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  1. J

    The New Retail Thread

    Not "new" per se, but a revival. Yet again Jacob Wirth is taking a swing at reopening. It's such a good historical building in a well-trafficked part of the city. I walked by there the other day and the whole section is just filthy, covered in trash and food containers. Wishing the owners luck...
  2. J

    New England Electrical Grid

    Also worth noting that this is being done at the site of an old auto wrecking yard well off a main road and in a forest, next to high capacity transmission lines. This is an overlay showing the hundreds of old cars arrayed in the woods being replaced by a small new section with the battery...
  3. J

    New England Electrical Grid

    Important reminder that the ISONE grid interconnect queue is 99% carbon-free, and that cumbersome permitting is preventing 14GW of new capacity from being added to the grid. Nearly half of that is battery storage, which will be a critical intermediary if more wind and solar come online (and as...
  4. J

    Congestion toll in Boston?

    The geography and small size of Boston really doesn't make this a great proposal either. You'd really need at least Cambridge on board, and I'm sure the Brookline people would be furious if mode shift was to just run up the gut of Route 9 until you hit the Boston municipal border and then park...
  5. J

    Copley Square Revamp | Back Bay

    The building is grim and dark and does not do justice to the Copley street front, hence it should be redeveloped into something bright and new (the prime point that was on topic). It's not historic and sits on a very prominent corner. The 7/11 also happens to be a trash pile, which is bad on its...
  6. J

    Copley Square Revamp | Back Bay

    It’s not people sitting around in a city. It’s an enclave full of trash that sits there and is never cleaned up because 7/11 chooses to do nothing to improve the streetscape of their storefront. I love people sitting around, note my support for Copley. I hate when there are piles of trash on the...
  7. J

    Copley Square Revamp | Back Bay

    Wow that's grim. The one to the left is pretty miserable too, and it has the 711 on Dartmouth that brings in a ton of people sitting around and throwing trash on the ground. Would love to replace that thing with something bright and new
  8. J

    Local Politics Thread

    Love that this got picked up. It's such a stupid own-goal; an idea that should have been shut down after the initial brainstorm. No, you absolutely may not use tax payer funds to erect Catholic statues on a municipal building.
  9. J

    Copley Square Revamp | Back Bay

    The issue is that these public spaces are bounded by monster multi lane roads that make plaza-adjacent businesses feel a world away. For Copley, if any of the Boylston businesses or the Fairmont were just one small travel lane from the plaza it would feel like you could flow between the spaces...
  10. J

    Downtown/Financial district infill and small developments

    Love that cheap real estate is being bought and put to good use but I kind of feel like these flex arts and public mixing spaces generally end up without enough programming and so are just dead most of the time. Power to the Embrace team for the deal but really hope it’s active and frequently in...
  11. J

    Logan Airport Flights and Airlines Discussion

    Are they running all of these with their Embraer fleet...? That's like a 4 hour flight to Turks and Caicos.
  12. J

    Dorchester Infill and Small Developments

    Copy and paste across every part of 1-story Boston metro from Allston to Eastie to Quincy. Vary the brick color, maybe change some windows, but that's a great looking little infill building.
  13. J

    Kendall Common ( née Volpe Redevelopment) | Kendall Sq | Cambridge

    I walked by the site yesterday and my favorite detail is the cab in the yellow crane, which is reclined at a 45 degree angle so the operator doesn't have to crane his neck. Like working from an extremely powerful lazyboy.
  14. J

    New England Electrical Grid

    This could probably also go in the 121 Broadway/AstraZeneca HQ threads, but it's grid-focused. As discussed elsewhere, there's a massive and critical new Eversource substation going in underground in the middle of Kendall. It's the first of its kind anywhere and the Globe ran a nice story on it...
  15. J

    General Massachusetts Politics Discussion

    Not to be pedantic, but I think it's still true that funds are limited to education and transportation? The sole exception I'm aware of is the Quincy parking garage project, which was justified because it's almost, nearly, barely related to transportation. MBTA operations are I think a fair...
  16. J

    General Boston Discussion

    Yes, it's a super cool story from one of the truly original Boston neighborhoods. In case people don't know, the Boston city website has pages for each historic district with tons of information (lots about how to build, guidelines, maps, etc)...
  17. J

    New England Electrical Grid

    I imagine it would help under high load conditions, but these interconnects are typically bidirectional depending on grid supply/demand, so there can be oddball periods where we're sending power up to Canada on NECEC if their marginal need is greater. Ultimately we need new generation capacity...
  18. J

    Seaport Neighborhood - Infill and Discussion

    I'm very familiar with that area and walked through there on a nearly daily basis for years. The tale (or, tail) of that park is one where dog owners yet again ruined one of the few patches of grass in the neighborhood. There were plentiful NO DOGS signs on all sides, there's a new dog park 20...
  19. J

    New England Electrical Grid

    I truly don't hate it. As much as a carbon-free grid is the ultimate goal, replacing oil-powered peaker output with gas is a win. The same way coal is now completely off the grid, it's clear that gas is the transitional fuel. This definitely means we need more batteries, offshore wind and...
  20. J

    New England Electrical Grid

    Periodic reminder that we have a twice-yearly peaking grid with significant load increases both winter and summer. While still small (<1GW) the oil peaker plants are starting to come online to account for the AC requirements in this heat wave. This will be brief since it's cooling down...

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