MA Casino Developments

[TheRifleman]

F-Line-Dudley,

Where the hell were you when the Big Dig was built. Just reading your posts and honestly I would hire you as the head of Transporation without even meeting you.

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

F-Line-Dudley,

Where the hell were you when the Big Dig was built. Just reading your posts and honestly I would hire you as the head of Transporation without even meeting you.

In Connecticut as a child watching the stalemate over the Route 72 extension, I-84 congestion, and lack of any transit options hollow out my hometown Bristol's downtown area into a giant dead zone like a Roto-Rooter job gone horribly awry. I moved here in '96 when I enrolled at BU...and I applied to damn near every one of the (sub-Harvard) major U's for expressed purpose of getting the hell out of there and getting the hell in here. I wanted stuff to do...destinations to go...to be able to pick up and go whenever the hell I wanted without getting in the car and dealing with soul-destroying congestion and sprawl...and to not be isolated from other people dealing with the same.

Urban and transportation planning piqued my interest because Central CT is such a textbook case of once-thriving communities destroyed by bad postwar planning and the population exodus after the damage was permanently done. And they still don't get it at a very fundamental level out there.

 

[jdrinboston]

In Connecticut as a child watching the stalemate over the Route 72 extension, I-84 congestion, and lack of any transit options hollow out my hometown Bristol's downtown area into a giant dead zone like a Roto-Rooter job gone horribly awry. I moved here in '96 when I enrolled at BU...and I applied to damn near every one of the (sub-Harvard) major U's for expressed purpose of getting the hell out of there and getting the hell in here. I wanted stuff to do...destinations to go...to be able to pick up and go whenever the hell I wanted without getting in the car and dealing with soul-destroying congestion and sprawl...and to not be isolated from other people dealing with the same.

Urban and transportation planning piqued my interest because Central CT is such a textbook case of once-thriving communities destroyed by bad postwar planning and the population exodus after the damage was permanently done. And they still don't get it at a very fundamental level out there.

I got out of Meriden for the same reason, and its painful to go back and see what was once there, and what has become of the city due to bad planning.

 

[Beton Brut]

I hope Beton Brut will provide some insight on the campaign and how it all went down.

All in good time, friends...

There's a "capitol project" underway at Chez Brut, Brut, Sr. just got out of the hospital today (he'll be fine), and I haven't seen my lady in a week...

My Revolutionary Brothers & Sisters like this account best out of what's been reported, as it, "... comes closest to telling the true story of what happened here." Although: "A few hundred pages more of detail wouldn't hurt!"

Here's a "recycled" post from the Orient Heights Neighborhood Facebook page:

We will be moving on, but we'll be moving on TOGETHER!

The greatest gift of this fight has been the true coalition of disparate groups:
• "old line" East Boston, like Celeste Ribeiro Myers and me;
• the Latino community, truly the rising merchant class in East Boston;
• the growing number of young professionals who hope to make a life and raise their families on safe, walkable streets;
• artists, musicians, writers, and creatives who have been priced out of other communities in Greater Boston -- these people add vision and vibrancy to anyplace they reside;
• our faith leaders and their congregations, who all agreed that inviting the most predatory industry in America into our neighborhoods was a very bad idea.

We've done much, and there is much left to do. It is an understatement to say that I'm both humbled and heartened by the experience.

Our best days are ahead of us, and I look forward to crafting a future for East Boston with all of you as my neighbors and friends.
​

And this old tune has become a sort-of anthem for us:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8iBXulR6iMw

"On any given night, anything can happen
If the underdog is hungry the favorite might fall
All of the people, yelling and clapping
Anything can happen, anything at all..."

 

[whighlander]

Agree. Just about the only truly worthy construction of new interstate-grade mainline highway miles (i.e. not just fixing interchanges) the state would want to consider inside the 495 belt is grade-separating 1A in Eastie and Revere to a new interchange with 16 at roughly Railroad St./Route 145 and doing some reshuffling of 16 between there and Route 1 with frontage roads and whatnot. And retiring most of the spaghetti asphalt at the rotary to clean that beastly thing up.......... and too much North Shore traffic goes through the gut of downtown because of the crappy road quality here, leaving that golden Pike/Ted link woefully underutilized. Give the highway and thru truck traffic a real means of bypassing the city streets, and give the city streets back to the neighborhoods. This benefits regardless of where the casino gets plunked.

