Embarcadero isn't really the right comparison.
Imagine if 19th Ave/Park Presidio or Van Ness were highways instead of city streets. Those are the thru-streets for highway traffic flowing between north and south of SF. They're not the most wonderful of places, but they're far, far superior to interstate highways in terms of city life.
I agree with Shepard that a responsible and cost-effective solution would have looked something like a surface arterial street between the Charles River crossing (let's say Zakim was still built) and the Dewey Square area. Also toss back in the third harbor tunnel (Ted), I don't have a problem with that. The fact is that even with the Big Dig, we still ended up with a massively oversized surface road that continues to cause problems. And that's after downsizing -- the original plan was a 10 lane surface road on top of the tunnel!
The Big Dig cements in place an automobile-centric view of mobility in Boston. Forever. It caters to the conviction that automobile travel ought to be freely subsidized by the government at any expense to the taxpayer. The debt incurred by the construction of the O'Neill tunnel overshadows the benefits, and no, it will not be paid off before the infrastructure crumbles and must be rebuilt in fifty or so years. Sooner if it turns out to be worse than we thought. The state of 60s-era highway infrastructure around here gives me little confidence.
In places like London it's accepted that driving will be difficult not because they are spiteful, but because that is simply the nature of human cities. Geometry is king. There is not enough space for all the cars that people would want to drive in any reasonably populated place. The Big Dig is just delaying the inevitable reckoning we have to make with that fact, at terrifying expense. The construction of the O'Neill tunnel was just another attempt at that unrealistic 1950s-style Utopian dream of turning our cities into a Metropolis or a Futurama.
Knowing what we know now, I would not recommend the O'Neill tunnel be built if I was able to somehow go back and be in that position. Sure, a (vastly improved) Greenway is better than an big arterial street. But not for the $10-$20 billion cost that you can attribute to the O'Neill tunnel.
But since we do have it, and the money is sunk, I would recommend trying to make the most of it. The Greenway is a pale shadow of what it could be. The only part that works is -- surprise surprise -- the part where the surface street is narrowest and the park is best, and most well placed. Cover the ramp parcels, narrow the surface streets and make them part of the city instead of being like a surface highway that we spent billions to avoid.
On a side note,
Nope. They have failed. They tried to use an unproven size of tunnel boring machine, and it's stuck. The question is how many more millions or even billions of dollars will they dump on it before cutting their losses.
Imagine if 19th Ave/Park Presidio or Van Ness were highways instead of city streets. Those are the thru-streets for highway traffic flowing between north and south of SF. They're not the most wonderful of places, but they're far, far superior to interstate highways in terms of city life.
I agree with Shepard that a responsible and cost-effective solution would have looked something like a surface arterial street between the Charles River crossing (let's say Zakim was still built) and the Dewey Square area. Also toss back in the third harbor tunnel (Ted), I don't have a problem with that. The fact is that even with the Big Dig, we still ended up with a massively oversized surface road that continues to cause problems. And that's after downsizing -- the original plan was a 10 lane surface road on top of the tunnel!
The Big Dig cements in place an automobile-centric view of mobility in Boston. Forever. It caters to the conviction that automobile travel ought to be freely subsidized by the government at any expense to the taxpayer. The debt incurred by the construction of the O'Neill tunnel overshadows the benefits, and no, it will not be paid off before the infrastructure crumbles and must be rebuilt in fifty or so years. Sooner if it turns out to be worse than we thought. The state of 60s-era highway infrastructure around here gives me little confidence.
In places like London it's accepted that driving will be difficult not because they are spiteful, but because that is simply the nature of human cities. Geometry is king. There is not enough space for all the cars that people would want to drive in any reasonably populated place. The Big Dig is just delaying the inevitable reckoning we have to make with that fact, at terrifying expense. The construction of the O'Neill tunnel was just another attempt at that unrealistic 1950s-style Utopian dream of turning our cities into a Metropolis or a Futurama.
Knowing what we know now, I would not recommend the O'Neill tunnel be built if I was able to somehow go back and be in that position. Sure, a (vastly improved) Greenway is better than an big arterial street. But not for the $10-$20 billion cost that you can attribute to the O'Neill tunnel.
But since we do have it, and the money is sunk, I would recommend trying to make the most of it. The Greenway is a pale shadow of what it could be. The only part that works is -- surprise surprise -- the part where the surface street is narrowest and the park is best, and most well placed. Cover the ramp parcels, narrow the surface streets and make them part of the city instead of being like a surface highway that we spent billions to avoid.
On a side note,
mass88 said:
Nope. They have failed. They tried to use an unproven size of tunnel boring machine, and it's stuck. The question is how many more millions or even billions of dollars will they dump on it before cutting their losses.
