Leverett Circle Pedestrian Bridge

[Equilibria]

I commute through the intersection every day. Came through from the summer tunnel to the dam about 45 minutes ago, actually.

Cool, but you go through here in a car, not on foot. I'm wondering how hospitable it really is to walk from the West End to Science Park, and it doesn't really seem like anyone on here knows or cares.

This isn't making cars go any faster or smoother, and we all agree that encouraging people to use transit is a public good, so there's only 2 reasons this can be a bad project: aesthetics and value. I don't know enough to know whether it's a good value, but this intersection is never going to be beautiful. You're never going to have 20-story buildings around a pleasant urban square. It's a transit point. It's infrastructure.

 

[CSTH]

Yeah see my late edit above, I do come throgh on a bike fairly often, but no direct experience with Science Park.

I recognize that it does take three crosswalks to get from West End to the station....analogous in my mind to the gauntlet at Charles MGH.

 

[ant8904]

I'm pretty sure a street was would do little to make that crossing any nicer. I'm not really sure any traffic calming design would help in this context. The main pain is having to deal with things like taking three crosswalks, the stream of cars.

Adding more curbs cuts or stuff like that is more buzzwords than good engineering. Like it or not, a pedestrian bridge can make all sides happier.

That said, the design they made does suck. It should directly connection to the station. The long ramp/dealing with stairs is a deal killer to a lot of us. I mean if I was going to use Science Park - would I go up the stairs, then back down, then go back up again? No, I'm probably going to ignore the bridge and just cross the streets as it is way too annoying.

 

[Equilibria]

Yeah see my late edit above, I do come throgh on a bike fairly often, but no direct experience with Science Park.

I recognize that it does take three crosswalks to get from West End to the station....analogous in my mind to the gauntlet at Charles MGH.

Now THERE's a station where I know the hell firsthand .

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.

I think it does interact with the lobby level, actually. You have two flights of stairs down, and then you're at the bottom of the elevator, not the ground. Across from the doors. It's not track level, but there aren't any fare gates on track level (I think?).

 

[CSTH]

I don't know enough to know whether it's a good value, but this intersection is never going to be beautiful. You're never going to have 20-story buildings around a pleasant urban square. It's a transit point. It's infrastructure.

That's the thing - infrastructure can be pleasant , beautiful, and even 'urban' if its done thoughtfully. See Charles MGH, for reference (not that it's perfect, but at least it's pleasant and urban).

The proposed bridge is none of those things.

 

[Equilibria]

That's the thing - infrastructure can be pleasant , beautiful, and even 'urban' if its done thoughtfully. See Charles MGH, for reference (not that it's perfect, but at least it's pleasant and urban).

The proposed bridge is none of those things.

Yeah, but Charles MGH doesn't work. I grant that that's more because of the actual station design than the lack of a footbridge, but it's still not a good place to walk, in part because everything is interacting on a single plane. Charles Circle also doesn't have nearly the prominence for cars that Leverett does - the Longfellow and Cambridge St. and Charles St. are urban roadways. I-93, Storrow, and frankly O'Brien are not.

It's not the prettiest bridge, surely, but maybe that's what makes it buildable.

 

[CSTH]

The I93 ramps @ levrett are analogous to the storrow ramps @ charles. Obrien (the dam) is analogous to Cambridge st. Nashua is Charles st. And then there's the longfellow.

There's more going on at Charles than there is at Levrett. I used to live on Philips st. so I know the pain at charles st. well.

I think it's less about a single plane of traffic and more about the character of the pavement. Drivers treat Charles circle like a traffic light between one highway (storrow) and another (cambridge st.).

But its nothing that a raised pedestrian crossing / speed table couldn't fix (or at least substantially improve). No one is going to seriously consider bring back the ped bridges there, are they?

 

[ant8904]

The I93 ramps @ levrett are analogous to the storrow ramps @ charles. Obrien (the dam) is analogous to Cambridge st. Nashua is Charles st. And then there's the longfellow.

There's more going on at Charles than there is at Levrett. I used to live on Philips st. so I know the pain at charles st. well.

I think it's less about a single plane of traffic and more about the character of the pavement. Drivers treat Charles circle like a traffic light between one highway (storrow) and another (cambridge st.).

