I-90 Interchange Improvement Project & West Station | Allston

F-Line to Dudley said:
We're spending $85M to band-aid the current to-be-ripped-down structure in large part because absolutely nobody associated with this project has ever been able to conceptually agree for 5 minutes on what it should look like. Some things never change. Seriously...the lane-reduction ship has sailed. MassDOT has never given an inch on that, and it's been reaffirmed multiple times over that breaching that subject is crossing a red line in the sand. It's past time to pivot to "Now what do we do to make the parkland the best it can get given that the lane capacity is frozen?" But no...the Watershed Assoc. wants to waste more time re-debating settled issues from a minority position. I get it...some stakeholders are really sore that lane reduction isn't on the table. That's a natural reaction. But they're going to get even less of what they want in the end if they simply refuse to ever contour to reality. It's past time to shift focus to the details that go within the set parameters of the lane capacity. Re-debating the lane capacity only serves to drag the process even further out, and make us waste more money in temp band-aids.
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Nothing is a red line if enough people oppose it.
 
bigeman312 said:
Have any projects ever been redesigned after initial designs had begun?

If that has never happened once in recorded history, then I 100% agree that “it is over.”

Otherwise, I don’t hear the fat lady singing.

Lost causes are the only ones worth fighting for.
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We have a great local example of this in action regarding the South West Expressway. That said, I have to agree with @F-Line to Dudley and @Equilibria that in this particular case, there might be more winnable fights on the finer details.
 
bigeman312 said:
Have any projects ever been redesigned after initial designs had begun?

If that has never happened once in recorded history, then I 100% agree that “it is over.”

Otherwise, I don’t hear the fat lady singing.

Lost causes are the only ones worth fighting for.
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@HenryAlan mentioned the Southwest Expressway, and the details there are pretty astounding. The plans were ready. The state started clearing the land for the highway. People were evicted from their homes and businesses. Over 500 buildings were razed in Roxbury and JP. Ramps and part of the highway were already being prepped and built, and you can still see the remains of that in Canton. The governor was very pro-highway and the feds would have paid 90% of whatever the cost. And still, even that far along, the project got canceled. Those kinds of victories are always long shots, but they only happen when activists are organized and tenacious.

I'm glad CRWA is still fighting to reduce lanes. It's good to keep fighting against urban highways, even if it's just shrinking them a bit. I guess CRWA could admit defeat here and switch to advocating for better resulting parkland, but... what parkland? And this isn't really funded yet. Even with the new federal money, we haven't scraped together the full $2 billion price tag. Cutting out 4 lanes in the most cramped and logistically complicated part of the project would actually make this project a hell of a lot cheaper.
 
ritchiew said:
@HenryAlan mentioned the Southwest Expressway, and the details there are pretty astounding. The plans were ready. The state started clearing the land for the highway. People were evicted from their homes and businesses. Over 500 buildings were razed in Roxbury and JP. Ramps and part of the highway were already being prepped and built, and you can still see the remains of that in Canton. The governor was very pro-highway and the feds would have paid 90% of whatever the cost. And still, even that far along, the project got canceled. Those kinds of victories are always long shots, but they only happen when activists are organized and tenacious.

I'm glad CRWA is still fighting to reduce lanes. It's good to keep fighting against urban highways, even if it's just shrinking them a bit. I guess CRWA could admit defeat here and switch to advocating for better resulting parkland, but... what parkland? And this isn't really funded yet. Even with the new federal money, we haven't scraped together the full $2 billion price tag. Cutting out 4 lanes in the most cramped and logistically complicated part of the project would actually make this project a hell of a lot cheaper.
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CRWA is not organized and tenacious opposition that represents a lot of people. It is self-interested and arrogant opposition that represents no one but its Director.

Also, cancelling the SW Expressway was the goal of the opposition to it - killing the project was the desired outcome. If activists keep pushing on this they may well kill this project, which, unlike that one, we want to happen.
BostonObserver said:
Why can't the turnpike authority backdown. Should be cheaper to build less lanes
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The Turnpike Authority hasn't existed in decades. MassDOT isn't backing down because they have tons of internal and external stakeholders to make happy here. This is less than 1,000 feet of corridor, and F-Line is exactly right that there are other things in this project we should be talking about instead.

This "why can't we just talk about it..." is exactly the kind of circular, unproductive discourse CRWA was hoping to create, and it's deeply cynical and unhelpful. We have talked about it for a decade. IT. IS. OVER. LET. IT. GO.
 
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F-Line to Dudley said:
I just noticed that all 3 reduction renders send all/part of Soldiers Field Road barreling through the center of BU campus on the wrong side of Comm Ave. WTF?!?
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That's funny! Maybe there will be another "reverse curve" tunnel style to re-align on the other side of the BU bridge!
.
 
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dhawkins said:
That's funny! Maybe there will be another "reverse curve" tunnel style to re-align on the other side of the BU bridge!
.
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The CRWA is tipping its hand there. They want the 'throat' project limits extended much further east because they find this thing past project limits so objectionable that the SFR carriageways need to be nuked all the way to the BU Bridge arch so the arch can be freed up to serve the wide-ass path of their dreams. So they go ahead and bury a couple hundred extra million in busywork in the fine print of their renders about needing to dig another arch under the bridge to get SFR ultimately back on-alignment. Scope creep FTW!

