They are redundant roads. That piece of SFR wasn't even built until the 1950s, long after Birmingham Parkway had already been there for decades prior. My take on this roadway system is to abandon SFR, return that land to parks and trails, and have Birmingham Parkway be the through road. SFR is along the river which lends itself to parks and trails rather than roadway usage.
mass.streetsblog.org
mass.streetsblog.org
Probably because the traffic engineers determined it would back up traffic too much at the intersection with Western Ave. and Arsenal St.
DCR Announces Scaled-Back Memorial Drive Road Diet for 2024 - Streetsblog Massachusetts
The latest proposal, as described in the ENF, would reconstruct a 0.8-mile length of Memorial Drive and its multi-use pathways between the Eliot Bridge and the Anderson Bridge (JFK Street).
Does anyone know what's happening with Phase 3 of the Mem. Drive project? I haven't heard any recent updates on it.
www.cambridgeday.com
mass.streetsblog.org
Oh right.... I forgot about that saga.What happened was the local state rep. organized a "public forum" (except only opponents to the project were invited) that was set up to yell at the DCR commissioner and anyone else who dared support unpaving your parkland:
Opponents of Riverbend Park meet in Riverside with state official, demanding support on traffic - Cambridge Day
Riverside neighborhood residents already outraged by traffic pushed onto their streets were in no mood to hear about plans for a Memorial Drive “road diet” or how the state was still considering closing it Saturdays to car traffic as part of Riverbend Park.
This is the same Marjorie Decker who got caught with her pants down in a public records request last year:
Emails Reveal State Officials' Flawed Excuses For Taking Away Riverbend Park Access in Cambridge - Streetsblog Massachusetts
Emails obtained under the Massachusetts Public Records law reveal how Governor Healey’s newly-hired Secretary of Energy and Environmental Affairs, Rebecca Tepper, decided to restrict access to public parkland by cancelling her agency’s popular car-free Saturdays on Memorial Drive in Cambridge...
Extremely important for anyone in this district (myself included) to vote Erika Uyterhoeven on September 3rd, and hopefully Decker will lose her primary in the 25th Middlesex.
mass.streetsblog.org
It's just so dumb how ossified and rigid government is. Like, there are two redundant parkways here. One of them should be eliminated since the entire district they both serve could be served by one of them. All pretty urbanistic redo's and "shared use" bullshit doesnt eliminate the fact that either Birmingham or SFR road should be gone, period. It just is depressing and tiresome how governmental divisions cant ever step back and realize that you dont need to redesign a different version of the same thing every time youre dealing with land use. Sometimes the use needs to change. We saw the same shit with Melnea Cass. They tore down a neighborhood for a highway that wasn't built, but built a pretty ugly surface road that decades later, they wanted to add more lanes of pavement to in order to advance BRT. Like, yeah, on paper, great. But that wide piece of pavement is awful now, and it'll be even worse with a wider cut. But because it's "transportation", all the officials can do is drool over how to change it somehow but keep the original use. Just close the fuckin Birgmingham already, or get rid of SFR.DCR Will Make One of Its Pointless Charles River Highways Half As Pointless - Streetsblog Massachusetts
The Commonwealth’s Department of Conservation and Recreation (DCR), the state’s parks agency, is moving ahead with plans to renovate a portion of the Leo Birmingham Parkway in Brighton with a smaller footprint and a new shared-use pathway. Birmingham Parkway (pictured above) is currently a four-...
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Still don't understand why they don't get rid of the Soldiers field road section along the waterfront and combine with this overbuilt road... Get asphalt off of DCR land!
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Trees are so cool. From the presentation... Same trees probably as are there today.DCR Will Start Tearing Out Pavement for Memorial Drive Narrowing Project In 2025 - Streetsblog Massachusetts
A long-planned project to improve riverfront paths and reduce the width of the Memorial Drive highway in Cambridge from 4 lanes to 2 lanes will get underway next year. “We plan on advertising for construction this winter, and construction will begin in summer or fall of 2025,” said Dan Driscoll...
Wow, quite the pendulum swing from the mid-1960s when roadway underpasses and ramps were being pushed by the MDC for Memorial Drive at JFK Street, River Street and Western Ave, which would have wiped out much of the old sycamore trees, and transformed Memorial Drive into an expressway.
Got any documents and maps of this, Charlie?
It might be a hot take here, but I still think the westernmost segment Birmingham should be replaced by a pike westbound offramp, with the goal of reducing pressure on Watertown Square, which is an absolute clusterfuck. All westbound traffic has to get off there and double back to get to eastern Watertown (Arsenal).
Yes, the Newton circle of death (the east one) and Galen St form the most-direct path to Watertown Sq from the the highway, and that 5-plus-way intersection constantly gridlocking the neighboring streets. Even Galen St itself should be a fairly pleasant street with some fine grain urbanism, but instead it's six perpetually-clogged lanes of huge trucks and commuter cars.