Cambridge Infill and Small Developments

cden4 said:
The Alewife area has a few big problems: Lack of connectivity, Route 2 dumping more traffic than the parkways can handle, Alewife garage acting as a huge traffic magnet, and dysfunctional intersections (particularly along the parkways.)

Not extending the Red Line to 128 is becoming an even bigger planning mistakes than it once was. Much of that traffic coming from Route 2 onto the parkways, particularly people who continue towards Boston, SHOULD be transit passengers. If there were actually Red Line Stations in Arlington and Lexington, fewer people who be driving into and/or through Cambridge.

Improving bus service could help, but the buses to Alewife get stuck in the same traffic as everyone else, making the trip take even longer than driving would.

The intersection of Route 2/Route 16 is a huge mess. MassDOT has plans to make it marginally better, but based on what I've seen of those plans, I'm not very hopeful.

The Alewife area also needs more connections across the commuter rail tracks, and more direct paths for walking and biking. It also needs more urban fabric and fewer parking lots. For having such a key transit station, the area feels very car-oriented. When I do walk in the area, I feel like the oddball, rather than the norm; this is unlike most other parts of Cambridge.
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Well, extending the Red Line to 128 was never really in the cards. The extension was funded only as far as Arlington, which might not have had a huge impact on current traffic since Arlington-based Red Line riders often use the Minuteman or buses to access Alewife. To truly distribute demand, a Red Line extension would have to be in the Route 2 median, and the MBTA has never seriously considered that option.

West Cambridge is a complete failure of urban planning. Alewife was built to be car-centric. As a daily user, it's the most unwelcoming transit station I've ever seen for pedestrians, and the streets around it are a disaster for access on foot. Cambridge has done nothing to enhance connectivity around the area, frequently punting on things like footbridges and blaming the MBTA for its own lack of vision.

The issue isn't just the prevalence of the luxury apartment above all other uses (though that is certainly an issue), but the form factor in which that use is presented. These are suburban apartment blocks, which made sense in isolation when each was designed and permitted as an outpost of high-end living in light-industrial hell, but should never have been allowed in a "planned" neighborhood. These buildings needed to be permitted only with ground-level retail or distinct entrances, and Cambridge needed to work with intention to bring in businesses. Instead, they fell asleep at the wheel, and given the look of the new CabridgePark Drive apartment buildings, they're still doing it.

This is a little different from Assembly, where the city owned the land and picked a single developer - Cambridge is working with a multitude of private landholders and developers. It takes more work to get something good done in that scenario.
 
Equilibria said:
Well, extending the Red Line to 128 was never really in the cards. The extension was funded only as far as Arlington, which might not have had a huge impact on current traffic since Arlington-based Red Line riders often use the Minuteman or buses to access Alewife. To truly distribute demand, a Red Line extension would have to be in the Route 2 median, and the MBTA has never seriously considered that option.

West Cambridge is a complete failure of urban planning. Alewife was built to be car-centric. As a daily user, it's the most unwelcoming transit station I've ever seen for pedestrians, and the streets around it are a disaster for access on foot. Cambridge has done nothing to enhance connectivity around the area, frequently punting on things like footbridges and blaming the MBTA for its own lack of vision.

The issue isn't just the prevalence of the luxury apartment above all other uses (though that is certainly an issue), but the form factor in which that use is presented. These are suburban apartment blocks, which made sense in isolation when each was designed and permitted as an outpost of high-end living in light-industrial hell, but should never have been allowed in a "planned" neighborhood. These buildings needed to be permitted only with ground-level retail or distinct entrances, and Cambridge needed to work with intention to bring in businesses. Instead, they fell asleep at the wheel, and given the look of the new CabridgePark Drive apartment buildings, they're still doing it.

This is a little different from Assembly, where the city owned the land and picked a single developer - Cambridge is working with a multitude of private landholders and developers. It takes more work to get something good done in that scenario.
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Equilib -- a lot of those things are true but the real 800 # Gorilla is that when RT-2 was planned it was designed to intersect with the Inner Belt

No Inner Belt -- No traffic peace at Alewife:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northwest_Expressway_(Massachusetts)

The highway [Northwest Expressway] would have travelled through Lexington, Arlington, Medford, Somerville and Cambridge, before linking with the Inner Belt Expressway.

The original plan called for U.S. 3 and MA 2 to link up together at the Lexington-Arlington border, and continue southeasterly, crossing MA 16/Mystic Valley Parkway at the Arlington-Somerville border and proceeding into Cambridge toward Union Square, Somerville.

A 1962 plan called for Routes 2 and 3 to converge at Alewife Brook Parkway with a longer stretch of new highway for Route 3 paralleling Lowell Street in Lexington and Summer Street in Arlington.
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http://www.brorson.com/maps/BostonHighwayPlan_1965/BostonHighwayPlan_1965.jpg
BostonHighwayPlan_1965.jpg


The best that can be done now:

  • 1) is to redo Lake St. to connect Alewife to Lake St. via Cambridge Park Drive

    2) Provide some grade separated crossings of the rail road tracks for pedestrians [3] and for vehicles [2]

    3) Widen Rt-2 as it makes the 3 way split to allow private lanes for Alewife, the Parkway SE and the Parkway NE

    4) Make some sort of connection to allow some traffic to continue along the Rt-2 axis into Cambridge through the parking lot where Grace used to be located [including another grade separated crossing of the rail right of way]
 
Part of the problem is that given the high water table in the area anything done to the interchange would have to involve a flyover and that isn't going to go over well with E. Arlington/W. Cambridge residents.

