I-90 Interchange Improvement Project & West Station | Allston

[JeffDowntown]

It's too much of a time chew to loop the 66/T66 and 64 there the way the proposed street grid is laid out. Chances are that's not going to happen...especially not with the proposed T66 because of the time sensitivity of its load-bearing route.

The gigantic busways depicted at West in the renders are designed with the hope that intercity coach buses on the Pike en route to South Station will pit-stop a mere 3 miles out for campus access. Which is probably also a faulty assumption, since there's excellent transit access from South Station to Allston for students and pretty small margins involved for the bus companies at even attempting the pit-stop.

I think at the end of the day you're looking at just campus shuttle buses there, which doesn't require much bus infrastructure. Malvern's indeed probably sufficient for that lone BU shuttle bus, if BU even bothers to run a shuttle bus to what's going to be an all-Harvard property. What we'll have to see is whether the gigantic busways in the West render get VE'd down, because right now there's a LARGE discrepancy between projected bus capacity (too much by a lot) and projected bus utilization (or lackthereof).

I am not suggesting that a massive overbuild is a good ides, but I would think the Seaport is a great cautionary tale for erring on the side of slightly more infrastructure than you think you need, rather than less. We don't really know the transit demand profile of what Harvard and commercial interests are going to build out in this area. You don't get a second chance to put in the transit infrastructure without a lot of pain and suffering (and dislocation). The early stage build out will be cheaper than trying to fix a ghastly under-build mistake in the future.

 

[JeffDowntown]

It's too much of a time chew to loop the 66/T66 and 64 there the way the proposed street grid is laid out. Chances are that's not going to happen...especially not with the proposed T66 because of the time sensitivity of its load-bearing route.

The gigantic busways depicted at West in the renders are designed with the hope that intercity coach buses on the Pike en route to South Station will pit-stop a mere 3 miles out for campus access. Which is probably also a faulty assumption, since there's excellent transit access from South Station to Allston for students and pretty small margins involved for the bus companies at even attempting the pit-stop.

I think at the end of the day you're looking at just campus shuttle buses there, which doesn't require much bus infrastructure. Malvern's indeed probably sufficient for that lone BU shuttle bus, if BU even bothers to run a shuttle bus to what's going to be an all-Harvard property. What we'll have to see is whether the gigantic busways in the West render get VE'd down, because right now there's a LARGE discrepancy between projected bus capacity (too much by a lot) and projected bus utilization (or lackthereof).

I am not suggesting that a massive overbuild is a good ides, but I would think the Seaport is a great cautionary tale for erring on the side of slightly more infrastructure than you think you need, rather than less. We don't really know the transit demand profile of what Harvard and commercial interests are going to build out in this area. You don't get a second chance to put in the transit infrastructure without a lot of pain and suffering (and dislocation). The early stage build out will be cheaper than trying to fix a ghastly under-build mistake in the future.

 

[FK4]

It's too much of a time chew to loop the 66/T66 and 64 there the way the proposed street grid is laid out. Chances are that's not going to happen...especially not with the proposed T66 because of the time sensitivity of its load-bearing route.

The gigantic busways depicted at West in the renders are designed with the hope that intercity coach buses on the Pike en route to South Station will pit-stop a mere 3 miles out for campus access. Which is probably also a faulty assumption, since there's excellent transit access from South Station to Allston for students and pretty small margins involved for the bus companies at even attempting the pit-stop.

I think at the end of the day you're looking at just campus shuttle buses there, which doesn't require much bus infrastructure. Malvern's indeed probably sufficient for that lone BU shuttle bus, if BU even bothers to run a shuttle bus to what's going to be an all-Harvard property. What we'll have to see is whether the gigantic busways in the West render get VE'd down, because right now there's a LARGE discrepancy between projected bus capacity (too much by a lot) and projected bus utilization (or lackthereof).

Is Harvard fucking up and killing the future potential of a Green Line extension up thru the campus, into Harvard Sq? This would seem insanely short sighted to not leave this option open for a future build.

 

[millerm277]

Is Harvard fucking up and killing the future potential of a Green Line extension up thru the campus, into Harvard Sq? This would seem insanely short sighted to not leave this option open for a future build.

Uh....what? Is this a thing that's been seriously under consideration by anyone? I certainly don't think I've ever seen it.

