Casey Overpass

[tangent]

And the choo choo fanatism is what I was reacting too... Making car transportation worse in hopes of putting more people on trains is not good.

 

[paperless paul]

I don't know. Certainly if all you're doing is putting a park over it the decking doesn't have to be anything that supports much in the way of heavy loads a la the Pike decking. That brings down the price considerably. Just need enough weight support for the layers of dirt deep enough to support plantings. None of the existing SW Corridor cover-overs, both the contiguous section northeast of Mass Ave. or the small intermittent cover-overs to the south have anything in the way of park structures built on top other than the occasional basketball or tennis court.

For the Urkraine Way block it would be so close to the portal it wouldn't need anything in the way of those squat raised ventilation grates present at regular intervals on all other cover-overs >1 block.

Any segments where the cut's retaining walls stay above the level of the NEC catenary towers is fair game for decking if you're imaging anything resembling a contiguous Emerald Necklace type thing eventually getting constructed to downtown to widen out the linear park. That means you can go as far south as roughly Walk Hill St., which is handy for reaching the cemeteries and Arboretum if they reopened the Needham Line ped underpass at Arboretum Rd.

South of there the NEC is in its original pre-SW Corridor cut and not nearly deep enough to do any more decking into Hyde Park...just widening of some overpasses for sidewalks and/or grassy knolls.




North of FH there'd be some topping-off to do of the retaining wall to get up to the level of the current security fence on top of it. That's how all current decking was done. Quick scan looks like *minor* retaining wall topping needed:
-- FH to McBride St.
(existing cover-over to Williams St.)
-- only 100 ft. or so past Williams. Green St. station area it's already tall enough.
(Green St. station OK since current outdoor shelter would come down. Headhouse already on decking.)
-- Gordon St. to existing park decking
(existing decking near New Minton St.)
-- New Minton St. for couple hundred feet.
(Stony Brook station decked)
-- Stony Brook to Atherton St. has a mostly tall wall. Grassy knoll on the Atherton overpass.
-- Atherton to Jackson Sq. station: mostly tall wall.
(Jackson Sq. station decked)
-- Heath St. to Cedar St. needs taller wall on Terrace St. side. Park side is fine.
-- Cedar to Rox Crossing station: Taller wall on Terrace St. side, Orange Line outdoor shelter comes down.
(Rox Crossing headhouse decked)
-- Rox Crossing to Prentiss St.: Terrace St.-side wall only.
(Prentiss to Ruggles St. decked)
(Ruggles station not decked, but probably shouldn't be because of tall structures, busway, diesel trains making stops and idling)
-- Wall already tall from Ruggles to Columbus Parking Garage
(NEC/Orange Line emergency access driveways...cut must remain open)
-- Camden St. to Mass Ave.: Outdoor station shelter would come down.
(Mass Ave. to Back Bay decked)

Back Bay to Albany St. would be part of the Pike decking.



So...if you just start chipping away at it block-by-block the entire thing is eventually coverable as a linear park from BBY all the way to the Arboretum. Plus whatever plaza-style accessibility they do on the Pike air rights to Albany St. You would still need the vent stacks even if Providence Line went electric because Needham, Franklin, and Stoughton will still be diesel. But you don't get much in the way of fumes at any of the other vents because trains are all running at-speed.

The "Second Emerald Necklace" (well...sans water). With connections to the first Emerald Necklace. They should totally strive for that eventually since the price isn't too bad. Not high-priority or anything, but they designed the cut exactly for this purpose.

'Decking' for a park is actually much more expensive than for a structure. A park typically with landscaping and trees needs several feet of soil with loads approaching 120 pcf per ft depth, so potentially 300-400 psf plus additional point loads for tree boxes, retaining walls, statues or other specialty structures and snow loads (and piled snow). In addition, I don't know all the relevant code but in many circumstances if you make a publicly accessible space you may have to allow emergency vehicle access (i.e. fire trucks), or at least snow plow and maintenance vehicles, so point loads up to 20,000 pounds. For something like the SW corridor the soil would probably govern the design. And then there is all the specialty structures needed like ventilation, egress etc.

If you wanted just a structure, like a roof, you might need 35psf for structure and 30 to 50 psf for snow, so almost an order of magnitude less. A building, like a 20 story apartment or office building would also be less costly than the park scenario. Although it's really a comparison of apples to oranges so hard to do. But in a building you already span the loads at each floor to the columns, and in a tall enough building you want to put even more of the load out at the exteriors, so creating a column free interior (similar to the 'decking') is naturally performed by the required structure already.

