I-90 Interchange Improvement Project & West Station | Allston

[stick n move]

The current plan was 8 lanes.

There are intelligent arguments to be made about whether or not we need the highway of a certain width here. But it just drives me up the wall here these stupid people when they say stuff about “highway expansion next to a commuter rail stop”. That one little statement reveals so much ignorance and simplistic reasoning. If you were talking about a massive reconstruction of the Worcester line to be high speed rail, sure. Or some other major transit investment. But to suggest that even the best case scenario for West Station, out in the hinterlands of western Boston, comes close in any way, shape or form to the vast and diverse uses of the highway, that is exactly the type of stupidity that makes car oriented people scoff and smell conspiracy.

If you want to actually invest in the future undergirded by a philosophy that represents a real change from auto culture toward public transportation, fine. Then do that. But we hear so many versions of this argument. Some random rail or bus station does not achieve the same thing as an interstate highway. Wanna fix the transit system? Please, do it! But so often we get these obnoxious and condescending arguments for reducing pavement while very little is done to make the alternative (transit) any better in any truly meaningful way.

What she is saying is that there are other options for the area which would be cheaper and have many less lanes. Like this

Or this

Her argument is that the people/state that are arguing that we absolutely cannot drop the pike down to 6 lanes, and have to go with the full build 8 lane option, with the full price that entails because it would cause a traffic nightmare… are wrong. She says this because we've already dropped it down to 6 lanes for years now with the fenway air rights project and the parcel 12 air rights project and its been fine. Shes saying that going back up to 8 lanes would “essentially” be a highway expansion, because weve had 6 lanes now for years.

Its been 6 lanes already for years, its currently 6 lanes now, and it would continue to be 6 lanes throughout the duration of the construction of the throat project. So in total we would be getting by just fine with 6 lanes here for over a decade only to bring it back up to 8 lanes upon the completion of all of the different projects in the area. So thats what she means by it would essentially end up being a highway expansion. The difference between 6 or 8 lanes in such a confined space has huge ramifications not only for cost, but also the amount of room left over for green space and pedestrian/bike lanes, so the less lanes you can get by with the more room you have for other things.



“Can we survive with a 6-lane Turnpike? Sure we can, because we’re doing it right now,” observes Emily Norton, a Newton resident and executive director of the Charles River Watershed Association.

Norton points out that nearby segments of the Turnpike have already been narrowed to a 6-lane configuration for several years for the construction of air-rights developments in the Fenway neighborhood.

“If MassDOT wants to build 8 lanes here, then what we’re actually talking about is a highway expansion project. Because it’s been 6 lanes for over 5 years now. It would be 6 lanes through the decade-plus of construction (of the Allston Multimodal Project)," says Norton. "Can you tell me anywhere else in the state where you’re planning a highway expansion next to a new commuter rail stop?”

 

[Charlie_mta]

The current plan was 8 lanes through the new interchange.
View attachment 64865

No it isn't. You're showing the throat area, which will have 8 lanes. But, within the limits of the new interchange in the.West station area, I-90 will have only 6 lanes.

 

[stick n move]

No it isn't. You're showing the throat area, which will have 8 lanes. But, within the limits of the new interchange in the.West station area, I-90 will have only 6 lanes.

Sorry thought you were talking about the throat. Thats what happens when I respond at 2:20am. I removed the quote of you.

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

No it isn't. You're showing the throat area, which will have 8 lanes. But, within the limits of the new interchange in the.West station area, I-90 will have only 6 lanes.

Those idealized throat renders from the CRWA are also physically impossible. They send Soldiers Field Road down the Pike mainline on the wrong side of BU. How is that supposed to work? That organization shoots their credibility in the foot running for months on end with that error and for dramatically expanding the project area and cost by extending the roadway work past BU.

