Dorchester Bay City (nee Bayside Expo Ctr.) | Columbia Point

It drives me crazy how each development is walled off from the adjoining development, each it's own little closed-in enclave. Why didn't the city lay out a unified street grid plan covering the entire area before any of these developments (Dorchester Bay City and the older Harbor Point Apartments) took place? The isolated developments with their own isolated street systems look very suburban, very unconnected, and very gated community-ish:
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I agree about connectivity now but I still don't see why in the 21st Century a new urban neighborhood with subway service that's built from scratch needs 6+ acres for cars. It's the only real bad part about Assembly Sq. too
 
Charlie_mta said:
The isolated developments with their own isolated street systems look very suburban, very unconnected, and very gated community-ish:
c251b047-906d-463c-a823-2a4d3025a67d-jpeg.19564
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Harbor Point IS a gated community and I believe did not want to connect to Bayside. Umass has been incredibly defferential to the harbor point residents
 
DAVE said:
I just wish there was greater connection over 95/the tracks into that side of Dorchester. It really cuts this area off, making it harder to be a walkable community when its so isolated. Some pedestrian bridges could really help. I would also love to see bike lanes down Morrisey towards Savin Hill.
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The project involves impact fees to help fund a redesign of K circle thats supposed to help a lot with connectivity
 
KCasiglio said:
Harbor Point IS a gated community and I believe did not want to connect to Bayside. Umass has been incredibly defferential to the harbor point residents
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It's unfortunate that the city's public policy allows for gated communities. If the Back Bay of Boston were to be developed today instead of 150 years ago, it would probably be a carved-up mess like this area, with gated communities instead of the splendid grid of streets and connectivity that the Back Bay was laid out in.
 
Charlie_mta said:
It's unfortunate that the city's public policy allows for gated communities. If the Back Bay of Boston were to be developed today instead of 150 years ago, it would probably be a carved-up mess like this area, with gated communities instead of the splendid grid of streets and connectivity that the Back Bay was laid out in.
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I'd say the seaport is a more apt comparison, and it's not gated. Wasn't harbor point originally a low income housing project later redeveloped into a mixed income community? Those types of master planned, subsidized neighborhoods tend to have more limited connectivity, especially if they were built before the 1980s.
 
How long before harbor point gets the Bunker hill treatment? I could see that doubling or tripling in size.
 
sidewalks said:
How long before harbor point gets the Bunker hill treatment? I could see that doubling or tripling in size.
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About negative 30 years? Harbor Point already got that "treatment" in late-80s / early-90s.

Really, Bunker Hill is getting the "Harbor Point Treatment."
 
The city REALLY needs to figure out the Morrissey Blvd. traffic circle asap. The traffic in that area is going to be insane...it is already intense, but...2000 more apartments AND office space that rivals the Pru...?!

I vote for a continuous flow intersection (CFI) at the circle combined with a system of moving sidewalks above grade connecting the university, the museum and this with rapid transit. Also, if and when; JFK/UMass is the logical eastern end of the urban ring, and this would assist that program.

Money, money, money. These plans seem like a 20 year build out. Surely, the population along the Red Line corridor will increase by 10's of thousands during that time, (hello Andrew and Dot Ave to Broadway) and this bottleneck will persist unless real change is made. I would not bat an eye at a $2 billion decision.
 
Cortes said:
The city REALLY needs to figure out the Morrissey Blvd. traffic circle asap. The traffic in that area is going to be insane...it is already intense, but...2000 more apartments AND office space that rivals the Pru...?!

I vote for a continuous flow intersection (CFI) at the circle combined with a system of moving sidewalks above grade connecting the university, the museum and this with rapid transit. Also, if and when; JFK/UMass is the logical eastern end of the urban ring, and this would assist that program.

Money, money, money. These plans seem like a 20 year build out. Surely, the population along the Red Line corridor will increase by 10's of thousands during that time, (hello Andrew and Dot Ave to Broadway) and this bottleneck will persist unless real change is made. I would not bat an eye at a $2 billion decision.
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I agree the rotary is a problem, but fixing this is like whack-a-mole: fix this bottleneck but then there are dozens more roads, highways and intersections that are just as congested. As someone above said, Dorchester Bay City should have been more truly TOD and less auto-centric. Boston metro area could never build enough roadway improvements to fix the traffic congestion. The fix has to be expanded transit, including bus lanes, and TOD with very little parking.
 
Plen-T-Pak said:
Wasn't harbor point originally a low income housing project later redeveloped into a mixed income community? Those types of master planned, subsidized neighborhoods tend to have more limited connectivity, especially if they were built before the 1980s.
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Yup, exactly. They refurbished the columbia point projects to create harbor point, thats why its so disconnected. For whatever stupid ass reason almost all of these brick housing project developments are always at weird ass angles from the street grid and have no room to add a normal grid after the fact either. They pretty much did everything they could to make them not integrate into the surrounding neighborhoods.
 
I listened in to a decent amount of the zoom last night and while no one here is going to agree, this proposal is an absolute joke. They acknowledge K circle needs to be replaced and they acknowledge JFK station needs to be replaced yet they themselves offer basically zero funding to jumpstart those projects and instead tout redline upgrades that have nothing to do with them and say they will push feds/state and city entities to to their bidding for K circle upgrades. They want to plop a "city"- their words, on top of a completely non functional traffic rotary and T station and contribute a whopping $11 mill for those. Not sure who's buying that.
 
Without defending the developer, it is ultimately the MBTA's fault that the station is in this condition considering how many people use it now

"Who the heck came up with Dorchester Bay City?"
Because calling it Columbia Point City would sound insane to the locals.
 
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