There are obviously second order considerations, like more expensive foundation work, possibly being undertaken in a constrained area. Whether that's more or less than the park example would depend. The park example is already the equivalent of like a 5 story building for the foundation loads. There is also the need for aggressive fire proofing to locate occupied space over a roadway and worse a diesel engine powered train. And of course construction cost for working over a functioning right of way.

The bigger issue than the weight is the spans as the required structure and its cost varies proportionally to the design loads but as the square to the length of the span between foundation or support elements. The good news is that SW corridor needs shorter spans than the Pike which is why it's much cheaper to do.

But irrespective of all of the structural considerations the much more critical point is the financing. The park's use is for the public and needs to be financed by the government with little generated revenue except public welfare which needs to be 'recognized' by public willingness to support it through additional taxes. As a result there are very limited capital resources for parks (See Northeastern example). A developer or owner financing a building which generates rent or business revenue as a direct result of the amount occupied space built and is thus relatively straightforward to finance.

In conclusion, for covering rights of way, a park is an expensive structure that generates little direct revenue and must be financed through broad support of taxation. A developer or owner financed building generates its own revenue and thus own financing and may have very little additional cost versus the same building on undeveloped land.

 

[FK4]

'Decking' for a park is actually much more expensive than for a structure. A park typically with landscaping and trees needs several feet of soil with loads approaching 120 pcf per ft depth, so potentially 300-400 psf plus additional point loads for tree boxes, retaining walls, statues or other specialty structures and snow loads (and piled snow). In addition, I don't know all the relevant code but in many circumstances if you make a publicly accessible space you may have to allow emergency vehicle access (i.e. fire trucks), or at least snow plow and maintenance vehicles, so point loads up to 20,000 pounds. For something like the SW corridor the soil would probably govern the design. And then there is all the specialty structures needed like ventilation, egress etc.

*******

In conclusion, for covering rights of way, a park is an expensive structure that generates little direct revenue and must be financed through broad support of taxation. A developer or owner financed building generates its own revenue and thus own financing and may have very little additional cost versus the same building on undeveloped land.

Thanks for this - I would point out that much of the decked parts of the SWC are tree-less, and just have grass and benches. There are no access roads on these parts (well, excepting the South End); the trails go along the side on terra firma.

I still say that developers should have to pay into decking if theyre gonna build by the tracks, but that more importantly the ultimate decking of the entire SWC should be a very long range but high priority for the city. As F Line said, it could really be a new Emerald Necklace, one that could connect JP/Hyde Park/Rozzie all the way down to Southie, if the notion were extended along the Pike (again, for air rights projects on the Pike, a greenway ROW should be reserved and planned for NOW).

 

[rinserepeat]

Like I said Casey was not worth keeping, but I would look to routes 28 and route 9 to pick up some slack now and see where a grade separated interchange or two could do some good. Nothing huge like Casey overpass, but I've seen plenty of nicely done interchanges for city streets that depress one of the roadways and leave the other at grade.

Casey overpass only had 24k cars a day - that's the upper end of capacity for a two-lane road with turn lanes. Route 28 is way over-designed for the amount of traffic it sees - it can definitely pick up the slack (if any). and why would people take route 9 if they drive through forest hills?

Tonight's traffic was a mess because they were diverting east-bound traffic all the way to Ukraine Way for some reason and the traffic cops weren't exactly helping. Once all the traffic moves back to the temporary 4-lane road things should move smoother.

Btw - I overheard that someone donated a bunch of money to fix up the inside of forest hills station. Anyone have any confirmation on this?

 

[underground]

And the choo choo fanatism is what I was reacting too... Making car transportation worse in hopes of putting more people on trains is not good.

Two words. Rhymes with Mraw Stan.

 

[EricS]

So what do we need to do to raise the fine for blocking the FH upper busway exit to $500 and get someone out there to actually enforce it? The white box and small "DO NOT BLOCK INTERSECTION" "FINE $150" signs just aren't cutting it with the increased volume.

It took a good 15 minutes for the 5-7 buses departing around 5:45 tonight to make it through the intersection because it was blocked every light cycle people in the left lane to turn onto Ukraine Way. I'm assuming people were also blocking the South/New Washington/Washington intersection as well. Simply unacceptable.

