I-90 Interchange Improvement Project & West Station | Allston

jass said:
You're ignoring that people make stupid decisions, and externalities arent priced.
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This is exactly right, on both counts. People are, on average, pretty bad at making choices. Even if they were trying to make optimal choices, they don't/can't factor in externalities. It is one of the absolutely necessary roles of government to price externalities for us.
 
You're ignoring that people make stupid decisions, and externalities arent priced.
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While there are definitely stupid people, I have a problem with a system that deems people too stupid so we have to turn to a negative reinforcement solutions to choose the better option. When translating that argument to Storrow Drive or other highways that would mean doing congestion pricing because on justification that 10% of them are choosing suboptimally because "they are just too stupid".

The externalities argument is a more fair argument. As people affect each other but many times does not really affect themselves. However, I view that as something we should address more in taxes than in congestion tolls. Externalities of congestion is more fitting for congestion tolling but that is dependent on level of congestion the city is dealing and I don't view Boston as bad enough to justify.

Also, in the case of Boston, the immediate and at least medium term effect of congestion tolling is we are making driving less attractive in favor for modes that are a major downgrade for many people. Again, this repeats I said before that all it accomplish is making something less attractive that others, but in Boston, the "others" are train systems that breaks nearly everyday.

Basically, congestion tolling should be a tactic of last resort. As in similar to the context of Singapore where spacing has become that much of a premium while congestion was reaching critical levels despite other modes being high quality (thus not a loss for people switching versus Boston). Now someone can say here that we can use congestion tolling to make the MBTA decent, I have to point out again that that is a political matter - despite commonly proposed to help fund transit when brought up by activist, it is not inextricably linked. Though it can be proposed as a way to fund the MBTA (or other projects), the topic is congestion pricing in general. Congestion tolling should be a tactic only if we can justify the traffic is bad enough and ideally after we have other modes in a good state.
 
ant8904 said:
While there are definitely stupid people, I have a problem with a system that deems people too stupid so we have to turn to a negative reinforcement solutions to choose the better option. When translating that argument to Storrow Drive or other highways that would mean doing congestion pricing because on justification that 10% of them are choosing suboptimally because "they are just too stupid".
.
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Thats not what Im saying. Smart people make stupid decisions too. Because driving is so easy and cheap, we do it without thinking.

And many times, suboptimal decisions are made because we don't have all the facts available to us. Like getting in the slowest line at the supermarket. Had I known the longer line was faster, I would have done that, but the facts were not available to me at the time.
 
Equilibria said:
Just breaking in for a moment in case this hasn't been posted here yet:

https://willbrownsberger.com/wp.../Allston-Decision-Memo-01.10.2019-FINAL.pdf

Secretary Pollack addresses a lot of what's been discussed and some things that haven't (utilities and permitting). I'd encourage folks to read it before commenting on what "MassDOT obviously wants".
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Your link seems to be broken for me. Here's a hopefully non-broken one for others: https://willbrownsberger.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/Allston-Decision-Memo-01.10.2019-FINAL.pdf

I agree, it's a good read.
 
ant8904 said:
I do not view any singular mode inherently better than any other mode. Thus my view as a society we should provide the necessary services for the various modes people wish to use. What this means is not zero-sum games of choosing between funding highways or rail lines but continue to do both as long the merits that is worth the costs. For Boston (not necessarily for true places like LA or Houston), is doing not quite well in balancing though the maintenance and expansion since the Big Dig has been stuck



The thing is is that few infrastructure are so critical that its effects are too undeniable to ignore. Once a new status quo arrives people can get used to it. Storrow still serves thousands of people a day and their lives would be negatively affected. Yes, most are suburban "outsiders", but as long I count them, I want to still factor them - though I know many in these circles have been saying we value their needs over the local residents far too long, I still try to factor them. That why in my post history when I am on this topic, my ideas have been looking for engineering solutions (plausibility questions of covering up Storrow, comments about burying it, posts of ideas adding on-ramps to the Pike around the Charlesgate, that A-line question a on the last page), rather than just straight up advocacy for closure.
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To me this perspective does not consider externalities enough. I know you could technically wrap that up under the umbrella of "cost" but in standard transportation planning parlance I believe the more common term is "impacts".

Nobody is looking at whether Storrow, etc is actually a net benefit to the public welfare. Dollar-costs aside, what would be gained through its elimination in terms of real estate appreciation and the tax revenue that would yield and the growth that would be enabled, in terms of public health and well being from reduced pollution and a better outdoor environment along the river, and balance that against the impacts of all kinds against those who drive it today, mindful that many of these people might choose to use transit or ride bikes in the absence of Storrow/SFR.