 

[fatnoah]

Uh....what? Is this a thing that's been seriously under consideration by anyone? I certainly don't think I've ever seen it.

Maybe someone's been checking our own vanshnookenraggen's excellent maps: https://www.vanshnookenraggen.com/_...line-from-harvard-and-needham-to-the-seaport/

 

[FK4]

Uh....what? Is this a thing that's been seriously under consideration by anyone? I certainly don't think I've ever seen it.

Not exactly, it's largely a figment of archbostoners. However, the original plan was to reserve a right of way through the entire Allston campus for an Urban Ring BRT. Old maps of Harvard's plans showed this ROW and it seems even a simple BRT busway thru campus isn't being shown... which is utterly stupid. Anyway, I asked the question more pointed at keeping open the ROW thru campus. If this is created and preserved, it would potentially allow for a far distant future branching off of a GL, even if that's extremely unlikely. But sinking the chance now to keep a real ROW thru this massive piece of undeveloped land is beyond idiotic and that's what it seems they're doing.

 

[StreetsblogMASS]

Update:

Allston Project's Next Challenge: Keeping the Turnpike's Traffic Jams Out of A New 'Transit-Oriented' Neighborhood - Streetsblog Massachusetts

A conflict is brewing over the design of new city streets surrounding a major highway project in Boston's Allston neighborhood.

mass.streetsblog.org

Money quote (from a 2017 meeting): the traffic models that MassDOT uses to design new streets – and frequently, to justify adding more lanes – "is crazy. It is not a multi-modal model. The traffic numbers that it shows for Cambridge often just don’t make sense," says Bill Deignan, the City of Cambridge's Transportation Program Manager.

 

[DwnTwnr]

Update:

Allston Project's Next Challenge: Keeping the Turnpike's Traffic Jams Out of A New 'Transit-Oriented' Neighborhood - Streetsblog Massachusetts

A conflict is brewing over the design of new city streets surrounding a major highway project in Boston's Allston neighborhood.

mass.streetsblog.org

Money quote (from a 2017 meeting): the traffic models that MassDOT uses to design new streets – and frequently, to justify adding more lanes – "is crazy. It is not a multi-modal model. The traffic numbers that it shows for Cambridge often just don’t make sense," says Bill Deignan, the City of Cambridge's Transportation Program Manager.

This is super interesting. The car-centric nature of the redesign has been an issue for a while and it's nice to see it all summarized so well. And, given that the Harvard land is being developed right now I'm not sure how those four-lane roads are going to happen.

 

[Longfellow]

I worked at 300 Babcock St (adjacent to the railyard) for four years and lived next to the viaduct for 2... planners think someone like me doesn't exist. And anyone who's had to walk or bike up that five laner in lower Allston knows its dangerous and filthy thanks to being so wide.

 

[kdmc]

Update:

Allston Project's Next Challenge: Keeping the Turnpike's Traffic Jams Out of A New 'Transit-Oriented' Neighborhood - Streetsblog Massachusetts

A conflict is brewing over the design of new city streets surrounding a major highway project in Boston's Allston neighborhood.

mass.streetsblog.org

Money quote (from a 2017 meeting): the traffic models that MassDOT uses to design new streets – and frequently, to justify adding more lanes – "is crazy. It is not a multi-modal model. The traffic numbers that it shows for Cambridge often just don’t make sense," says Bill Deignan, the City of Cambridge's Transportation Program Manager.

That plan is... shockingly awful.

What's the best way to oppose this as a regular person (who doesn't live in Boston proper)? Write to our state rep? Complain at a public meeting?

 

[Charlie_mta]

That plan is... shockingly awful.

What's the best way to oppose this as a regular person (who doesn't live in Boston proper)? Write to our state rep? Complain at a public meeting?

All the streets feeding off the Mass Pike should end at the new Cambridge Street South, and the traffic to/from the Pike siphoned over to Cambridge Street that way (via Cambridge St South). I'll draw something up later today.

 

[StreetsblogMASS]

That plan is... shockingly awful.

What's the best way to oppose this as a regular person (who doesn't live in Boston proper)? Write to our state rep? Complain at a public meeting?

At this point, the best levers are probably a) the Governor's office, which is in charge of MassDOT but also in charge of meeting the state's climate goals and b) USDOT, which has already rejected MassDOT's first request for federal funding for this project and looks likely to do so one more time this year.

