southwest expressway...

[Kahta]

Why didn't Louisville build a few garages instead of tearing down all those buildings for surface lots?

Land was obviously cheap enough that garage parking would not be competitive.

 

[deh74]

Why didn't Louisville build a few garages instead of tearing down all those buildings for surface lots?

because louisville is in the south and as we all know southerners hate density and are allergic to multi-level parking structures.

 

[HalcyonEra]

While I know I’m vastly outnumbered here, I think that not building the Southwest Expressway and Inner Belt was a colossal mistake for this state. The simple fact is Boston has insufficient egress. During that freak daytime snowstorm about 5 years ago, it took me 8 hours to go 20 miles from Cambridge to Metrowest. I shudder to think what would happen if something really serious happened and Boston needed to evacuate.

The Innerbelt would have had 93N/S, the SW Expressway, and Routes 1, 2, and 3 as spokes. I do not buy the more congestion argument as by early 70s there was already local zoning in place which makes high density developments in the suburbs prohibitive, if not impossible, no different than it is now, so I do not think you would have seen a huge increase in population here, nor will you ever for a variety of reasons.

While the SW Expressway tops my list of highway blunders, I think a few more are worth mentioning:
The Middle Circumferential Loop running from Norwell to Boxford, crossing the Pike in Natick
290 Extension to 128, with a connection to the Middle Circumferential Loop in Sudbury (probably could have connected to the Inner Belt as well)
I-84 extension to Manchester NH
Pike bypassing Worcester and Route 2 not being divided to I-91

All of these mistakes make the traffic patterns in this state prone to congestion, especially considering the overcapacity feeder roads to the existing highways.

The bottom line is the Pike is woefully inadequate and cannot be expanded within 128. Public transportation is extremely limited here and will remain so, and the bottom line is city living is not desirable for many. In the past 20 years, I have worked in 7 different central/eastern Mass locations; I am hardly a job hopper, it’s just that the days of people living in the town they work are long gone, except by good fortune.

While I get the “ruin the neighborhood/square” arguments to some extent, the greater good would have been served, and other areas would have been redeveloped. Most of the squares that everyone seems to love are a result of nothing more than cart path remnants and who’s to say that that was the best way to go to begin with.

All the development in Cambridge, for instance, is great, however, getting there is not easy unless you live and work on the Red Line and the 5M or so sqft under development is just going to further stress the infrastructure. I think the extension of the commuter rail through Kendall Square to North Station is a great idea, but I’m not holding my breath for it to happen in the next 20 years.

 

[statler]

No, you are not alone. There is a small but growing number of people on the board who want to see a return to 50's era highway building.

 

[underground]

Breaking news: People who live away from city center shocked to learn it takes time to drive places, sometimes there's traffic. Film at 11.

 

[Matthew]

You don't need to have an increase in population to have an increase in traffic volume. Just shifting trips to driving can do it. One of the reasons its so hard to live in the town you work is the restrictive zoning laws and the massive highway subsidies of the past 50 years.

It takes centuries to form good city neighborhoods, and just hours to wipe them out with bulldozers. It's not possible to "redevelop other areas" to re-obtain what was lost.

 

[HalcyonEra]

Breaking News: Ideologue fails to face reality of the times. No film can be shown due to an emergency injunction granted by an activist judge.

I’d love to get the time machine going and stop GM from buying all of the trolley manufacturers as the trolley system was really the only true effective mass transportation system America has ever had; or stop the Teamsters from becoming so powerful in bringing us the days of standard cross-continental long haul trucking at the expense of the railroads; or bring back manufacturing to the US so that fair wage jobs did not have to be in suburban business parks or clustered near colleges, hospitals, military sites etc.; or return to the days where only one spouse had to work. But I can’t get the damn thing running.

We are a mobile society. But we are also a fractured society, with our interests, skills and living preferences. Good luck finding a job for you and your spouse in close proximity to your home with your required wages to maintain your standing of living (not applicable to hipsters and trust fund beneficiaries).

