Search results

If you are not stopping in Philly, the powers that be won't let you tunnel through. That is how politicians, for millennia, have played ball.

Concept is cool, but you really cannot skip the 3rd largest metro on the East Coast, Philadelphia, in your super express mode. Making Philadelphia a connector city would make the proposal DOA (since you have to track through Philadelphia).

The biggest impediment to redevelopment of the Class B offices to housing right now is interest rates. Keep the policy in place until interest rates come down, then see if developers are more willing to use the conversion incentives. There is a social engineering component to inclusionary...

I think developers have the option to buy-out and pool with others today. Millennium with Winthrop Center did exactly that (there are no on-site affordable units at Winthrop Center). Usually the reason they don't is because it is often cheaper to push undesirable space into affordable units...

This is the building it replaced, a temporary structure plus basketball courts: The artwork is on the Josiah Quincy Elementary School, next door (still there, the Upper School is not replacing the Elementary School):

The service workers that support your dream of restaurants/theatres/museums/stores/medical offices also need places to live, and best close to where they work. Developers scream about the affordable requirement, but the truth is every building has some units that are less desirable, hard to...

Don't you really need to get to Park Street in your Medford/Tufts <-> Downtown service pattern? Otherwise you are really shortchanging Medford and Somerville commuters.

In Plan: Downtown, the Skyline districts of downtown include prioritizing entertainment uses for the ground floor retail. Whether this translates to nightlife or not remains to be seen. Isn't the liquor licensing issue really under the control of the State Legislature? They have micromanaged...

BPDA completed late last year the Plan Downtown, that dramatically increases the as-of-rights heights and FAR in the new Downtown Skyline Districts. (Big barrier now is the Shadow law, which is State controlled, and Logan Airspace which is Federal). Draft Zoning (still subject to amendment)...

I personally think Green should be separately color coded by end-to-end segments, as is more common in European designations. Sharing a tunnel is not the same as being the same end-to-end line.

Naples to Milan (same distance as Boston to DC) is 4hr 15min by high speed rail ($94 one way)

You clearly are not a student of human nature. It is a basic fact that every capital market on the planet overshoots the top of the market in economic cycles due to FOMO reactions. It is a fundamental characteristic of capital markets (because investors are human).

The new North American variant of soccer -- chimney hazard bank-shot soccer.

The Commonwealth in general had a really bad history of poor quality construction of government funded facilities from the 1970's into the 1980's. Particularly highly suspect concrete supply (likely violation of the salt content in the concrete, resulting in premature degradation). Look at the...

WMATA did their major line closures in 2021-2022. IIRC Yellow and Blue were closed for almost a year for repairs. Even into this year, sections of the Red Line are closed for three solid months. I wonder if Boston could handle the Red Line being closed for an entire year?

You are really not understanding the priority order of transportation in the United States. Water-based traffic always gets priority over land-based traffic, based on Federal law and long historical prescident. Drawbridges in the locations of the Sagamore and Bourne bridges would be controlled...

And the Army Corp of Engineers would control the lift cycle of the bridge, as they do the Cape Cod Rail Bridge. So expect it to be open for boat traffic more than closed for automobile and truck traffic. To build 5) above (a low fixed bridge over a navigable waterway), you basically have to...

Not really missing something. CCBA just can't get past the old school days of affordable housing development with massive federal funds. They have also sat on the C-Mart site (public trust land under their stewardship) on Washington Street, other side of the Turnpike, for decades, trying for a...

You cannot build low bridges over a navigable waterway -- it is considered impeding the ship traffic.

You cannot do that as long as it is designated a navigable waterway of the US. It takes an act of Congress to take a navigable waterway out of service. For historical reasons, water transport rights supersede all other transportation rights in the US. It is the law.