The Boston Bypass

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cool36

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I want to know more about this proposed highway a 10-mile double-deck road-and-rail bridge over Boston Harbor from Dorchester to Charlestown including railway access to Logan Airport. The intent would be to remove traffic from the downtown stretch of Interstate 93, also known as the Central Artery. I want to know is it canceled,proposed or its gonna be built in the future.
 
The intent was to protect the North End from the same guy who yearly proposed a new use for an aircraft carrier in Boston Harbor. His lattest plan is a pot museum but he's looking for backers. Apparently he has a large collection of cooking pots

Charlestown?s Vincent Zarrilli ran a local chain of retail outlets called The Pot Shop in the 1960s. He?s got 3,000 pieces of cookware stored in a Chelsea warehouse and is seeking partners to help turn the collection into The Pot Shop Cookware Museum in the Charlestown Navy Yard sometime next year.
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http://www.bostonherald.com/entertainment/food_dining/food/view.bg?articleid=1076092
 
Any diagram for what he proposed? Something visual for this path that would be better than the Big Dig?
 
I know there are still a few of those yellow BB signs around town.
 
Cool36:

This was just some guys pipe dream from the 1980s as an alternative to the Big Dig. To the best of my knowledge, it was never given even the least consideration by the state transportation department--and thus, cannot truly be considered to be "canceled", "postponed", or even "proposed".

And it will not be built. Highway construction on environmentally sensitive islands and coastline just won't fly.
 
Dan said:
Highway construction on environmentally sensitive islands and coastline just won't fly.
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How about tunneling it. They should use for a alternative for the bridge.
 
Hahaha. As if the Big Dig wasn't expensive/doesn't leak/isn't collapsing enough.
 
Any problems Boston has, or has had is the fault of very poor city planning decades ago. The Big Dig has had a tremendous effect on the traffic in and around Boston making things a lot easier. However, things could be even better. The fundamental flaw I see in the planning for streets and highways in Boston starts and ends with the idiots who decided against the grid system and decided to put the heart of downtown on the akward and odd shaped tip of Boston that it is located on. Add in the fact that the current expressway/ highway system we have in place today is inferior to those of other cities, and we have problems.

I was out in Chicago the other day and one thing I noticed they do, along with Los Angeles, is have traffic lights at highway on ramps, and also a temporary extended entry lane from each onramp onto the highway, something Boston needs.
 
Are you recommending tearing apart Boston's urban fabric so that it will be easier to drive around in the city?

mass88 said:
Any problems Boston has, or has had is the fault of very poor city planning decades ago.
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Centuries, actually.

mass88 said:
The fundamental flaw I see in the planning for streets and highways in Boston starts and ends with the idiots who decided against the grid system and decided to put the heart of downtown on the akward and odd shaped tip of Boston that it is located on.
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Damn Puritans! What the hell was that Mr Blackstone thinking?

mass88 said:
Add in the fact that the current expressway/ highway system we have in place today is inferior to those of other cities, and we have problems.
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As I walk around the city I often think to myself, "Damn! why can't this place be more like Atlanta!"

mass88 said:
I was out in Chicago the other day and one thing I noticed they do, along with Los Angeles, is have traffic lights at highway on ramps, and also a temporary extended entry lane from each onramp onto the highway, something Boston needs.
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Or LA!
 
mass88 said:
The fundamental flaw I see in the planning for streets and highways in Boston starts and ends with the idiots who decided against the grid system and decided to put the heart of downtown on the akward and odd shaped tip of Boston that it is located on.
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In 1630, you mean?
 
Ron Newman said:
The fundamental flaw I see in the planning for streets and highways in Boston starts and ends with the idiots who decided against the grid system and decided to put the heart of downtown on the akward and odd shaped tip of Boston that it is located on.
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In 1630, you mean?
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I mean, why would anyone ever want to be on a skinny peninsula next to a deep water harbor when their primary mode of transport and shipping was...SHIPS!?!?
 
WTF Puritans? Why couldn't you foresee the automobile? I mean seriously!
 
Not to belabor this much further, but the center city areas of San Francisco and Vancouver and Charleston, SC, are also on peninsulas.
 
NYC and Seattle are similarly positioned as well. No more money on highways. Spend it on mass transit.
 
Ron Newman said:
Not to belabor this much further, but the center city areas of San Francisco and Vancouver and Charleston, SC, are also on peninsulas.
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Yes, but much bigger peninsulas. SF's peninsula is 7 miles wide from bay to breakers. That would be the equivalent of having a Shawmut peninsula that stretched from the harbor to, say, Watertown Square. Vancouver's is similar in size. Charleston's is about the same size as Boston's financial district now, but the Shawmut peninsula of today is only as big as Charleston's original peninsula after a century or two of landfill.

The original Shawmut peninsula was, at most, one or two square miles when it was first settled.

I think Boston's big mistake was not engaging in a Haussman-style street redesign in the 1800's as it filled in the Back Bay and expanded into Dorchester, Hyde Park, etc. (And it should have swallowed up Brookline, too.) Parisian-style boulevards providing ample space for traffic -- and later, subway lines -- to flow from the outer neighborhoods into the central business area would have been a hugely beneficial development.
 
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