 

[JeffDowntown]

Those idealized throat renders from the CRWA are also physically impossible. They send Soldiers Field Road down the Pike mainline on the wrong side of BU. How is that supposed to work? That organization shoots their credibility in the foot running for months on end with that error and for dramatically expanding the project area and cost by extending the roadway work past BU.

There is open land between the Grand Junction and BU Bridge approach that the alignment shown could conceivable use to rejoin the current east bound alignment just before the BU Bridge underpass. You basically hug the eastern side of the Grand Junction as is bends over toward its bridge. That would not plow into the BU campus. It would be a fairly nasty S curve.

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

It would be a fairly nasty S curve.

Exactly: create an outright driving deathtrap for the sake of a marginally more acreage-idealized parkland setup. The curve would be more than nasty...it would be a southeast-to-north northeast-to-due east hairpin that's either outright design-illegal or would have to have to build in enough severe traffic-calming features to brute-force enforce taking a >40 MPH-design parkway down to sub-25 MPH for a stretch. There's no universe where it would be societally responsible to induce that kind of crash risk, yet the CRWA has persisted with advocacy for exactly that for half a year now. It's credibility-destroying.

And even if the state did consider doing that it makes the whole project that's already choking on its bigness that much harder to mount because it significantly increases the cost by significantly increasing the project area. We're well on a trajectory where nothing at all is going to get built because the state can't get its head out of its ass on major unfinished design decisions, and the leading VE advocacy is trying to...make it all significantly harder to pull off? Why push this clusterfuck so hard instead of just straight-up making the argument to delete lanes around the existing alignment?

This project is absolutely cursed with stupid actors all-around.

 

[Max Power]

I never quite understood why this stretch needed 4 lanes for the Pike in each direction.
It's 3 lanes past the Pru. And 3 lanes before Newton Corner.
Is there a compelling reason why it needed to be 4 rather than 3 in the redesign?

 

[Charlie_mta]

I never quite understood why this stretch needed 4 lanes for the Pike in each direction.
It's 3 lanes past the Pru. And 3 lanes before Newton Corner.
Is there a compelling reason why it needed to be 4 rather than 3 in the redesign?

The highway engineers (I am one, or used to be) would call this 4th lane an "auxiliary lane", which adds an extra lane beginning at an on-ramp, and ending at the next off-ramp. This supposedly eliminates abrupt merging and also increases capacity.

 

[CBCArch61]

I think utilizing the arguement that long temporary measures will make this a highway expansion is a very silly argument. No matter how long those temporary measures have been in place. Technically the road is designed as four lanes between Newton Corner and Pru so the roadway is a 4-lane road. (please breathe and keep reading lol)

That being said though, the 3-lane configuration that Max Power points to east of the Pru and at Newton Corner (and points west) is a much more tangible argument. I also understand where Charlie is coming from with the "auxiliary lane" language, but to me that only is justifiable where we have alot of merging going on, which is not the case here. The first exit east of this project would be the Prudential Tunnel exit which is around 2-miles east and then the first exit going west is the Newton Corner exit at around 2 1/2 miles west. Using those exits as justification for including auxiliary lanes is just ridiculous. At most, I would think those "auxiliary lanes" should be 1/2 miles long (which could queue about ±120 cars in stopped traffic).

 

[BeansTheCat]

That being said though, the 3-lane configuration that Max Power points to east of the Pru and at Newton Corner (and points west) is a much more tangible argument. I also understand where Charlie is coming from with the "auxiliary lane" language, but to me that only is justifiable where we have alot of merging going on, which is not the case here. The first exit east of this project would be the Prudential Tunnel exit which is around 2-miles east and then the first exit going west is the Newton Corner exit at around 2 1/2 miles west. Using those exits as justification for including auxiliary lanes is just ridiculous. At most, I would think those "auxiliary lanes" should be 1/2 miles long (which could queue about ±120 cars in stopped traffic).