F-Line a lot of serious thinking went into the above -- But I think that you missed some issues:

There are trucks whose cargo doesn't permit use of any tunnel or the Tobin --if they have originated South of the Pike and E of I-95/128 interchange -- they have to pass through the city at street level and if there destination is East Boston or North Shore they have to cross the Mystic River either on Rt-16 or Rt-99

They need to be accommodated.

Further -- Let's see how the decongestion process proceeds as toll booths and all there lane narrowing, etc. on the Tobin, Tunnels and the Pike recede into history

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

F-Line a lot of serious thinking went into the above -- But I think that you missed some issues:

There are trucks whose cargo doesn't permit use of any tunnel or the Tobin --if they have originated South of the Pike and E of I-95/128 interchange -- they have to pass through the city at street level and if there destination is East Boston or North Shore they have to cross the Mystic River either on Rt-16 or Rt-99

They need to be accommodated.

Further -- Let's see how the decongestion process proceeds as toll booths and all there lane narrowing, etc. on the Tobin, Tunnels and the Pike recede into history

Umm...this does accommodate them. Was that not transparently obvious in the post?

The trucks pound 16 all day long between 1 and 1A as a primary northside means around the tunnels. The grade separation fixes from 1 and 1A and the new interchange spares a 2-mile swath of densely-populated Chelsea residential neighborhoods from having to intermix in heavy truck traffic, and slices the entire 1.5 mile U-turn at the 16/1A rotary off the Eastie truck route. The separation of 1A itself and resurrection of the street grid then spares Eastie of most remaining street-running truck traffic (the new haul road doing much of the rest).

That's kind of the whole damn point. Keep the trucks and heavy thru traffic away from the neighborhoods, and give the neighborhoods back to the neighborhoods.


99 and 28 are getting downgraded in Boston and Somerville, remember. That puts ever-heavier load on 16 as the primary circulator. So reshaping it on the east end, fixing the 93 interchange on the west end, and reorienting the 2 big rotaries at Wellington and 99 to more 16 load-bearing and less 28/99 load-bearing traffic is critical.

 

[mass88]

Umm...this does accommodate them. Was that not transparently obvious in the post?

The trucks pound 16 all day long between 1 and 1A as a primary northside means around the tunnels. The grade separation fixes from 1 and 1A and the new interchange spares a 2-mile swath of densely-populated Chelsea residential neighborhoods from having to intermix in heavy truck traffic, and slices the entire 1.5 mile U-turn at the 16/1A rotary off the Eastie truck route. The separation of 1A itself and resurrection of the street grid then spares Eastie of most remaining street-running truck traffic (the new haul road doing much of the rest).

That's kind of the whole damn point. Keep the trucks and heavy thru traffic away from the neighborhoods, and give the neighborhoods back to the neighborhoods.


99 and 28 are getting downgraded in Boston and Somerville, remember. That puts ever-heavier load on 16 as the primary circulator. So reshaping it on the east end, fixing the 93 interchange on the west end, and reorienting the 2 big rotaries at Wellington and 99 to more 16 load-bearing and less 28/99 load-bearing traffic is critical.

Why are 99 and 28 being downgraded? A links to plans/designs for the work?

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

Why are 99 and 28 being downgraded? A links to plans/designs for the work?

28 is the McCarthy overpass teardown the state is holding community meetings on with Somerville. Will involve taming the rest of that 6-lane beast down to Broadway and into Lechmere Sq. STEP's website has a lot of info on this.

99 is the Rutherford Ave. slimdown City of Boston is pushing and state has tentatively committed to. Believe MassDOT has some renderings on this. Involves eliminating the underpass and reconfiguring the Sullivan rotary.


McGrath's lost a lot of traffic since the Big Dig opened and is under-capacity. Rutherford too, albeit not as pronounced. A lot of the traffic is still induced demand that'll simply vanish when they go.

