southwest expressway...

what effect would the southwest expressway have had on Bostons traffic

  • Less congestion

    Votes: 4 12.9%

  • more congestion

    Votes: 18 58.1%

  • same congestion

    Votes: 9 29.0%
  • Total voters
    31
Remember that it's not enough to build the highways, you also need to build the parking garages to accommodate the influx of cars.
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Fixed that for you.
 
Matthew said:
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.
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The SW Corridor (Orange Line/CR) actually is where the SWX was supposed to go and as you've pointed out it's extremely underutilized. It not only has land adjacent to it, but it also has air rights on top of it. There's tremendous potential for TOD development that is being underutilized.

It's great to see all these developers trying to squeeze in new towers wherever they can downtown in the core, but we need developers to start looking outside the core along the transit lines. "Boston" as we know it today could explode in population.
 
The entire point is that, yes, all that TOD is great and should be done, but you also need suburban space and highway connections. The idea is not necessarily that these highways get more people into the city, requiring more parking garages, but that they facilitate additional regional expansion and connections.

Large office buildings aren't there along the SW Corridor because it is so difficult and time consuming to reach unless you live along the Orange Line or in Downtown. No business wants to limit its pool of workers to that extent. If the SW Expressway was there you'd have a whole lot more business development - granted, of a more suburban character, but there would be a whole lot more.
 
massmotorist said:
The entire point is that, yes, all that TOD is great and should be done, but you also need suburban space and highway connections. The idea is not necessarily that these highways get more people into the city, requiring more parking garages, but that they facilitate additional regional expansion and connections.

Large office buildings aren't there along the SW Corridor because it is so difficult and time consuming to reach unless you live along the Orange Line or in Downtown. No business wants to limit its pool of workers to that extent. If the SW Expressway was there you'd have a whole lot more business development - granted, of a more suburban character, but there would be a whole lot more.
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I don't agree with this analysis- do we see this kind of development you're talking about alongside the Southeast Expressway? As far as I can tell, you do not. For the most part people just use it to get into the desirable office complexes downtown. Above-ground highways are noisy and often dirty- there's a reason in the suburbs they're usually isolated and surrounded by buffer areas. (But there's no space for those buffers in the city)

It seems your post could be used as an argument for extending the Orange Line to somewhere along Route 128- thus, it would be highway-accessible, without having to have an actual highway plowing through everything.
 
massmotorist said:
Large office buildings aren't there along the SW Corridor because it is so difficult and time consuming to reach unless you live along the Orange Line or in Downtown. No business wants to limit its pool of workers to that extent. If the SW Expressway was there you'd have a whole lot more business development - granted, of a more suburban character, but there would be a whole lot more.
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I'm not talking about office buildings. I'm talking about res. The office buildings belong in the core. My reference to "towers downtown" was in re: the housing boom that is going on. Large amounts of people should be living along the SW Corridor and commuting to work (in the core) via transit.
 
novitiate said:
I don't agree with this analysis- do we see this kind of development you're talking about alongside the Southeast Expressway? As far as I can tell, you do not. For the most part people just use it to get into the desirable office complexes downtown. Above-ground highways are noisy and often dirty- there's a reason in the suburbs they're usually isolated and surrounded by buffer areas. (But there's no space for those buffers in the city)

It seems your post could be used as an argument for extending the Orange Line to somewhere along Route 128- thus, it would be highway-accessible, without having to have an actual highway plowing through everything.
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North Quincy?
 
novitiate said:
I don't agree with this analysis- do we see this kind of development you're talking about alongside the Southeast Expressway? As far as I can tell, you do not. For the most part people just use it to get into the desirable office complexes downtown. Above-ground highways are noisy and often dirty- there's a reason in the suburbs they're usually isolated and surrounded by buffer areas. (But there's no space for those buffers in the city)

It seems your post could be used as an argument for extending the Orange Line to somewhere along Route 128- thus, it would be highway-accessible, without having to have an actual highway plowing through everything.
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Have you ever been to Quincy? Marina Bay? Crown Colony? Newport Ave? The South Shore Plaza/Braintree Split area office parks? Quincy Center's comeback would not be happening without the expressway connection via Burgin Parkway. That's not to say the Red Line isn't important for that development but the expressway has contributed as much if not far more to the overall economic vitality of that city, without which that development would not be happening. Large parts of the area around the SE Expressway were already developed, but those that weren't have undergone extensive economic development.

P.S. Cities are also noisy and often dirty.
 
massmotorist said:
Large office buildings aren't there along the SW Corridor because it is so difficult and time consuming to reach unless you live along the Orange Line or in Downtown. No business wants to limit its pool of workers to that extent.
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Is that why no business has sprung up along the Red Line between Kendall and Alewife?
 
