The Northeast Expressway, Revere Beach Connector, and geographically related projects

sm89 said:
Also, has there been any further study on the Revere Beach connector? I feel like a Rt 60 bypass even if just to Rt 107 would be a worthwhile project with limited affect on the wetlands.
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The removed fill, and they actually recreated a vast swath of marshland where the Revere Beach Connector was supposed to be. This was all done in the past couple years, and I'm sure at a great expense, too, kind of amazing there was no public knowledge of it, really. The area behind Northgate now has a pretty solid marsh ecosystem that was man-made.
 
http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/re...ent-project/9JQoCqj8JaMf5FqU6HdbJN/story.html

From January

In June, the Boston Region Metropolitan Planning Organization, which is made up of nearly two dozen towns and cities and acts as a conduit for federal highway money, released its list of funding priorities for the next four years.

The $296.8 million list of projects includes some $43 million for adding a new lane to Route 128 between the Needham and Wellesley exits and $20 million for improvements to the Middlesex Turnpike from Bedford to Burlington. Funds were also earmarked for replacing dozens of bridges and converting old railroad tracks to rail trails.

In addition, the planning organization earmarked a large chunk of its funding in the next four years for public mass transit projects, including new trains, buses, and equipment upgrades and the MBTA’s $1.3 billion Green Line extension.

But the Route 1 project wasn’t identified as a priority by the organization, meaning it won’t be eligible for funding until 2018 or beyond.

In fact, state transportation officials don’t expect the Route 1 upgrades to be included on the list of priority projects until at least 2031, short of state funding becoming available for the project.

“That would require a major shift in priorities for the MPO, which has identified the time frame of 2031-2035 as most likely for implementation,” said Sara Lavoie, a tranposrtation department spokeswoman.
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BostonUrbEx said:
The removed fill, and they actually recreated a vast swath of marshland where the Revere Beach Connector was supposed to be. This was all done in the past couple years, and I'm sure at a great expense, too, kind of amazing there was no public knowledge of it, really. The area behind Northgate now has a pretty solid marsh ecosystem that was man-made.
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If you are referring to Rumney Marsh, that was done early on in the Big Dig.

http://www.mass.gov/eea/agencies/dcr/massparks/region-north/rumney-marsh-reservation.html
 
FYI, the place where I live, the former Rowes Quarry, is designed for the Route 1 project. Part of the property is to be a heavy commercial/office use, where a Salem St Connector will tie in to Rt 1. I'm willing to bet the developer will hold the state's feet to the fire in getting the Rt 1 project funded as soon as is next possible.
 
BostonUrbEx said:
Yes, part of Rumney Marsh. Hmm, I don't know. The fill may certainly have been removed during the Big Dig. But I'm pretty sure the vegetation in the particular basin I'm referring to was only done a couple years ago.
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Also benefiting from the Big Dig mitigation program is Rumney Marsh in Revere, Mass., a wetland habitat that was partly filled in during the 1960s as part of a later-abandoned plan to extend I-95 through several North Shore communities. About 229,500 cubic meters (300,000 cubic yards) of sand were removed to restore the 7.3-hectare (18-acre) marsh; the sand was used on the CA/T and other construction projects. The newly restored marsh is already being colonized by salt-marsh vegetation and by various species of migratory birds, fish, and shellfish.
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http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/publications/research/.../pavements/.../publicroads/01julaug/bigdig.cfm

But also see:
http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/re...rsh-project/67XgkGLSjw1NoQeO7O4fRK/story.html
 
Weak. That stretch of hairpin-turn 1950's highway with uselessly short, blind, no-merge, unlit ramps is a deathtrap. On liability risk alone it needs to go a little higher on the pecking order than this. It's not that hard to fix the ramp geometry and widen a few bridges for proper shoulders in that transition zone between expressway and turnpike.

One flipped-over gas tanker truck will get them regretting putting it off that long.
 
That accident occurred in Saugus which although is a bumpy ride with what seems to me like way too many potholes for a highway, doesnt have any tight turns along rt 1.
That first tight curve as soon as Rt. 1 enters malden looks reasonably easy to straighten especially with the developers of Rowes Quarry's cooperation like BostonUrbEx mentioned. After that, the curve coming around the movie theater isn't too bad but the zig zags that begin at the rt 16 junction seem forever screwed due to how developed the area already is. The only option for straightening I would assume would be spending a few billion$ on digging a tunnel from there to the Tobin
 
After that, the curve coming around the movie theater isn't too bad but the zig zags that begin at the rt 16 junction seem forever screwed due to how developed the area already is.
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...Important not to forget that the S curves are there because a series of steep hills are there too - and Rt goes around / between them...

..just trying to underscore the 'forever' part of 'forever screwed'....
 
