About Port Norfolk's potential for development. If you like urban spaces then it is clear that a lot is missing or truncated in the Neponset area. Streets like Walnut Street and Neponset Ave stop and start, churches and old major buildings are on side streets and "The Port" is a little neighborhood with some industry and a marina on the other side of the Neponset Circle best accessed by a side street directly on an on ramp to 93. But back in the day it all used to be called Neponset Village before it was Neponset Circle and it was an urban place surrounded by marshes with rail service and an active waterfront. Long story short, they filled in the marshes and built boulevards and eventually Rt 93, leveling the center of the village and making Port Norfolk an enclave.
So now we see a lot of interest in developments along the SE Expressway and the Neponset area has a large amount of space that could and will be developed. It will never see its full potential unless they build a Red Line station but there could never be a station without some sort of development plan like for Columbia Point. The site near Tenean Beach is too cut off from the residential neighborhoods to justify it right now and there is the access problem with the roads. I don't think people are against development, the place is turning out quite nice, it's just the honest truth that if you build dense housing on Port Norfolk under the current conditions there will be cars backed up on a side street at a stop sign on an on ramp which is very bad urban planning
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