General Infrastructure

Arlington said:
I'd encourage you to have a "if you see something, say something" approach because, I suspect that the Light Department looks mostly at bulbs for "on/off" and the Bridge Department doesn't look at lights, so, no, it is rarely safe to assume that an inspector has seen what you've seen and/or that "the squeaky wheel gets the grease" in these things for as long as wheels have had wheel inspectors.
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311 can help with this, or the App
 
MjolnirMan said:
Surely someone's job is to periodically notice or inspect this kind of thing? Or are things like (i.e.) the bridges over the Pike from the South End really just going to collapse one day and kill people because nobody is inspecting the condition of the crumbling supports?
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NBC10Boston received the most recent inspections that the City did in January and they were rated '5' out of '9' or "fair condition"

https://twitter.com/x/status/1575231535191465984

https://twitter.com/x/status/1575230177420115969

more info at the link here: https://www.nbcboston.com/news/loca...hes-down-on-moakley-bridge-in-boston/2847044/
 
Great societies aren't built, they're maintained. This bridge situation is more proof we're not great. I think it may be the same pole that we're seeing here that I used to walk by every day for 6 months when I had a contract in the Seaport.
Somebody had left a tight-wrapped, presumably full baby diaper at the base of the pole. I thought about picking it up... but gaaaaaah..... and then wondered how long it would stay there and how low our collective standards were.
Answers: at least six months, and really low.
I watched it deteriorate until I was no longer working there. Two years later there was a pile of goo where the diaper was. Last time I looked six months ago, the concrete had crumbled at the diaper pole's footer -- and below most of the poles on the bridge.
The diaper is not the cause of this calamity. It's more like that very real diaper is an immediate, proximal metaphor for how cheap we are as a society. We need to pick our shit up.
 
In the quiz thread, I promised a full listing of the highway ventilation buildings in Boston. There are 13 ventilation buildings, one air intake, and three fan chambers. Images are from Street View, with a few of mine mixed in.

Ventilation Building 1 is on Dorchester Avenue next to Rolling Bridge Park. It is the west structure for the Fort Point Channel Tunnel.
1665041188941.png


Ventilation Building 3 is in fact the east core of the Intercontinental, on Atlantic Avenue at Pearl Street. It serves the Central Artery. No sign of its ventilation use is visible from ground level.

Ventilation Building 4 is at Haymarket Square and serves the Central Artery. The structure includes a parking garage, the RMV, the Boston Public Market, and the south headhouse of Haymarket station. Unlike Building 3, the vent stacks are clearly visible.
1665041473689.png


Ventilation Building 5 is on Summer Street opposite the BCEC, at the east end of the Fort Point Channel Tunnel.
1665041587023.png


Ventilation Building 6 is on Fid Kennedy Way at the south end of the Ted Williams Tunnel.
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Ventilation Building 7 is on Harborside Drive at the north end of the Ted. It's the largest of these large structures - 380 feet long and 140 wide - and won a couple of design awards.
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Ventilation Building 8 is tucked between the North Station platforms, the Leverett Circle Connector bridge, and the Zakim bridge and a southbound onramp.
1665042286160.png


Ventilation Building 10[url] is on North Street near the Boston end of the Sumner Tunnel.
1665042543459.png

Its twin, [url=https://www.google.com/maps/@42.3716348,-71.0411389,80m/data=!3m1!1e3]Ventilation Building 11, is on Liverpool Street in East Boston. (Liverpool Street, like several nearby streets, is named for the port city its docks once served ships to.)
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Ventilation Building 12 is at North Street over the Boston portal of the Callahan Tunnel.
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Its twin, Ventilation Building 13, is on Decatur Street in East Boston.
1665043028478.png


Though barely a thousand feet long, the City Square Tunnel (CANA) has two ventilation structures. Ventilation Building 14 is on New Rutherford Avenue adjacent to some ghost ramps.
1665043142450.png


Ventilation Building 15, at the corner of Warren and Chelsea, is designed to fit in with the nearby brick buildings.
1665043223346.png


The Dewey Square Air Intake is well known on this forum for the murals it hosts.
1665043316841.png


Three fan chambers date to the 1950s construction of the Dewey Square Tunnel; a fourth was located in Dewey Square until the Big Dig. The Essex Street Fan Chamber and Summer Street Fan Chamber flank Surface Road between their namesake streets,
1665043564709.png


The Beach Street Fan Chamber is adjacent to Chinatown Gate. It was wrapped with this artwork about a decade ago.
1665043722856.png