The amount of lost time and pollution caused by traffic congestion and nimbyism does no one any favors.

It may take centuries to form good city neighborhoods, but that is really Europe centric thinking. American city neighborhoods have long served the underclass and immigrant communities. In most cases, the families are gone within a generation, perhaps two, three tops. When a neighborhood is successful and becomes desirable, demand for it increases and therefore the price becomes prohibitive for most (see Southie for current example)

 

[underground]

The time machine evidently already exists and it allows posting from the 60s.

And I don't want to be a buzz kill BUT, literally hundreds of MILLIONS of people manage to live close to work and keep up their standard of living. Even supposed idiot ideologues such as myself can do it.

 

[Matthew]

I'd love that time machine too, but the first thing you must do is Kill Hitler.

There's several inconsistencies in your post: Teamsters didn't cause the decline of the railroads; highway subsidies did -- by eliminating the (very high) cost of maintenance-of-way for trucking. But despite that, the freight railroads survived and are growing because, fundamentally, they are far more efficient than trucking.

Second, what does decline in manufacturing have to do with suburban business parks? They are orthogonal issues.

Third, you cannot reduce congestion by building more highways. Traffic volumes will increase faster than can be handled, as more people shift into cars. And highways are unable to handle peaking loads well at all for basic reasons of geometry. Cars take up too much space, and there will never be enough lanes that can be reasonably packed into a right-of-way to handle the demand.

Also, the last time I checked, Europeans are the same species as Americans. Despite the rhetoric you may hear, the differences are superficial. Crossing the Atlantic doesn't change or repeal physics, geometry, mathematics, economics or psychology. Cities are still the building blocks of economies, and space is a limited resource.

But do let me know if you invent that time machine.

 

[AmericanFolkLegend]

The amount of lost time and pollution caused by traffic congestion and nimbyism does no one any favors.

But you advocate expanding a system that perpetuates lost time and pollution cause by traffic congestion.
Southern Cal built freeways to try to accommodate growth. It didn't prevent congestion. It convinced everyone they needed a car to live there. But our differences are probably ideological. You don't think that's a bad thing. I do.

 

[Lurker]

Auto centric design is akin to the limitations of structural masonry to attain height and span great distances. At a certain point the return on investment has diminished so much, with most of the desired volumed filled with necessary structure, as to make further effort fruitless at best, or cause a collapse at worst.

 

[statler]

That is an excellent analogy Lurker.

 

[HalcyonEra]

But you advocate expanding a system that perpetuates lost time and pollution cause by traffic congestion.
Southern Cal built freeways to try to accommodate growth. It didn't prevent congestion. It convinced everyone they needed a car to live there. But our differences are probably ideological. You don't think that's a bad thing. I do.

No, but I do think it can be improved to be more efficient. I do not believe in totally ignoring the problem and I am not advocating the Southern California solution either. The closest distance between two points is a straight line (natural barriers aside). If you look at the major populations centers in Mass - Greater Boston, Lowell, Worcester, Brockton, Fall River/NB, there are not direct connections between any of them. You snake around and indirectly connect in some instances. The SW Xway and Inner Belt would have for the most part achieved that. I believe in efficiency, not waste, which is what I think most of our roads here are, wasteful in design. But need not worry, there will never be any new highways built here.

As far as the car thing goes, tha is deep and there is a lot to it, going way back. If it wasn't clear earlier, I am a big fan of the trolley system and I think that we as a society got totally screwed on that one

 

[HalcyonEra]

But you advocate expanding a system that perpetuates lost time and pollution cause by traffic congestion.
Southern Cal built freeways to try to accommodate growth. It didn't prevent congestion. It convinced everyone they needed a car to live there. But our differences are probably ideological. You don't think that's a bad thing. I do.

