Combining/Moving MBTA Bus Facilities

[BostonUrbEx]

The idea is to take Cabot Garage, Albany St Garage, and the Southampton St Garage and combine them into one large facility, while maintain access to all of the routes covered by the garages. They cover routes serving downtown, South Boston, Dorchester, Roxbury, and the Silver Line services.

My proposal would be to put the below grade on the rectangular parking lot parcel behind the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center. Being below grade, the BCEC is left with room to expand -- or for more convention center amenities to be build, such as hotels.

There is superb access to the buses operating around the Dudley Square hub by darting down the Haul Bypass Road and then a quick run down the Melnea Cass Blvd. The access to the Seaport can't be beat, of course (either Haul Rd or D St). And you can easily access South Boston and the City Point terminal from here.

The area afforded by this parcel is massive, and is not of an irregular shape. If done right, I imagine all three facilities can fit nicely in here. Best of all, it is all tucked away, with no neighbors to complain.

And the best part, IMO, is the potential for reworking the Red Line yard -- which I will go into further detail at another time. But the idea would be to put the Red Line yard below grade (at least partially, as it is definitely South Bay territory). Then air rights development could go in nicely, especially with decent proximity to Broadway Station. It would be a nice addition to South Boston, in my opinion.

EDIT: Not to mention the ability to develop the Albany St lot, where it appears development demand is heating up!

 

[choo]

It would be good. Maybe the t could hire a developer and retain ownership. Make some good cash flow to help the bottom line, a la hong kong

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

Cabot/Albany/Southampton already are a consolidation of sorts. They were able to close Bartlett garage about 8 years ago and move some fueling and heavier-maint stuff here where the three garages are almost across the street from each other. It's quite a bit more efficient than how downtown ops were spread before.

The problem with developing anything here is that South Bay interchange monstrosity with all the frontage roads and Haul road creates its own dead zone for residential/commercial. And the street grid is permanently disrupted between W 4th St. and Southampton (mainly because that's all been train yards since before there was a South End-Southie street grid). Really, who would want to build here at the nerve center of all those roads?

I could see perhaps Albany trading places across 93 and flipping onto an underused industrial parcel (say, here, behind Andrew T stop), but that's the only one that would knit a neighborhood block back together. And we're not talking stratospheric game-changer for that Randolph St. block. The rest you have to consider how the interchange and tracks prevent any semblance of street grid (again, because there never historically was one here). We can't not have a downtown transit facility. But if you're going to have it anywhere, put it somewhere developmentally un-stitchable like South Bay + Widett Circle.

As for building on top...I know that's a hot prospect in NYC for their train yards. But the value of the land is a way different proposition here because no matter what you build on it the interchange and frontage roads are still there and the street grid still has no trajectory. I'd rather see us successfully build something on top of all that hot-hot-hot! Pike real estate rolleyes in my lifetime where the pre-existing street grid is made for it. It's the same reason Beacon Park is no panacea for developing without some major decisions about realigning the Pike. But at least the Pike can be realigned to open up the street grid. Nothing's going to do that here and connect these properties to their abutting neighborhoods. Again, other than the Expressway scar none of this is a failure of urban planning; the yards simply pre-date every street and structure on the map and have had some mission-critical transit purpose since Day 1.

 

[BostonUrbEx]

Not so much about creating a street grid as it is lining Dot Ave and the streets around Broadway Station with some midrises. I don't see this as an immediate real estate development, but rather as something that could unfold over decades, provided we condense and modernize repair facilities now, with provisions for development later.