The missing pieces are taming Fellsway between 93 and Wellington, where it's 6-8 lanes wide, never all that busy, and a terrifying speed trap between the Assembly lights and the Wellington lights. That isn't planned yet, but if Assembly is going to be integrated into its surroundings that road badly needs to be put on a diet so there's better ped crossings, bike lanes, and much wider sidewalks across the Mystic bridge to Station Landing, Wellington, and the Mystic paths.

All of that is going to reduce the N-S traffic into Wellington and Santilli Circles, and conversely put a heavier load on 16 and the Mystic Ave. exit on 93. So the 93 interchanges at Assembly, Mystic Ave., and 16 need some serious cleanup and load-shifting away from Fellsway/Mystic and towards 16 (by completing that interchange to spare the other two of congestion). The parkway needs some general TLC between 93 and 1 for safety and flow. And then the east end between 1 and 1A is where there's truly a chance to do something transformative if they want.

The latter is a big project. Putting the N-S parkway induced demand traps on a diet, fixing the 93 interchanges, traffic calming around the Mystic where all the walkers/bikers/T riders are, and doing the little finessing where possible on existing 16 aren't big projects. And aren't all that optional. If McGrath and Rutherford get downgraded, 16 is the load-bearing trunk. And that's a lot of stuff it's going to have bear load for...casino, trucks, Chelsea/Revere/Eastie development and population growth. I don't think those east-end improvements between 1 and 1A stay optional too much longer.

 

[whighlander]

Umm...this does accommodate them. Was that not transparently obvious in the post?

The trucks pound 16 all day long between 1 and 1A as a primary northside means around the tunnels. The grade separation fixes from 1 and 1A and the new interchange spares a 2-mile swath of densely-populated Chelsea residential neighborhoods from having to intermix in heavy truck traffic, and slices the entire 1.5 mile U-turn at the 16/1A rotary off the Eastie truck route. The separation of 1A itself and resurrection of the street grid then spares Eastie of most remaining street-running truck traffic (the new haul road doing much of the rest).

That's kind of the whole damn point. Keep the trucks and heavy thru traffic away from the neighborhoods, and give the neighborhoods back to the neighborhoods.


99 and 28 are getting downgraded in Boston and Somerville, remember. That puts ever-heavier load on 16 as the primary circulator. So reshaping it on the east end, fixing the 93 interchange on the west end, and reorienting the 2 big rotaries at Wellington and 99 to more 16 load-bearing and less 28/99 load-bearing traffic is critical.

F-Line -- a fair amount of the "neighborhoods" in Chelsea are in fact mixed industrial and other use where some of those trucks come / go to / from such as near to the Fruit and Vegetable Center

Or are you planning to move all of those kinds of activities out of Chelsea, Everett, Charlestown, etc.

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

F-Line -- a fair amount of the "neighborhoods" in Chelsea are in fact mixed industrial and other use where some of those trucks come / go to / from such as near to the Fruit and Vegetable Center

Or are you planning to move all of those kinds of activities out of Chelsea, Everett, Charlestown, etc.

I have no idea what your point is. We're not digging a thru-and-thru tunnel here from Boston to Everett or evicting the tax base of those towns. You have exits on grade-separated 1A to all the major cross streets where there are current signalized intersections. You have frontage roads serving the curb cut businesses. 1 chain hotel is the only certifiable business loss/relocation due to the interchange. 16 is much the same parkway it always was save for the nip/tuck on the part it duplicates with 1A up to the rotary. Rutherford and McGrath are being downgraded...those proposals have advanced to design and community comment. Those two projects are happening, the community support is overwhelming, and it is very nearly too late to try to reverse that. Mangled interchanges like the staggered group of 93 exits between Assembly and 16...and 16 and 1...do need a cleanup any which way because they're wretchedly performing as-is. And the rotaries do need safety improvements and traffic flow improvements with the N-S volumes decreasing.

The point is the traffic that doesn't have to be careening straight through residential streets can get behind the grade separation if that traffic is not explicitly getting off on a particular block, and the street grid can get stitched back together. Nobody loses access.


Name who's losing access here. Your last 2 posts are "but...but..."-ing irrelevance to that question. You're not being clear on that point at all.

