Route 128 Developments

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this next building is kind of hidden behind the Woburn mall
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wooooooooooo sprawl! I mean....booooooo sprawl!
 
Burlington doesn't need more office buildings (or any buildings). It needs more roads to alleviate the out-of-control traffic that it already has. Woe to anybody who tries to drive through there between 4:30-6:30.

Of course, they're going ahead with the opposite route, adding a Wegman's near the mall exit (down the hill from the movie theater) and more office space between the mall and 3A. I really don't know what kind of benefits the town is receiving from this. They barely even plow the damn roads when it snows. It's disgraceful.
 
That stretch of 128 is starting to remind me of a mini-Orange County in the "Orange Crush" area.

DZH22 said:
Burlington doesn't need more office buildings (or any buildings). It needs more roads to alleviate the out-of-control traffic that it already has. Woe to anybody who tries to drive through there between 4:30-6:30.

Of course, they're going ahead with the opposite route, adding a Wegman's near the mall exit (down the hill from the movie theater) and more office space between the mall and 3A. I really don't know what kind of benefits the town is receiving from this. They barely even plow the damn roads when it snows. It's disgraceful.
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Czervik.Construction said:
What are they supposed to do with the site? Build a 40 story tower? That area hardly needs more retail with the mall nearby.
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Attempt to construct a walkable, mixed-use community. Like what they are trying to do at riverside. Or what they did for the 200 years before the car on similarly sized pieces of land. There is no reason this has to be constrained to the inner cities, creating little hamlets of "downtown" areas works fine in the burbs too. And in the future will probably make the difference between a suburb that flourishes and one that falls apart under crushing traffic and road maintenance costs.
 
davem said:
Attempt to construct a walkable, mixed-use community. Like what they are trying to do at riverside. Or what they did for the 200 years before the car on similarly sized pieces of land. There is no reason this has to be constrained to the inner cities, creating little hamlets of "downtown" areas works fine in the burbs too. And in the future will probably make the difference between a suburb that flourishes and one that falls apart under crushing traffic and road maintenance costs.
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Towns like that do not want additional residential development due to the strain they put on local services, in particular schools. They would much rather add more commercial space and let other communities worry about residential growth. Despite all of the commercial development there, the population has barely changed in 40 years:

1970 21,980 +71.0%
1980 23,486 +6.9%
1990 23,302 −0.8%
2000 22,876 −1.8%
2010 24,498 +7.1%

In our highly corrupt, all politics is local, way of live, most of the built up suburbs allow commercial development within the town and collect the gratuity, ah mitigation funds from the developer and provide no consideration to its neighbors. It's the Massachusetts way and unlikely to change.

See Westwood Station for a prime example of what happens when neighboring communities try to get a piece of the pie.
 
davem said:
Attempt to construct a walkable, mixed-use community. Like what they are trying to do at riverside. Or what they did for the 200 years before the car on similarly sized pieces of land. There is no reason this has to be constrained to the inner cities, creating little hamlets of "downtown" areas works fine in the burbs too. And in the future will probably make the difference between a suburb that flourishes and one that falls apart under crushing traffic and road maintenance costs.
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For what it's worth Burlington is already attempting to do that. In the meantime, there's no reason (or incentive really) for the Town to reject redevelopment of brownfields (or probably more appropriately, whitefields, since it is white collar development replacing white collar development). The Town of Burlington's planning strategy for decades has been to keep the majority of commercial development along the 128 corridor and residential and service related retail along 3A and in the northern two thirds of the town, so development south of Mall Road doesn't have much impact on the 80% or so of the population that lives north of there. The overlay district is a newer tactic to help correct the mistakes of the 1950s, when the town began its transformation from a sleepy farming community to a ring suburb.
 
On the face of it, a walkable, mixed-use community sounds like a great idea. However, you are in Burlington and this site (as are many others) is not near public transportation. You would still have to drive to and from this place, thus still having the traffic problem.

davem said:
Attempt to construct a walkable, mixed-use community. Like what they are trying to do at riverside. Or what they did for the 200 years before the car on similarly sized pieces of land. There is no reason this has to be constrained to the inner cities, creating little hamlets of "downtown" areas works fine in the burbs too. And in the future will probably make the difference between a suburb that flourishes and one that falls apart under crushing traffic and road maintenance costs.
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I'm not talking mixed use the way we see in in Boston. Just next to that office building, instead of a sea of parking, a few condo buildings with a smattering of first floor retail (convenience store, coffee shop, maybe have the cafeteria for the office building be accessible from the outside as well). Even if only 1% of the people who work in that office building live in the condos, its that fewer cars on the road. And if a few basic amenities are close to the building, its that fewer trips out.

Wash, rinse, repeat. If every redevelopment follows a similar path, it would start to add up over time. Eventually there are a lot more people walking or biking. Or even driving, but driving shorter trips across more diverse routes then just making a mess out of 128. Add a place the office workers want to walk to after work. Even though people are still driving to and from the office, they aren't doing it at rush hour. Baby steps.

Just looking at the pictures above, something as simple as adding side walks or a path between each building could help. The people in the hotel might walk a building or two down to a restaurant. The office workers might do the same. The biggest issues with these developments is that they are designed 100% for cars. Even simply adding a stipulation that the site must be made accessable for modes other then automobiles will change peoples behaviors. The buildings are closer then a lot in Brighton for instance. But Brighton has sidewalks. You don't feel like a loser walking through the weeds on the side of the road.
 
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