying the only thing in the project worth considering is highway throughput.

Someone 100% need to find out what traffic model they're using and ban it's use at the state level. Because it's totally clouding their thinking about how to approach these projects. How many years left until MassDOT admits they aren't actually planning to cut traffic by half in 10 years?
”What traffic model they’re using” isn’t a secret, it’s the MPO’s. Updated modeling is ongoing.

My personal opinion: In the past, the older model has been used far beyond recommendation to justify a conservative (small c, in the sense of the auto-centric status quo) approach to the design. I believe MassDOT has little desire to be (or especially, to be seen as) a proactive agency in shaping mode shift.
 

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