I-90 Interchange Improvement Project & West Station | Allston

Would it be feasible to eminent domain BU's access road's running alongside the highway next to their dorms? Looks like there is some footage there and you could push the Pike right up against the buildings.
 
meddlepal said:
Would it be feasible to eminent domain BU's access road's running alongside the highway next to their dorms? Looks like there is some footage there and you could push the Pike right up against the buildings.
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Looking quickly, it's an access road for the Agganis Arena loading dock, and most likely doubles as a fire access road along those buildings. There's quite a difference in the terrain in parts so it's debatable if you can replace those services without impeding on the land you'd be taking..
 
stefal said:
Looking quickly, it's an access road for the Agganis Arena loading dock, and most likely doubles as a fire access road along those buildings. There's quite a difference in the terrain in parts so it's debatable if you can replace those services without impeding on the land you'd be taking..
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The retaining wall varies from close to 10 ft. high where Agganis Way wraps around to 3 ft. high where Buick St. wraps around...and the backsides of the buildings contour to the change in grade. Whole thing is striped "No Parking - Fire Lane", so...correct, no one's messing with that.
 
tangent said:
Billion Dollar Boondoggle
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Every major public works project gets blown way up in cost because of the endless studies, pandering to everyone under the sun in every way, and endless delays. The pendulum has swung from instant bulldozing and no public input at all as in the 1950's and 60's, to now where we have a kind of analysis paralysis that stops any kind of major public works project in it tracks. It would be nice if we could have a happy medium between the two extremes.
 
The Globe editors throw their weight (fwiw) behind an at-grade solution: Keep thinking big on the Allston Interchange

Like a crabby married couple, MassDOT and the civic groups that have spent six years lobbying to improve the agency’s plans for rebuilding the Allston interchange are now exaggerating each other’s flaws and sniping at each other’s bad habits. [...] But if they were to see a counselor, or just step back and look at the bigger picture, the contending parties might see their remaining differences are not quite as large as they appear.
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Mostly it's a bunch of summarizing "how we got here" and some "rah rah we can do it!" cheerleading from the Paper of Note.
 
The Globe article describes the kind of conversation and trade-offs between groups that should have happened 6 years ago. It''s time to move on to the final design phase, not relapse into an early planning phase. Also, the permitting agency should be able to allow some minimal filling of the river to accommodate the all at-grade roadway option, with a pedestrian bridge alongside in the river or over SFR as mitigation to minimize the fill.
 
The fill is ancillary to the big protestation which is a decade of SFR on the Charles.
 
Massachoicetts said:
I rather have this project delay a few years to be more pedestrian/transit friendly and less car dependent.
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I wouldn't, because that means what's there now will be rebuilt exactly as is for another 50 years. Ultimately, despite the temporary encroachment, I like the original hybrid plan best, elevating SFR over the pike. 10 years of temporary viaduct is far better than a lifetime of fill.
 
Stlin said:
I wouldn't, because that means what's there now will be rebuilt exactly as is for another 50 years. Ultimately, despite the temporary encroachment, I like the original hybrid plan best, elevating SFR over the pike. 10 years of temporary viaduct is far better than a lifetime of fill.
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Yes/no...it's more the "Aetna Viaduct" corollary. Waste too many years in navel gazing and the existing structure starts lighting tens of millions on fire in in-situ patch jobs...in every single 4-year CIP budget term...for the sole purpose of buying more time. When the very need to start taking on annual maint cost chew ends up inhibiting the future options more and digging a hole too deep for mounting the grand plans all that navel-gazing was wasted on. Hartford is the cautionary tale for waiting/debating too long, the patch-maint tax being allowed to take root, and the whole thing grinding to a halt on the sheer "bigness" of staging a plan while simultaneously pulling out of an active sinkhole.

We're not there yet with Allston Viaduct...but we do not have another 5 years to navel-gaze before we absolutely are there and are swallowing programmed patch funds. It didn't seem "serious-serious" in Hartford when ConnDOT was in similar on-the-cusp stage...but once they had to program that first patch job the next patch job was already being yellow-flagged as an unfunded priority. It took hold like quicksand...they were fucked before they even realized it. Now, 10 years of paralysis later the Aetna Viaduct is never not being temp-patched by some active ConnDOT job. 24/7, 365: it is now always hosting at least one active construction site patching somewhere above, below, between, or to the sides along its length.

That's the cliff we're staring over here. Temp-patching quicksand starts sucking everything up soon...matter of years you can count on one incomplete hand in terms of either locking this plan down for-reals or needing to program that first temp-patch dinger in the CIP. Doesn't even matter if the patch work is a 3-year concern mounted simultaneous with a 10-year perma-fix. Once it touches quicksand everything in sight starts getting grabbed by the untertow, and nobody is cool/calm/collected enough to not panic and make things worse once they're in the grips of quicksand.

We can't so much as dip our toes in any of that or it will wreck us. This has to get resolved sooner/nower. And any "great reimaging" potential must be compressed into a very narrow and stressed timetable, or simply place limits on how great the reimaging is allowed to be in overt concession to the timetable. Because things will quickly get Hartford-bad if we don't nip this in the bud quick enough. It still confounds me that a large enough slice of the warring constituencies here still don't seem to have eyes-wide-open grasp of the time crunch...as if any deadline is still abstractly deferrable if it allows time for navel-gazing a more perfect design. That's the delusion Connecticut adopted when it lollygagged it on the I-84 big-picture. We absolutely can't afford that outcome here.

Whoever does what or makes the first move: whatever it is it has to be done with worlds-destroying urgency or we already know from the example set by our neighbors to the west where this quagmire is headed.
 
Charlie_mta said:
analysis paralysis
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Anytime a government official initiates, at some kick-off public meeting, a community review process on some massive(ly controversial) infrastructure/development project by confidently reassuring that "there will be a robust public process," a giant red flashing warning sign should immediately illuminate above his or her head saying "WARNING: ANALYSIS PARALYSIS AHEAD."

[accompanied by the obligatory AHWOOGA! AHWOOGA! scramble the bombers because it's Defcon 5 siren noise]
 
meddlepal said:
$5 this thing ends up getting rebuilt exactly as it is.
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I know there's problems with each of the various alternatives but god any of them are still better than existing so we better not let politics stop this
 
On the agenda for Monday's Joint MassDOT/FCMB meeting.


Try to contain your giddy anticipation of Pollack's response for this weekend, 'kay. We don't need anyone sustaining a concussion from thinking too big. :censored:
 
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