MassDOT Tries Again – With Smaller Expectations – For Federal Megaproject Funding - Streetsblog Massachusetts

Last year, Massachusetts submitted five applications for these discretionary grant programs, but did not receive funding for any.

mass.streetsblog.org

Another strike against the current plan is that these massive streets add tens of millions of dollars to the project's cost, and MassDOT is already struggling to figure out how to pay for the whole thing.

 

[Blackbird]

That plan is... shockingly awful.

Never a good sign when half the street names are “Blah Blah Drive” or “Blah Blah Connector”.

 

[millerm277]

Update:

Allston Project's Next Challenge: Keeping the Turnpike's Traffic Jams Out of A New 'Transit-Oriented' Neighborhood - Streetsblog Massachusetts

A conflict is brewing over the design of new city streets surrounding a major highway project in Boston's Allston neighborhood.

mass.streetsblog.org

Money quote (from a 2017 meeting): the traffic models that MassDOT uses to design new streets – and frequently, to justify adding more lanes – "is crazy. It is not a multi-modal model. The traffic numbers that it shows for Cambridge often just don’t make sense," says Bill Deignan, the City of Cambridge's Transportation Program Manager.

Cambridge has the largest subway line in the city running up it's spine with multiple stops and is a huge bus hub/has an extensive bus network. This area....does not.

You've drawn a comparison with the Seaport being congested without giving much attention to the reasons people use cars beyond road travel lanes existing.

Unless someone's going to come up with a much more drastic transit proposal than anything remotely proposed to date, if built up/densely like seems to be expected, it's going to be Seaport 2.0 in terms of access challenges and is going to have a lot of people getting there by car by necessity. However, I doubt that transit proposal will cost less in initial capital than asphalt does, so I'm not sure I expect the "construction cost" angle to be compelling.

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Although I'd also suggest that part of the design problem here is that we're sketching a neighborhood with basically zero idea of what's going to go in it. We know it's valuable land and that's seemingly it.

AFAIK - Harvard has given zero indication of what they'd like to do with the land south of Cambridge St. The zoning looks like it hasn't been touched in 20-30 years and is wildly off-base from what anyone seems to expect would actually go in there when it's developed.

Seemingly no one has even wanted to conceptualize that yet in any way.

This could be a sea of tall buildings with limited transit like the Seaport. No reason you couldn't be putting 30 story buildings in here. You'd certainly need every ounce of road capacity if you're not going to build anything more than a few buses and a few Worcester Line trains for transit. This could be a bunch of college research buildings with little demand for vehicle access.

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I'll suggest that a more optimal strategy at this point may be to simply push off the decision about much of it - possibly in a similar fashion as I think @Charlie_mta is getting at. Skip actually building basically everything between Cambridge St South + Cambridge St for now until we've got some actual zoning + development concepts in there.

 

[Charlie_mta]

I'll suggest that a more optimal strategy at this point may be to simply push off the decision about much of it - possibly in a similar fashion as I think @Charlie_mta is getting at. Skip actually building basically everything between Cambridge St South + Cambridge St for now until we've got some actual zoning + development concepts in there.

I agree, but I was thinking of it as a permanent long term development strategy, rather than just an interim one. Permanently make all the streets between the new Cambridge St South and Cambridge St as one or two lane streets that would not tie through for vehicular traffic, but would still tie through for bicycles and pedestrians only. That would at least confine to the very south end of the development area all the traffic to/from the Mass Pike.

 

[Charlie_mta]

I agree, but I was thinking of it as a permanent long term development strategy, rather than just an interim one. Permanently make all the streets between the new Cambridge St South and Cambridge St as one or two lane streets that would not tie through for vehicular traffic, but would still tie through for bicycles and pedestrians only. That would at least confine to the very south end of the development area all the traffic to/from the Mass Pike.

Here's generally what I have in mind. Downsize the streets, eliminate through streets (except for South Cambridge St), and connect the non-through streets with pedestrian/bike paths (shown as purple lines).

(edited to correct mistakes in the layout).

 

[Teban54]

Cambridge has the largest subway line in the city running up it's spine with multiple stops and is a huge bus hub/has an extensive bus network. This area....does not.

You've drawn a comparison with the Seaport being congested without giving much attention to the reasons people use cars beyond road travel lanes existing.