Another point re: Nimbyism. Route 128 / 9 interchange. prime, high visible location. Mass DPW site is redeveloped into a 3 story blah insurance office. That was a perfect location for a dense mixed use development with some height, and the state actually originally floated that, only to be shot down by the locals.

 

[massmotorist]

No, you are not alone. There is a small but growing number of people on the board who want to see a return to 50's era highway building.

I think too often people here get into a pro-highway vs anti-highway, partisan type of mentality when thinking about transportation policy. The reality is, the world's complicated than that.

As far as Routes 2 and 3, and the Inner Belt, I disagree with Halycon. But look at this group of projects:

• The Middle Circumferential Loop running from Norwell to Boxford, crossing the Pike in Natick
• 290 Extension to 128, with a connection to the Middle Circumferential Loop in Sudbury
• I-84 extension to Manchester NH
• Pike bypassing Worcester and Route 2 not being divided to I-91

These aren't 1950's excess. They just reflect a pro-growth mentality. These projects would have largely involved building on farmland in the boonies, not destroying cities.

A prosperous and healthy city (and by that I mean region) like Boston needs both highways and transit. It needs to accommodate lots of different types of people. Diversity is a big part of what makes a city great. Not just diversity of race or socioeconomics. But diversity of mentality, preferences, background, education, and lifestyle.

If the highways Halcyon proposed had been built, they would have facilitated significantly more growth in metro Boston. A bigger economy means a wider range of opportunities for jobs. It means better productivity and pay through better matching of the skills of workers with the needs of employers. And it provides more opportunity for innovation to happen.

The fact is that these days in order to build in core, built-up urban areas it takes a whole lot of money, political clout, time, etc, and when it's done you're talking about very expensive space. That's affordable for the Liberty Mutuals of the city. But huge multinational companies aren't what drives this city.

There's a lot of innovation that happens in things like start-up incubators in the core, but at the same time innovative companies are started by people in the 'burbs who would never want to live or work anywhere dense enough for transit access to be viable on a large scale. You don't want to shut them out. And there are innovative companies started by people who flock to the suburbs for the sake of costs, which will always be cheaper there.

I don't agree with the comments implying that neighborhood squares or transit are a thing of the past, but I don't think they're sufficient in and of themselves for the future either. I think they'll thrive either way. It's not a zero-sum game. If that list of projects were done, we'd all experience the benefit of a more prosperous region.

 

[deh74]

The Middle Circumferential Loop running from Norwell to Boxford, crossing the Pike in Natick
290 Extension to 128, with a connection to the Middle Circumferential Loop in Sudbury (probably could have connected to the Inner Belt as well)
I-84 extension to Portland, Maine via Manchester
Pike bypassing Worcester and Route 2 not being divided to I-91

fixed it.

 

[omaja]

The closest distance between two points is a straight line (natural barriers aside). If you look at the major populations centers in Mass - Greater Boston, Lowell, Worcester, Brockton, Fall River/NB, there are not direct connections between any of them. You snake around and indirectly connect in some instances. The SW Xway and Inner Belt would have for the most part achieved that. I believe in efficiency, not waste, which is what I think most of our roads here are, wasteful in design. But need not worry, there will never be any new highways built here.

How would the SWX and Inner Belt be useful for connecting those places? I think the only city without an easy (in terms of direct routing) connection to Boston is Lowell because the detour along 128 to 93 is pretty out of the way. There would still be a jog along 128 to get to 24 for Brockton, Fall River and New Bedford; not to mention, Worcester is a short jog away from the Pike. SWX and Inner Belt wouldn't have changed any of that.

I don't agree with the comments implying that neighborhood squares or transit are a thing of the past, but I don't think they're sufficient in and of themselves for the future either. I think they'll thrive either way. It's not a zero-sum game. If that list of projects were done, we'd all experience the benefit of a more prosperous region.

