I-90 Interchange Improvement Project & West Station | Allston

F-Line to Dudley said:
Or it will be when Harvard does a "HAHA...no!" on financial support on a 'throat' decision that doesn't materially impact their Beacon Park landholdings at all. Real reach right there.
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I would think the financial support they mean is for the project as a whole. Not just the throat part.

They theoretically could do just the hump to give the room to Harvard to build their stuff.
 
HenryAlan said:
Why the hell should Boston pay for a road that benefits the suburbs and wrecks a section of the city?
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I do believe there's a tolling stanchion right at the throat. We now have years of data from every transponder and license plate. The use proportions are now 100% knowable. Send out 350 invoices to the cities and towns using the thing in proportion to their usage (presumably Gosnold as town #351 would have zero usage).

Then again, this idea sucks. If I'm a town getting this invoice, I'll be furious if state aid doesn't cover my portion. So we're right back to where we started. This is a state problem. Pushing it down is some Baker BS.
 
I'm with y'all, but the State's argument is that toll revenue pays for the highway and the unfunded portion is all the other non-highway stuff. So commuters have paid to replace the highway as is, and the State wants the City and Harvard to contribute to everything else.

Isn't Harvard in this position because they got some sweetheart deals in the first place about 10-20 years ago?
 
JumboBuc said:
I'm with y'all, but the State's argument is that toll revenue pays for the highway and the unfunded portion is all the other non-highway stuff. So commuters have paid to replace the highway as is, and the State wants the City and Harvard to contribute to everything else.

Isn't Harvard in this position because they got some sweetheart deals in the first place about 10-20 years ago?
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MassDOT put Beacon Yards up for sale, and, IIRC, Harvard beat out BU. Those were the only interested parties, BU only superficially so. Wasn't so much a sweetheart deal, because the property came with an easement allowing CSX to operate trains there in perpetuity. That ensured there would be little/no private sector interest. Subsequently, as part of CSX moving its operations to Worcester, Harvard paid CSX $147 million for the easement. This is on top of what it had paid the Commonwealth for the land..

Harvard has no near-term plans for Beacon Yards, so it can wait.

MBTA Agrees To Drop Allston Land Claim | News | The Harvard Crimson

Cutting a deal that clears the way for Harvard to purchase a 91-acre parcel of land in Allston, the Massachusetts
www.thecrimson.com www.thecrimson.com

www.wickedlocal.com

Harvard will be allowed to purchase and develop Beacon Park Yard

Harvard University will be able to complete the purchase and redevelopment of Beacon Park Yard, a 50-acre parcel in Allston, under an agreement with the railroad company CSX that will be put before t…
www.wickedlocal.com

www.thecrimson.com

Harvard Pays $147.3 Million to Finalize Allston Land Deal | News | The Harvard Crimson

Harvard has paid railroad company CSX Transportation $147.3 million as one of the final steps of a land acquisition deal begun more than a decade ago.
www.thecrimson.com www.thecrimson.com
 
F-Line to Dudley said:
Or it will be when Harvard does a "HAHA...no!" on financial support on a 'throat' decision that doesn't materially impact their Beacon Park landholdings at all. Real reach right there.
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Rest of the project does. It dooms any plans they had for development there before 2045.
 
Just build the latest cantilevered viaduct design, the new interchange and street system at Beacon Park, and the new West Station, and call it good. All this endless reaching for some utopian pie-in-the-sky Throat configuration will just sink the entire project. The viaduct, unlike the at-grade proposal, can sail through the environmental/permitting process. In 60 years when Storrow Drive is finally eliminated, then the viaduct can be torn down.
 
HenryAlan said:
Why the hell should Boston pay for a road that benefits the suburbs and wrecks a section of the city?
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You don't think Boston sees any benefits from people coming in from the suburbs on the Pike?
 
mass88 said:
You don't think Boston sees any benefits from people coming in from the suburbs on the Pike?
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Of course Boston does see benefit, but not as much as if those people lived in Boston instead. In 2020, there is no need for Boston to fall all over itself to attract suburban commuters. I would think in this day and age, the onus is on outsiders who want access to the economic and cultural fruits of the city.
 
Was there ever an option to lower the turnpike to ground level, build a park between the turnpike and the river and put Storrow Drive in a tunnel under the park or turnpike? Seems like a sensible option.
 
BostonTrainGuy said:
Was there ever an option to lower the turnpike to ground level, build a park between the turnpike and the river and put Storrow Drive in a tunnel under the park or turnpike? Seems like a sensible option.
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No, because +/- 200 ft. of BU Bridge is the single most flood-prone area of Lower Charles Basin owing to the very low-lying (almost level) riverbank on the Boston side of the river. That's both why BU Sailing Pavilion is located at that very spot for convenience and also why the RR tracks underneath the Viaduct are raised close to 3 ft. higher than the Storrow pavement level. About once per year on average Storrow has to close in that spot for a few hours after a torrential rain because the riverbank flooded and needs some time to properly drain. Or...if DCR doesn't close it outright it's white-knuckle driving in a few inches of standing water until the roadway drains...a very dangerous driving condition.

You would have incredible difficulty incurring great expense trying to waterproof a tunnel or cut in this whole area on the westward BU Bridge approach because of the extremely high probability of needing to regularly tackle the storm-drain effect with the cut's inclines. Design costs are an insta-blowout on any attempt to lower the level. As is, everything they're trying to at-grade is very likely to be raised 2-4 ft. to the same level as the somewhat raised RR tracks as extra fortification against an over-full Basin during climate-change induced storm surges. So they're already looking up-level, not down, based on the future flood frequency prognosis for the Basin.
 
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We're also trying to minimize maintenance costs, and tunnel life-cycle/maintenance costs can rack up pretty high pretty fast...
 
fattony said:
Of course Boston does see benefit, but not as much as if those people lived in Boston instead. In 2020, there is no need for Boston to fall all over itself to attract suburban commuters. I would think in this day and age, the onus is on outsiders who want access to the economic and cultural fruits of the city.
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Except that we may own businesses and real estate in Boston and pay taxes in Boston. Would it benefit Boston if we moved our businesses and economic activity to the suburbs or elsewhere? Of course it helps Boston!!
 
TallIsGood said:
Except that we may own businesses and real estate in Boston and pay taxes in Boston. Would it benefit Boston if we moved our businesses and economic activity to the suburbs or elsewhere? Of course it helps Boston!!
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By all means move your business to Sudbury if it gets us a lane reduced Pike
 
TallIsGood said:
Except that we may own businesses and real estate in Boston and pay taxes in Boston. Would it benefit Boston if we moved our businesses and economic activity to the suburbs or elsewhere? Of course it helps Boston!!
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I have to say, that doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. If you can relocate your business elsewhere, why haven’t you? That is a rhetorical question, please don’t answer it. Your specific case is not the point, nor is it the topic of the thread. Suburban commuters aren’t doing the city some kind of favor or service by commuting in. That line of thinking is about 20+ years out of date.

I’ll stand by my original point. Boston would be better off if all those commuters lived in Boston instead. That doesn’t mean they don’t bring value, it means their commute brings externalities also.
 
TallisGood,
A slimmed down pike, less commuter car traffic, and more people living and working in Boston is good for Boston. The point is not to move your business to the burbs, it is to keep your business here and move your employees to Boston. I realize you can't do/ensure that all on your own, but no matter how we look at it, these considerations are all part of the same interconnected system. Yes, moving your business and its employees to Kansas would generally be bad for Boston.
 
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