IMO, The biggest problem is that MassDOT has portrayed the 8-lane Pike as absolutely non-negotiable, and as far as I'm aware, has not shown any projections for what would happen if the auxiliary lanes are shortened/removed. This makes it impossible to have a good-faith discussion about tradeoffs, which is likely the point. If it was clear how much capacity is lost with lane reductions, then it would be much more straightforward to discuss supplying similar capacity with the Commuter Rail and other transit improvements. I can't pretend to know how much the total savings would be with these modifications, but ballparking it in the $300-500 million range would provide enough for high-level stations on the entire line (excluding the Newton cost blow-outs), triple-tracking, and a substantial amount towards grade separation around Framingham station or the electrification needed for BEMUs. Would this "make up" for lost capacity? Possibly, but it's hard to say. At the end of the day, we just need transparency from MassDOT so there can be any amount of trust in what they're doing.

 

[RandomWalk]

Are there strings attached to trust fund or other grant money that prohibits lane removals as part of the construction?

 

[Longfellow]

Are there strings attached to trust fund or other grant money that prohibits lane removals as part of the construction?

In 2025, yes thanks to turnip, but specifically not for the reconnecting communities grants since those are in theory an urbanist grant

 

[stick n move]

With Loss of Federal Funding, MassDOT Will Re-Evaluate Its Allston I-90 Plans​

It's back to the drawing board, all over again.

“MassDOT is pausing to re-evaluate its plans for the Allston Multimodal Project after President Trump and his allies in Congress rescinded $327 million in federal funding for the project.
In a memo to members of the project's citizen advisory task force this week, MassDOT officials wrote that the agency "is committed to achieving the goals of the Allston Multimodal Project and is working on a path forward, including the action of hiring outside experts to perform an in-depth cost analysis and independent engineering analysis to examine how to deliver the most
transportation benefits with available resources."”



“MassDOT will also pause work on an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for the project – a major piece of environmental permitting that would have finally determined the project's scope and conceptual design.
"We don't have the funding to support what was described in the EIS," Paiewonsky admitted.””



“But they also offered several suggestions for cutting costs by jettisoning some of the project's more controversial elements.
"Our back-of-the-envelope calculation is that we would save at least $327 million by building the Turnpike with 6 lanes instead of 8 lanes," argued Emily Norton, executive director of the Charles River Watershed Association.”



“Other stakeholders urged MassDOT to scrap their planned rail layover yard in the center of the project.”



“"Which project do we build now, and which project component do we build never? Which sometimes happens – I'm thinking about South Coast Rail Phase 2."”

With Loss of Federal Funding, MassDOT Will Re-Evaluate Its Allston I-90 Plans - Streetsblog Massachusetts

It's back to the drawing board, all over again.

mass.streetsblog.org

 

[riptide]

May saner heads prevail during this period of re-evaluation, and may the project be less bloated in every way (no layover tracks at West Station, narrower rights-of-way for the future street grid, fewer highway lanes, overall cost, etc) when the time comes to take another bite at this apple.

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

"Our back-of-the-envelope calculation is that we would save at least $327 million by building the Turnpike with 6 lanes instead of 8 lanes," argued Emily Norton, executive director of the Charles River Watershed Association.”

The CRWA is hilariously inept. They're still fucking-the-chicken of a huge and disruptive relocation of Soldiers Field Road away from BU Bridge for the sake of creating a few more acres of parkland at point of maximum pinch at the bridge, which was never the Pike 'throat's' problem to solve in the first place and will only serve to nuke any and all cost savings from lane reductions by massively extending the overall project area and creating intractable problems and controversies on how to engineer SFR safely back on-alignment. They're advocating for the MOST expensive possible option that adds yet more bloat to (even a lane-slimmed) project, and for reasons unknown they are still getting an un-critical press to listen to them sprout absolute bullshit about it. They're not a credible outfit, and are doing the (legitimate!) "lane-reduction = cost savings" argument dirty by tying it to the downstream SFR-realignment trojan horse.

