Bowker Overpass replacement?

Bananarama said:
To be fair, there's successful precedent for this working elsewhere. Riverside park in NYC has a viaduct running over it and it creates a very cool space with paths parallel and crossing below.
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Forgive me if I'm missing it, but it looks like even with the much more preferential light conditions of the higher viaduct, as well as more pleasant adjacent conditions lacking major roads (like Charlesgate E/W, Comm Ave, Beacon, Storrow onramps), the entire area under the viaduct is dedicated to linear hardscape, probably reflecting the overall shade making it hard for life to thrive there (or for one to want to linger there).
 
MjolnirMan said:
Forgive me if I'm missing it, but it looks like even with the much more preferential light conditions of the higher viaduct, as well as more pleasant adjacent conditions lacking major roads (like Charlesgate E/W, Comm Ave, Beacon, Storrow onramps), the entire area under the viaduct is dedicated to linear hardscape, probably reflecting the overall shade making it hard for life to thrive there (or for one to want to linger there).
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You're forgiven.
It's a very popular park and especially great to run/bike down. Really cool scale of space and separated well enough from the riverside path. I linger pretty often.

Coincidentally I was just at SoWa today and spent a good amount of time at the urban park space under 93 which is much lower and comparable to Bowker. I love me some serene emerald necklace nature trails, but sometimes its nice to mix it up a little. You won't find someone more anti-car than me, but it's hard not to marvel at the infrastructure of highways from below - especially when they're well maintained like Jo Dimaggio Hwy and (this segment of) the Pike.
 
Bananarama said:
Coincidentally I was just at SoWa today and spent a good amount of time at the urban park space under 93 which is much lower and comparable to Bowker. I love me some serene emerald necklace nature trails, but sometimes its nice to mix it up a little. You won't find someone more anti-car than me, but it's hard not to marvel at the infrastructure of highways from below - especially when they're well maintained like Jo Dimaggio Hwy and (this segment of) the Pike.
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For what it's worth, the same firm responsible for the SoWa under-viaduct space is leading the design effort at Charlesgate. This is really two projects: the Bowker Replacement and the park renovation below. I expect that the final product will bridge the gap between park and infrastructure well.

I am biased (I worked on this project for several years) but I will say from experience that the park aspect of this project reflects neighbors/community members' wants and needs well, and that the folks who will use this space most often understand that the viaduct will remain, at least for now. It isn't perfect—I think everyone would prefer for the viaduct to be removed—but that was a non-starter for the state. Regardless, I think there's a lot to like here. There's a ton of material available for folks who want to dig in—I recommend it! https://charlesgatealliance.org/events/pdf-files-of-our-work/
 
Downburst said:
For what it's worth, the same firm responsible for the SoWa under-viaduct space is leading the design effort at Charlesgate. This is really two projects: the Bowker Replacement and the park renovation below. I expect that the final product will bridge the gap between park and infrastructure well.

I am biased (I worked on this project for several years) but I will say from experience that the park aspect of this project reflects neighbors/community members' wants and needs well, and that the folks who will use this space most often understand that the viaduct will remain, at least for now. It isn't perfect—I think everyone would prefer for the viaduct to be removed—but that was a non-starter for the state. Regardless, I think there's a lot to like here. There's a ton of material available for folks who want to dig in—I recommend it! https://charlesgatealliance.org/events/pdf-files-of-our-work/
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I love this doodle of the woman relaxing with the shrieking traffic about 9 feet from her head.
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I'm certain that this area will be more pleasant after the $200,000,000 is spent, but not nearly as pleasant as an actual human environment. I'm sure there will be lovey facilities at the Particulate Matter Induced Asthma Memorial Playground under the highway ramp.
 
king_vibe said:
I love this doodle of the woman relaxing with the shrieking traffic about 9 feet from her head.
View attachment 31451
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Here's a thought: Tear down the northbound (right-hand) side of the viaduct, leave the southbound (left-side) in place for bicycle and pedestrian use only, with also one lane on it for emergency vehicles to LMA or wherever. At least that would cut the overhead behemoth in half, and provide a "High Line" type structure for peds and bicyclists.
 
BeyondRevenue said:
A reminder, lest we forget how goddamn gorgeous it was….
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It's never going to look that way again, and in all honesty, that doesn't look very good to me anyway. There is no activation, it is entirely a passive experience where the pedestrian can see snippets of river from above, but no active use opportunities. Is it better than what we have right now, in December 2022? Yes. But I don't think it's better than what we see in this proposal.
 
That does show the vista possible without the overpass, which is an improvement.

Another thing that images don’t capture: the auditory experience, and how the heavy structure of the overpass and nearby hardscaping impacts that.
 
RandomWalk said:
That does show the vista possible without the overpass, which is an improvement.

Another thing that images don’t capture: the auditory experience, and how the heavy structure of the overpass and nearby hardscaping impacts that.
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The DOT National Transportation Noise Map shows the mouth of the Muddy River as one of the worst noise pollution spots in the city outside of East Boston. This project doesn’t do a thing to change that.
 
I read through the Northeastern article and honestly felt much more optimistic about this than most of the comments above. My take is: There are three unfortunate realities of this area currently. The first is the fact these heavily trafficked roads exist at all. The second is the immediately surrounding natural environment is a total mess (significant amounts of underutilized/vacant land around the roadways, the Muddy River is submerged, etc.). The third is there are essentially no pedestrian connections.

