Re: Columbus Center
Re: Ron Newman?s inquiries about UFP tunnel vents
Ron Newman;57154 . . . said:
How do other urban highway tunnels deal with this problem?
Existing urban highway tunnels were designed before particulate matter was well understood, so existing tunnels did not include remediation.
Ron Newman;57144 . . . said:
Can you point us to a currently operating example of scrubbing air vents?
Existing tunnels don?t use any of the latest technology in the ways that it would be applied here. It can be done; it just hasn?t been done.
Is there a difference between the I-90 air vents (current and proposed) and the air vents for other local tunnels such as Callahan, Sumner, Ted Williams, City Square, and I-93 (O'Neill)?
Among the 23 existing and proposed tunnel vents, there are minor differences (size, shape, direction, ventilation method, cubic feet/minute). But all of MTA?s current and proposed vents are un-filtered.
Re: developer liability for increased harm to public health
. . . the issue with Ned's UFP argument is that it is completely unreasonable to require a development to implement a scrubbing technology that does not yet exist at this scale.
You?ve confused the technology with the application with the scale. The fact that the type of air-cleansing vent needed isn?t installed elsewhere yet is not proof that one can?t be built, or proof that the technology doesn?t exist.
There?s nothing unreasonable about the principle of ?first, do no harm.? Nor is there anything unreasonable about the principle of ?when harm is a built-in consequence of a proposal, then change, move, or withdraw the proposal.?
Under the current proposal, people working and living along the corridor would suffer up to about a ten-fold increase in the deadliest form of particulate matter air pollution. People who are in the exposure zone and who know about this want either the air cleansed before it?s exhausted (1st choice), or else no tunnels, vents, or development at all (2nd choice).
Except for those who are (or hope to be) part of the development industry gravy train, no corridor resident who knows about the increased air pollution is advocating for exposing communities to harmful health impacts.
Re: ?liking? the proposal versus paying for it
. . . Hope this project gets built sometime in the near future--I really like the proposal. Its just if I were living next door near the open cuts for the transit lines I'd probably be a little worried about fumes..
Ronwell, the proposal got approved because it was written as subsidy-free. Only later did the owners admit that their plan was always to propose zero subsidies, get approval, and then consume as many subsidies as possible. Some of the $222 million in requested subsidies are one-time, some run for decades, and some run for a century. These subsidies are not repaid from Columbus Center?s city property taxes and state income taxes (elected officials waived much of that revenue), but from everyone else?s property and income taxes. So while there?s not enough money for basic necessities (health care, transportation, education, public safety), your politicians wasted millions of dollars subsidizing a privately owned luxury skyscraper.
Try this: if you still ?really like? this proposal, then decide how many tax dollars you think every citizen should forfeit just to pay for California?s costs and profits. This project is only one eighth of the entire corridor, so multiply the amount of your own money you want to donate to Columbus Center by 8, and then reconsider whether you still ?really like? the MTA?s approach to air rights development.
Anyone who doesn?t want to fork over that many of their own dollars just to fund someone else?s private profit needs to get (a) new elected officials, (b) a new subsidy-free proposal, or (c) both.
Re: vent locations
RP, these look like vents, at the intersection of Stuart and Huntington. I think the train platforms for Back Bay, at least the Worcester Branch, would be underneath.
No. Your photo shows the Prudential supermarket loading dock, not the transportation corridor exhaust vents. Also, the train passenger platforms are not underneath the Prudential supermarket; they?re actually underneath Back Bay Station, Copley Place, and the Southwest Corridor Park.
Re: remediating via electrification
. . . the easiest and cheapest fix for a good amount of the air pollution along the Mass Pike and in Back Bay would be to electrify the Worcester branch out to Allston and have the MBTA use dual mode locomotives for the Worcester and Attleboro lines.
Even if reducing commuter rail diesel pollution were easy or cheap, that would relieve only a small part of the total problem. There are also three rail lanes sporting Amtrak diesel locomotives, and most of the particulate matter comes from 100,000 turnpike vehicles each day.
Re: DarkFenX?s assumptions about the economics of air pollution cleansing
. . . What Ned wants is a utopia. A perfect city where nothing can harm you. . .
No. I?ve never asked for utopia. What I and others have said all along is that it?s unacceptable to force anyone who works or lives along the corridor to suffer needless exposure to particulate matter air pollution, and that if the corridor is developed at all, then tunnel vents need to cleanse the air before it?s pumped into the offices and homes which were there first.
Building new projects is optional; protecting public health is a necessity. When an optional new project threatens public health, then it should be built differently, be built elsewhere, or else not be built at all.
. . . there is always a sacrifice in order to progress . . .
No. It?s not true that there?s ?always? a sacrifice. This situation is a perfect example. The space above the corridor can be developed, and the air below it can be cleansed. Public health need not be sacrificed just so the turnpike and its developers can profit.
. . . I don't see any problems in any other major cities involving this, only Boston. . .
You can?t see this problem elsewhere because other municipalities aren?t building city-wide tunnels that include a built-in opportunity to filter the air passing through the tunnel vents.
. . . there is, and will be pollution over the pike no matter whether or not you pave over it or not. If the pollution is vented, it will spread above ground regardless. . .
You misunderstand the problem, the cause, and the solution. Firstly, so long as the corridor remains an open-air cavity, the pollution will continue, but once the corridor becomes a tunnel, that pollution need not continue, because it can be filtered. So it?s not true that the corridor must always remain polluted. Secondly, paving has nothing to do with tunnels, vents, or pollution. Thirdly, you wrote that corridor air pollution ?spreads above ground regardless? but that?s not so. Ultrafine particulate matter air pollution remains highly dangerous for the first few blocks, then the harm dissipates. Finally, no one who is aware of this issue is arguing to ?vent the pollution? as you wrote; people are seeking to cleans the polluted air before venting it.
. . . building an advance scrubbing vent is NOT FEASIBLE.
Untrue. In a project estimated by its owners to sell for $1.3 billion, cleansing the exhausted air is very feasible. The controversy arises because these developers? overriding goal is maximum profit, so they treat clean air as ?optional? and ?unnecessary?, whereas people working and living along the corridor would suffer increased exposure to the deadliest air pollution known. For them, clean air is ?necessary? and they consider it ?non-negotiable?.
. . . If it was [feasible], then CC should not be in money trouble right now without the advance vents that Ned speak of.
You misunderstand the project, both in terms of its latest proposal, and also its financial failure. The latest proposal is to capture, concentrate, and exhaust all air pollution from the corridor below into offices and homes above, so it isn?t suffering from any remediation costs at all.
What you call ?money trouble? actually has entirely different causes:
● California defaulted on its 99-year lease over 2.5 years ago.
● California has been trying to re-negotiate a new one ever since.
● No local, national, or global bank ever loaned the project any money.
● Massachusetts? subsidies to California?s profits have been denied, withdrawn, or rescinded.
● The owners ran out of cash and halted construction last winter.
● Nothing got built, but the owners consumed $110 million already (?State pulls 10m slated for Columbus Center?,
Boston Globe, 8 April 2008).