Gah...we so need a better set of advocates than this.

May saner heads prevail during this period of re-evaluation, and may the project be less bloated in every way (no layover tracks at West Station, narrower rights-of-way for the future street grid, fewer highway lanes, overall cost, etc) when the time comes to take another bite at this apple.

Nothing in this project's tortured history suggests that more time to think is going to get anyone to snap out of the analysis paralysis that has choked this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity almost completely to spit. Absent a mass firing of all of the project leads at MassDOT and a whole new set of faces unencumbered by biases honed from too many years of hand-to-hand combat with other factions of this coalition, they're still going to be unable to design this thing in a way that works at a basic level. They've spent more than a decade fighting tooth and nail for 8 lanes and overly chunky grids, and all of this year throwing a childish snit fit over the factually unneeded layover while each design iteration of West Station gets objectively worse than the last. Those chronic behaviors just don't get un-learned overnight. And they've NEVER had the full funding to give it a go--they were still well short of being at shovel-ready funding at the time that the feddy bux got rescinded--so sudden scarcity is not exactly going to be an actionable shock to sanity either.

Funding was never the problem. Basic competence is what's been in too-short supply at the helm of this cursed project. If we can't solve for the leadership problem, we're never going to see forward progress here. I've oft-cited in the many years this thread has been running the example of the I-84 Aetna Viaduct teardown/replacement/Downtown-reknitting in Hartford as the cautionary tale of poorly-qualified planners and unreliable community partners choking on the very bigness of ambition and netting nothing but a big, self-gridlocking squander in the end. Well...here we fucking are. We've reached the dead end because we have dead-end leaders at the helm. The only way out is to start with new leaders...all of them.

 

[Longfellow]

At least we managed to pay VHB 4 quadrillion dollars to curse at constituents live on zoom calls

 

[Charlie_mta]

A project this big in a complex political environment like Boston should have been done in phases. Phase one could be the relocating of the Mass Pike and SFR in the Throat area only, phase 2, the relocation of the Allston I-90 interchange plus build just one new new street connecting it to Cambridge St., and Phase 3, filling in the area with new streets and development along with construction of West Station. This would provide manageable chunks that could more easily make it through the arcane and chaotic political/public input "process".

 

[stick n move]

A project this big in a complex political environment like Boston should have been done in phases. Phase one could be the relocating of the Mass Pike and SFR in the Throat area only, phase 2, the relocation of the Allston I-90 interchange plus build just one new new street connecting it to Cambridge St., and Phase 3, filling in the area with new streets and development along with construction of West Station. This would provide manageable chunks that could more easily make it through the arcane and chaotic political/public input "process".

Maybe this is something they can plan out in the re-evaluation.

 

[Charlie_mta]

Maybe this is something they can plan out in the re-evaluation.

I think phasing this mega project into smaller projects is the only way to go given the scarcer Federal funding under the Trump administration, plus all the paralyzing state/local pressure group and political wrangling going on.
MassDOT could amend the EIS for project phasing if they get on it quickly. If just the Throat area were isolated into a separate first phase project, I think the various entities could come to a consensus on the exact configuration of the Throat roadways and the riverbank multi-use path, and I also think the downsizing enabled by the phasing would make it more fundable. The delaying of the Mass Pike interchange relocation and West Station into later phases would also provide some time to scope out the stupid-ass proposed rail layover yard and correct the currently proposed super-block street grid layout into something more urban and amenable, with smaller blocks and narrower streets.

 

[Tallguy]

A project this big in a complex political environment like Boston should have been done in phases. Phase one could be the relocating of the Mass Pike and SFR in the Throat area only, phase 2, the relocation of the Allston I-90 interchange plus build just one new new street connecting it to Cambridge St., and Phase 3, filling in the area with new streets and development along with construction of West Station. This would provide manageable chunks that could more easily make it through the arcane and chaotic political/public input "process"