Logan Airport Capital Projects

While the October board slides are already out, there's nothing surprising in them. That said, the apparent next big upcoming project at Logan is a major $300M reconfiguration of the behind-the-scenes North Service Area - this mess of vehicles and service buildings. Primarily, they'll be putting a significant portion of those vehicles in a new building, and demolishing several existing structures, and while not specifically called out in the renders, they'll additionally be building a seawall/coastal flooding berm along the waterfront, and retrofitting the bus depot to accommodate MassPort BEBs.

Further, it's not mentioned anywhere in the bid docs, but it appears that the long term plan for the area vacated is to become leasable ramp space - and if I'm reading the concept plan correctly, potentially a new FBO. Lastly, given that the entire area is getting rebuilt, I'm impressed by the tenacity of the vestigial Neptune Road - given its occupying increasingly valuable real estate to the point where an employee parking deck is in the cards, I'd have assumed it get subsumed, but I suppose it's still a possibility as this moves forward.

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Stlin said:
While the October board slides are already out, there's nothing surprising in them. That said, the apparent next big upcoming project at Logan is a major $300M reconfiguration of the behind-the-scenes North Service Area - this mess of vehicles and service buildings. Primarily, they'll be putting a significant portion of those vehicles in a new building, and demolishing several existing structures, and while not specifically called out in the renders, they'll additionally be building a seawall/coastal flooding berm along the waterfront, and retrofitting the bus depot to accommodate MassPort BEBs.

Further, it's not mentioned anywhere in the bid docs, but it appears that the long term plan for the area vacated is to become leasable ramp space - and if I'm reading the concept plan correctly, potentially a new FBO. Lastly, given that the entire area is getting rebuilt, I'm impressed by the tenacity of the vestigial Neptune Road - given its occupying increasingly valuable real estate to the point where an employee parking deck is in the cards, I'd have assumed it get subsumed, but I suppose it's still a possibility as this moves forward.

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I could also see UPS getting moved over there to create room for more Terminal E expansion
 
The last few months of meeting presentations have also indicated a return to looking at how to reduce car traffic flow into/out of Logan. They don't say it explicitly, but I'm curious if this is a giant wind-up to the return of the people mover that was initially moving ahead right before the pandemic?
 
SouthEnder88 said:
The last few months of meeting presentations have also indicated a return to looking at how to reduce car traffic flow into/out of Logan. They don't say it explicitly, but I'm curious if this is a giant wind-up to the return of the people mover that was initially moving ahead right before the pandemic?
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On this regard, I'm surprised the Hingham-Logan ferry schedule is so bad. It's such a fantastic way to and from the airport. I flew back from Seattle this past Sunday, and there seemed to be no weekend service at ALL! I took the boat to Logan on Monday, and it was so fast and easy. (See my skyline photos in the Boston skyline thread.) I sure wish the ferry schedule was more flexible and often. It's such an awesome way to reduce vehicle traffic.
 
SouthEnder88 said:
The last few months of meeting presentations have also indicated a return to looking at how to reduce car traffic flow into/out of Logan. They don't say it explicitly, but I'm curious if this is a giant wind-up to the return of the people mover that was initially moving ahead right before the pandemic?
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There needs to be some disincentive to personal car pickups/dropoffs. They've added $5 airport fees to ubers and made them drop off in central garage, but for some reason if someone's picking you up they can drive right up to the terminal curbside for free and clog all the roadways up. Add more Logan expresses (a bus to the end of every T line + kendall square + harvard square + JFK umass) every 30 minutes all day. Constantly circulating bus to the blue line that doesn't get stuck in traffic. This isn't that hard.
 
I remain amused at the way that Neptune Rd continues to linger on as a ghost of the old neighborhood.
 
It's too bad they cannot find another spot for the economy lot and State Police barracks. You could probably park 3-4 wide bodies in its space, or 5-6 narrow bodies.
 
Stlin said:
While the October board slides are already out, there's nothing surprising in them. That said, the apparent next big upcoming project at Logan is a major $300M reconfiguration of the behind-the-scenes North Service Area - this mess of vehicles and service buildings. Primarily, they'll be putting a significant portion of those vehicles in a new building, and demolishing several existing structures, and while not specifically called out in the renders, they'll additionally be building a seawall/coastal flooding berm along the waterfront, and retrofitting the bus depot to accommodate MassPort BEBs.

Further, it's not mentioned anywhere in the bid docs, but it appears that the long term plan for the area vacated is to become leasable ramp space - and if I'm reading the concept plan correctly, potentially a new FBO. Lastly, given that the entire area is getting rebuilt, I'm impressed by the tenacity of the vestigial Neptune Road - given its occupying increasingly valuable real estate to the point where an employee parking deck is in the cards, I'd have assumed it get subsumed, but I suppose it's still a possibility as this moves forward.