Camera enforcement perhaps?

 

[clayville]

Tonight's traffic was a mess because they were diverting east-bound traffic all the way to Ukraine Way for some reason and the traffic cops weren't exactly helping. Once all the traffic moves back to the temporary 4-lane road things should move smoother.

Both lanes of the old/existing eastbound ramp traffic along the Arboretum wall are going to be right-turn only from now on.

The left lane at the split (the old overpass lane) becomes two lanes just before South Street but no turns are allowed there at all now (not northbound or southbound). Are you saying that those lanes were sent off to Ukraine as well during crunch time??

I believe the plan is to quickly remove the overhead steel west of South Street along the north side of the overpass where they've already begun near the new surface lanes, then eat into the ears of the hammerhead piers and the remaining retaining wall to create more overhead space for two surface through-lanes throughout the corridor as soon as possible.

It seems to me from observing that the Lights by the upper busway exit at South/the VFW hall and State Lab don't appear to be tied into the others. The sequencing isn't allowing any queues to clear enough from about 3:00 pm on.

Perhaps they're trying to scare everyone away.

But for now, the signage and guidance is really poor and the enforcement not much help either.

 

[clayville]

It's bookended by 2-lane, no-breakdown feeders into frickin' congested-as-hell rotaries. How does that make anything better other than speeding up the headfirst slam into the brick wall on either side of it with a little stretch of Formula One racetrack looming over the neighborhood?


Fear and loathing is a lousy excuse for expensively preserving a total clusterfuck. The Casey's never worked right in its 60 years of existence. Its exit ramps have never worked right in the 60 years they've been flanking it. Maybe, just maybe, it's time to try something different that clears out some of the more unnecessary induced demand traffic using Route 203 as a shortcut from the SE Expressway to Longwood that treats the suffering neighborhood underneath either like flyover country or their shortcut-from-a-shortcut when the parkway on either side gets borked.

I loves me some world class rant. Preach it!

 

[tangent]

The Casey's never worked right in its 60 years of existence. Its exit ramps have never worked right in the 60 years they've been flanking it. Maybe, just maybe, it's time to try something different that clears out some of the more unnecessary induced demand traffic using Route 203 as a shortcut from the SE Expressway to Longwood that treats the suffering neighborhood underneath either like flyover country or their shortcut-from-a-shortcut when the parkway on either side gets borked.

We are trying something different now. And it made things worse for car transportation. Again and again, I am not saying Casey overpass made sense or should have been preserved. It was the wrong solution in the wrong place and was clearly too expensive to maintain or else it would have been maintained. But introducing two light cycles into a major route is a real and tangible hit to car transportation, especially at rush hour, and being without a real plan to improve the road network elsewhere to eliminate more bottlenecks is a mistake.

 

[sm89]

We are trying something different now. And it made things worse for car transportation. Again and again, I am not saying Casey overpass made sense or should have been preserved. It was the wrong solution in the wrong place and was clearly too expensive to maintain or else it would have been maintained. But introducing two light cycles into a major route is a real and tangible hit to car transportation, especially at rush hour, and being without a real plan to improve the road network elsewhere to eliminate more bottlenecks is a mistake.

It *might* make things worse for car transportation. We won't really know until it's built.

I feel like the real concern is the construction impacts.

 

[HenryAlan]

Rt 128, I-90. I-93.

Not saying that removing this overpass won't be good for the quality of life in these neighborhoods, but it is silly to think reducing capacity doesn't degrade the overall system even if just slightly. People are just going to avoid the route except for local travel and this has an impact on other routes.

I only ever use it for local travel, and I'm finding that already improved. This is the age old question -- should the roads be for the people who live near them, or should they be for people who live elsewhere? obviously, there needs to be some consideration for both, but for too long we tilted in the direction of the people from afar. Time to rebalance some things.

 

[whighlander]

I only ever use it for local travel, and I'm finding that already improved. This is the age old question -- should the roads be for the people who live near them, or should they be for people who live elsewhere? obviously, there needs to be some consideration for both, but for too long we tilted in the direction of the people from afar. Time to rebalance some things.

Henry -- that phase rebalance some things -- that's the home court/field of the Doctrine of Unintended Consequences

 

[FK4]

It *might* make things worse for car transportation. We won't really know until it's built.