While I certainly agree with the sentiment that any development and investment in infrastructure in the region is a positive, I'm not so sure we would have seen an appreciable difference if more highways were built in the suburb though. We've averaged 0.4% growth in the metro area (Boston-Cambridge-Quincy MA-NH MSA) per year 1970-2011 so I'm thinking more highways would have shifted growth from the core, just as they did originally.

 

[AmericanFolkLegend]

No, but I do think it can be improved to be more efficient. I do not believe in totally ignoring the problem and I am not advocating the Southern California solution either. The closest distance between two points is a straight line (natural barriers aside). If you look at the major populations centers in Mass - Greater Boston, Lowell, Worcester, Brockton, Fall River/NB, there are not direct connections between any of them. You snake around and indirectly connect in some instances. The SW Xway and Inner Belt would have for the most part achieved that. I believe in efficiency, not waste, which is what I think most of our roads here are, wasteful in design. But need not worry, there will never be any new highways built here.

You make good points about efficiency. And I agree with you on the destructive effects of NIMBYism. Unfortunately in Greater Boston the closest distance between two points is only a straight line if it doesn't cross through a wealthy neighborhood.

 

[HalcyonEra]

Obviously the SW Xway would have required a short trip on 128 to 24. But, that’s better than the existing options of 93 or the Pike. To me, the Pike is an unmitigated disaster. Perpetually gridlocked (along with 93 of course), and severely hampered by the colossal engineering mistake known as Newton Corner. Leaving the city, heading west, you have 3 choices, therefore a trip onto 128 is often a requirement, further adding to those traffic counts.

The only overbuilt road is Rt 2 between 128 and Cambridge, and it is wasted, going from 4 lanes into a neighborhood. I have to think that was built in anticipation of the Inner Belt. My point on 84, is simply due to N/S traffic which now has to clog the highways near Boston, when they are really only passing through. A divided route 2 to 91 would have provided a legitimate alternative to the Pike, which on any given day is a clogged drive between Boston to 495 and Auburn to 84.

We also severely lack true parkways, like the Merritt Parkway in Ct – limited access, divided with a truck restriction. There are virtually no multi-lane secondary roads, unless you count rts 9 and 1, both of which are geared toward local short trip traffic. In particular, I think truck traffic really fouls things up, I’d love to ban them on certain roads during rush hour. Hell, I’d like to ban any truck trucks trips over 200/300 miles and force the freight to rail. I really thought that when gas prices spiked that rail would see a similar spike. While rail did get a small bump, all that really happened was that the fuel costs were passed onto the consumer.

Massmotorist’s synopsis is similar to mine, regional growth is limited to select locations and those are limited, often requiring expensive redevelopment (e.g. Burlington’s NW Park, the stalled Westwood project, Polaroid in Waltham, etc). What is lost in these redevelopments is cheap class B office space, which many start-ups need. A significant portion of the local economic engine is the high-tech belts of 128, 495 and 3. Public transport is nonexistent in most of those areas, and to bring something like light rail there would be tremendously expensive and, let’s face it, impossible given the communities involved.

 

[Matthew]

What makes you think that the SW expressway and the inner belt would not be congested? I bet you they would be horribly congested and people would be swearing about them.

I was in Austin this past September, and that city is overbuilt with highways and parking lots, and has little public transit. A bus system and a sad, mostly single tracked, commuter rail line (using Stadler DMUs though!). They don't dig underground there at all. The traffic jams I saw were epic. Sudden unexplained stand-stills for miles. They know it's a problem, but they're stuck in the rut, trying to get out.

Remember that it's not enough to build the highways, you also need to build the parking lots to accommodate the influx of cars. That may be even worse in terms of damage to the urban fabric.

The answer to where you supply office space is to start with the locations already served by the T. There's plenty of room to expand around transit stations in the Boston area. We're seeing some of it around the Red Line, I'd like to see more. The Orange Line has vast empty tracts of land adjacent to it -- tons of opportunity. The Blue Line is underutilized. The Green Line Extension will open up even more empty land.