South Station Tower | South Station Air Rights | Downtown

Take the tax generation by this project and the cost of SSX and use that money to fund the NSRL.
 
This project is incredible.

Exponential public benefit + economic impact.
 
chrisbrat said:
millenium tower generates nearly $11 million in property taxes annually for the city. this will be in the same range. you don't think "the public" in boston might benefit from another $11 million brought in via SST? your concerns about a couple years of "darkness" as you walk to/from your commuter rail train are more important?
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What has that $11 million from Millennium tower gotten you as a resident of Boston? Have you noticed services have improved?

And are you really going to pretend that Penn Station isnt universally detested in part because it's underground? The darkness will be permanent.

FitchburgLine said:
In addition, the expansion is very expensive (tens of millions of $s); with the tower, the state gets it for free. If you don't value the improvements for bus riders, fine, but state that.
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Do we have any data if the bus expansion even makes sense in 2020? As pointed out earlier, this has been planned for 20+ years. Is the bus terminal designed for "future demand 2005" really what makes sense in 2020?

Maybes its too big. Maybes its too small. Maybe it should be somewhere else. This isnt how infrastructure should be planned!


bakgwailo said:
Take the tax generation by this project and the cost of SSX and use that money to fund the NSRL.
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At $11 million a year, how many years until the tax revenue can fund NSRL?

Im thinking a few centuries.
 
Whats the point of arguing about a tower that was stalled for 20 years... 2 weeks before construction may finally start? Bring this stuff up in 2006, or at the final meeting in April if its public and you have genuine concerns, theres no point right now.. on archboston.
 
The City has evolved for hundreds of years--doing great things that are bigger than any one of us. We appear to have survived our lost weekend (Brutalism). Tore down train sheds, and El tracks.... removed train yards. Built ugly highways, and dug tunnels, then sunk old highways underground. As the City grew, there were a few mumblings now and again–a wayward soul remarked how this thing or that must end. Another railed, "Not in my back yard!...."

But the masses loved Boston more than themselves. Great men and women came, dug deep down below the Old City, forged steel and concrete.... sent their children to Suffolk U. And Shirley Kressel retired to the Leeward Islands–reuniting w/ an old friend (Ned) at the bingo table.
 
I have yet to see a single good argument against this project. Carry on.
 
jass said:
Do we have any data if the bus expansion even makes sense in 2020? As pointed out earlier, this has been planned for 20+ years. Is the bus terminal designed for "future demand 2005" really what makes sense in 2020?

Maybes its too big. Maybes its too small. Maybe it should be somewhere else. This isnt how infrastructure should be planned!
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Just because you haven't done research doesn't mean others haven't. https://www.ctps.org/2013_mass_bus_study
South Station has no gates available for new carriers, and capacity at peak hours is limited by loading/unloading space. The existing terminal is in a great location, very accessible to transit (and could be set up to allow easy intercity rail transfers, which... the tower will pay for). Moving the terminal would be another expense MassDOT isn't willing to pay for, and having 2 bus terminals would be even worse.
If you don't care about the benefits to bus riders, that's fine! Most people don't, among them MassDOT. But the benefits are real.
 
Coyote137 said:
I have yet to see a single good argument against this project. Carry on.
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that's b/c there aren't any. you have a couple people (primarily just one...) propogating small-minded, textbook, "that's the way things were in my day - and we liked it!" NIMBYism, while insisting that they're absolultely, in no way, being reactionary NIMBYs. it's beyond stupid.
 
I will probably get reemed for this, but after living in East Asian mega-cities for two decades, seeing people complain about having their morning train commutes inconvenienced by new construction is kind of cute.

Shibuya Station - which sees around 2.8 million riders pass through every week day and is considered to be the world's third or fourth busiest train station - currently has five towers (all bigger than South Station Tower) going up above its tracks. I haven't given the impact on my morning commute a second thought.

#WesternProblems
 
jass said:
At $11 million a year, how many years until the tax revenue can fund NSRL?

Im thinking a few centuries.
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Plus the air rights cost, and, if we were smart, it would be a land lease. The same thing that was bandied around by Baker as funding for the SSX (vs the NSRL). Add in any and all revenue over North Station, too, and its something that would go a decent way with general State and Federal funding.
 