Unless someone's going to come up with a much more drastic transit proposal than anything remotely proposed to date, if built up/densely like seems to be expected, it's going to be Seaport 2.0 in terms of access challenges and is going to have a lot of people getting there by car by necessity. However, I doubt that transit proposal will cost less in initial capital than asphalt does, so I'm not sure I expect the "construction cost" angle to be compelling.

----------

Although I'd also suggest that part of the design problem here is that we're sketching a neighborhood with basically zero idea of what's going to go in it. We know it's valuable land and that's seemingly it.

AFAIK - Harvard has given zero indication of what they'd like to do with the land south of Cambridge St. The zoning looks like it hasn't been touched in 20-30 years and is wildly off-base from what anyone seems to expect would actually go in there when it's developed.

Seemingly no one has even wanted to conceptualize that yet in any way.

This could be a sea of tall buildings with limited transit like the Seaport. No reason you couldn't be putting 30 story buildings in here. You'd certainly need every ounce of road capacity if you're not going to build anything more than a few buses and a few Worcester Line trains for transit. This could be a bunch of college research buildings with little demand for vehicle access.

--------

I'll suggest that a more optimal strategy at this point may be to simply push off the decision about much of it - possibly in a similar fashion as I think @Charlie_mta is getting at. Skip actually building basically everything between Cambridge St South + Cambridge St for now until we've got some actual zoning + development concepts in there.

While you certainly made a good point about the lack of zoning plans making it unclear about the development pattern and subsequent demands, I think the current lack of transit options near West Station suggests that we should thoroughly incorporate transit access as part of the planning, not as a justification to build wider roads now "just in case".

Most people agree that Seaport needs vastly better transit options, with some suggesting that even conversion of the Transitway to LRT with maximum frequency may not be enough. Obviously, whether the same happens to West Station depends on zoning, but we shouldn't even let a repeat of Seaport be a possibility.

There are actually a couple of interesting amateur proposals for transit access to West Station: (1) east-west Grand Junction LRT to Kendall and beyond; (2) north-south LRT to Harvard and probably the BU/LMA vicinity. There's reasonable momentum for (1) even in the outside world, while F-Line has suggested that Harvard is reserving a transit ROW for (2) (not sure about the source).

 

[jklo]

While you certainly made a good point about the lack of zoning plans making it unclear about the development pattern and subsequent demands, I think the current lack of transit options near West Station suggests that we should thoroughly incorporate transit access as part of the planning, not as a justification to build wider roads now "just in case".

Is it really that bad? It's a quarter mile from West Station to the Green Line.

 

[Teban54]

Is it really that bad? It's a quarter mile from West Station to the Green Line.

• The walk from West Station to the Green Line will likely not be very pleasant, and worse, both the Pike and the station itself will likely serve as psychological barriers that make people overestimate the distance. (Similar to how there was a consensus that a "BU Central" station under the Pike will likely be much less effective than the current B station, despite being even shorter of a walk than West Station to Packard's Corner.)
• Most of the neighborhood being developed near West Station will be north of the railroad and Pike, hence even further away from the B branch stations.
• What you're connecting to at Packard's Corner (or Babcock St) is essentially a legacy streetcar line, not too different from buses (like the 28, 57, 77, 116) in terms of character, speed and reliability, with the main difference being that it was lucky enough to keep the dedicated median and a one-seat ride into downtown. Meaning, it's quite different from the Red, Orange and Blue lines or even GLX, and probably shouldn't be forced to be the main transit spine of the area.
• The B branch's ridership is also one of the highest among all Green Line branches today, and is approaching the limit in capacity. Even though Type 10s will help with that, I still doubt it will have nearly enough capacity to absorb the demands of a whole neighborhood north of West Station (should the most optimistic development scenario play out).
• Last but not least, even if current transit options are "good enough", there can and should be relatively easy improvements. Examples include regional rail frequency on the Worcester line, the two aforementioned LRT routes, and maybe even a Blue Line extension. (Many of these also have the advantage of being capable to be extended 1-2 stops west to be much closer to the Union Square Allston area.)

 

[Longfellow]

I wonder if someone who has GM Eng's email or contact can ask politely for him to advocate on behalf of the authority on this project? The MBTA needs to advocate for itself and get some ROW or even just some input into the plan/ Much harder for the governor and MassDOT to brush off these concerns when it comes from another branch of the govt / we have a 'what not to do' example (Silver Line). If someone knows of a way to contact the MBTA where you are guaranteed a response let me know.