Leverett Circle Pedestrian Bridge

I believe there was a lawsuit at some point and the result was that the service did not have to be restored to mitigate for the Big Dig.
 
whighlander said:
As usual rhetoric and ideological bias triumphs over reality
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It's really even more simple, I just haven't been there when the MOS closes. I am somewhat sympathetic however, when the Esplanade Concerts let out I see the crowd and turn my bike away and ride down Martha Road. I tend to be traveling in the opposite direction that the crowds are headed and don't see how anyone can walk against the crowds.

Ideologically, I wonder if it is best to design facilities for a 1 hour peak period each weekday (or in the case of LC for 2 or sometimes three days a week). Should we also redesign Causeway St outside North Station and Dewey Square with massive ped bridges to better process the hoards of commuters during rush hour? I tend to think that daily short term crowds are part of city life. Give it an hour and the crowds will have dissipated.

It will be interesting to see what MassDOT has come up with and whether or not they have done crowd studies and analyzed the effects on traffic and pedestrian throughput.
 
Randomgear said:
There was talk a couple years ago about extending the E line from Heath St to Hyde Square, but it doesn't seem to have gone anywhere.
I don't know how Center and South Streets were configured when the E line ran, but I don't think on-street parking was allowed. I don't think that the current business owner's would accept losing on-street parking.
As a person who gets around mostly by bike, I personally would prefer not to have to deal with trolley tracks in the roadway - I have read about too many accidents caused by them.
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They were configured exactly the same as now, with full on-street parking. The earth managed to keep spinning normally the whole time.

South @ Centre intersection, 1983:
img_116031.jpg



The only reason the current business owners won't accept it is because of the gentlemen's agreement with the unaccountable BTD to never ticket double-parked delivery trucks. Something they couldn't get away with pre-1985 when the trolleys were the undisputed alpha dogs of the corridor and the state had bigger hand in intervening if they weren't following the rules, but now a practice abused to cromulence by both the enforcers and enforcees. Same shit, different neighborhood as all the other lovely mob-justice traffic traditions the city refuses to enforce on its streets.

Abuse of parking regulations is just as big an obstructing P.I.T.A. for the 39 bus and bikes, so the framing of it as exclusive to the trolley mode is a tried-and-true red herring to table the more uncomfortable questions that impugn those in power. There is a rampant enforcement problem in JP on this corridor, and political horse-trading with those who hold sway in the neighborhood to uphold that obstructionism. As well as uphold the perceived permanence of that obstructionism, which in reality is of MUCH more recent and contrived origin than, say, the space-savers tradition in Southie. It's a problem for every user of the corridor, and the nature of the problem is the same regardless of what future transit modes do or do not travel the corridor.

They can fix this anytime they want by busting up the BTD fiefdom and assigning patrols who do their fucking jobs or else lose their fucking jobs. But there's no pressure to do so when they've so thoroughly convinced the public right down to individual transit-riders and residents of the neighborhood (as well as the judges who tossed out the various suits) to accept on faith that this is an intractable and everlasting physical problem.
 
Randomgear said:
It's really even more simple, I just haven't been there when the MOS closes. I am somewhat sympathetic however, when the Esplanade Concerts let out I see the crowd and turn my bike away and ride down Martha Road. I tend to be traveling in the opposite direction that the crowds are headed and don't see how anyone can walk against the crowds.

Ideologically, I wonder if it is best to design facilities for a 1 hour peak period each weekday (or in the case of LC for 2 or sometimes three days a week). Should we also redesign Causeway St outside North Station and Dewey Square with massive ped bridges to better process the hoards of commuters during rush hour? I tend to think that daily short term crowds are part of city life. Give it an hour and the crowds will have dissipated.

It will be interesting to see what MassDOT has come up with and whether or not they have done crowd studies and analyzed the effects on traffic and pedestrian throughput.
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Garden and Fenway Park, as well as Hatch Shell events, are different animals. Those are discrete special events that are only scheduled for a few limited hours of a limited number of calendar days per year known with certainty months out. MOS events and drawbridge openings happen every single day multiple times per day, and during warm months the ped traffic pulses through Leverett Circle are regular enough that the cops have to be assigned at those crosswalks every weekend from Memorial Day to Labor Day. As well as occasional weekdays when there's unusually intense number of school field trips. The only variable is weather. And it's going to get worse over time as Northpoint builds out and the missing link in the Somerville Community Path gets filled.