Given some of the criticism on here about how 'darkening' this who thing is going to be for those who use South Station, and how there's no public benefit, please consider renders like this:

https://boston.curbed.com/2016/12/16/13980206/south-station-tower-1-dewey-square
south-station-tower-1-dewey-square
 
jass said:
You deal with a few years of pain for a better experience. At the end of the GLX construction, you will have a brand new GLX to ride. At the end of the Casey construction, you can safely take an overpass without it collapsing.
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Yes, I get that distinction. But the South Station Tower means lots of tax revenue for the city, which is a good way of providing amenities all over the place to the benefit of residents. It is also my understanding that this tower will help fund the expansion, in particular the expanded bus terminal which is an actual component of the commercial construction plans.
What are the public benefits here exactly? What does the commuter dealing with years of shit get in return? Darkness? What a deal! Now they get to feel like theyre in Penn station!
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LOL, Penn Station. If you want to be taken seriously, don't make such a blatantly ridiculous statement. And as already noted, there is a direct transportation benefit in the bus terminal expansion.
 
I'm here to nitpick: SSX and NSRL are both necessary and one cannot replace the other.

Anyway, tower is nothing special but build it anyway.
 
cadetcarl said:
I'm here to nitpick: SSX and NSRL are both necessary and one cannot replace the other.

Anyway, tower is nothing special but build it anyway.
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NSRL would be more beneficial than SSX, if you had to choose one. It would help with capacity on both the north and south sides and give north side lines better access to the regions job centers (North Station is honestly not a great location, the financial district is centered more around South Station than it is North Station).
 
tysmith95 said:
NSRL would be more beneficial than SSX, if you had to choose one. It would help with capacity on both the north and south sides and give north side lines better access to the regions job centers (North Station is honestly not a great location, the financial district is centered more around South Station than it is North Station).
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I'm curious, how many tracks do people envision a NSRL being? To be operationally feasible were talking at least 3 tracks each direction right? The cross section of 6 tracks is *massive.* Wouldn't it make more sense to just connect NS and SS with a better transit connection?

Can someone explain the operational benefits of NSRL, like how does it work. Do trains from say Franklin line stop at SS, then go to North station then come back? Do all the incoming trains do this or just some? How is this really any better than a rapid transit link between NS and SS? The dwell times at the stations will be massive anyway given the number of people who will still get off at SS and the inefficiency of boarding a commuter rail train. The congestion in the tunnel would be crazy if you tried to send even half the incoming trains in the morning through it, so chances are commuters would have to get off at SS and change to a train continuing onward. So at that point, why not just change to a nice rapid transit link from SS to NS? It would cost far less than NSRL too.
 
FitchburgLine said:
Just because you haven't done research doesn't mean others haven't. https://www.ctps.org/2013_mass_bus_study
South Station has no gates available for new carriers, and capacity at peak hours is limited by loading/unloading space. The existing terminal is in a great location, very accessible to transit (and could be set up to allow easy intercity rail transfers, which... the tower will pay for). Moving the terminal would be another expense MassDOT isn't willing to pay for, and having 2 bus terminals would be even worse.
If you don't care about the benefits to bus riders, that's fine! Most people don't, among them MassDOT. But the benefits are real.
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I have a single complaint about the bus terminal location. Much like the Silver Line, very little thought was put into how buses would join the interstate and therefore all NB I-93 buses travel on surface streets through Chinatown to and from the entrance/exit outside the main south station terminal.
 
HelloBostonHi said:
I'm curious, how many tracks do people envision a NSRL being? To be operationally feasible were talking at least 3 tracks each direction right? The cross section of 6 tracks is *massive.* Wouldn't it make more sense to just connect NS and SS with a better transit connection?

Can someone explain the operational benefits of NSRL, like how does it work. Do trains from say Franklin line stop at SS, then go to North station then come back? Do all the incoming trains do this or just some? How is this really any better than a rapid transit link between NS and SS? The dwell times at the stations will be massive anyway given the number of people who will still get off at SS and the inefficiency of boarding a commuter rail train. The congestion in the tunnel would be crazy if you tried to send even half the incoming trains in the morning through it, so chances are commuters would have to get off at SS and change to a train continuing onward. So at that point, why not just change to a nice rapid transit link from SS to NS? It would cost far less than NSRL too.
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There are dozens of pages of forum threads devoted to answering this question on this website. For starters, go here.

This thread is not the place for this discussion.
 
640k in office space would be, what, another couple thousand jobs?
 
HelloBostonHi said:
I have a single complaint about the bus terminal location. Much like the Silver Line, very little thought was put into how buses would join the interstate and therefore all NB I-93 buses travel on surface streets through Chinatown to and from the entrance/exit outside the main south station terminal.
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On the other hand, for buses going to/from the Turnpike (I come up from NYC almost every week) getting in and out of the terminal is almost stupidly easy. Especially inbound, it's a direct ramp off the highway with zero traffic lights or cross streets.
 
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