Residencies on the Rails?

[Commuting Boston Student]

I've been taking the train out of Wickford Junction lately, and it's the strangest thing.

You see, I keep seeing signs telling me how I can live, work, and commute at Wickford Junction... but places to live are quite conspicuously absent.

Of course, that's neither here nor there, but it got me thinking... would it actually be possible to build a 'neighborhood in a box,' of sorts, around an existing commuter rail (or subway) station? What would be required to create a liveable community on top of the station complex, and is this really that much of a step up from a giant parking lot/garage?

I think, if handled properly, it would be.

 

[whighlander]

I've been taking the train out of Wickford Junction lately, and it's the strangest thing.

You see, I keep seeing signs telling me how I can live, work, and commute at Wickford Junction... but places to live are quite conspicuously absent.

Of course, that's neither here nor there, but it got me thinking... would it actually be possible to build a 'neighborhood in a box,' of sorts, around an existing commuter rail (or subway) station? What would be required to create a liveable community on top of the station complex, and is this really that much of a step up from a giant parking lot/garage?

I think, if handled properly, it would be.

Commute -- I thought that you were going to suggest a virtual neighborhood configured out of lots of rail cars in which the people were living parked in some rail yard -- a bit like house boats in Hong Kong or a mobile home -- you could live for a few years in Readville and then move to Beacon Park to be closer to your work at Haaaahvd Alston

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

I've been taking the train out of Wickford Junction lately, and it's the strangest thing.

You see, I keep seeing signs telling me how I can live, work, and commute at Wickford Junction... but places to live are quite conspicuously absent.

Of course, that's neither here nor there, but it got me thinking... would it actually be possible to build a 'neighborhood in a box,' of sorts, around an existing commuter rail (or subway) station? What would be required to create a liveable community on top of the station complex, and is this really that much of a step up from a giant parking lot/garage?

I think, if handled properly, it would be.

...Westwood Landing?

http://www.instantrimshot.com/

 

[datadyne007]

Middleboro/Lakeville has an adjoining TOD residential complex that spawned from the station.

 

[whighlander]

Middleboro/Lakeville has an adjoining TOD residential complex that spawned from the station.

I just read today that Haaaavd is planning to restart the construction of the Science comple in Alston in 2014

There's no way that they can build both the housing and the labs at the same time -- so why not dedicate some of the tracks at Beacon Park to housing -- hundreds of mass produced rail-based residences

 

[statler]

Harvard.

Just Harvard.

Haaaaavaahd stopped being clever about a decade ago.

Thank you.

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

I just read today that Haaaavd is planning to restart the construction of the Science comple in Alston in 2014

There's no way that they can build both the housing and the labs at the same time -- so why not dedicate some of the tracks at Beacon Park to housing -- hundreds of mass produced rail-based residences

Brilliant. And it will save MILLIONS in environmental cleanup that neither Harvard nor the state ever hashed out who was going to pay for in order to rehabilitate that site into usable land that can be rezoned as anything other than RR/heavy-industrial. So Hobo Charlesview is pretty much the only hope we have of that whole site not being a barren, windswept wasteland for the next 20 years.

 

[whighlander]

Brilliant. And it will save MILLIONS in environmental cleanup that neither Harvard nor the state ever hashed out who was going to pay for in order to rehabilitate that site into usable land that can be rezoned as anything other than RR/heavy-industrial. So Hobo Charlesview is pretty much the only hope we have of that whole site not being a barren, windswept wasteland for the next 20 years.

Exactly -- if they do it right they can bring in some of the landscape designers from HGTV or its competitors and use the site as a teaching setting for the Harvard [note] Graduate School of Design Masters in Landscape Architecture -- since all of the plantings and hardscape among the rail housing will have to be in pots or on skids -- the whole thing will be like a permanent outdoor Spring Flower Show

In fact in keeping with such names as Kitchen Busters, Yard Crashers, Curb Appeal, Hammer Heads --

I propose that the video of the landscaping of Beacon Park for rail residences be marketed under the title: "Hot Boxes" although I'm open to suggestions

 

[whighlander]

Harvard.

Just Harvard.

Haaaaavaahd stopped being clever about a decade ago.

Thank you.

Stat -- I appreciate that but I wasn't posting here a decade ago so being from the 'Tute' I'm just trying to catch-up with my betters up-river