Now...that doesn't mean it's at a real-world threshold where the footbridge is non-optional. There are many valid counterpoints in that debate. But we're not talking about a public advocacy debate that is sitting behind the starting gates hashing out citizen-solicited requests for a structure that up till now was not planned or commited. The starting point here is an unexercised mandate initiated without provocation by MassDOT to rebuild what they tore down. That is several lengths ahead of the starting gates. While they can always back out--it is, after all, so very easy to back out--the parameters of the debate aren't "move forward with this / don't move forward, it's not needed", but rather "follow-through on inertia of motion / put that thing back in the box and lock it." It's not the same starting point in the slightest.
 
Randomgear said:
It's really even more simple, I just haven't been there when the MOS closes. I am somewhat sympathetic however, when the Esplanade Concerts let out I see the crowd and turn my bike away and ride down Martha Road. I tend to be traveling in the opposite direction that the crowds are headed and don't see how anyone can walk against the crowds.

Ideologically, I wonder if it is best to design facilities for a 1 hour peak period each weekday (or in the case of LC for 2 or sometimes three days a week). Should we also redesign Causeway St outside North Station and Dewey Square with massive ped bridges to better process the hoards of commuters during rush hour? I tend to think that daily short term crowds are part of city life. Give it an hour and the crowds will have dissipated.

It will be interesting to see what MassDOT has come up with and whether or not they have done crowd studies and analyzed the effects on traffic and pedestrian throughput.
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Random -- there is no comparison between Causeway St and McGrath and O'Brien Highway where it merges with Storrow and the various ramps

Comparing the before and after conditions:

Vehicular Traffic-wise the addition of the ramp that goes under the intersection takes away some triggers for some of the significant congestion issues -- however the merger of about 16 lanes of quite heavy traffic is still a major challenge

Pedestrian wise -- Combine the pedestrian flow to / from the MOS to the Science Park T Station with the now considerably greater pedestrian flow from the Nashua St. Park area and you have a greater need for assistance than in the past

And finally in the boating season you have the Wild Card of the opening and closing of the Craigie Drawbridge and the major back-ups of both vehicles and pedestrians

The pedestrian overpass has as good as any a justification for construction - the challenge of course is the slopes of the ramps and such to be ADA compliant
 
F-Line, Thanks, I should have known better about South St, I've seen a few other photos, but not as nice as the one you showed.
Also, the new road and park arrangement at Forest Hills Station that will exist after the current construction is finished doesn't really have a place for trolleys; but maybe they could fit within the upper busway. I don't believe that trolley service was brought up during the Casey public meetings, if it did, it died an early and quick death. I'm also pretty sure that the Asticou Martinwood neighborhood would oppose it even more vocally than they opposed the noise and headlight glare from buses that led to the current design.

Regarding LC, I thought I was being somewhat open minded or at least not entirely closed minded; guess I didn't read like it.
 
I tend to agree, I've never had a problem with the crosswalks through the area
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As someone who crosses this intersection a few times a week, and has done so before and after the pedestrian bridges were removed, it seems fine to me. Yes, you typically have to wait for a walk signal, but overall it generally works and feels relatively safe.

I lived on Beacon Hill before and after the Charles/MGH walkways were removed and that pedestrian crossing "scares" me. Most of it is related to motorist confusion due to the lanes and lights. Cars constantly stop for their green light when pedestrians waiting on the side with a Don't Walk cycle. Once pedestrians get the Walk signal, a car invariably rolls through the intersection several seconds after.
 
Randomgear said:
There was talk a couple years ago about extending the E line from Heath St to Hyde Square, but it doesn't seem to have gone anywhere.
I don't know how Center and South Streets were configured when the E line ran, but I don't think on-street parking was allowed. I don't think that the current business owner's would accept losing on-street parking.
As a person who gets around mostly by bike, I personally would prefer not to have to deal with trolley tracks in the roadway - I have read about too many accidents caused by them.
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Which means that the part of Forest Hills Station where the Green Line service was supposed to terminate and run back trough JP has been a waste of time to build and that part of the station just sits there, not making any revenue at all.

