Bowker Overpass replacement?

Thanks. From that map, it's pretty evident that Newbury Street always had a break at Charlesgate and never crossed the Muddy River.
 


When the Bowker was constructed the traffic density and speed was increased significantly enough to warrant a rather anti-urban reconfiguration in the name of safety. High speeds into small rotaries and head on lane shifts (that must have caused many front end collisions) are a big red flag to traffic engineers.

In the 1970s as the neighborhood became primarily full of college kids with cars and cranky old people carriage lanes were added to what otherwise functionally should have remained major avenues. Many of the streets around the Fens were made one way only exaserbating traffic going into Gaston Square towards the Bowker and the stretch of Boylston to Longwood.

Whereas development around Fenway Park and the growth of the Longwood Medical Area only add to traffic something dramatic needs to be done. However given that the neighborhood would go nuclear over losing precious parking and the dilution of traffic backups (which wouldn't exist if the streets hadn't been monkeyed with in the first place) through their neighborhood, and the Bowker probably isn't going anywhere fast, we shouldn't be getting our hopes up.

Despite what the old fire insurance map shows, I still think it would be a good idea to make Newbury contiguous and bridge Charlesgate East to not be intersected by the pike and commuter rail trench.
 
Lurker said:
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However given that the neighborhood would go nuclear over losing precious parking and the dilution of traffic backups (which wouldn't exist if the streets hadn't been monkeyed with in the first place) through their neighborhood,
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Isn't the Fenway Civic Association actually on record desiring a decrease of on-street parking?
 
My admittedly very limited understanding as a landlord is that they wish the existing number of parking spaces, including those in surface lots, to remain and any new development may only add additional spaces which directly serve resident occupants.

The biggest issue with parking in tight neighborhoods is visitors. Residents wouldn't be residents in the first place if lack of parking space was an issue to them. Here in the South End the visiting foodie and artsy bastards are always illegally double parking, stealing sticker spaces, or even having the gall to block alleys. I imagine it must be worse when your main attraction is a sports team whose main draw is suburbanites.
 
Lurker said:
My admittedly very limited understanding as a landlord is that they wish the existing number of parking spaces, including those in surface lots, to remain and any new development may only add additional spaces which directly serve resident occupants.

The biggest issue with parking in tight neighborhoods is visitors. Residents wouldn't be residents in the first place if lack of parking space was an issue to them. Here in the South End the visiting foodie and artsy bastards are always illegally double parking, stealing sticker spaces, or even having the gall to block alleys. I imagine it must be worse when your main attraction is a sports team whose main draw is suburbanites.
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I've often said that I love Fenway Park, it's the clientele that (insert current owner here) brings in that irks me. Fenway proper and the West Fens have a different issue than my neighborhood too, since there are garages in the Back Bay/East Fens.

Maybe it was that they don't want to increase street saturation, but to have any new parking with development (and for development). That's essentially the tack the Back Bay has taken. I talked about 95 Mass Ave earlier. That parking is owner/tenant use only, not even for visitors to the building.

Back to Gaston, would there be a loss of parking if it was returned to the configuration in the pic above? (bearing in mind this pic looks south) If the northern-outbound local access road and parking was returned to thruway, that axes a side of parking. But, there appears to be parking on the southern-inbound west of the rotary at the victory gardens. Put it back??
 
I think this traffic dilemma might merit a posting in the Design A Better Boston forum.
 
To make Newbury Street contiguous would require rerouting the bridge over the Mass Pike back to the Charlesgate West alignment, it's pre-1963 location. Then Newbury St. from the east could be ramped up to the new bridge. Newbury Street would then intersect with the new crossing, requiring a stop light there.

The Bowker overpass would be demolished. As an adjunct to this, a short new overpass for traffic to cross over Commonwealth Ave could be built, but I would ramp it down to cross Beacon Street at grade. The new overpass should be stone masonry to continue the look of the Olmstead Emerald Necklace from the south. Here's what I would propose:

http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b66/karlgame/charlesgate.jpg?t=1240199794
 
Extending Newbury won't matter one bit if the Pike isn't covered - and covered with something that can open onto it
 
czsz said:
Extending Newbury won't matter one bit if the Pike isn't covered - and covered with something that can open onto it
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... which won't ever happen because the Fenway Studios has been promised that nothing will never, ever, not in a million zillion kabillion jillion years be built on Parcel 11, ensuring that the unsightly gash in the landscape will remain a neighborhood eyesore in order to preserve the precious northern light.

Yes, that includes a deck with softscape, because a deck would require cranes for a period, and cranes create ... TEH SHADOWZZZZZZ!!!11!!!!!!!!! O NOES!!!!!!!111 Plus trees grow tall, and there's TEH SHADOWZZZZZZ!!!!!!!@!!!!!!@!@!111111)




(The "artists" haven't figured out that the better argument is that if there's a deck, someone will come along and build a huge building with even more of TEH SHADOWZZZZZZZ!!!!11!!! and the "artists" will have no northern light by which to "create.")
 
Fenway Studios is over a century old, and was placed there specifically to catch the northern light because of the railroad cut. It is a National Historic Landmark. Read more here.

This purpose-built structure is part of the cultural life of our city, and I'm happy to let it remain undisturbed. There are plenty of other places where one can build towers.
 