Some useful links:
Map of all CA/T facilities and structures
2021 inspection report with detailed list of facilities
 
BeyondRevenue said:
Great societies aren't built, they're maintained. This bridge situation is more proof we're not great. I think it may be the same pole that we're seeing here that I used to walk by every day for 6 months when I had a contract in the Seaport.
Somebody had left a tight-wrapped, presumably full baby diaper at the base of the pole. I thought about picking it up... but gaaaaaah..... and then wondered how long it would stay there and how low our collective standards were.
Answers: at least six months, and really low.
I watched it deteriorate until I was no longer working there. Two years later there was a pile of goo where the diaper was. Last time I looked six months ago, the concrete had crumbled at the diaper pole's footer -- and below most of the poles on the bridge.
The diaper is not the cause of this calamity. It's more like that very real diaper is an immediate, proximal metaphor for how cheap we are as a society. We need to pick our shit up.
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I always think about this to myself when I go to south bay shopping center. Walking through the parking lot there means wading through piles of trash in all directions from years of ppl just throwing whatever trash they have on the ground. One specific one I remember is a pile of brand new airconditioning boxes and packaging strewn out all over the ground outside home depot next to a parking spot. Someone drove there, bought an a/c unit, brought it out to the parking lot, ripped open all of the packaging and threw it all over the ground, put the a/c in their car and drove away. I dont get it. We both live here, why make your own community disgusting. As you pointed out with the baby diaper, it seems like ppl just expect someone else is going to pick it up, but then when other ppl see it its not theirs so they dont pick it up. Its really not hard at all to just put your shit in a trashcan. I will never understand why someone litters in their own community that they live in and then have to see everywhere, its hustling backwards.
 
stick n move said:
I always think about this to myself when I go to south bay shopping center. Walking through the parking lot there means wading through piles of trash in all directions from years of ppl just throwing whatever trash they have on the ground. One specific one I remember is a pile of brand new airconditioning boxes and packaging strewn out all over the ground outside home depot next to a parking spot. Someone drove there, bought an a/c unit, brought it out to the parking lot, ripped open all of the packaging and threw it all over the ground, put the a/c in their car and drove away. I dont get it. We both live here, why make your own community disgusting. As you pointed out with the baby diaper, it seems like ppl just expect someone else is going to pick it up, but then when other ppl see it its not theirs so they dont pick it up. Its really not hard at all to just put your shit in a trashcan. I will never understand why someone litters in their own community that they live in and then have to see everywhere, its hustling backwards.
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Right on. I grew up in a fairly rough public housing project but have never been into, or even understood, littering, vandalism, or graffiti. Fortunately, Boston is, for the most part, one of the most well kept-up cities in the country, especially when compared to Portland OR, Seattle, Baltimore, Philly, or Detroit. But as you cited, there are still locations locally that exhibit uncaring and stupid human behavior.
 
Argh, I forgot that the City Square Tunnel was included in the quiz. If I hadn't I might have looked north of the Central Artery portal and seen the other one as well.
 
The EGE said:
In the quiz thread, I promised a full listing of the highway ventilation buildings in Boston. There are 13 ventilation buildings, one air intake, and three fan chambers. Images are from Street View, with a few of mine mixed in.
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Where are ventilation buildings 2 and 9?
 
I don't think I have heard anyone recommend this before. There is an opinion piece in Commonwealth Magazine by a former Transportation Board member recommending replacing the Tobin with a tunnel! Of course the comments section is ripe with good and bad comments.
 
Interesting idea. Unlikely at best to actually happen. But if it did, looks to me like it would make sense to put the north portal just past Chelsea High School, which eliminates a nasty curve and most of the elevated highway. But, staging the construction will be a huge and expensive problem no matter where you put the portal, in a city as dense as Chelsea. Locating the TBM launch and recovery pits is a challenge in itself.
 