Again I really want to reiterate that I think this is much more like Embarcadero in San Francisco, where basically 100 percent of everybody is glad that it's gone, than the drastic road diets and pedestrianizations under way in central Oslo or London. Embarcadero is the prime example of how conventional calculations of AADT, LOS, and dollar-costs miss the mark pretty badly. And somehow, in spite of that shining, obvious example 25 years ago, we here in the US still haven't learned our lesson.

I am frankly startled that even the activists that have been diligently engaging with DOT on this plan for years in order to secure the best possible outcome haven't explored this option, or tried to paint a picture of what a post-Soldier Field, post-Storrow Boston might be like. Perhaps folks.are worried about opposition and losing a seat at the table, but often it is radical ideas like this that are easier to sell and do a better job of capturing the public vision because the benefits are that much clearer to envision.
 
orulz said:
Again I really want to reiterate that I think this is much more like Embarcadero in San Francisco, where basically 100 percent of everybody is glad that it's gone, than the drastic road diets and pedestrianizations under way in central Oslo or London. Embarcadero is the prime example of how conventional calculations of AADT, LOS, and dollar-costs miss the mark pretty badly. And somehow, in spite of that shining, obvious example 25 years ago, we here in the US still haven't learned our lesson.

I am frankly startled that even the activists that have been diligently engaging with DOT on this plan for years in order to secure the best possible outcome haven't explored this option, or tried to paint a picture of what a post-Soldier Field, post-Storrow Boston might be like. Perhaps folks.are worried about opposition and losing a seat at the table, but often it is radical ideas like this that are easier to sell and do a better job of capturing the public vision because the benefits are that much clearer to envision.
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For the billionth time (on this site, not necessarily to you): the Embarcadero Freeway was essentially an on-ramp, turned into a stub by a freeway revolt. It has many analogues in the US, but Storrow Drive is not one of them.

If you remove Storrow, the traffic won't just vanish. It will shift onto the Turnpike, then onto Mass Ave to get to Kendall or Cambridge Street to get to MGH. If you're ready to deal with that by giving commuters from the west effective transit to get to those places - Light Rail on the Grand Junction and Blue Line in the Storrow ROW are musts - then you have a chance of this working. We don't have that transit, which means more cars on smaller roads, fighting for space with the pedestrians and bicycles they're separated from on Storrow.

If you pull the rug out from under people before building them an alternative, ain't no amount of jogging and nice river views that's going to offset the hurt that will put on the city.
 
orulz said:
... real estate appreciation and the tax revenue that would yield...
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ASIDE: I don't want to derail this discussion where you are making excellent points, but I want to briefly interject to correct this oft repeated mistake. Total tax revenue is set by the city. Real estate values determine how much of the total bill is paid by each property owner. If values go up, then the tax rate is lowered to collect the target total revenue. The only way total revenue can increase is if the city decides to increase it. It doesn't just happen automatically because real estate values went up.
 
Equilibria said:
For the billionth time (on this site, not necessarily to you): the Embarcadero Freeway was essentially an on-ramp, turned into a stub by a freeway revolt. It has many analogues in the US, but Storrow Drive is not one of them.

If you remove Storrow, the traffic won't just vanish. It will shift onto the Turnpike, then onto Mass Ave to get to Kendall or Cambridge Street to get to MGH. If you're ready to deal with that by giving commuters from the west effective transit to get to those places - Light Rail on the Grand Junction and Blue Line in the Storrow ROW are musts - then you have a chance of this working. We don't have that transit, which means more cars on smaller roads, fighting for space with the pedestrians and bicycles they're separated from on Storrow.

If you pull the rug out from under people before building them an alternative, ain't no amount of jogging and nice river views that's going to offset the hurt that will put on the city.
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You make a good point about alternatives and a transit trade-in would be wonderful, but you leave out another important alternative. People can relocate to where the jobs or the transit already is. Investing in the capacity of existing transit lines and allowing TOD around them gives people a way to access jobs without a car. Building more homes in primarily commercial districts, creating homes that are walkable to work, also gives people access to jobs without a car.

I'm not saying that 100% of the people who drive on Storrow today would pack up and move into Boston/Cambridge. I'm saying that some would. With natural attrition, as jobs turn over they can/will be filled by people who don't drive on Storrow today. 10-15% per year is a typical turnover rate. It takes some time for a city to adjust to a change in transportation infrastructure, but it doesn't take FOREVER. Any disruption from removing Storrow would not be a permanent carpocalypse.
 
fattony said:
You make a good point about alternatives and a transit trade-in would be wonderful, but you leave out another important alternative. People can relocate to where the jobs or the transit already is. Investing in the capacity of existing transit lines and allowing TOD around them gives people a way to access jobs without a car. Building more homes in primarily commercial districts, creating homes that are walkable to work, also gives people access to jobs without a car.