 

[TheRifleman]

I'm not sure who Benton Brut really is.

He called it from the beginning. There will be NO CASINO In Eastie and boy did he call that right.

 

[Ron Newman]

Does anyone know where to find a map or drawing or photo of the Suffolk Downs property, showing exactly where the Boston-Revere city line goes through it?

My first impression is that the Revere land is mostly horse barns and part of the track oval, while most of the developable (vacant, parking lot) land is in Eastie. If they build a casino resort on the Revere side only, won't that put an end to the racetrack?

 

[Semass]

Does anyone know where to find a map or drawing or photo of the Suffolk Downs property, showing exactly where the Boston-Revere city line goes through it?

My first impression is that the Revere land is mostly horse barns and part of the track oval, while most of the developable (vacant, parking lot) land is in Eastie. If they build a casino resort on the Revere side only, won't that put an end to the racetrack?

Just go on Google Maps and search Revere. That will give you the town boundaries. MassGIS has it as well with lots of other good layers on thier "Oliver" viewer. Go to mass.gov and search MassGIS.

 

[TheRifleman]

They might be trying to include Wonderland Dog Track now.

 

[jdrinboston]

Does anyone know where to find a map or drawing or photo of the Suffolk Downs property, showing exactly where the Boston-Revere city line goes through it?

My first impression is that the Revere land is mostly horse barns and part of the track oval, while most of the developable (vacant, parking lot) land is in Eastie. If they build a casino resort on the Revere side only, won't that put an end to the racetrack?

I suspect if Suffolk Downs was going to try and squeeze something onto the Revere property in order to make the Dec. 31 deadline, we would have heard some confirmation by now. My gut is telling me the plan at the horsetrack is basically dead.

I believe their strategy at this point is to wait and see what happens with Milford and Everett. I think Milford's approval of the casino there is a political long shot, and Foxwoods clearing the state background check is an even bigger long shot. It also appears that the state has some questions about Steve Wynn's business dealings and Wynn hasn't been shy about publicly criticizing the gaming commission. I think it's very possible that the Dec. 31 deadline comes and goes without any casino license being awarded.

Remember, the Suffolk Downs group has already passed their background check and has been qualified to operate a casino in Mass. They also own the Wonderland dog track property. They may very well be dropping dimes on Wynn through the back channels as we speak. (It wouldn't shock me if Wynn was doing the same about Ceasars a few weeks ago)

If the Milford plan fizzles and the state punts on Wynn, look for SD to come back before Revere voters in the spring with a proposal for Wonderland. I see no reason to believe Revere would vote against a plan on a second go-around.

 

[BosDevelop]

jdrinboston:

I thought the December 31 deadline was for fully complete applications including a community vote in favor (there was obviously a prior application deadline as well) and that the licenses were not being awarded until spring at the earliest.

Imagine the embarrassment if there is no one to approve for the Eastern most license. One way or another, either Wynn or Milford (assuming their vote passes which is not small task) will get the license.

 

[choo]

Although i don't mind a casino, it would totally fly in the face of the local voting provision to have the casino approved by the MGC if it was moved 50 yards onto the Revere side. I think it will be Wynn in Everett.

As for talks about Wynn talking with SD, that very well may be happening, but I don't see the major upside for Wynn. You already have popular support and you are going to risk it to move a casino plan 3 miles away. The marginal benefit seems very small from what i would gather.

 

[jdrinboston]

jdrinboston:

I thought the December 31 deadline was for fully complete applications including a community vote in favor (there was obviously a prior application deadline as well) and that the licenses were not being awarded until spring at the earliest.

Imagine the embarrassment if there is no one to approve for the Eastern most license. One way or another, either Wynn or Milford (assuming their vote passes which is not small task) will get the license.

You're right on the deadline, but part of the application is a completion of the required background check. Wynn has not cleared that hurdle yet. If he doesn't and Milford doesn't materialize, Dec. 31 is moot.

 

[Ron Newman]

Meanwhile, there's an initiative petition going around to repeal the state casino law entirely. Somerville Mayor Joe Curtatone is one of the initial 10 signers. I signed it, because I'd like to see a statewide debate about this issue.

 

[statler]

Ron!