Harry Mattison
Active Member
- Joined
- Dec 14, 2007
- Messages
- 144
- Reaction score
- 58
Just like the footbridges at the BU Beach & Silber Way, a new footbridge at Agganis Way would serve the BU community and many other people too.
Just like the footbridges at the BU Beach & Silber Way, a new footbridge at Agganis Way would serve the BU community and many other people too.
MassDOT's plan puts Soldiers Field Road on a structure in the river, replaces 1/2 mile of riverbank with metal sheet piling, and adds fill to the river at the approaches to the SFR Bridge. Then after ~10 years MassDOT proposes to tear all that out and rebuild the shoreline in its current location.
I don't think Pioneer or anyone else is proposing a permanent concrete strip embankment.
No, MassDOT isn't "meeting six years worth of demands from activists". Why do you think they are?
Do you like what MassDOT proposes for West Station?
Ugh... let this Urban Rail to Kendall die... it won't work and it's better served by some sort of Urban Ring solution.
What sort of Urban Ring solution?Ugh... let this Urban Rail to Kendall die... it won't work and it's better served by some sort of Urban Ring solution.
You think Harvard University, owner of all the land under the highway, was going to sit back and let MassDOT's "suburban off-ramp" design get built?
Or accept the huge layover yard that MassDOT initially proposed?
Have you read this? https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B0Mv_n6nNyOTRkZNYzRxdWZuWFF2OWlNbzdNSjA3ck5leGEwMassDOT has an easement. Harvard doesn't really get a choice.
No, I don't see a People's Pike in MassDOT's current plan. The People's Pike many people want MassDOT to include is the off-road path between Wadsworth Street and the Worcester Line that Harvard proposed a few years ago.
Fine, but that's the clear and present danger that West Station advocates use to push an opening date before 2040. It's not "West Station will provide a convenient way for 500 people a day to get from Wellesley to their teaching jobs at BU and Harvard", it's "West Station will provide a critical rail link to Cambridge from the west".
What sort of Urban Ring solution?
MassDOT has proposed routing a multi-use path north of the tracks, making the connection to PDW much easier and still connecting to Franklin Street. What's wrong with that?
- Connects to the heavily used Franklin Street footbridge, and creates space for the footbridge to have a straight ramp instead of the triple switchback designed by MassDOT that requires spending millions to take a 7,000 sq ft property
- Useful for people south of the Pike
- Connects West Station, Comm Ave, and BU to the river paths
- Creates a buffer for people living on Wadsworth Street who are most harmed by the noise & pollution of the Pike & trains
Harvard's in-house team, their consultants at Parsons Brinckerhoff, and other professional engineers think the tracks can be shifted to the north to make space for the Franklin St Footbridge ramp and avoid property takings. It is not "MassDOT vs. Harry Mattison".
Harvard presentation: https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B0Mv_n6nNyOTd0VSbDdFRTJ5T1kzR3lXZF9fOVR2clp5WjV3
MassDOT January 2019 presentation: https://www.mass.gov/doc/allston-task-force-meeting-presentation-012319/download