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And of course they'll get this bus garage done before the MBTA even goes vertical on a single one...
 
sneijder said:
There needs to be some disincentive to personal car pickups/dropoffs. They've added $5 airport fees to ubers and made them drop off in central garage, but for some reason if someone's picking you up they can drive right up to the terminal curbside for free and clog all the roadways up. Add more Logan expresses (a bus to the end of every T line + kendall square + harvard square + JFK umass) every 30 minutes all day. Constantly circulating bus to the blue line that doesn't get stuck in traffic. This isn't that hard.
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You can’t park long term in the T lines parking lots. Walking to the commuter rail transferring to transit then switching to blue line and then massport bus with luggage and often kids is not worth it. Especially early on a weekend or returning late at night. Too much variables in missing flights or missing the last trains home and then finding Uber from T station at end of the line
 
TallIsGood said:
You can’t park long term in the T lines parking lots.
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The lack of overnight parking at MBTA stations can be a big obstacle for suburbanites looking to park and ride the T into the city to stay overnight, catch a flight, or transfer to an Amtrak train. It's obviously not an issue for people who live near a station that offers overnight parking, but it can be a real pain if you don't live near one of those stations. Overnight parking often gets overlooked when it comes to conversations about getting suburbanites to ditch cars for the T.
 
themissinglink said:
The lack of overnight parking at MBTA stations can be a big obstacle for suburbanites looking to park and ride the T into the city to stay overnight, catch a flight, or transfer to an Amtrak train. It's obviously not an issue for people who live near a station that offers overnight parking, but it can be a real pain if you don't live near one of those stations. Overnight parking often gets overlooked when it comes to conversations about getting suburbanites to ditch cars for the T.
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It seems like allowing 1 night maximum should be achievable. Riverside might be a good place to pilot a system like this, it's well positioned for Longwood hospital visitors who would be quite likely to only stay one night at a time.
 
sneijder said:
There needs to be some disincentive to personal car pickups/dropoffs. They've added $5 airport fees to ubers and made them drop off in central garage, but for some reason if someone's picking you up they can drive right up to the terminal curbside for free and clog all the roadways up. Add more Logan expresses (a bus to the end of every T line + kendall square + harvard square + JFK umass) every 30 minutes all day. Constantly circulating bus to the blue line that doesn't get stuck in traffic. This isn't that hard.
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Well, they've spent hundreds of millions of dollars to build a high-capacity circulating road system. It's not designed to be a busway...

Whenever I'm at Logan, traffic honestly seems fine, and I'm nearly always seeing it from the window of a Silver Line bus.
 
Equilibria said:
Well, they've spent hundreds of millions of dollars to build a high-capacity circulating road system. It's not designed to be a busway...

Whenever I'm at Logan, traffic honestly seems fine, and I'm nearly always seeing it from the window of a Silver Line bus.
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There are other reasons to cut back on drop-offs at Logan, and the state should really be pushing Massport harder on that. A low-end estimate for the number of private vehicles, rideshares, and taxis going to/from Logan for pickups/drop-offs is about 50k per day, and assuming an average trip length of 20 miles, which seems reasonable, possibly a bit low, that means that somewhere around 1% of all VMT in Massachusetts are for trips to/from Logan.
 
TheRatmeister said:
There are other reasons to cut back on drop-offs at Logan, and the state should really be pushing Massport harder on that. A low-end estimate for the number of private vehicles, rideshares, and taxis going to/from Logan for pickups/drop-offs is about 50k per day, and assuming an average trip length of 20 miles, which seems reasonable, possibly a bit low, that means that somewhere around 1% of all VMT in Massachusetts are for trips to/from Logan.
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That's an interesting point. I'm not sure I agree that the state should be pushing Massport harder - as I've been able to tell it's the other way around. Massport is pretty aggressive with pushing people not to drive to the airport, while the legislators and their constituents are doing the driving.
 
Stlin said:
I'm impressed by the tenacity of the vestigial Neptune Road - given its occupying increasingly valuable real estate to the point where an employee parking deck is in the cards, I'd have assumed it get subsumed, but I suppose it's still a possibility as this moves forward.
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Does Massport actually own it? The MA Parcel Viewer + Boston Tax Parcel Viewer both seem to suggest they don't - which suggests ownership still lies with the city? State entities clearly own all the surrounding lots abutting the road, but this stretch of road, unlike basically the rest of the airport, doesn't seem to be?
 
TheRatmeister said:
It seems like allowing 1 night maximum should be achievable. Riverside might be a good place to pilot a system like this, it's well positioned for Longwood hospital visitors who would be quite likely to only stay one night at a time.
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Not sure I follow. How would reducing the allowed parking time help at a notoriously underutilized lot?
 
millerm277 said:
Does Massport actually own it? The MA Parcel Viewer + Boston Tax Parcel Viewer both seem to suggest they don't - which suggests ownership still lies with the city? State entities clearly own all the surrounding lots abutting the road, but this stretch of road, unlike basically the rest of the airport, doesn't seem to be?
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Sure the city still owns the RoW, but there's not much stopping them from ceding / selling it to Massport since there's no one else using it. There's a lot of precedent for that, with roadways being ceded to and from developers or other public entities as part of developments. In fact, the Boston GIS data suggests that the city still owns property that the existing Massport maintenance building is built on top of - Neptune Ct crossing Neptune Road.

But take Widdett Circle as an upcoming example. The MBTA might have taken the parcels by eminent domain, but the City of Boston owns the Widdett Circle and Foodmart Road roadways. When the T gets around to building something for it's layover there, it'll need the land occupied by those roads - so either there'll be some sort of agreement where the city retains underlying title and permits the T to build on it, or it'll sell/cede those lands to the MBTA as well.
 
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