Route 28 Corridor Rebuild

[Kahta]

http://g.co/maps/mgtuk

Basically, the premise is to rebuild Route 28 below grade to allow for a similar configuration to that of Soldier's Field Road in the HBS area in Allston. The green line would also be extended above grade in a non-intrusive manner along the ROW. At the surface level there would be a two lane road with frequent traffic lights and easy access to the below-grade road.

Additionally, do the same thing to Edwin Land Boulevard in Cambridge. Have extremely tight turning radii at the appropriate ramps, similar to the below-grade one by the Charles river in Allston near the end of Market Street.

I think that the major issue with this area is that much of the traffic has intercity destinations that lack easy access to I-93. If the Inner Belt had been built, I think that much of the Cambridge related traffic would be grade separated and not contributing to the issues there. Additionally, the end of Memorial and Storrow at the Charles River dam dump way too much traffic into that area during peak demand that results in severe congestion (it has taken me 30 minutes to get through there in the evening).

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

I don't think it needs anything that drastic. What they really need to do is downgrade McGrath Highway to a 4-lane boulevard from the Stop & Shop near 93 to Lechmere. Demolish the overpass, shrink it to 4 lanes, grassy median, traffic calming so it's pedestrian navigable, and turn the Medford St.-Washington St.-Somerville Ave. blocks into a new square. I'd even decommission the name McGrath Hwy. entirely, call the 93-to-Medford St. portion an extension of Fellsway, make the other section a contiguous Medford St., and extend O'Brien Hwy. to the Medford St./Somerville Ave. intersection.

Boston-bound traffic from Medford should get redirected onto Mystic Ave./Route 38, which is sorely underutilized. If they reconfigured the access points around the I-93 frontage roads so it didn't require that clusterfuck of a U-turn under 93 to get from Assembly Sq. back to the direction of Sullivan Sq., that can pretty much displace 28 as the thoroughfare. Put an underpass in Sullivan Sq. for Mystic Ave. traffic to merge onto 99 south and avoid backing up at the lights and you've got a more efficient route to Boston on Rutherford Ave. (northbound traffic can still use the light-free rotary). Easier to get to Memorial Dr. going straight over the Gilmore Bridge. Easier to get onto Storrow via the Leverett Connector via the underpass without waiting eons for light cycles. I would even co-sign this route as 99/38 to emphasize it, and ban thru trucks on "McGrath Blvd." to give the ordinance teeth that this is a local street now and to use Mystic Ave.

They do want to downgrade Rutherford Ave. similarly to a boulevard. In that case, act on the proposal to build a replacement frontage road underneath 93/Leverett Connector no man's land branching off the Sullivan underpass and going behind Bunker Hill CC through the industrial backlots...ramps to Austin St. and ending back at Rutherford Ave. with ramps onto Storrow and Route 1 same place those currently are. Good use of no-man's land, restructures the traffic to a route much much better at distributing it around, and returns TWO overstuffed arteries back to their neighborhoods as new liveable boulevards.

 

[Kahta]

How much of what you are talking about was a cancelled portion of the Central Artery project?

Was the entire double deck span of I-93 ever supposed to be turned into a 4 lane or at least a 3+1 inbound without lane drops?

This is largely a response to try to clear the congestion inbound on I-93 as a result of those lane drops. I've seen that portion of roadway slow at the Mystic Ave lane drop from 6:15 to 10 in the morning.

Where did you read about using the no mans land underneath I-93? The most that I had read was a frontage road for part of the length, to take demand off of 99.

One more thing: Whose idea was it to store SALT underneath an elevated section of I-93?