This is part of the reason why I say that they do stuff that is f'd up & ass backwards. So stupid.
 
Jahvon09, the trolley loop at Forest Hills Station was (and still is with a slight modification during the demo of the overpass) used by the 39 bus. The trolley lop is about 100 feet from the station entrance. I think that the old green line route signage was still there until this summer.
The 39 will move to the new upper busway location when the Casey Arborway (former New Washington St) shifts to it's permanent position.
 
I thought that the 39 bus route was still operating from that spot. Where the buses to & from Roslindale & Dedham operate.
 
As of last night, the 39 was still operating from the old green line loop, just north of the station - pretty much where it has always been.
The ten or so other lines heading to Rozzie and Dedham are in the temporary upper busway location which is close to the old upper busway location
 
It's hard to tell in the renderings, but can you walk straight from the bridge into Science Park Station or do you have to go down the stairs/ramp and in at ground level?
 
sm89 said:
It's hard to tell in the renderings, but can you walk straight from the bridge into Science Park Station or do you have to go down the stairs/ramp and in at ground level?
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From my interpretation, no you can't walk into the station from the bridge. You have to go down the stairs/ramp to the street level entrance. The elevation the bridge is at doesn't have a common point in the station's circulation to connect to.
 
Aesthetically, I really wish this didn't look so much like a freeway ramp.

Gotta wonder how hard it would be to rework the elevator to have a stop for the ped bridge. I don't know how many doors the current elevator has, I think the max is two doors. But I think that most people in a wheelchair would find the up and down tiring.

Those swoopy car lights in the night renderings really make the at-grade crossings look unsafe.
 
I'm a runner. I've run 10K miles around Boston and the Charles. I've gone through Leverett circle on the old, hideous footbridge, and loved it when they tore it down. I've run through that current intersection hundreds of times and never had a problem. The signals and crossings work well.

Let's spend this money on a foot bridge (preferably underpass) at the Charles River foot path at Cambridge street in front of the DoubleTree. That pedestrian intersection is a complete death match with people and cyclists dodging through traffic all the time. Or how about a tunnel under the JFK St. bridge? Do both those, and runners and cyclists could make it all the way from Arsenal Street to the Science Museum with just the Western Ave grade crossing (which is usually pretty tame).

The only thing that's nice in that graphic is the proposed footbridge over the North Station tracks. Do that, and runners won't have to turn back at the Science Museum like they do now.
 
The interface with Science Park Station is classic Massachusetts Cluster F**k. It is simply unconscionable that the overpass does not interact with the station at platform/lobby level. WTF!
 
If you can find it in your heart to excuse my painfully crude drawing skills, I wonder how much this spur would add to the cost.

8OKVEEs.jpg


You could also do a much shorter spur off the ramp, but I don't know what the grade change would be.
 
datadyne007 said:
LeverettCircleBridge03.jpg


LeverettCircleBridge13.jpg
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Why so much effort in making the street level look more like a highway. What's with the big impact barriers in the first image quoted here? And the big guard rail? Currently it's all granite curbs. And as previously noted, the tail light streaks are screaming 'happy motoring'.

This feels like a big step backwards. This thing looks like a freeway overpass. No reference at all to the long sequence of arches in the lechmere viaduct, and no interface with the station.

Ultimately though it would always have been really hard to do this well without a master plan for the adjacent parcels. There are surface lots on both sides - the state police barracks and the Whittier place towers. Without redeveloping those, this never has any hope of being a city street. When this bridge goes up, we'll be committed to living with this as highway interchange at a critical point on the river for another 50 years.
 
CSTH said:
This feels like a big step backwards. This thing looks like a freeway overpass. No reference at all to the long sequence of arches in the lechmere viaduct, and no interface with the station.

Ultimately though it would always have been really hard to do this well without a master plan for the adjacent parcels. There are surface lots on both sides - the state police barracks and the Whittier place towers. Without redeveloping those, this never has any hope of being a city street. When this bridge goes up, we'll be committed to living with this as highway interchange at a critical point on the river for another 50 years.
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CSTH -- sometimes its worth accepting reality -- Leverett Circle is a state highway interchange with direct access to the Eisenhower Interstate Highway Network -- its is never going to be a "ordinary street"

Its also highly unlikely that the State Police are going to give-up their location which gives them access from one point to all those roads
 
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