Green Line Extension to Medford & Union Sq

[Ruairi]

The city?/developer? built out a curb extension to get around the traffic signal foundations - the rest of that sidewalk is accessible for width -- but not for slope.

I dunno, where that sidewalk meets webster is a mess. They plonked the pedestrian signal to cross prospect right in the middle of the sidewalk, tricky to get a stroller by never mind a wheelchair.
I remember thinking this when all the effort was made to get disabled access to the station from prospect and thinking the sidewalk is not suitable from either direction.

 

[Badusername]

I dunno, where that sidewalk meets webster is a mess. They plonked the pedestrian signal to cross prospect right in the middle of the sidewalk, tricky to get a stroller by never mind a wheelchair.
I remember thinking this when all the effort was made to get disabled access to the station from prospect and thinking the sidewalk is not suitable from either direction.

Definitely not accessible in its current state. This will be the main sidewalk people take from the station to get into the square, so they have a lot of work to do before March.

 

[Arlington]

Yea, I'm thinking they could move and expand the transformer to the Yellow prism, clear the way for the Green, and still be left with a good footprint for a tower on the site.

 

[RandomWalk]

Clearance requirements for high-voltage equipment might come into play.

 

[Dr. Rosen Rosen]

Bonus points for the drawing, Arlington! I like your proposal.

I’ll have to double check this…but it seems like all the cables/wires going into/out of the substation are already buried? So why couldn’t the physical infrastructure needed to step down the voltage also be buried?? I guess I don’t get what the big deal is, and why this wasn’t buried yesterday anyways.

 

[RandomWalk]

The engineering for an underground substation is substantial. The documents filed with the state Energy Facilities Siting Board for the Kendall substation can give you a lot of insight into the constraints.

 

[Jahvon09]

That looks like an old transformer! Does it still work?

 

[Brick Top]

I cant fathom why that house on the corner of Newton and webster hasn't been knocked yet but I hope it's not replaced with something enormous

That property (32 Webster Ave.) was purchased by a developer in 2010 for a mere $160,000. I assume this afforded the developer the ability to sit on the parcel for so long in anticipation of the Green Line station opening and the area getting reconfigured. They did clear the lot of trees in 2019, so the site hasn't been completely inactive.

In 2017, the Somerville Historic Preservation Commission recommended(!?) it for preservation. I wonder how much red tape (if any) this adds to the redevelopment process.

 

[Plen-T-Pak]

That property (32 Webster Ave.) was purchased by a developer in 2010 for a mere $160,000. I assume this afforded the developer the ability to sit on the parcel for so long in anticipation of the Green Line station opening and the area getting reconfigured. They did clear the lot of trees in 2019, so the site hasn't been completely inactive.

In 2017, the Somerville Historic Preservation Commission recommended(!?) it for preservation. I wonder how much red tape (if any) this adds to the redevelopment process.

from the criteria:

The structure is historically or architecturally significant (in terms of period, style, method of building construction, or association with a reputed architect or builder) either by itself or in the context of a group of buildings or structures.

naw, and they said it themselves in the application

Two story gable-end dwellings with two or three bays are common throughout the City and compose a majority of the residential housing stock within the City.

 

[Dr. Rosen Rosen]

Oh lord a building that spans the track and fills in the whole Prospect/Newton/Webster triangle with a substation in the basement would be incredible.

Clearing out the Newton/Emerson triangle for a megablock on the other hand wouldn't be easy. There is one abandoned home that could easily be taken by eminent domain, and a commercial property that doesn't get much use and seems buyable, but that still leaves you with 7 houses to buy out, and I know some of those folks - they're politically well connected and wealthy enough that they'd be hard to motivate financially. You can see how they represent a little island of NR zoning and are not part of the official Union Square MPD area:

View attachment 21529

Indeed - a few of the NR homes on Newton are being renovated and rebuilt with some nice upgrades including new foundations.

 

[Dr. Rosen Rosen]

Some kinky curbs going in (to the left of the tracks).

 

[greenlinetobrooklyn]

Any word on whether the bus lanes will be removed from the MoS Bridge when the viaduct/Lechmere reopen?

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

Any word on whether the bus lanes will be removed from the MoS Bridge when the viaduct/Lechmere reopen?

No regular MBTA routes use O'Brien Hwy inbound of Lechmere Station. The only bus of any kind trawling there is the private EZRide Shuttle on its Kendall-Cambridge Crossing-North Station route. So there's not much of a usage case for keeping them once the Green Line shuttles go away.

 

[Brick Top]

No regular MBTA routes use O'Brien Hwy inbound of Lechmere Station. The only bus of any kind trawling there is the private EZRide Shuttle on its Kendall-Cambridge Crossing-North Station route. So there's not much of a usage case for keeping them once the Green Line shuttles go away.

On top of that, the paint demarcating the bus lanes is close to being completely worn off in most sections. Knowing MassDOT, I doubt they have any date set to explicitly remove the bus lanes; they'll just let the paint fade into oblivion naturally.

 

[The EGE]

Pre-COVID, EZRide ran peak frequencies of 8 minutes, though midday service only ran from Kendall/MIT to Cambridgeport. Ridership at that time was about 3k daily boardings at North Station, mostly to Kendall/Tech Square and Cambridgeport (ie, not likely to switch to Green Line post-GLX). EZRide is a weird private shuttle, in that it's open to the public for fares comparable to the T, but free/reduced for employees of member organizations in the area. I could see an argument for keeping the lanes for EZRide - there are certainly bus lanes in the area with lower ridership - but part-time transit lanes tend to have a lot lower compliance than full-time lanes.

 

[Ruairi]

That property (32 Webster Ave.) was purchased by a developer in 2010 for a mere $160,000. I assume this afforded the developer the ability to sit on the parcel for so long in anticipation of the Green Line station opening and the area getting reconfigured. They did clear the lot of trees in 2019, so the site hasn't been completely inactive.

In 2017, the Somerville Historic Preservation Commission recommended(!?) it for preservation. I wonder how much red tape (if any) this adds to the redevelopment process.

It also suffered serious fire damage a few years back. I highly doubt it’s salvageable. I hope the developer is getting fined for every day he leaves it standing

 

[RandomWalk]

The lights install on the community path is, oddly enough, one of the most significant moments for me that we're near the end. The fence will be the big finale. That or the stairs to the Gilman stop.

They were installing the stairs for the Gilman entrance on the School St bridge today.

 

[devnull]

They were installing the stairs for the Gilman entrance on the School St bridge today.

Here's a shot of the new stairs from earlier today:

 

[Dr. Rosen Rosen]

From Somerville City Councilman JT Scott:

EVERSOURCE SUBSTATION PLANNING: WEDS FEB 23 @ 630pm
Online at https://zoom.us/j/86899621640
Eversource is proposing to place another massive above-ground transformer at the lot right across from the new T stop. I've heard concerns about placing another transformer here, requests to put all electrical infrastructure underground, worries about the site being vulnerable to flooding, and irritation that the infrastructure there might block future extension of the Green Line out to Porter Square. (An extension like that would also require MassDOT revamping the Prospect St and Webster Ave bridges over the track.) This Eversource project will require a Special Permit to proceed, and the first chance to get your feedback in is now!

 

[greenlinetobrooklyn]

The kid and I managed to catch a train pulling into Union today, and then a commuter rail train passing by a few minutes later. Still pretty surreal to see!

https://imgur.com/a/yWJNVee