Bowker Overpass replacement?

[stick n move]

“This week, we are truly excited to see the start of the long-awaited Charlesgate Park Revitalization Project! After years of planning, this project will reconnect Charlesgate Park, Commonwealth Avenue, and Kenmore Square to the Back Bay Fens for park users, pedestrians, and cyclists for the first time in decades.

The first phase of the project will consist of rebuilding the bridge over I-90 to include new, improved pedestrian and bicycle lanes and a greener design to improve the health of the parks and the Muddy River. Preliminary work in the area began earlier this week, and we will continue to provide updates.”

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[Longfellow]

Love that there's a paint median making it wider than necessary just so that they can accomodate 9 lanes of turning lanes at the mouth. Talk about shooting yourself in the dick to spite your face

 

[Badusername]

Love that there's a paint median making it wider than necessary just so that they can accomodate 9 lanes of turning lanes at the mouth. Talk about shooting yourself in the dick to spite your face

Looking forward to revisiting this thread in 2075 when the viaduct needs to be rebuilt again and we’ll have our next chance at a fully reclaimed Charlesgate.

 

[Charlie_mta]

“This week, we are truly excited to see the start of the long-awaited Charlesgate Park Revitalization Project! After years of planning, this project will reconnect Charlesgate Park, Commonwealth Avenue, and Kenmore Square to the Back Bay Fens for park users, pedestrians, and cyclists for the first time in decades.

The first phase of the project will consist of rebuilding the bridge over I-90 to include new, improved pedestrian and bicycle lanes and a greener design to improve the health of the parks and the Muddy River. Preliminary work in the area began earlier this week, and we will continue to provide updates.”

View attachment 66207

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Looks like a sea of asphalt. Another instance of "car is king".
Yes, I know the multi-use path will be good, but why the super highway elevated over the park all the way to Storrow Drive? Yes, I know all the excuses, but the bottom line for me is that it's an elevated expressway over prime park land, which would never, ever be allowed if built new today, due to 4F protections in the law.

 

[millerm277]

Looks like a sea of asphalt. Another instance of "car is king".
Yes, I know the multi-use path will be good, but why the super highway elevated over the park all the way to Storrow Drive? Yes, I know all the excuses, but the bottom line for me is that it's an elevated expressway over prime park land, which would never, ever be allowed if built new today, due to 4F protections in the law.

I don't think you'd design much of Boston the way it is today if you were starting over.

Anyway, I'll remind that in a couple years the end result will be significantly better than today for pretty much every constituency.

That generally sounds like a successful compromise of design to me. The ped/bike changes are going to be pretty transformative, the road isn't going to be on the verge of collapse, and there will be both be more park + that parkland will be vastly more usable/functional.

 

[Charlie_mta]

I don't think you'd design much of Boston the way it is today if you were starting over.

With this one, we actually were starting over. The deteriorated Bowker overpass presented a very real opportunity to reset the clock, pull down the rotting overpass, undo the damage of 1960s highway mania, and restore a key piece of the Emerald Necklace park system in the heart of Boston.
Instead, the powers-that-be caved to the lowest common denominator and are simply replacing the old overpass with a new one, with some bells and whistles added for good measure and good PR. If we had courageous, visionary leadership, this lazy solution would not have happened.

 

[Charlie_mta]

I would've rather had something like this:

Instead of this:

 

[millerm277]

With this one, we actually were starting over. The deteriorated Bowker overpass presented a very real opportunity to reset the clock, pull down the rotting overpass, undo the damage of 1960s highway mania, and restore a key piece of the Emerald Necklace park system in the heart of Boston.
Instead, the powers-that-be caved to the lowest common denominator and are simply replacing the old overpass with a new one, with some bells and whistles added for good measure and good PR. If we had courageous, visionary leadership, this lazy solution would not have happened.