I'm not saying that 100% of the people who drive on Storrow today would pack up and move into Boston/Cambridge. I'm saying that some would. With natural attrition, as jobs turn over they can/will be filled by people who don't drive on Storrow today. 10-15% per year is a typical turnover rate. It takes some time for a city to adjust to a change in transportation infrastructure, but it doesn't take FOREVER. Any disruption from removing Storrow would not be a permanent carpocalypse.
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It is simply not conceivable that everyone who works at MGH or around Kendall can live within walking distance. Major employment centers deserve upgraded transit options if you take away their road access. There has to be a tradeoff.
 
fattony said:
Any disruption from removing Storrow would not be a permanent carpocalypse.
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Can you think of a single case where an urban highway removal actually resulted in a carpocalypse? Not saying it hasn't happened, but I can't think of an instance where a pre-planned highway closure resulted in chaos. I guess the best I can come up with is the 35W bridge collapse in Minneapolis but obviously that was unplanned. But even then, there as anywhere, a portion of the traffic did just vanish - as some chose simply to not make trips that would have required 35W. This is simply the reverse of induced demand, a phenomenon which I would hazard nearly everybody on this forum believes to be real.

That said, the congestion on the detours was pretty bad for a while as people figured out the best alternate route. I recall this got a little better as people settled into new patterns. Throughout the closure, the detour routes certainly saw heavier traffic and more congestion, but there wasn't mass hysteria. Compounding this situation, it was unexpected so nobody was able to plan in advance (neither individuals through researching alternate arrangements, nor transportation agencies, through TDM.) Also, the closure of 35W was universally understood to be a *temporary* thing, so many people resisted making structural changes to their lives to accommodate it. Finally, 35W was a more dominant road than Storrow/SFR, carrying a relatively larger portion of the total traffic in its corridor (catchment area?). Note that I am not suggesting to close the Pike.

In cases like road work on I-95 in Virginia or something, this can result in long delays, but it's also reasonable to assume that since roads like this carry a large portion of long-distance travel, somebody from New Jersey heading to Georgia wouldn't necessarily be aware of construction in Virginia and would thus not adjust their travel plans accordingly. In addition, for many portions of the I-95 corridor, especially in rural areas, there are often no credible alternative routes, or the ones that do exist are woefully undersized in comparison to the mainline interstate.

In the case of Storrow and Soldiers Field, it can be readily assumed that nearly every driver there uses these routes habitually. These people can all be informed of the closure and plan ahead. Massdot and the city can use TDM to educate and provide alternatives. There are plenty of alternative routes, including Memorial Drive, the Pike, and Commonwealth, so the impacts from trips moving to other routes can be spread out. If some of the people currently driving on Soldiers Field switch to the Pike, and that makes the pike a bit more congested, then maybe some people who previously used the Pike would consider alternatives. So the impacts in that sense get spread around.

It's quite striking that I can find a number of posts on this very forum saying "Gosh it would be nice if Storrow could go away" but when presented with an opportunity to actually do this, y'all are getting gun shy. Why?
 
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To me this perspective does not consider externalities enough. I know you could technically wrap that up under the umbrella of "cost" but in standard transportation planning parlance I believe the more common term is "impacts".

Nobody is looking at whether Storrow, etc is actually a net benefit to the public welfare. Dollar-costs aside, what would be gained through its elimination in terms of real estate appreciation and the tax revenue that would yield and the growth that would be enabled, in terms of public health and well being from reduced pollution and a better outdoor environment along the river, and balance that against the impacts of all kinds against those who drive it today, mindful that many of these people might choose to use transit or ride bikes in the absence of Storrow/SFR.

Again I really want to reiterate that I think this is much more like Embarcadero in San Francisco, where basically 100 percent of everybody is glad that it's gone, than the drastic road diets and pedestrianizations under way in central Oslo or London. Embarcadero is the prime example of how conventional calculations of AADT, LOS, and dollar-costs miss the mark pretty badly. And somehow, in spite of that shining, obvious example 25 years ago, we here in the US still haven't learned our lesson.

