On The Dot | 505 Dorchester Avenue | South Boston

Suffolk 83 said:
Im pro bike, I mountain bike as much as I can, I want there to more bike lanes where they are needed and if there were more on major thoroughfares, I would bike more often in the city....
I think these type of borderline militant bike lane opinions really hurt the overall cause. There's a fully protected bike lane right there on Dot Ave! Why do you need another bike on a side street one block over?!?! Its crazy talk
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Suffolk 83 said:
You're nitpicking so you can prove yourself correct. My whole point was while I AGREE WITH YOUR OVERALL CAUSE, you guys always manage to come across as extremist assholes and it hurts your cause. And you are continuing to prove my point. Railing against a minor side street and parking in between large buildings counterproductive to furthering bike lanes. That was my whole point but you have to pull apart ancillary points in order to prove yourself.
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They aren't being extremist assholes or militant. No need to be so overdramatic.

It's not "crazy talk" for someone to want bike lanes on Ellery Street as part of this development, it would be foolish to extend Ellery Street without including cycling infrastructure.
 
themissinglink said:
They aren't being extremist assholes or militant. No need to be so overdramatic.

It's not "crazy talk" for someone to want bike lanes on Ellery Street as part of this development, it would be foolish to extend Ellery Street without including cycling infrastructure.
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again, agree to disagree, the goal posts have moved several times, its fine
 
Just to be clear, the current plans have bike lanes down the new segments of Ellery. Actually, every street touching this new development will have new, protected bike lanes (Ellery, Dot Ave, Alger Street, the service road, and what I think is called Humbolt St, but the planning docs call "Street A"). The developer has planned on these bike lanes since their first proposals in 2021. This conversation has run off in a few directions, and I just wanted to make clear what is going on with the actual plans of this project.
 
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ritchiew said:
I really wasn't just saying the on-street parking spaces should be used for bike lanes. I was saying that space would be better used for almost anything else. Around the city, on-street parking spaces could be used for: expanded sidewalks; cafe space; outdoor retail space, either for adjacent brick-and-mortar stores or people setting up stands; trees; benches; mini plazas; neighborhood garbage bins, so garbage bags don't sit on the curb to be pecked open by seagulls (my least favorite part of living in the South End many years ago). If transportation is the priority, getting rid of on-street parking frees up space for: dedicated bus lanes; bus platforms for level boarding; dedicated ROW for the E Branch on Huntington; real platforms for the E all the way to Heath (or expand it all the way to Arborway); bus stop shelters; docking stations for bikes and scooters; and yes, in some cases, bike lanes. Any of those things is better for transportation than a lane of parked cars.

My preference in the specific case of this project: getting rid of the on-street parking would make it more practical for the buildings to expand their footprints all the way the property line (instead of having to give up space to make a functional sidewalk). Bumping out the building footprint that bit in each direction would add 10s of thousands of square feet to each building. That's an extra apartment or two on each of ~15 floors. So the trade off, as I see it, is a couple dozen extra apartments, or a couple dozen parking spaces.
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This is presuming that the developers have the capital or even desire to add this additional square footage to the buildings. Money is Money. I will again go back to my earlier statement that the minor convenience of this on-street parking adds a lot of value to tenant leasing in these new developments. These slots are VERY expensive and not having the parking does have an impact on the leasability of them (whether we want to believe that or not). You say that the added square footage is more valuable than the parking, but if the building owners are unable to rent the retail slots because their target tenants want that on-street parking, I would be willing to bet the developers will value that parking because they were actually able to get tenants. It is a give and take. If these were much larger, single tenant ground floor elements (think grocery, showroom, etc) I would be more in alignment with the elimination of on-street parking. Looking at the site plan, the ground floor is more broken up, so circulation from the garages below becomes more and more difficult to get people from the garages to the tenant doors.

You also hit the nail on the head in that this is a brand new section of road. The developer made the decision that this on-street parking spots were valuable enough to their future plans to include it along with the other pieces of the ROW to create a very equitable ROW. Two birds, one stone.

Like I said above, this designed ROW is very equitable in my opinion and works on every level. To me, the larger building footprint for this project is the equivalent of the height mongers on this forum clamoring for more height on any other project. We just accept the fact that people are "militant" when it comes to height of buildings, so I don't really see a difference here.

Again, the project is GREAT! There is nothing "wrong" with the configuration of Ellery Street. It just seems like some would like to go a bit further which to me doesn't make financial sense from the development standpoint.

