I-90 Interchange Improvement Project & West Station | Allston

JeffDowntown said:
I think many of us are pretty convinced the flooding concerns are a smoke screen for allowing the MassDOT to build what they want to build, a viaduct.

Protecting this section of the Pike or SFR is not going to make either road passable in flood situations, as both roads flow into other major flood zones, not addressed by this reconstruction.
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Yea the flood risk of the at grade proposal rings hollow when their preferred alternative of the elevated sfr option has by far the worst flood risk of all. Whats really going on here is theyre preparing us for the rebuilt pike viaduct option which has the least flood risk and you dont have to touch the river. (Even though every option has either sfr, the pike, or both at grade so there is no proposal with no flood risk, but rebuilding the pike viaduct has the least and no messing with the riverbank problem.)
 
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JeffDowntown said:
I think many of us are pretty convinced the flooding concerns are a smoke screen for allowing the MassDOT to build what they want to build, a viaduct.

Protecting this section of the Pike or SFR is not going to make either road passable in flood situations, as both roads flow into other major flood zones, not addressed by this reconstruction.
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Disagree to an modest extent.

As thru routes, sure, you're not getting through the Big Dig without a submarine in this scenario.

At least on Boston's climate maps, the Pike as it exists today would likely be passable to the Copley ramps in the 1% 2070 coastal flood or anything less, while virtually no other highway route would be able to get anywhere near as close to the urban core before encountering flooding. (It would potentially suffer some stormwater flooding in existing low sections - but mitigating that is a lot simpler than coastal flooding is.).

Is that of sufficient value to justify forcing a viaduct (if you don't have a federal regulation not giving you a choice)? My gut says no, although I have no idea what kind of emergency planning benefits or not it produces.
 
RandomWalk said:
We shall forever be cursed with William Callahan’s infrastructure choices, just like NYC is cursed with Robert Moses.
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In hindsight it's good that Callahan forced the Turnpike all the way through Boston, because if it had ended at Allston (as FHWA and ex-Governor Volpe wanted at the time) to connect to the proposed Inner Belt Expressway, then the Pike would forever remain just a stub end at Allston. because the Inner Belt was never built. So the Mass Pike was built all the way through to Fort Point Channel, so it provides a core east-west transportation route and connection to Logan.
 
Charlie_mta said:
In hindsight it's good that Callahan forced the Turnpike all the way through Boston, because if it had ended at Allston (as FHWA and ex-Governor Volpe wanted at the time) to connect to the proposed Inner Belt Expressway, then the Pike would forever remain just a stub end at Allston. because the Inner Belt was never built. So the Mass Pike was built all the way through to Fort Point Channel, so it provides a core east-west transportation route and connection to Logan.
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Interesting what-if there but if the Pike ends in Allston does a new CBD develop out in that area since getting into "downtown Boston" would be quite difficult from the west.
 
393b40 said:
Interesting what-if there but if the Pike ends in Allston does a new CBD develop out in that area since getting into "downtown Boston" would be quite difficult from the west.
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Wouldn’t it end at BU Bridge where the Inner Belt was to cross into Cambridge?
 
If the Pike ended in Allston, the odds of at least the southern half of the inner belt being built probably rise substantially. Politically it would have been much tougher for Sargent to implement the highway moratorium if it explicitly screwed the western burbs by permanently truncating the pike out of downtown, when North and South already had direct access via 93. Cambridge may have still beat the Northern leg, but in a fight between the western burbs plus Worcester and Springfield Vs Roxbury in the early 70s to effectively reroute the Eastern end of the Pike down the southern 695 corridor, the highway probably wins based on population alone even before the racism aspect is factored.
 
Callahan’s curse is the spiteful way he extended the Pike from 128 to the Artery, and he avoided serving Worcester.
 
Plus the Pike between Allston and 93 was mostly on the footprint of expansive (and by the 60's, expansively disused) Boston & Albany passenger train storage yards, with some adjacent rail-served industry. There wasn't a lot of residential directly in the path of the Pike, and the overall displacement impacts were far fewer than what got blown up in Brighton and Newton to bring it in from 128. Where displacement was severest in the South End it was in a multi-block Urban Renewal radius around the RR/would-be Pike canyon that was politically earmarked for bulldozing any which way. Nobody had a neat political trick for taking urban renewal politically off the table for that neighborhood, so I doubt the decision to raze the blocks further from the canyon would've changed in any way/shape/form had the Pike gone away; they just would've slimmed and capped the RR canyon while nuking just as many surrounding blocks in the name of "progress". Maybe the Pru area would've sprung up slightly denser on the acreage of the old yards, and maybe the air rights parcels spanning the canyon that we're still fighting over would've been infilled way sooner...but all else would've been roughly equal. The South End was still in Urban Renewal crosshairs under any scenario, and the rest of the corridor was blighted RR-era refuse that was going to be backfilled with much the same development highway or no highway. History didn't change the dev trajectories much...it simply set property lines this way instead of that way.

Given how all that went, I don't know how anyone in good conscience could've or would've chosen the Roxbury Innerbelt nuke zone over the empty B&A yards in a contest of lesser evils.
 
JeffDowntown said:
But I-95 was supposed to come all the way in to meet I-93. right? It would have been I-95 in the South End canyon down the SW corridor, through BB Station, then on to I-93.
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Sure. Then the Inner Belt X-Way would have been I-695 and the truncated Mass Pike would have ended, and connected to I-695, near the BU Bridge.
 
RandomWalk said:
Callahan’s curse is the spiteful way he extended the Pike from 128 to the Artery, and he avoided serving Worcester.
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Because the publisher of the Telegram was a co-founder of the John Birch Society.
 
