Melnea Cass Blvd

stick n move said:
Theyre not planning well for future transit, but they never do.
Click to expand...
There original design included center running brt lanes. Public didn't want it so it was removed. This goes back 10 years or so. The whole point was to better connect this neighborhood to hook centers.
 
Arlington said:
Boston Cyclist Union says keep the trees by threading a 2-way cycle track through the existing trees.

Mature trees are key urban features: shading, quieting, cleaning (the air). In studies they are associated with several percent and increase in property value. (Things like $10000/unit per mature tree)

Racism might be too strong, but a lot of what defines enclaves like Newton, Weston and Winchester is the trees. There's definitely White Privilege / Green Privilege at play here
Click to expand...

Not to play Devils Advocate, but doesn’t that analogy to Newton, Weston etc. Need to take into account population density also? I’m not sure trees are the larger issue. (Albeit AN issue).
 
Last edited:
shmessy said:
Not to play Devils Advocate, but doesn’t that analogy to Newton, Weston etc.need to take into account population density also? I’m not sure trees are the larger issue. (Albeit AN issue).
Click to expand...
Better comparison would be closer: Back Bay and South End have much better tree canopies than Roxbury.
 
Is Melnea Cass BLVD considered Methodone Mile? Is this Methodone Mile? What exactly is Methodone Mile?
 
Massachoicetts said:
Is Melnea Cass BLVD considered Methodone Mile? Is this Methodone Mile? What exactly is Methodone Mile?
Click to expand...
I can't really find a definitive answer, but here's a cool online 3D map that layers in the relevant info: https://www.arcgis.com/home/webscene/viewer.html?webscene=a3cf3cecd2864d48a833ef380f6ebdc7
(opioid overdoes, opioid incidents, and a border around Mass Ave from Shawmut to Melnea)

I don't see much of the main intersection anymore, but a large tent camp was along Washinton across the corner from Tropical Food for awhile. It got cleared out a couple weeks ago.
A few small tents set up along the rest of the road.

On the bike lane, I really don't see how Cyclist Union thinks they can thread a path through the existing tree lines. There's really just not enough space, and the places where they've got the sidewalk currently are already messed up from the roots. If they build it there again, it'll just end up like the S Bay Harbor trail on the north side of the road, which is an absolute joke of a paved surface. And also too far away from the main road where the winding it does to meet the intersections is a PITA.

Does anyone have a link to the current proposed plan for the road? I can't find it again.
 
Massachoicetts said:
Is Melnea Cass BLVD considered Methodone Mile? Is this Methodone Mile? What exactly is Methodone Mile?
Click to expand...

Mass Ave. between Washington and Southampton is "The Mile"...peaking at Boston Med Ctr. It overspills the first block of Melnea Cass where it crosses, but is pretty much over by Albany St.

Trust me...you KNOW when you're in Methadone Mile. The sights are utterly unmistakable.:(
 
Arlington said:
Boston Cyclist Union says keep the trees by threading a 2-way cycle track through the existing trees.

Mature trees are key urban features: shading, quieting, cleaning (the air). In studies they are associated with several percent and increase in property value. (Things like $10000/unit per mature tree)

Racism might be too strong, but a lot of what defines enclaves like Newton, Weston and Winchester is the trees. There's definitely White Privilege / Green Privilege at play here
Click to expand...

I wasnt talking about roxbury as a whole though, Im saying this specific project theres really no good way to fix the bike lane without cutting the trees and theyre going to be replaced 1 to 1. Mature trees should be kept at all costs, I agree, but with (this particular project) theres going to have to be a compromise somewhere. I agree with the other poster where trying to ram a highway through the neighborhood was clear racism. Here (only this project) theres 2 options, fit a shitty half assed bike lane between the trees, or cut em and replant. You could argue just as easily that slapping a half assed bike lane between the trees is racism too, when other neighborhoods get the full treatment. Its a situation where theres going to need to be compromise and they need to be clear about that during the community input.
 
Put Melnea Cass Blvd on a road diet, by narrowing it to one thru lane each way plus a center turn lane, and you'd have plenty of room for a bike path without cutting any trees. If the bulldozing of neighborhoods in the 1960's for the Inner Belt Expresssway had not been done (which it shouldn't have), then there would be no Melnea Cass Blvd. today at all. Given that, the 1+1+turn lane is a bonus for traffic,
 
Charlie_mta said:
Put Melnea Cass Blvd on a road diet, by narrowing it to one thru lane each way plus a center turn lane, and you'd have plenty of room for a bike path without cutting any trees. If the bulldozing of neighborhoods in the 1960's for the Inner Belt Expresssway had not been done (which it shouldn't have), then there would be no Melnea Cass Blvd. today at all. Given that, the 1+1+turn lane is a bonus for traffic,
Click to expand...