I would've rather had something like this:

View attachment 66212

There's no way to make that work with the volume of demand. And the less nice removal option that was studied was going to pretty much result in 24/7 heavy traffic on Charlesgate E/W (+ Charlesgate E widening), still having a ramp right over the river on that end, and likely cutting Comm Ave/Beacon thru capacity drastically with the gridlock as well and other knock on-effects from increased volume @ Kenmore and elsewhere.

Highway removal without actually doing much of anything about Boston's significant and growing regional mobility problems is not a solution - that's just making the problem worse, and significantly so. This isn't the McGrath where it's accomplishing nothing.

I would have a very different opinion if we were actually on any sort of track for the kind of drastic transit expansions/improvements the region needs to actually provide good alternatives to many of the trips currently made by car - as we all know, we largely are not. I'm entirely supportive of a "Big Dig for transit" level of spending. But I see zero evidence of it happening now or anytime in the planning-range future. We're probably going to be thrilled if we can even get a single-stop connector (Red-Blue) built in the next decade. That's the unfortunate reality we exist in, and I don't think it's realistic to eliminate this anytime soon in that reality.

 

[Charlie_mta]

Highway removal without actually doing much of anything about Boston's significant and growing regional mobility problems is not a solution - that's just making the problem worse, and significantly so. This isn't the McGrath where it's accomplishing nothing.

San Francisco eliminated two major elevated freeways, the Embarcadero Freeway and the Central Freeway, both much longer than the Bowker overpass. Yes, it would take immense courage and vision to just eliminate outright an expressway in the center of Boston, but it boils down to a city's priorities: either reclaim a sizeable piece of historic park land currently buried by an elevated expressway, or keep the expressway and facilitate a smoother traffic flow. It comes down to choices and deciding what is more important.

 

[sneijder]

Highway removal without actually doing much of anything about Boston's significant and growing regional mobility problems is not a solution - that's just making the problem worse, and significantly so. This isn't the McGrath where it's accomplishing nothing.

The more roads we build, the more people drive. The less roads we build, the less people drive (and people don't stop traveling alltogether, they just shift to a different mode). That's really all there is to it.

If we built the inner belt right through cambridge, fenway, and forest hills, yes it would likely be filled with cars during rush hour. Does that mean it should definitely exist today because "there's no way to make that work with that volume of demand"?

 

[TallIsGood]

The more roads we build, the more people drive. The less roads we build, the less people drive (and people don't stop traveling alltogether, they just shift to a different mode). That's really all there is to it.

If we built the inner belt right through cambridge, fenway, and forest hills, yes it would likely be filled with cars during rush hour. Does that mean it should definitely exist today because "there's no way to make that work with that volume of demand"?

People will stop traveling to Boston if it’s that painful to do so.

 

[themissinglink]

People will stop traveling to Boston if it’s that painful to do so.

I very much doubt it. It's already painful to drive into Boston (and many other major cities), and yet people still visit in droves. Not to mention, Phil Eng has been making significant improvements to the MBTA that will encourage more people to leave their cars behind and use the T.

Who is going to avoid Boston because the Bowker overpass comes down? A handful of sheltered suburbanites who care more about driving than the city itself?

 

[sneijder]

People will stop traveling to Boston if it’s that painful to do so.

sure, some suburbanites who commute to Fenway-area for work 3 days a week may temporarily have a longer drive. But historical data shows traffic actually improving (or at least staying the same) when large-scale highway removals happen in the long run. But the much-improved parkland will drive lots more pedestrian and bike traffic, and pretty much guaranteed to be a net-boon economically for all the business in the area.

 

[RandomWalk]

On top of the immediate impact to the land it occupies, removing the overpass will reduce the utility of Storrow for a slice of users. That makes future rework of that roadway easier.

 

[JeffDowntown]

On top of the immediate impact to the land it occupies, removing the overpass will reduce the utility of Storrow for a slice of users. That makes future rework of that roadway easier.