This is plausible enough to NOT be in a God thread. And the Grand Junction Line should go the B line. Pi is exactly 3.
Pulling the pin and running...
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ThroatBefore.jpg
 
F-Line to Dudley said:
You're going to find 30 feet here, here, and here??? I don't think so.
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While I do appreciate your opinion and your deep institutional knowledge, you do have a tendency to set ideas afire in a post's first 5 minutes of life.
That said... the caveats are written in the Charles in the images: I did say there would be some structures removed AND that Harry Agganis Way would be removed and decked 25 feet up in the air above the new rail bed. This would get you damn close to 30 feet. Though, I gotta say, the bigger obstacle is Boston University doing anything for it's neighbors in the first place. If they even came to the bargaining table or issued a statement pledging cooperation, I'd be floored.
It's a matter of will... because there is a Harry Agganis Way.
 
In 2021, we should be shrinking or removing highways, not taking private land for them. There are much simpler solutions to BU giving up land and having to partially demolish buildings in order to preserve an 8 lane highway and 4 lane "parkway."
 
BeyondRevenue said:
While I do appreciate your opinion and your deep institutional knowledge, you do have a tendency to set ideas afire in a post's first 5 minutes of life.
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Would you rather I beat around the bush for 25 minutes or point out the obvious? Jee-zus...knock it off with the backhanded compliments. You offered it up for critique on a messageboard, didn't you?!?! Don't pretend it's not fair game for critique.

That said... the caveats are written in the Charles in the images: I did say there would be some structures removed AND that Harry Agganis Way would be removed and decked 25 feet up in the air above the new rail bed. This would get you damn close to 30 feet. Though, I gotta say, the bigger obstacle is Boston University doing anything for it's neighbors in the first place. If they even came to the bargaining table or issued a statement pledging cooperation, I'd be floored.
It's a matter of will... because there is a Harry Agganis Way.
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"Some structures removed" is burying the lede just a weeeeeeeee bit, don't you think? The primary Housing Services administrative building housing the bulk of the University's residential support staff would get nuked in the process, as would an entire wing of the College of Fine Arts. Plus an entire new-construction dorm would have its primary loading docks rendered nonfunctional.

Those are not minor impacts. They're major. And BU would be well within its rights to demand the absolute moon in compensation for the disruption it would cause. That moon they'd demand is very surely going to be more than enough to sink the prospects of said land grab.
 
F-Line to Dudley said:
The primary Housing Services administrative building housing the bulk of the University's residential support staff would get nuked in the process, as would an entire wing of the College of Fine Arts. Plus an entire new-construction dorm would have its primary loading docks rendered nonfunctional.

Those are not minor impacts. They're major. And BU would be well within its rights to demand the absolute moon in compensation for the disruption it would cause. That moon they'd demand is very surely going to be more than enough to sink the prospects of said land grab.
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Nuked? Come on. Dial down the hyperbole. There will be no fission or fusion in my plan.
What's more expensive? Compensating BU and moving the 20 or so people into nicer new office space nearby, or letting the Commonwealth pay for planning rounds to get a viaduct jammed in there again?

And a 'wing' of the College of Fine Arts? Fifteen feet. That's no wing. That's a garage. Remember, this is the ugliest part of BU and everything CAN be moved. Unless you insist nothing gets moved evar evar evar.
Loading docks, I weep for thee.... Or just make a new ramp.

Did you not notice the parking garage I put over the old parking lot? I mean, if you're going to say something is prohibitively expensive, THAT should be it.

Also, from the back of the parking lot nearest to the BU Bridge you can see an easy 10 feet -- without ripping any buildings down at all.
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You don't get that shot from Google Maps! You gotta climb a fence or two.

Stop being so stubborn. Life's too short.
 
BeyondRevenue said:
Nuked? Come on. Dial down the hyperbole. There will be no fission or fusion in my plan.
What's more expensive? Compensating BU and moving the 20 or so people into nicer new office space nearby, or letting the Commonwealth pay for planning rounds to get a viaduct jammed in there again?
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Giving BU an opening to demand the moon is hands-down going to be the most expensive outcome. Hands-down. It's leverage they will use on overdrive.

And a 'wing' of the College of Fine Arts? Fifteen feet. That's no wing. That's a garage. Remember, this is the ugliest part of BU and everything CAN be moved. Unless you insist nothing gets moved evar evar evar.
Loading docks, I weep for thee.... Or just make a new ramp.
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By giving BU leverage to demand *palatial* things in return. You seem to be proceeding here under the illusion that they are magnanimous-in-any-way actors. They're not. Those seemingly small concessions will come with a massive mound of flesh in negotiation. The University has detached/inoculated themselves from the 'throat' coalition for a reason. Drag them in, and they will name a steep, steep price.

Did you not notice the parking garage I put over the old parking lot? I mean, if you're going to say something is prohibitively expensive, THAT should be it.
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A parking garage will not be the biggest thing they demand by a longshot. You're probably building them MULTIPLE new buildings totally on the public dime, lest they simply walk away from the negotiating table. In fact, you'd be lucky if their counter-demands don't force MassDOT to be the one to walk away from the negotiating table in disgust. BU does not have sympathy for 'throat' politics, and you're sorely underestimating just how hard a bargain they'd drive in compensation for literally any property taking--'strips' or otherwise--from them.

Also, from the back of the parking lot nearest to the BU Bridge you can see an easy 10 feet -- without ripping any buildings down at all.
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And those multiple non-emergency exit doorways serves...what?...everyday function that would require immediate modification elsewhere to conform to code?

Bumming 10 feet here isn't easy. It certainly isn't effortless.

Stop being so stubborn. Life's too short.
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I...don't think you're pointing the finger quite where you think you are when it comes to highlighting the problematic stubbornness viz-a-viz this supposedly "plausible" scenario. :rolleyes:
 
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