It's a tough nut to crack. A couple more bridges over the CR tracks will help but the Rt 2/Alewife Brook Pkwy situation won't change much with those added.
 
vanshnookenraggen said:
Part of the problem is that given the high water table in the area anything done to the interchange would have to involve a flyover and that isn't going to go over well with E. Arlington/W. Cambridge residents.

It's a tough nut to crack. A couple more bridges over the CR tracks will help but the Rt 2/Alewife Brook Pkwy situation won't change much with those added.
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Many of the problems come from the attempt of commuters to get to Mass Ave. -- as an aside it once took me nearly 1 hr to get from the Bridge on RT-2 to Mass Ave at Alewife

However -- A lot of potential relief is available to the east passing though mostly old industrial properties

There are a number of fragmentary streets and stubs

By either taking advantage of the Alewife Center parking lots and using the street stubs in tandems of one ways, or by creating a wider two way street Rt-2's highway end could be coupled through to Mass Ave without touching any houses

This would relive pressure on the highway end caused by the people taking Alewife Parkway just to get to Mass Ave

The connection via Cambridge Park Drive to Lake Street would also relive some pressure as some people would exit higher-up the highway

Ultimately, a second grade separated crossing over the tracks west of the Alewife T Station and before Lake Street that would allow cars and pedestrians to connect between Cambridge Park Drive and Concord Ave would improve the traffic flow even more than the easier improvements identified above -- however, it would be a much more complex construction project
 
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whighlander said:
The connection via Cambridge Park Drive to Lake Street would also relive some pressure as some people would exit higher-up the highway

Ultimately, a second grade separated crossing over the tracks west of the Alewife T Station and before Lake Street that would allow cars and pedestrians to connect between Cambridge Park Drive and Concord Ave would improve the traffic flow even more than the easier improvements identified above -- however, it would be a much more complex construction project
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These are all good suggestions for relieving pressure on the intersection, but would feeder roads have enough capacity to handle additional traffic if the intersection was improved? The alewife intersection is a bottleneck that restricts traffic from dumping onto routes 3 & 16, yet most roads within a half-mile radius are still jam-packed at rush hour. I have a hard time believing route 16 and mass ave could handle even more traffic.
 
thinkbiggerboston said:
These are all good suggestions for relieving pressure on the intersection, but would feeder roads have enough capacity to handle additional traffic if the intersection was improved? The alewife intersection is a bottleneck that restricts traffic from dumping onto routes 3 & 16, yet most roads within a half-mile radius are still jam-packed at rush hour. I have a hard time believing route 16 and mass ave could handle even more traffic.
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Think -- RT-16 not so much because of the essentially uncontrollable congestion at the two rotaries when you are heading into Cambridge

Mass Ave while busy provides lots of alternative routings through the various intersections and enforced metering of the traffic by the traffic lights
 
since Cambridge is so active -- It's time that the Cambridge Development Thread restrict-itself to being the catchall for anything not included in a specific major project, or one of the following more general development areas -- each of which should have its own thread:

  • 1) East Cambridge not including Kendall & MIT
    2) Kendall & MIT
    3) Central Square & Cambridgeport
    4) Harvard Square
    5) Porter Square
    6) Alewife T and surroundings
 
whighlander said:
since Cambridge is so active -- It's time that the Cambridge Development Thread restrict-itself to being the catchall for anything not included in a specific major project, or one of the following more general development areas -- each of which should have its own thread:

  • 1) East Cambridge not including Kendall & MIT
    2) Kendall & MIT
    3) Central Square & Cambridgeport
    4) Harvard Square
    5) Porter Square
    6) Alewife T and surroundings
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Agreed. I always found it strange that Boston was broken up by neighborhood and most of Cambridge was lumped together in one thread with the exception of a few individual projects.
 
Porter Square

Porter-Rendering.jpg

It turns out that 27 loft-style apartments are going up at the site, along with a staggering 42 parking spaces (come on, it's right by the Porter T stop!) and ground-floor retail big enough for three stores and an office. Fifteen of those parking spaces will be reserved for Lesley University use. Developer Peter Wasserman has dubbed the five-story development the Platine Residences. Some area residents have expressed concern about the added vehicle traffic the lofts will bring, but construction is proceeding apace.
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http://boston.curbed.com/archives/2014/09/those-porter-square-lofts-are-starting-to-go-up.php#more
 
We do have threads for Porter, Harvard, Central and West Cambridge/Alewife area. We get individual project threads for most anything happening around Kendall. Ideally, this thread should locked, preserved for posterity and have new threads pop up as they may.
 
As much as I lament the loss of Gourmet Express, that project looks decent. It will go a long way toward filling in a really desolate gap in the Mass Ave street wall. Wonder about what retail will occupy the space, probably too much to ask for another 24-hour market/eatery.

Agreed. I always found it strange that Boston was broken up by neighborhood and most of Cambridge was lumped together in one thread with the exception of a few individual projects.
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It kind of makes sense. Cambridge is about as big as Dorchester, an individual Boston neighborhood. Of course there is also a lot more development going on in Cambridge.

BussesAin'tTrains said:
We do have threads for Porter, Harvard, Central and West Cambridge/Alewife area. We get individual project threads for most anything happening around Kendall. Ideally, this thread should locked, preserved for posterity and have new threads pop up as they may.
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Because this thread has so much activity it's always somewhere near the top, thus it's easier to post stuff here than try and dig out the individual location specific threads. It does make it hard to keep track of everything.
 
I'm in favor of freezing this thread and starting individual Cambridge threads.
 
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