My biggest complaint is the parking along Dot Ave itself. I would say remove that parking if nothing else because of safety. The widths are a bit odd to me, but 11'-0" should be the maximum in my mind for urban streets such as Dot Ave.
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The two elements I would prefer to see is traffic signals at Street A and Alger Street (Cadillac design) or at least a HAWK signal at the central crosswalk across Dot Ave (minimum design).
 
CBCArch61 said:
ritchiew said:
My preference in the specific case of this project: getting rid of the on-street parking would make it more practical for the buildings to expand their footprints
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This is presuming that the developers have the capital or even desire to add this additional square footage to the buildings.
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its also presuming the city wanted/would allow bigger footprints, which is not the case.

ritchiew said:
Bumping out the building footprint that bit in each direction would add 10s of thousands of square feet to each building. That's an extra apartment or two on each of ~15 floors. So the trade off, as I see it, is a couple dozen extra apartments, or a couple dozen parking spaces.
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thats not how it works though. there arent residential units on the ground floor and all of these buildings have set backs above the podium. the number of residential units arent impacted by the parking. yes, there is less ground floor retail space (or building back of house space), which could be seen as a negative, but it goes back to the above, smaller building footprint sizes is the goal for the City.
 
CBCArch61 said:
The developer made the decision that this on-street parking spots were valuable enough to their future plans
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Factually, is this correct? The street design will be controlled or heavily influenced by city and state regulations. On-street parking might have come from that. I haven't been assuming this was the developer's decision, but I don't know. Does anyone on here have some insight?

real_EthanHunt said:
its also presuming the city wanted/would allow bigger footprints, which is not the case.
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Yeah, good to know. But my criticism was with the design. If it was the city forcing smaller buildings, then my beef is with the city.

real_EthanHunt said:
thats not how it works though. there arent residential units on the ground floor and all of these buildings have set backs above the podium. the number of residential units arent impacted by the parking.
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Yes, I think that is how it works. I was assuming that if the podiums are wider, then the towers above them would be wider too. I'm not sure why this wouldn't be correct. If it's Boston's fault again, then fine, my criticism is with the design and my beef is with the city. Even assuming only the podiums would be enlarged, though, the podiums are 5(?) stories tall. This is still adding thousands of square feet of usable indoor space per building. And you're right, I was mixed up, that generally wouldn't be used for apartments (only 495 Dot Ave would gain apartments). But the fact that those thousands of square feet would be used on retail and commercial space doesn't change my opinion. I still think that's better than on-street parking.
 
ritchiew said:
Factually, is this correct? The street design will be controlled or heavily influenced by city and state regulations. On-street parking might have come from that. I haven't been assuming this was the developer's decision, but I don't know. Does anyone on here have some insight?


Yeah, good to know. But my criticism was with the design. If it was the city forcing smaller buildings, then my beef is with the city.



Yes, I think that is how it works. I was assuming that if the podiums are wider, then the towers above them would be wider too. I'm not sure why this wouldn't be correct. If it's Boston's fault again, then fine, my criticism is with the design and my beef is with the city. Even assuming only the podiums would be enlarged, though, the podiums are 5(?) stories tall. This is still adding thousands of square feet of usable indoor space per building. And you're right, I was mixed up, that generally wouldn't be used for apartments (only 495 Dot Ave would gain apartments). But the fact that those thousands of square feet would be used on retail and commercial space doesn't change my opinion. I still think that's better than on-street parking.
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These are really large buildings. The height is a lot lower than the PLAN allowed--I don't know why they didn't use all of that height.
 
Suffolk 83 said:
its possible I am misunderstanding, all I'm saying is the majority of the US population abhors bike lanes and the militant advocacy for bike lanes where they're not all that necessary in certain cases just works against the cause. Railing against creating a street with parking in between buildings, when its been happening this way for people's entire lives, doesnt push the agenda you hope it does. It follows many other progressive ideals- just because in your brain you've gotten all the way there doesn't mean you should lose empathy for others that are stuck in the past. Make incremental improvements, allow the general population to realize the good in these and then further the progression to a greater good.
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A far larger majority abhors automobile traffic and surface parking lots in urban settings. I'll choose the lesser of the two evils.
 
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It looks like they'll be approximately 235' each. (edit I should have highlighted the 195' then the 40' lines, but yeah 235' is right)

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