As long as we're provisioning for real-deal traffic separation [B/L]RT transit bolted to the center, because M.C. is the linchpin of the Urban Ring so badly needed here as the "equal or better" transit tandem solution. This is going to be carrying Urban Ring SE quadrant BRT to Southie + the JFK spur someday. I can see that build ultimately--when it's go-time--trenching the median-bolted reservation down into an underpass of Mass Ave. where quasi-subway station of stop platforms takes up the under-footprint of the intersection with ped-safe egresses shooting out to all the corners. Then continuation back up to surface reservation on Mass Ave. Connector. JFK spur peels off onto the Frontage Roads past the shopping center with its graft-on lane before getting on Boston St., Southie 'mainline' shoots straight ahead onto a Haul Rd. that's realigned over the southern tip of Widett to square up with the Mass Ave. Ext./Frontage intersection and runs in truck traffic to a couple bulb-out station platforms @ Dot Ave., W. Broadway, and so on. Say in the process of walling in the transit reservation on M.C. you close the median to making Hampden a thru street across (i.e. right-turns only). You'd then have complete 100% transit traffic and signal separation from Albany to Frontage...or about four-fifths the combined 'mainline' distance of the two UR routes before they diverge from each other. That would be an enormous get for traffic management.

Sanctity of the protected transit reservation is going to have to be an utmost priority while hashing out the M.C. road diet because feeding full traffic protection into that would-be Mass Ave. station/underpass that gets added for the Ring is pretty much the sum total schedule-maker for that quadrant to have it spared from any road traffic interaction whatsoever through the gut-most congestion of South Bay. Can't pussyfoot with the width allowances. Maybe it's not an outright jersey-barriered reservation until the incline approaches to Mass Ave., but it's definitely got to have the shoulder width to be pop-up barriered or rumble-stripped from the nearest adjacent car lane...something more permanently/physically marked from left-shoulder swerving than simply a painted median bus lane. That does carry a buffering allowance that's at least a couple feet wider than mere paint job. All doable while saving the parkland and cutting fewer trees...but a width budgeting that's still going to have sweaty moments and give/take at finding fits for each component. While not nearly as hard as they're making this out to be, I definitely wouldn't call it an easy portioning job in the strips of greatest current controversy...so portion with due caution. We're not done by a longshot enacting the M.C. roadway master plan solely from decisions made this year.
 
Last edited:
HelloBostonHi said:
Project has been cancelled, which somehow the green advocates are calling a "win", despite it meaning leaving the road in its current mess.
https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1352340025418133505
Click to expand...
Yeah, I had a lot of trouble getting behind the idea that a project bringing better transit and bike infrastructure should be seen as bad for the environment. The trees are not old growth, the plan involved planting new trees. It's frustrating, but I think to a large extent, the city made the same mistakes as made with the 28X proposal. Maybe we'll eventually get it right, but right now that's a badly anti-urban corridor that provides virtually no advantage to the abutting neighborhood.
 
Such a narrow-minded decision. As if the trees along this road are a critical piece in making the area livable and keeping climate change at bay...
Ugh
 
Turn it into an olmstead-style boulevard with a carriage road (for bikes and runners!). Also, please sell off the vacant land on both sides that's not park (to be fair, at Wash and at Tremont they are starting to do this). Make it feel like a city instead of a scar!
 
All around failure.

Yes, the trees are important. The planners need to take that into account, and not draw lines that wipe them out. It takes 50 years to get a canopy back.

BUT this was a long process. Were the tree people engaged from the start? An overall cancellation of the project is not a win.
 
Heres an example of why this kind of advocacy is important.

Look at this street with 3 rows of mature trees.
goo.gl

Google Maps

Find local businesses, view maps and get driving directions in Google Maps.
goo.gl goo.gl

Heres the same street after a "bike lane project"
goo.gl

Google Maps

Find local businesses, view maps and get driving directions in Google Maps.
goo.gl goo.gl
 
jass said:
Heres an example of why this kind of advocacy is important.

Look at this street with 3 rows of mature trees.
goo.gl

Google Maps

Find local businesses, view maps and get driving directions in Google Maps.
goo.gl goo.gl

Heres the same street after a "bike lane project"
goo.gl

Google Maps

Find local businesses, view maps and get driving directions in Google Maps.
goo.gl goo.gl
Click to expand...

I'd be curious to know what affect those trees have on the street lights during May - October. Not saying if they dampen them it's justification to chop them down, rather add more and/or brighter lights. Boston could certainly use brighter and/or more street lights in large swaths of the city.
 
Luckily it's not a completely dead project, just another big delay... from the letter:

"We know that we will only deliver a new plan we are all proud of through a process we are all engaged in. In the months ahead, we look forward to designing that process with you.”

Seems to suggest a resubmission later this year.
 
Bananarama said:
Luckily it's not a completely dead project, just another big delay... from the letter:

"We know that we will only deliver a new plan we are all proud of through a process we are all engaged in. In the months ahead, we look forward to designing that process with you.”

Seems to suggest a resubmission later this year.
Click to expand...
I'm sure it'll be back, but let's not forget that the original project had already gone out to bid, opened bids, selected a bidder, and awarded the construction contract. That process alone can often take 6 months, and it also probably means that the original contractor is going to walk away with a payout of part of the projects budget.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top