Wash said:
A tunnel could also be built with a transit tube, say for an extension of the Green Line.
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You would almost certainly be looking at multiple bores, including a separate bore for the transit tube. So the transit tube is just as costly as one of the highway direction tubes (except perhaps less ventilation needed).
 
ceo said:
Interesting idea. Unlikely at best to actually happen. But if it did, looks to me like it would make sense to put the north portal just past Chelsea High School, which eliminates a nasty curve and most of the elevated highway. But, staging the construction will be a huge and expensive problem no matter where you put the portal, in a city as dense as Chelsea. Locating the TBM launch and recovery pits is a challenge in itself.
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Forgive me, my imagination is running wild. Insane, full-send ($$$) infrastructure porn build:
  • Northern portal with new interchange (and TBM launch and recovery pits) at Copeland Circle.
  • Route 1 tunnel in straightish (4.8 mile) line segment to the I-93 interchange.
    • Approximately 1.2 miles shorter than current (6.0 mile) route.
    • Only one intermediate exit/entrance at Route 16 (where the current interchange is) to minimize surface impact and traffic in Chelsea and Revere.
  • Car-free greenway running the length of Route 1's current footprint between Admirals Hill and Copeland Circle, with an extension over a boardwalk through Rumney Marsh to meet the Northern Strand.
    • Boom! The north shore now has an amazing greenway network.
  • Seperate transit tube:
    • Northern portal at Chelsea Station (the Route 1 highway tunnels would run right under there in this proposal).
    • Southern portal at Route 99 by the Shell (road diet to accomodate).
    • SL3 extended through transit tube to Haymarket.
      • Boom! Partial urban ring.
    • 111 routed down Broadway through transit tube with entrance (and stop) at Admirals Hill.
    • New route:
      • SL6: North Station - Logan Airport Terminals via new transit tube.
    • Intermediate stations:
      • Bunker Hill St
      • Warren St
    • Built with future conversion to rail as a possibility.
 
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JeffDowntown said:
You would almost certainly be looking at multiple bores, including a separate bore for the transit tube. So the transit tube is just as costly as one of the highway direction tubes (except perhaps less ventilation needed).
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JeffDowntown said:
You would almost certainly be looking at multiple bores, including a separate bore for the transit tube. So the transit tube is just as costly as one of the highway direction tubes (except perhaps less ventilation needed).
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Oh - I thought that the middle portion of the Tobin Tunnel would be a submerged tube like the Ted Williams.
 
Wash said:
Oh - I thought that the middle portion of the Tobin Tunnel would be a submerged tube like the Ted Williams.
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The underwater portion probably would be, but the long approach tunnels under land could be deep bore. This would be a very costly project on the order of the Big Dig, so I personally expect a replacement bridge instead of a tunnel.
 
Can't find a thread, sorry.

I-93 into Boston didn't exist for a long time, right? I don't remember when it was connected to the Central Artery - 1950, 1960? How did people from the north get into the city? The Tobin was completed in 1948 so people from the north-east came in from there and from the tunnel, when it was built, right?
 
JohnAKeith said:
Can't find a thread, sorry.

I-93 into Boston didn't exist for a long time, right? I don't remember when it was connected to the Central Artery - 1950, 1960? How did people from the north get into the city? The Tobin was completed in 1948 so people from the north-east came in from there and from the tunnel, when it was built, right?
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I'd recommend using the BPDA Mapjunction for this: https://alpha.mapjunction.com/?lat=...&zoom=15.0020586&mode=overlay&b=0.000&p=0.000

The answer basically is that you're right. The Artery when first completed linked only to the Tobin.
 
JohnAKeith said:
Can't find a thread, sorry.

I-93 into Boston didn't exist for a long time, right? I don't remember when it was connected to the Central Artery - 1950, 1960? How did people from the north get into the city? The Tobin was completed in 1948 so people from the north-east came in from there and from the tunnel, when it was built, right?
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I-93 was extended through Somerville and Charlestown to the Central Artery between 1965 and 1973.

Prior to that it was a combination of:
  • Sumner Tunnel
  • Tobin Bridge (then known as the Mystic River Bridge)
  • Rutherford Ave
  • McGrath Highway
  • Boston & Maine Railroad
 
JohnAKeith said:
Can't find a thread, sorry.

I-93 into Boston didn't exist for a long time, right? I don't remember when it was connected to the Central Artery - 1950, 1960? How did people from the north get into the city? The Tobin was completed in 1948 so people from the north-east came in from there and from the tunnel, when it was built, right?
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I-93 was built from the state line to Middlesex Fells in Medford by 1963, but the rest connecting to the Central Artery didn't open until 1973 because of the whole fight over whether the I-695 Inner Belt was going to connect to it. Prior to its completion you had to ride Route 28 into town. Fellsway and McGrath Highway are so overbuilt for high-speed cars in large part because they were load-bearing for north commutes pre-93, and stayed that way post-93 because the Central Artery's deficiencies backed up traffic so severely on the completed 93. It's only now post-Big Dig that volumes on 28 have dropped enough that places like Somerville can seriously entertain road dieting.
 
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