I am frankly startled that even the activists that have been diligently engaging with DOT on this plan for years in order to secure the best possible outcome haven't explored this option, or tried to paint a picture of what a post-Soldier Field, post-Storrow Boston might be like. Perhaps folks.are worried about opposition and losing a seat at the table, but often it is radical ideas like this that are easier to sell and do a better job of capturing the public vision because the benefits are that much clearer to envision.
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I largely co-sign what Equilibria said as the response I would have written if I saw it first. But I do have a few additional responses not overlapping with Equilibria

The one particular point that bothers me is one of your supporting points you made towards your main point that I am not calculating in some unmeasured net benefits: your point of increased tax revenue and real estate appreciation. You do realized Storrow/SFR cuts through 2 multi-billion dollar endowment universities and 2 of the affluent neighborhoods in Boston and the ultimately the country? In the case of Storrow Drive, that argument is an argument to make the rich richer.

That said, I get that there are net benefits. It is a trade off and like I said, ultimately people can get used to a lot of things, it's not arguments about carpocalapses. But I remain in the view that shutting down Storrow Drive should have remediations like a so overall throughput remains the same, not just close it. The math of the net benefits outweighing the costs because much more obvious if the costs are mitigated by things like being able to switch to the Pike, switching to an hypothetical A-line, or some other mode.

And yes, setting up that people can live closer to the city so ultimately commute times can remain the same can count towards the math too - assuming the TOD is enough so that people are not paying $300k more with other quality of life factors maintained (which we are struggling to do this in this current context).
 
Can you think of a single case where an urban highway removal actually resulted in a carpocalypse?
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Like I already said, few pieces are so critical that its loss would result in a true carpocalypse. Why does it have to crazy-visible wall-to-wall traffic to say there were negatives? That's an aspect that I don't see people talk about. In these discussions, net positives are very visible. It is easy to see more green parks, joggers, bikes, and things like looking up tax revenues and real estate values are easy to look up. But aside from traffic jams, most negatives are not so easily to see them. Removing a highway would force people to take other measures, a lot of them are not visible - how visible is people taking 30 minutes longer commutes? How visible are people giving up commutes to certain jobs because commute times becomes too much? Actually, for the latter, it actually means less visibility via less congestion.


This is simply the reverse of induced demand, a phenomenon which I would hazard nearly everybody on this forum believes to be real.
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Yes, in this forum, the concept of induced demand is common knowledge. But I have not interpret this means we are free to reduce throughput of networks. Just because a network will adjust itself so the congestion will reduce to something reasonable, it doesn't mean free reign to think everything is unnecessary. Impacts on people are real. And just because it doesn't mean wall-to-wall traffic, it doesn't mean there's no negative impacts. That is why that when these topics comes up, I tend to look equivalent replacements - try to make every mode of transit to have more than perform trade offs. And I keep in mind that impacts on people is more than just traffic - both hard-to-measure positives and hard-to-measure negatives.

It's quite striking that I can find a number of posts on this very forum saying "Gosh it would be nice if Storrow could go away" but when presented with an opportunity to actually do this, y'all are getting gun shy. Why?
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Because while we both agree we want Storrow gone, we don't actually agree on what point it becomes justified and acceptable to actually do it.
 
fattony said:
This is exactly right, on both counts. People are, on average, pretty bad at making choices. Even if they were trying to make optimal choices, they don't/can't factor in externalities. It is one of the absolutely necessary roles of government to price externalities for us.
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Governments are made of people. And governments are pretty bad at it too.
 
fattony said:
You make a good point about alternatives and a transit trade-in would be wonderful, but you leave out another important alternative. People can relocate to where the jobs or the transit already is. Investing in the capacity of existing transit lines and allowing TOD around them gives people a way to access jobs without a car. Building more homes in primarily commercial districts, creating homes that are walkable to work, also gives people access to jobs without a car.

I'm not saying that 100% of the people who drive on Storrow today would pack up and move into Boston/Cambridge. I'm saying that some would. With natural attrition, as jobs turn over they can/will be filled by people who don't drive on Storrow today. 10-15% per year is a typical turnover rate. It takes some time for a city to adjust to a change in transportation infrastructure, but it doesn't take FOREVER. Any disruption from removing Storrow would not be a permanent carpocalypse.
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Just about everything folks been saying "people will do" is a compromise that makes their lives worse than they are now, be it paying more to live in denser urban areas, giving up living space, seeing dispersed friends or family less often, etc, and that's just the people who can move. If you have kids in a school system, a religious community, or a nearby elderly parent, you might not be able to move even if you could afford it, and even if we built thousand-foot apartment towers in the West End to hold everyone.

orulz said:
Can you think of a single case where an urban highway removal actually resulted in a carpocalypse? Not saying it hasn't happened, but I can't think of an instance where a pre-planned highway closure resulted in chaos. I guess the best I can come up with is the 35W bridge collapse in Minneapolis but obviously that was unplanned. But even then, there as anywhere, a portion of the traffic did just vanish - as some chose simply to not make trips that would have required 35W. This is simply the reverse of induced demand, a phenomenon which I would hazard nearly everybody on this forum believes to be real.
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The reason the carpocalypse hasn't happened is because the closure hasn't happened. No city has ever simply eliminated a key through highway. Boston and Seattle have buried them. Portland, San Francisco, and New Haven have eliminated stubs, but torn down? No.