I understand the desire to eliminate the Bowker overpass. But it seems really problematic without also adding an Eastbound entrance/Westbound exit for the Pike someplace in Back Bay or Fenway. Otherwise you are reducing regional highway access for a significant, economically important, quadrant of the city.

 

[bigeman312]

I see how this will provide a significantly improved connection between Boylston St and Comm Ave for those not in automobiles. I can see how that will help those making hyper-local trips, as a major improvement over the current options of navigating the current death trap or detouring via Mass Ave, which is what I would currently choose. I want to focus in on the micro-mobility connections for slightly longer trips, though.

This seems to be lacking any connection that would make it useful for micromobility vehicles.

• For those traveling between the Northern End of the project areaand:
  • Longwood, Brookline Ave would still be the preferable Mass Pike crossing. Boylston St through Fenway remains hostile.
  • The Emerald Necklace, Brookline, or points southwest, Beacon St would still be the preferable Mass Pike crossing. Park Drive and Boylston St through Fenway remain hostile.
  • Roxbury, the Southwest Corridor, or points south, Mass Ave would still be the preferable Mass Pike crossing. Boylston St from Mass Ave to Bowker remains hostile.

What plans are there to improve Boylston St for micromobility vehicles, at least between Brookline Ave and Mass Ave? Without those improvements, this remains a bridge to nowhere.

 

[LtKije]

Caveating that I’m not a car person at all, and would love to see the Bowker removed in theory, in practice Longwood is one of the region’s most important employment centers, and due to the presence of hospitals one in which employees must be in person, and trucks and motor vehicles for infirm visitors are a necessary evil. I just searched Google Maps for the recommended route to Longwood from a variety of locations north, east, and west of the city. For nearly all of them, apart from a few locations in Cambridge and Allston, the recommended route is the Bowker. The alternatives, including the BU Bridge rotary and Mass Ave, aren’t exactly famous for being light on traffic. Any serious proposal to remove the Bowker I think has to grapple with how you get people from all these disparate locations to Longwood without just pushing traffic around to other locations that are also at capacity.

 

[sneijder]

Caveating that I’m not a car person at all, and would love to see the Bowker removed in theory, in practice Longwood is one of the region’s most important employment centers, and due to the presence of hospitals one in which employees must be in person, and trucks and motor vehicles for infirm visitors are a necessary evil. I just searched Google Maps for the recommended route to Longwood from a variety of locations north, east, and west of the city. For nearly all of them, apart from a few locations in Cambridge and Allston, the recommended route is the Bowker. The alternatives, including the BU Bridge rotary and Mass Ave, aren’t exactly famous for being light on traffic. Any serious proposal to remove the Bowker I think has to grapple with how you get people from all these disparate locations to Longwood without just pushing traffic around to other locations that are also at capacity.

it seems really problematic without also adding an Eastbound entrance/Westbound exit for the Pike someplace in Back Bay or Fenway.

For these trip examples here, I actually think adding entrances/exits to the pike would be adequate to remove bowker. Right now storrow is functioning as a mini-I90 for all trips going east from fenway and all cars arriving to fenway from the east. Getting those cars back onto the pike would also free up the daily shitshow that is storrow drive east near MGH.

 

[JeffDowntown]

For these trip examples here, I actually think adding entrances/exits to the pike would be adequate to remove bowker. Right now storrow is functioning as a mini-I90 for all trips going east from fenway and all cars arriving to fenway from the east. Getting those cars back onto the pike would also free up the daily shitshow that is storrow drive east near MGH.

I agree that the Pike access points generally fix the issue (although the Pike is no dream route to get to I-93 North or Rt. 1 North through the O'Neill Tunnel).

A big challenge is no one has been able to find a location for these access points that is generally acceptable.

 

[RandomWalk]

The highway sits underneath and turned askew from the street grid. Maybe eastbound near Cambria St, but that would have a weave between entering and exiting traffic. Westbound landing near Dartmouth St, assuming the parking garage ever got redeveloped.