Copley Square Revamp | Back Bay

[MjolnirMan]

I showed up with major questions about the hardscape, but what proved to be most perplexing was the grass lawn and how literally NOBODY was using it. I dare any of you to go through all 30 of my photos and find even ONE person on it in any capacity, and no I’m not being selective with my shots and I was there for a solid 30 minutes

I wonder how much the midday sun is to blame? Is it too small to be inviting to sunbathers or picnic-ers? Too deferential to Trinity Church? Too pretty to get its hair mussed up?

Yes. The previous iteration of the plaza had a large, primary section of lawn with the paths bordered on 2 sides by rows of trees and on one by flower planters. The new version has a smaller patch right in front of Trinity and nothing else (ignore in the render where they deceptively color mulch planters a shade of green). The only buffer from the paths is a strip of mulch on the St. James side and the scale is, what, a quarter of the old one?

https://imgur.com/a/Dgt8VyK

On the old lawn, you could walk over, plop down, and feel like you've got some buffer in an oasis. In the new version, people are walking around on all sides constantly, leaving you feeling exposed. In one of your pictures, a red pickup truck is parked feet from where the "lawn" starts. It's uninviting and psychologically unpleasant.

The "grove" of tables under the trees looks nice and inviting, and there are a few people sitting on the bench wall. But I'd also like to point out that nobody is engaging with the hardscape when there's not a farmer's market on it - they're treating it as a super-wide pathway. It's a liminal space. So the new design has ruined the "urban lawn" effect, and 99% of the time when there aren't heavy trucks on the hardscape, that part of the plaza is effectively unusable for anything but walking through.

 

[chrisbrat]

Can't argue with any of that, but the famer's market, marathon activity, and other events weren't sustainable on the previous lawn. We either get those (valuable) activations or a lawn. I'm fine with the trade-off. If you want grass, the Esplanade, Public Garden, Commonwealth Mall, and Common are a short walk away.

 

[MjolnirMan]

I agree with you that those relatively limited pop-up structures and foot traffic aren't a good fit for, specifically, the old lawn. But was that ever the case? The Farmer's Market was on the old brick. The combined hardscape of the old Trinity square, the Boylston sidewalk from Trinity past the fountain to the kiosk and then up to St. James, a closed Dartmouth St., and the sidewalk in front of the BPL all provided a huge amount of more-or-less contiguous space.

There were concerts where stages were set up on the old Trinity square but attendees could lounge on the lawn. It was not strictly needed to redesign the plaza in this particular way, and the choices they made have locked out previous uses to perhaps marginally improve minority-case use. I get that there are other parks, but don't find that argument to ruining a well-liked, historic one to be compelling. You could argue the Comm Ave Mall isn't a very good park; it's basically just a nice sidewalk. And if you demolish it for much-needed downtown housing development, people can just go to the Public Garden instead.

 

[chrisbrat]

Not to bicker pointlessly, but "historic?" The previous version of the plaza had only been around since the '90s and earlier versions were almost entirely concrete/hardscape.

There's been plenty of testimony that the previous lawn was in terrible (horticultural) shape b/c of overuse and the presence of not only lots of people, but cars/trucks and staging. Moreover, the trees in the previous plaza were suffering.

Like the new plaza or don't, but it's not like the previous one was redeveloped entirely arbitrarily. It needed to be changed.

 

[Charlie_mta]

Regarding the traffic closure of Dartmouth St in front of the BPL, it is totally doable. The system of one-way streets is already set up to funnel traffic to the Huntington Ave Mass Pike on-ramp. There would be a couple of ways to drive to the on-ramp from Boylston and Newbury Streets, as shown below. Also, no bus routes use that piece of Dartmouth street. I would leave one lane available for emergency vehicles through the closed section of Dartmouth street, but have it closed to all other vehicular traffic, and most of it redone into a plaza.

 

[lexicon506]

Pedestrian areas can be designed to allow emergency vehicle access, why would they need a dedicated lane? This is always brought up as an argument against pedestrianization, which is strange because pedestrians can get out of the way of emergency vehicles much faster than cars can...

 

[Charlie_mta]

Pedestrian areas can be designed to allow emergency vehicle access, why would they need a dedicated lane? This is always brought up as an argument against pedestrianization, which is strange because pedestrians can get out of the way of emergency vehicles much faster than cars can...

All the emergency lane has to be is a couple of stripes across the plaza, with the same paving materials as the plaza plus appropriate symbols and signing. Another way of handling emergency vehicles would be to have no emergency lane on the plaza, but instead make Exeter Street two-way.

 

[HenryAlan]

I think it's good to have some kind of pavement indicators, just so that people understand not to put up temporary exhibits, tables, etc. It wouldn't be so much as a lane, so much as a zone meant only for pedestrians when emergency vehicles aren't there, while everything aside from that could be used for gatherings, booths, what have you.

 

[Scott]

It could be like the fire lane in front of the supermarket and such a thing could only be used when actually responding to an emergency with lights and sirens, so it wouldn't be that often and the responders would of course use appropriate caution. A police car driving down the street or an ambulance doing a routine transfer shouldn't be allowed to use it minimize the risk of coming in contact with pedestrians

 

[RandomWalk]

And there should be architectural barriers to keep gig economy mopeds from treating it like a regular street.

 

[MjolnirMan]

There's been plenty of testimony that the previous lawn was in terrible (horticultural) shape b/c of overuse and the presence of not only lots of people, but cars/trucks and staging.

I'll give you that - there's no longer any grass to ruin. If that's an improvement or not depends on your perspective.

 

[cooper]

Regarding the traffic closure of Dartmouth St in front of the BPL, it is totally doable. The system of one-way streets is already set up to funnel traffic to the Huntington Ave Mass Pike on-ramp. There would be a couple of ways to drive to the on-ramp from Boylston and Newbury Streets, as shown below. Also, no bus routes use that piece of Dartmouth street. I would leave one lane available for emergency vehicles through the closed section of Dartmouth street, but have it closed to all other vehicular traffic, and most of it redone into a plaza.

View attachment 73934

I think the routes in red remain the same with or without that section of Dartmouth being closed. The only "concern" I can think of, is Mass Pike traffic and South End traffic trying to get to the Newbury/Pru/Fenway areas. . And that's also easily mitigated by using Berkley.

 

[JeffDowntown]

I think the routes in red remain the same with or without that section of Dartmouth being closed. The only "concern" I can think of, is Mass Pike traffic and South End traffic trying to get to the Newbury/Pru/Fenway areas. . And that's also easily mitigated by using Berkley.View attachment 73944

I think a traffic study would find that Berkeley is absolutely slammed already because it is the access route to Storrow Drive.

We really need to reduce the number of vehicles trying to move through the area to likely make this work. If you end up with severe backups on Stuart and Berkeley, you will back up traffic on the Pike exit ramp, creating a real hazard in the Pru Tunnel. DOT would never sign off on that.

 

[cooper]

I think a traffic study would find that Berkeley is absolutely slammed already because it is the access route to Storrow Drive.

We really need to reduce the number of vehicles trying to move through the area to likely make this work. If you end up with severe backups on Stuart and Berkeley, you will back up traffic on the Pike exit ramp, creating a real hazard in the Pru Tunnel. DOT would never sign off on that.

I was concerned with this, too, as Berkley north of Boylston, to Storrow, always seemed to have been a nightmare. But street network analysis in the Copley-Connect pilot points to Berkeley having had the capacity to handle rerouted traffic from Dartmouth (with “capacity” defined as the ability for traffic to flow without getting congested).