But its nothing that a raised pedestrian crossing / speed table couldn't fix (or at least substantially improve). No one is going to seriously consider bring back the ped bridges there, are they?

How does a raised pedestrian crossing help with dealing with 3 crossings? Cars are already generally stopping by pure traffic and light cycles. I guess with a raised crossing, it will keep some cars from accelerating as fast when a light turns green, but I don't think that will really increase safety that much. It sounds like a net-negative to me.

A pedestrian bridge, if done, should directly connect to the station without having to go back down again. If that mean redo-ing the gate to put in gates on the bridge, so be it.

 

[FK4]

Now THERE's a station where I know the hell firsthand .



I think it does interact with the lobby level, actually. You have two flights of stairs down, and then you're at the bottom of the elevator, not the ground. Across from the doors. It's not track level, but there aren't any fare gates on track level (I think?).

So this looks like the answer to my question about whether the bridge would allow direct access to the station is NO. The only reason I'd support the bridge here is if it connected you to a new set of fare gates at the station platform. This design is idiotic… You have to climb up the stairs cross over the bridge, then descend the stairs only to go into the station and go back up the stairs again.

 

[whighlander]

I commute through the intersection every day. Came through from the summer tunnel to the dam about 45 minutes ago, actually.

Also often bike through during my lunch break, at least when the weather is nice.

I guess I just don't see the bridge as actually helping pedestrians, especially given the highway-ization of the streets that is included in the proposal/renderings.

Traffic calming & street wall activation is what helps pedestrians.

CSTH -- many millions of $ have recently been spent to do what could be done in this very confined location for the motor traffic that must be accommodated

You should at least allow a few millions to be spent to help the pedestrian, the person with limited mobility, and the bicycle rider to navigate safely, and efficiently through the intersection. Elderly folks in the neighborhood are reluctant to cross as are some families with young kids who took the T to the MOS.

Later you and your utopians can go back to dreaming of the days before the invention of the internal combustion engine

 

[CSTH]

Elderly folks in the neighborhood are reluctant to cross as are some families with young kids who took the T to the MOS.

...ok, any ideas on what would make them reluctant to cross? THere's a red light, a well-painted cross walk, a pedestrian 'walk' signal, good sight lines, stopped cars....what do you think the reason is that anyone would consider this intersection less safe or less hospitable than any other?

I know what I think the reason is, i just want to know what you think the reason is.

 

[Tango]

They have marked the sidewalks and started drilling near the entrance to the Science Park T Station. The ramp will help with pedestrian flow but the real issue is the traffic mess. Vehicles traveling down Monsignor O'Brien get stopped at the light right before the tunnel and block traffic coming off Storrow Drive to turn left onto Msgr. O'Brien. I hear lots of horns and colorful language every day when I cross that intersection. Hopefully when the detour from the Longfellow Bridge ends it will be more reasonable.

 

[CSTH]

They have marked the sidewalks and started drilling near the entrance to the Science Park T Station. The ramp will help with pedestrian flow but the real issue is the traffic mess. Vehicles traveling down Monsignor O'Brien get stopped at the light right before the tunnel and block traffic coming off Storrow Drive to turn left onto Msgr. O'Brien. I hear lots of horns and colorful language every day when I cross that intersection. Hopefully when the detour from the Longfellow Bridge ends it will be more reasonable.

The root issue is that the ramp traffic itself is usually at a crawl between 3-6pm, and the traffic backs up from the mouth of the tunnel ramp to 93S into the intersection itself...and from the ultimately blocks both left and right turns from storrow...

These days i usually detour down lomasney and merrimac to the haymarket ramps.