Every trip someone chooses not to make has value to them. When you make them eliminate those trips, their lives get worse. That's the bottom line. They may learn to live with a new reality, and "good" is entirely a matter of context, but it bothers me when people in my profession are simply arrogant and callous about harming people in the name of principle.
 
ant8904 said:
Like I already said, few pieces are so critical that its loss would result in a true carpocalypse. Why does it have to crazy-visible wall-to-wall traffic to say there were negatives? That's an aspect that I don't see people talk about. In these discussions, net positives are very visible. It is easy to see more green parks, joggers, bikes, and things like looking up tax revenues and real estate values are easy to look up. But aside from traffic jams, most negatives are not so easily to see them. Removing a highway would force people to take other measures, a lot of them are not visible - how visible is people taking 30 minutes longer commutes? How visible are people giving up commutes to certain jobs because commute times becomes too much? Actually, for the latter, it actually means less visibility via less congestion.

Yes, in this forum, the concept of induced demand is common knowledge. But I have not interpret this means we are free to reduce throughput of networks. Just because a network will adjust itself so the congestion will reduce to something reasonable, it doesn't mean free reign to think everything is unnecessary. Impacts on people are real.

Because while we both agree we want Storrow gone, we don't actually agree on what point it becomes justified and acceptable to actually do it.
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My basic argument is that Storrow/Soldier Field is insignificant enough (not saying it's objectively insignificant, just that it's insignificant *enough*), and that it has enough negatives in terms of making the river, perhaps Boston's greatest natural asset, that much less accessible and enjoyable, that when you are at a position of potentially spending as much as a $billion to include it in plans for the 'throat' area (over a hypothetical plan that does not restore it) you have an obligation to at least consider alternative uses for that $billion.

Specifically, the point where you and I seem to differ is that I am of the opinion that the alternatives need not be constrained to transportation.

One alternative use for that $billion would be to provide equivalent transportation routes, in terms of improvements to transit like the NSRL and/or improving road connections elsewhere in the network.

Another alternative use would be to spend it somewhere else beneficial such as on parks or affordable housing.

Still another would be to use it to pay down debt (Haven't heard about the Big Dig debt lately; is that still a thing?)

Yet another alternative would be to not spend it at all and let it revert indirectly to the public, in the form of reduced taxes, so they can use it to buy groceries and cell phones or whatever.
 
orulz said:
you are at a position of potentially spending as much as a $billion to include it in plans for the 'throat' area (over a hypothetical plan that does not restore it) you have an obligation to at least consider alternative uses for that $billion.
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The project as a whole is $1.2 billion, not the SFR viaduct. That includes I-90, West Station, the Grand Junction, the works.
 
Equilibria said:
Every trip someone chooses not to make has value to them. When you make them eliminate those trips, their lives get worse. That's the bottom line. They may learn to live with a new reality, and "good" is entirely a matter of context, but it bothers me when people in my profession are simply arrogant and callous about harming people in the name of principle.
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This is absolutely true. In my estimation this is at the core of the conflict driving the "yellow vest" protests in France - and pushing too far, too fast can get extremely ugly. But I should also point out that France/Paris are way, way, way further down the road in terms of doing "harmful" things (like raising fuel taxes and/or closing highways) in the name of principles (like fighting climate change and enabling more active lifestyles) than anywhere in the US is.

The setpoint for what might trigger significant protest in the US may well be lower than that of France. I would also not suggest that we should try to push things to the brink of civil unrest. However, in my estimation, as of January 2019, we're not anywhere close. Not even remotely in the ballpark. This is mostly because our political system makes it very difficult to make broad, sweeping policy changes that you see overseas. For that reason, when an opportunity (like this!) presents itself, I think it is all the more important to seize it - or at least look into it, rather than fatalistic preemptive resignation to maintaining the status quo.
 
Equilibria said:
The project as a whole is $1.2 billion, not the SFR viaduct. That includes I-90, West Station, the Grand Junction, the works.
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I do admit to pulling the $1 billion number out of thin air. I thought I recalled reading that the most recent alternative was something like $1.6 billion, whereas the initial option of rebuilding in place was something more like $600 million. At any rate, surely the SFR viaduct portion of the work runs well into the hundred millions, as it seems likely to be the most complicated piece.
 
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