The mainline S-curves aren't awful on the up-to-spec part in Chelsea. Sightlines decent enough, shoulders decent enough. Couple places the exit ramps could use better accel/decel lanes, but there are worse examples elsewhere. But ye gads is the ancient northern section past the 60 rotary white-knuckle driving. They not only need to widen that for safety and sanity, nuke/remake the ramps, and deal with the quarry curve...but they'd be well-advised to go to war with the curb cuts on the last half-mile to get the proper expressway up to the 99 interchange (and remake that awful interchange to no longer have that left merge).

Broadway's not exactly a picnic, but at least the sightlines get safer north of 99.
 
Is there any way US-1 could be designated I-193? For example, if they closed the 4th St exit and redesigned the MA-16 interchange, would it be compliant up to Copeland Circle?
 
BostonUrbEx said:
Is there any way US-1 could be designated I-193? For example, if they closed the 4th St exit and redesigned the MA-16 interchange, would it be compliant up to Copeland Circle?
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Probably not because the thru route is still US 1. The feds probably aren't going to be keen on slapping a concurrency on it when the ultimate destination is the same exact route it's signed as today.


The only re-badging candidates in the state likely to pass with the feds (some higher odds than others) are:
-- I-93 relocated and displacing MA 3 to Sagamore Bridge and 3 getting deleted entirely (since it's a number violation conflicting with US 3).
-- I-x95 replacing Braintree-Canton I-93 in event necessitated by above 93 re-route.
-- I-293 relocating off the short NH 101 concurrency and displacing US 3 from Manchester south to 128 in Burlington. With US 3 displacing MA/NH 3A and expunging the northern suffixed route.
-- I-x95 replacing MA 24 when the substandard parts at the 93 interchange, between 495 and 140, at the deathtrap 79 interchange in Fall River, and at the 195 interchange in Westport get some basic upgrading. Feds probably won't approve it south of Fall River because of the disconnect between highway segments, very different destinations, and lack of compelling congestion or population density reason for it.
-- I-495 or I-195 absorbing the last of MA 25 to Bourne Bridge (might work better as 195 since east-west is the prevailing direction for Bourne Bridge traffic). Can only see this happening if the Southside Connector gets built between the Bourne Bridge and US 6.
-- I-195 displacing US 6 on the Cape IF it displaces MA 25 to the Bourne instead of 495 (has to be an east-west highway on the Mid-Cape Expressway), IF the Southside Connector gets built, IF 93 goes to the Sagamore, and IF the Mid-Cape gets widened from 2 to 4 lanes east of South Dennis. US 6 moves back to old routing expunging MA 6A.
-- Fixing the Auburn-Worcester I-395/I-290 confusion by picking one or the other (feds are the ones who screwed that up in 1983...MA/CT asked for 290 all the way to New London, and the feds surprised them by assigning 395 instead).
-- I-x90 replacing MA 146 if the last MA expressway gap in Sutton gets filled, and RIDOT fills the even shorter North Smithfield gap + upgrades some of the substandard expressway just south of 295.
-- I-x93 replacing the US 44 expressway IF the expressway is completed to 495 in Middleboro and IF 93 replaces MA 3 to the Sagamore. 44 moves back to its old route. Fits the mold if there's a pan-SE Mass highway designation effort to load-balance the Cape between the Bourne and Sagamore starting way far out, and for highlighting Plymouth as a major crossroads.
 
Oh.

Four decades later, ex-rep would like do-over on I-95
By Thor Jourgensen / The Daily Item

LYNN — James E. Smith has regrets. The attorney and former state legislator who helped keep an interstate highway from bulldozing through Lynn 40 years ago now thinks the project could have provided his hometown with “total access” to a key roadway network.

The Swampscott resident was in his 20s when he battled on behalf of his West Lynn constituents to block proposed I-95 expansion plans from crossing the marshland paralleling Route 107.

The project, under various configurations, would have sliced across the Saugus-Lynn line through the city on a course roughly following Parkland Avenue and Pine Grove Cemetery into Wyoma Square across Lynn to the Peabody line.

Today, Peabody enjoys quick access to I-95, and Smith wishes Lynn benefited from even a highway link spanning the Saugus marshes to Route 1 North. A Saugus sand embankment and an abandoned Route 1 exit ramp stand in mute testament to the failed endeavor.
“It’s taken me years to say, ‘That’s what we should have done.’ That’s where we fumbled. That’s what we should have focused on getting,” Smith said during an Item interview.

Multi-lane highways with complicated cloverleaf interchanges were being built across America in the early 1960s when plans emerged for the Eastern Seaboard’s major interstate to expand in the greater Boston area.

By 1964, planners and politicians were talking about the “Parkland Avenue connector” and “Wyoma Square bypass” in connection with the I-95 plans. Opposition formed against the highway proposal with the late Thomas W. McGee weighing in to block plans.

“Dutchie” and Helen Smith’s son grew up on Gateway Lane near the highway’s initial proposed path through Lynn. The brother of Ernest Smith and Deborah Smith Walsh attended West Lynn schools and ran for West Lynn state representative at the age of 21 — the same year he became eligible to vote.

Smith lost the election, but learned a lesson in defeat: “We came close enough to say, ‘We can win this thing.’”