I think the Northeastern team's plan addresses each of the three issues to varying degrees, and focuses on the second and third issues most:

1) On the first issue (the existence of the roads), it makes marginal changes. It pulls back a good chunk of land Storrow currently takes up (a definite plus). But it largely leaves the roads in place. I think that's a fairly pragmatic solution: There's no actual reason to believe Boston's use of cars is going to resemble that of a Dutch city of 50,000 inhabitants any time soon.

2) The second issue (natural environment is a mess) is where the team clearly focuses. I see a lot of upside in significantly improving and returning to potential human use the large amounts of grassy deadzone that currently exist, not to mention surfacing the Muddy River. While we (not unreasonably) ask whether people will actually use outdoor exercise equipment under a highway overpass, I wouldn't actually be surprised if they did in the warmer months. There's precedent for it, both in Boston (we had a lot of similar comments about the Greenway 15 years ago, let's not forget) and outside it (Miami, Toronto and other places have built 'Lowline' parks under highways in recent years, with at least some success).

3) The third issue (no pedestrian connections) is at least partially mitigated. I can't tell if every possible pedestrian connection is accounted for, but I'll give these guys the benefit of the doubt. They seem to have thought pretty deeply about Issues #2 and #3. I'm looking forward to it.
 
I want to provide a little history, and a little rant.

Charlesgate Park was designed as the Beacon Entrance to the Back Bay Fens, one of six grand entrances.* Like the Fens itself, it was mostly wild - it was not intended as a formal park like the Common. Instead, it was for sanitary purposes: the tides would wash the basin twice daily, clearing out the outflow from the Muddy River and Stony Brook, which were used as sewers and which tended to overflow during storms. The plants were picked to withstand the saltwater. (After the Charles River Dam was constructed in 1910, the Fens and Charlesgate were freshwater, and parts of the Fens were filled in for recreation.)

Nonetheless, it was a pedestrian-friendly area. There were paths along the edges, with elegant hotels opposite. There was a graceful crescent-shaped bridge over Ipswich Street and the tracks. Its sidewalks led directly to the Commonwealth Avenue Mall, which was continuous all the way to the Public Garden. Two low arches were added for Commonwealth Avenue in the 1910s, replacing an older span. Once you crossed narrow Back Street, you were in the Esplanade, where a footbridge crossed the mouth of the Muddy River. Charlesgate was indeed a gate - the string that connected two of the Emerald Necklace's pearls, plus the Esplanade.

This was stolen from us in the name of traffic. The Mass Ave underpass severed the Comm Ave Mall. Today, you can't legally access the median of Comm Ave between Charlesgate East and West - which means you can't even cross Comm Ave without leaving the park. (The lovely Mall between Charlesgate and Kenmore is now practically abandoned because it's no longer on a through route to the other parks.) Storrow cut off the park from the Esplanade. The Pike took the curved bridge. Bowker stole the sunlight, fresh air, and river, and cut it off from the Fens. This wasn't a single bad decision - it was a half century of decisions to take away a beautiful space so that suburbanites could have their cake and eat it too.

The NEU plan is a good start - it's a recognition that this indeed a public space that should be treated as such, and that it is a hub that connects other green spaces together. But ultimately, we have to confront the fact that the mere existence of the Bowker Overpass is a bad thing, that it needs to be removed, and that almost every vehicle that uses the Bowker is the result of a policy failure. Every nurse that drives from Chelsea to the LMA, every NEU employee that drives from Waltham, every Back Bay resident that drives to their office off 495 - there are distinct and reversible policy failures that led to them choosing to drive (or having to drive), and for their route taking them on roads that cut Boston off from its green spaces.

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There is no reason in hell that there should be an elevated expressway covering this river and park. I don't care how much gridlock tearing this thing down causes. To me it comes down to values. What values does this city hold? What kind of a city does it want to be? It's an existential question bigger than anything else.
 
Charlie_mta said:
There is no reason in hell that there should be an elevated expressway covering this river and park. I don't care how much gridlock tearing this thing down causes. To me it comes down to values. What values does this city hold? What kind of a city does it want to be? It's an existential question bigger than anything else.
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The city and the state have consistently shown that the swift movement and easy parking of motor vehicles is the commanding principle in all urban design from top to bottom. It's a base function, in the medulla, like breathing.
 
ritchiew said:
I just came across this document from November, which appears to be the latest presentation for the overpass designs

It looks like part of the plan is to get rid of the last connections between Storrow and the Mass Ave Bridge.
Also, this plan includes a pedestrian crossing across an off ramp from storrow.
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Interesting, but it is another lipstick on a pig project. It fails to address the root problem, which obviously is the presence of the Bowker overpass. The half-assed nature of this plan reminds me of the recent City Hall Plaza rehab project; a weak improvement not making much of a dent in the large looming core problem.
 
Charlie_mta said:
Interesting, but it is another lipstick on a pig project. It fails to address the root problem, which obviously is the presence of the Bowker overpass. The half-assed nature of this plan reminds me of the recent City Hall Plaza rehab project; a weak improvement not making much of a dent in the large looming core problem.
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While I agree that taking down the viaduct altogether would be the best option, it's not too likely under current political-social conditions. We haven't proven ready, as a society, to completely eliminate what is seen as critical car infrastructure. This plan accomplishes one very important thing, though, connecting the pedestrian and bike paths through the Fens directly to the Charles River paths. If such an improvement is built, it will essentially be possible to bike from outer neighborhoods like Roslindale and Dorchester all the way to the Esplanade on an entirely grade separate route, through beautiful park land along the way. That in itself is a huge win.
 
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