I feel like the real concern is the construction impacts.

for auto traffic on 203 it will without question slow things down... it's not just the lights right at forest hills, but the remaining sets at the rotary. if you figure that each light on the riverway system takes ~2-3 min. to get through in rush hour (at least 2 signal changes to get through), it might add another 6+ minutes (assuming 3-4 new light sets, not sure the details).

the details that are important are 1) the degree of inconvenience and whether it makes sense to save those few minutes by maintaining the bridge, and 2) the supposedly improved traffic at street level for hyde park, washington, and south. i do think that those roads may well benefit from the casey removal. i will miss the bridge, because it's a bypass when heading south, but i think it will all work out, and many elements will be better.

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

We are trying something different now. And it made things worse for car transportation. Again and again, I am not saying Casey overpass made sense or should have been preserved. It was the wrong solution in the wrong place and was clearly too expensive to maintain or else it would have been maintained. But introducing two light cycles into a major route is a real and tangible hit to car transportation, especially at rush hour, and being without a real plan to improve the road network elsewhere to eliminate more bottlenecks is a mistake.

That's the temp construction disruption. You would've had exactly the same thing if they were ripping it down for a cleanroomed new overpass.

Answer the question: how would a replacement overpass improve things over the LOS F of the old one?

 

[tangent]

That's the temp construction disruption. You would've had exactly the same thing if they were ripping it down for a cleanroomed new overpass.

Answer the question: how would a replacement overpass improve things over the LOS F of the old one?

Well it would provide a faster route for more cars. That isn't in dispute.

And I agree it is worth taking down, but it undermines the need for systemic improvements including potentially some overpasses in other locations.

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

Well it would provide a faster route for more cars. That isn't in dispute.

And I agree it is worth taking down, but it undermines the need for systemic improvements including potentially some overpasses in other locations.

No, it wouldn't. It was jammed every day because of the backups from the rotaries on either end. The bridge did nothing to make cars go faster.

So...what is it that you're complaining about again?

 

[North Shore]

No, it wouldn't. It was jammed every day because of the backups from the rotaries on either end. The bridge did nothing to make cars go faster.

So...what is it that you're complaining about again?

Exactly. A properly coordinated traffic signal system, especially during peak hours in the am and pm, is infinitely better than merely relying on the rotaries at the termini of the corridor to balance traffic flows. A constant 30 mph commute between signals is preferable to gunning it once through a rotary, only to have to slam on the brakes as you approach the other one.

 

[FK4]

No, it wouldn't. It was jammed every day because of the backups from the rotaries on either end. The bridge did nothing to make cars go faster.

So...what is it that you're complaining about again?

i dont ever remember traffic on the bridge. ever. maybe i never took it during morning rush hour, but i used that bridge every day of summer to go the beach back in the day and there was never, ever traffic on it and that goes for heading down and coming back up.

Edit - actually, I totally forgot one of my first jobs was in Dorchester and I took this road every day… It was a reverse commute but still I don't remember ever seeing it particularly backed up going the other way either.

double edit - and heading southbound/eastbound, the Shea circle rotary definitely was never backed up because nobody goes all away around that rotary in that direction.... Cars entering the rotary from franklin park and Morton st all get off at forest hills or the Casey.

Not advocating for its preservation but the comments about how horrible it was on the roadside are exaggerated.

 

[HenryAlan]

I've always felt that the larger traffic problem was on the surface streets -- Washington, New Washington, Washington, South St., Washington, etc. The surface routing is a clusterfuck because the entire arrangement favors bridge traffic at the expense of all else. So the surface roads are used to store cars. The new layout should greatly alleviate that problem. Might it mean a slightly longer trip from Morton St. to Arborway? Perhaps. But the trip from Rozzy or Hyde Park to JP will be much improved.

 

[rinserepeat]

FK4 - because of Shea Circle, it was (and still is) very hair-raising trying to walk (or bike) between Forest Hills and Franklin Park. If you're not familiar with the area, you'd likely end up on the south side of the circle where there is no sidewalk. oh - there were also no crosswalks there until the past few months. I'd say about half of people stop for peds now instead of most people not stopping.

and driving - did you ever try to enter the rotary from the arborway on the south side of the bridge? you could not see if there were cars coming off the bridge - I came very close to getting hit many many times going through there. Plus for some reason often people coming off Morton street never seem to yield to traffic in the rotary - probably because it's two lanes...