Completely un-serious. But, like expertly-deployed trollbait, they seem to be getting at least some bites from people who think the CRWA are being allies here re: the lane reductions. Like Eq said, they don't care how many lanes there are; it's entirely about how wide and how lushly-landscaped a path they get. If anything, they're mad that "at-grade" was the chosen solution because it crimps the path and would've preferred a new viaduct. But whining about the path at this past-late stage isn't going to garner them anywhere near enough sympathy to matter because literally anything they build, no matter how constrained, is better than current path conditions. So the CRWA re-package their temper tantrum to tug at the lanes heartstrings instead. It's at-best a hail-mary, at worst a rope-a-dope designed to factionalize and sow more chaos and delay.
 
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F-Line to Dudley said:
We're spending $85M to band-aid the current to-be-ripped-down structure in large part because absolutely nobody associated with this project has ever been able to conceptually agree for 5 minutes on what it should look like. Some things never change. Seriously...the lane-reduction ship has sailed. MassDOT has never given an inch on that, and it's been reaffirmed multiple times over that breaching that subject is crossing a red line in the sand. It's past time to pivot to "Now what do we do to make the parkland the best it can get given that the lane capacity is frozen?" But no...the Watershed Assoc. wants to waste more time re-debating settled issues from a minority position. I get it...some stakeholders are really sore that lane reduction isn't on the table. That's a natural reaction. But they're going to get even less of what they want in the end if they simply refuse to ever contour to reality. It's past time to shift focus to the details that go within the set parameters of the lane capacity. Re-debating the lane capacity only serves to drag the process even further out, and make us waste more money in temp band-aids.
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They're shooting for Option 3 to get to Option 2.

Given the failed attempts at getting federal dollars - and squandering all the people's tax on millionaires by giving the millionaires a tax cut - I don't see MassDOT being able to afford their current design.
F-Line to Dudley said:
So they go ahead and bury a couple hundred extra million in busywork in the fine print of their renders about needing to dig another arch under the bridge to get SFR ultimately back on-alignment. Scope creep FTW!
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Yeah - those renders also have what appears to be an outside outbound lane on the Pike that is about 4 feet wide. No need to attribute to malice (or conspiracy) that which can be explained by a hastily put-to-gether and kinda cheap render.
 
as02143 said:
Given the failed attempts at getting federal dollars - and squandering all the people's tax on millionaires by giving the millionaires a tax cut - I don't see MassDOT being able to afford their current design.
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Yes, given that the state has yet to outline funding for the project a rational MassDOT would cut lanes to reduce cost. Until full funding is secured I don't think it's unreasonable to push for lane reductions to reduce cost.
 
Badusername said:
Yes, given that the state has yet to outline funding for the project a rational MassDOT would cut lanes to reduce cost. Until full funding is secured I don't think it's unreasonable to push for lane reductions to reduce cost.
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Is there a reason to believe that cutting lanes in the throat would reduce cost in any remotely significant way? I see basically no reason to think that would be the case. The bike path whether on boardwalk or not is cheap (in relative terms), and so is a lane-mile of at-grade asphalt. The entire area needs to be reconstructed regardless and all utility relocations and other complications remain the same. I guess the Grand Junction bridge over the Pike might get a bit cheaper.

If you want to have a philosophical objection to maintaining the number of lanes - you're entitled to it.

But on a cost perspective, reducing the number of lanes in the throat by 2 seems unlikely to me to result in any remotely notable cost savings to the cost of the project, and there are many, many more obvious places to target for cost reduction first in terms of either vastly greater savings (elevated structures) or obviously less significant consequences (various possible lane reductions/tweaks to the proposed street grid), to my eyes.
 
Given the state doesn't have any permits yet for this, including the necessary fill, I rather suspect it's attempting advocacy in that process. But either way, MassDOT is moving forward with a series of proposed edge treatments, and CRWA should at a minimum also be advocating for their preferred solution out of the 4 that MassDOT is willing to entertain, rather than sticking their head in the sand.
 
F-Line to Dudley said:
… But, like expertly-deployed trollbait, they seem to be getting at least some bites from people who think the CRWA are being allies here re: the lane reductions. Like Eq said, they don't care how many lanes there are; it's entirely about how wide and how lushly-landscaped a path they get. …
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You say that as if “wide” and “lushly-landscaped” parkland along the riverfront is some horrible selfish outcome CRWA is hiding inside the Trojan horse of lane reduction. I’d bet most of us who want a lane reduction ALSO want “them” to get “their” (our) wide and lushly-landscaped parkland.

CRWA is advocating for a better outcome. One with more parkland (the horror) and fewer lanes. Maybe they are too little too late. Maybe the renderings are sloppy. But I unapologetically prefer a “wide and lushly-landscaped” (the horror) riverfront park and ten lanes of highway to no parkland and twelve lanes of highway.

While I respect your opinion that this is too little too late, I can’t for the life of me figure out why you think those who want more parkland are some unholy alliance with those who want a lane reduction. That Venn Diagram is basically a circle.
 
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