Ron Newman said:
Fenway Studios is over a century old, and was placed there specifically to catch the northern light because of the railroad cut. It is a National Historic Landmark. Read more here.

This purpose-built structure is part of the cultural life of our city, and I'm happy to let it remain undisturbed. There are plenty of other places where one can build towers.
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So are you saying the "railroad cut", now the turnpike trench, should be preserved for all eternity because of its beneficial relationship with the Fenway Studios? What about its negative relationship with the rest the city? What do you think about the current state of Ipswitch St.?
 
briv said:
So are you saying the "railroad cut", now the turnpike trench, should be preserved for all eternity because of its beneficial relationship with the Fenway Studios? What about its negative relationship with the rest the city? What do you think about the current state of Ipswitch St.?
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I didn't bother to respond that the "railroad cut" only extended into what's now the middle lane of the eastbound side of the pike. Buildings were demolished for the extension---buildings that existed before Fenway Studios was erected.

I also didn't bother to note that I didn't advocate for a tower, or even anything on Parcel 11.

I've (for years) simply liked the idea of decking the pike to create Back Bay/Fens version of the Orange Line cover. Put in a permanent softscape to better the gap between Charlesgate/Kenmore and Back Bay proper AND help mitigate some of the damage done years ago when Bowker was built.

Who pays for it? Instead of tossing all this money at (bank or commercial entity of your choice), how about a true works project? A billion dollars would deck off every parcel in the city, jump-starting short-term jobs and stimulating long-term development.

But I'm a socialist, or a fascist, or Mussolini himself reincarnate or something, one who's late for a baseball game!
 
OK, I'm not against a 'softscape' deck in any way. I just don't want to see the sunlight blocked to this building, when that sunlight is the very reason the building was erected in this location a century ago.

Bowker should simply be demolished over Beacon Street and Commonwealth Avenue. It serves no useful purpose that Charlesgate East and West don't already serve equally well.
 
You can't block north light, Ron. The light never comes from the north.

That's what makes it valuable to artists; it's completely diffuse, having bounce gazillion times off various molecules in air. No shadows, no sunbeams, soft --and impossible to block.
 
I don't know about "impossible to block". If a building the same size as Fenway Studios was built directly across Ipswich Street, wouldn't that cut off a lot of the light, diffuse or otherwise?
 
Ron Newman said:
I don't know about "impossible to block". If a building the same size as Fenway Studios was built directly across Ipswich Street, wouldn't that cut off a lot of the light, diffuse or otherwise?
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If it was a light color, it would actually INCREASE the light by acting as a reflector of south light. I have that condition in my house; there's a bright yellow building in the north across a fairly narrow street. It increases the light in my house's north-facing rooms --to the point of glare on really sunny days.
 
From this week's Courant:

Boston Courant said:
State Urged To Study Dismantling Bowker

by Jim Cronin
Courant News Writer

Residents and at least one elected official have urged the state's transportation chief to consider dismantling the ailing Bowker Overpass.

City Council President Michael Ross, along with Kenmore Association President Pam Beale, met with James Aloisi, secretary of transportation for the Commonwealth, to ask mm to study alternatives to rehabbing the Bowker. In their minds, the best alternative is demolishing it.

"It would really help reconnect the Back Bay and Kenmore Square," as well as allow daylight in the Muddy River area now overshadowed by the bridge, Ross said.

Eliminating the Bowker would leave the Storrow Drive on and off ramps intact. A third traffic lane would be added to Charlesgate East and West, with one lane leading on and off Storrow Drive, and lanes connecting Commonwealth Avenue. Cars would still stop at the traffic light as they leave Storrow Drive for Boylston Street, Ross said. Aloisi's office did not return repeated phone calls for comment.

"It could probably be removed and reconfigured for less," than the $100 million the state is estimating, Ross said.

In one of the ideas floated for the Bowker, Commonwealth Avenue is elevated slightly to accommodate an at-grade roadway that would replace the overpass, and Charlesgate East and West would be narrowed. Storrow Drive outbound would be relocated closer to the inbound portion.

According to a plan provided by Beale, the changes would reclaim open space along Charlesgate and the banks of the Charles River, provide a pedestrian and bicycle connector from Beacon Street to the Charles River, and allow access to air rights parking, minimizing the use of local streets.

"What we're looking for is for somebody to just look at alternatives," Beale said. "It's really a physical and mental impediment, and if hundreds of millions of dollars could be saved by scrapping the ailing bridge, it should be considered, she said.

Beale added that she thinks traffic will need to divert to the Charlesgate during any rehab work, so it makes sense to do so permanently.

"[The Bowker] is, in downtown Boston, the last of the urban blights," said Hef Fisher, who owns a building at. 461 Commonwealth Avenue. He provided a petition of more than 170 names in support ofdismantling the overpass.

The Department of Conservation and Recreation, which operates the Bowker Overpass, has no timeline or design in place for rehabbing the Bowker, said spokesperson Anne Roach.
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Brilliant idea! Seriously, how much time would you save driving from Storrow to the Fens because of this overpass? Not enough to justify this urban blight.
 
The only reason I could see to keep the overpass is if they could build direct Pike ramps off of it - the goal there would be to divert high-speed Boston-bound commuter traffic from Storrow to the pike while boulevardizing Storrow past Bowker.

On the other hand, this could probably be accomplished earlier at the River Street bridge too.
 
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