Win is exactly what he did in 1970, and for eight more years until a Democratic Congressional primary loss, Smith served in the Massachusetts House.

“At the time there were three parties: traditional Democrats like Tom McGee; others like myself and (now-U.S. Sen. Edward) Markey; and the Republicans,” he said.

Facing opposition from Smith and other highway opponents, planners revised, scrapped and reintroduced plans as residents lost homes to eminent domain takings and Pine Grove Cemetery and Lynn Woods were successively threatened with highway-related takings.

Smith said the I-95 expansion’s death knell could be heard after planners plotted the project through sections of Cambridge and Brookline. In 1973, former Gov. Francis Sargent administered the coup de grace. “No Lynn I-95,” trumpeted an Item headline.

Forty-two years later, Smith wishes opponents, including himself, had approached Sargent and urged him to preserve the highway connector to Lynn paralleling 107.

“None of us focused on what we should have salvaged,” he said.

But he said opposition to the project — and support — widened a gap that compromise could never span.

“It was simple: There were two camps — build 95, stop 95,” he said.

Smith shares city officials’ visions of high-rise development dominating the city’s waterfront, but he said it will be a Blue Line expansion or similar transit project that will make the dream reality.

“Roads,” he said, “are not the future.”
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To be clear this guy is only saying that he wishes the swath of land that was graded along 107 was turned into a highway along the lines of the Lowell Connector off 93. That isn't a terrible idea but I doubt it would have turned Lynn into anything other than what it is today. Spend the money on transit. Even Smith is saying this which also totally contradicts what this whole article is about.

Was there ever any talk of just upgrading Rt 1 to Interstate standards? I know that since 95 got rerouted along 128 there isn't much of a point to do so but back in the day when 95 was still planned to run along the Central Artery why didn't they just go with the existing road? It's not like that was a foreign concept and Rt 1 is only lined with low density sprawl, not residential neighborhoods. In general I95 was supposed to be a Rt 1 bypass but I figure they could have taken this one stretch.
 
Having driven counterflow a few times, Rt 1 seems like a mess at rush hour. I guess it would make Lynn -> 128 traffic a little easier (which is probably what Peabody benefits from), but it is quite out of the way for that....
 
Just need to run behind Northgate Mall over to Rt107 in order to bypass all the lights and traffic on rt 60. Rt 107 itself between the rt 60 circle in Revere and Lynn is perfectly fine all the way to the bridge and doesn't need to be bypassed.

But the ramp from rt 1 to rt 107 is worth doing to give Lynn better highway access and to alleviate traffic on rt 60. Then figure out a way through or around the GE plant to connect rt 1A and the Lynn Waterfront to gear up for a large scale development there.

With its proximity to Boston and Salem's resurgence Lynn with better highway access and more frequent DMU train service should be able to build on some positive growth downtown and on the waterfront and maybe even figure out how to get GE to leverage the River works as an innovation center.
 
vanshnookenraggen said:
Was there ever any talk of just upgrading Rt 1 to Interstate standards? I know that since 95 got rerouted along 128 there isn't much of a point to do so but back in the day when 95 was still planned to run along the Central Artery why didn't they just go with the existing road? It's not like that was a foreign concept and Rt 1 is only lined with low density sprawl, not residential neighborhoods. In general I95 was supposed to be a Rt 1 bypass but I figure they could have taken this one stretch.
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Somewhere in the Transportation Library (I think that's where it was), I found plans for a highway which would snaked along Rt 1 between Rt 99 and the Lynnfield Tunnel area. From Rt 99 the grade-seperate highway would run north to the west of the Rt 1, then cross over somewhere around the Lynn Fells Pkwy, run east of Rt 1, and then merge back in somewhere at the big curve/Christmas Tree Shop/The Ship *or* run to peel off to I-95 via Goodwins Circle as an alternative.

To be honest, it probably would have been feasible at the time it was being looked into, and I'm surprised it didn't happen.

Looking at the present, I doubt it is possible because of all the development that has happened since. I wouldn't be surprised if plans start coming up soon which include grade-seperating, possibly at interstate standards, and then leaving frontage roads to serve the businesses. For example, a four-land viaduct (two each direction) supported by columns in the median of the frontage roads, with four-lane (two each direction) frontage roads on the surface below. Each street, Essex, Main, Lynn Fells, and Walnut, would intersect the frontage roads with at-grade, signalized intersections. Regularly spaced ramps to/from the viaduct to/from the frontage roads.

Doing this would allow for a very high density of buses along Rt 1 since buses could have stops on Frontage Rds, which they can't currently do since Rt 1 in its current form is still a highway of sorts. This addition of frequent, high-density buses would also go hand-in-hand with Saugus' new plan to redevelop Rt 1. The town had a meeting the other night to discuss zoning changes to avoid strip malls and single-story development along Rt 1 and instead start doing dense, mixed-use developments! Can't believe Saugus of all places is going in on that. I mean, thank god, but I'm just surprised.
 
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