That is probably due to Cambridge having MIT and Harvard. There's nothing like that along the SW Corridor.
 
Charlie_mta said:
That is probably due to Cambridge having MIT and Harvard. There's nothing like that along the SW Corridor.
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That's a big part of it, but the Cambridge road/highway connections are also night and day compared to the SW Corridor's, and the wealthy suburbs in Cambridge are a lot denser/closer/more integrated anyway.

Try getting from any bedroom community south/southwest of Boston to any of the Boston neighborhoods along that corridor - you can't do it in any sort of reasonable period of time, even outside of rush hour. Despite the geographical closeness, Hyde Park/Readville/W. Roxbury aren't even on the map to most people from Dedham/Westwood/Norwood. That area's just a transportation dead zone, and its economic growth is strangled as a result.

Driving from Belmont/Arlington/Watertown/Waltham into Cambridge isn't anywhere as bad.
 
I wasn't talking about West Roxbury/Hyde Park. I meant South End/Roxbury/Jamaica Plain. The Orange line.

That area has enormous roads criss-crossing it. Melnea Cass, Columbus, Malcolm X, etc. Walking there feels like being in a highway median strip, especially with the empty vacant lots around you. I think the problem has more to do with zoning and NIMBY fights than anything.

7078115133_ec40de42ca.jpg


^ Across the street from Roxbury Crossing station.
 
Matthew said:
I wasn't talking about West Roxbury/Hyde Park. I meant South End/Roxbury/Jamaica Plain. The Orange line.

That area has enormous roads criss-crossing it. Melnea Cass, Columbus, Malcolm X, etc. Walking there feels like being in a highway median strip, especially with the empty vacant lots around you. I think the problem has more to do with zoning and NIMBY fights than anything.

7078115133_ec40de42ca.jpg


^ Across the street from Roxbury Crossing station.
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This guy's got it. Not only are there NIMBY's, but the area leaves a lot to be desired. Plus it's still a bit dodgy (at least, people's perception of it is). The highway connections aren't bad; get off on the Mass Ave connector and you're there in roughly 5-10 mins from the SE Expressway. Transportation is only one part of the equation.

Plus, if you're moving your company to Boston, might as well do it in Downtown/Seaport. The O-line doesn't really make up for the connectivity of those areas.
 
massmotorist said:
Try getting from any bedroom community south/southwest of Boston to any of the Boston neighborhoods along that corridor - you can't do it in any sort of reasonable period of time, even outside of rush hour. Despite the geographical closeness, Hyde Park/Readville/W. Roxbury aren't even on the map to most people from Dedham/Westwood/Norwood. That area's just a transportation dead zone, and its economic growth is strangled as a result.
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The biggest issue with Boston's southwestern neighborhoods is that they have almost zero transit access. There are several high-capacity roads that crisscross the area in a haphazard way, but by and large there's literally no way to go anywhere without a car. Cramming more lane miles through there won't make it any better.
 
That lot in the image is Parcel 25, soon to be a fantastic TOD.
 
Max Power said:
This guy's got it. Not only are there NIMBY's, but the area leaves a lot to be desired. Plus it's still a bit dodgy (at least, people's perception of it is). The highway connections aren't bad; get off on the Mass Ave connector and you're there in roughly 5-10 mins from the SE Expressway. Transportation is only one part of the equation.

Plus, if you're moving your company to Boston, might as well do it in Downtown/Seaport. The O-line doesn't really make up for the connectivity of those areas.
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Rightly or wrongly, the Orange Line is never going be built up to the critical mass to be a desirable location for office space for a variety of reasons, from the NIMBY's in the South End & JP to its past reputation as being unsafe. Boston memories die slowly, very slowly.
 
HalcyonEra said:
Rightly or wrongly, the Orange Line is never going be built up to the critical mass to be a desirable location for office space for a variety of reasons, from the NIMBY's in the South End & JP to its past reputation as being unsafe. Boston memories die slowly, very slowly.
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Convert the Reading Branch to Orange Line with a stop at 128 in Wakefield. Boom, commercial office space on the whole length of the Orange Line suddenly sees skyrocketing demand. It is probably the easiest possible way to get some rapid transit to 128, too.
 
HalcyonEra said:
Rightly or wrongly, the Orange Line is never going be built up to the critical mass to be a desirable location for office space for a variety of reasons, from the NIMBY's in the South End & JP to its past reputation as being unsafe. Boston memories die slowly, very slowly.
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Past reputation?
 
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