 

[Joel N. Weber II]

Re: Leverett Circle

If we wanted to prioritize diverting automobile traffic away from the surface intersection:

• I suspect building a connector ramp from the northbound Leverett Circle Connector Bridge to the northbound Gilmore Bridge wouldn't be terribly difficult, and it might divert some but not all of the Storrow / Charles Circle traffic away from the Craigie Dam Bridge (although Google Maps typical traffic seems to say that that I-93 northbound queues in the afternoon continue far enough south to make this unusable).
• I don't see any obvious transportation infrastructure that would get in the way of a Nashua St to Storrow Drive underpass.
• We could consider doing some digging so that instead of the I-93 southbound on ramp being connected to the surface intersection, it would be connected to the Storrow eastbound underpass. This would mean that folks coming from Charles Circle would need to use the Haymarket on ramp (and maybe they'd find an alternate route that would bypass Leverett Circle altogether), and Craigie Dam Bridge users going to I-93 southbound could either instead follow the surface roads to the Haymarket on ramp, or take the Gilmore Bridge to Rutherford to the on ramp at the Rutherford / North Washington / Chelsea St intersection (if that doesn't have an excessively long queue).

 

[Joel N. Weber II]

Re: Leverett Circle

(although Google Maps typical traffic seems to say that that I-93 northbound queues in the afternoon continue far enough south to make this unusable).

The followup question is whether extending I-93's northbound fifth auxilary lane which currently terminates at the exit only Mystic Valley Parkway to continue across the Mystic to the Salem St exit, and eliminating the Mystic Ave Sullivan / Assembly Sq northbound on ramp in favor of having that traffic follow Mystic Ave to the on ramp near Moreland St, and having the I-93 northbound mainline maintain four lanes immediately after the highway 28 exit through that on ramp near Moreland would improve things, or just induce additional vehicles traveling to the point of unusefulness.

It seems likely that current volumes are higher than what page 5 of ftp://ctps.org/pub/Express_Highway_Volumes/21_I93_North.pdf shows for 2010.

 

[CSTH]

^ Connecting the gilmore bridge to 93 makes a lot of sense, especially but not only for taking traffic off the craigie bridge and out of leverett circle.

I think re: further digging at leverett there is a big sewer that goes through there, which intercepts all the back bay drainage and brings it out past the dam. Not sure exactly where it is but ...its down there.

I prefer the option separating storrow/93 traffic by elevating the surface traffic to the level of the station.

 

[fattony]

There would be a fucking riot in Cambridge if you proposed a connection from 93 to the Gilmore. Not gonna happen. Tip O'Neill himself would crawl out of his grave to block that happening.

 

[North Shore]

^ Connecting the gilmore bridge to 93 makes a lot of sense, especially but not only for taking traffic off the craigie bridge and out of leverett circle.

I think re: further digging at leverett there is a big sewer that goes through there, which intercepts all the back bay drainage and brings it out past the dam. Not sure exactly where it is but ...its down there.

I prefer the option separating storrow/93 traffic by elevating the surface traffic to the level of the station.

I worked on the Nashua Street Park design back in the day. Not only are there major sewer intercepts there (96" and 84" diameters, IIRC), but there's also a huge underground encased and shielded electric cable that runs through the area.

 

[Joel N. Weber II]

There would be a fucking riot in Cambridge if you proposed a connection from 93 to the Gilmore. Not gonna happen. Tip O'Neill himself would crawl out of his grave to block that happening.

Can you clarify exactly what sort of connection you're envisioning?

It wouldn't surprise me if some of the challenges with the Rutherford road diet might relate to traffic that takes the Sullivan Sq exit on I-93 southbound, then Rutherford to the Gilmore bridge. If that's the case, maybe Cambridge shouldn't be entitled to continuing to inflict that traffic on Rutherford Ave.

 

[Joel N. Weber II]

I worked on the Nashua Street Park design back in the day. Not only are there major sewer intercepts there (96" and 84" diameters, IIRC), but there's also a huge underground encased and shielded electric cable that runs through the area.

If we're exploring a transportation plan that might take a decade to execute anyway, then there's an interesting question about whether the transition from fossil fuels to renewable power might make a cable in this location obsolete.

This seems like a plausible place to put a cable whose function would largely be distributing power from Mystic Station to much of the city of Boston proper, and in spite of the MWRA wind turbine just across Broadway from Mystic Station, it's not clear that there's any good way to generate much renewable power at Mystic Station, aside from maybe burning biofuel on extremely cold winter days. If offshore wind turbines make Mystic Station obsolete, abandoning a power cable under Leverett Circle without any nearby direct replacement might become practical.

And it seems like a pair of 8' diameter sewer lines side by side next to a single automobile lane underpass might fit underneath a single arch of that bridge.