Ugly Boston

Although I suppose you could just rebuild the intersection between i93 and the Fellsway below-grade. That would at least help and potentially improve traffic. One major downside, as I see it, would be the loss of homes in the Ten Hills neighborhood. This might be avoided by shifting the Fellsway to the east, but since the state is broke we know that this won't really matter.

Have there been any studies done on this?
 
I believe the elevated roadway in Charlestown has been torn down
 
We're not talking about I-93 but about McGrath, in particular the McCarthy Overpass which goes from Twin Cities plaza over to Medford St. You would still need an overpass over the Lowell Line (unless you could depress it), but other than that it could simply be an at-grade boulevard.
 
Regarding the I-93/Mystic Ave interchange, the City of Somerville has just begun a process to look at alternative arrangements of that. I think everyone would love to just bury I-93 but since the possibilities of that happening are approaching negative infinity, the goal is to try to humanize the area where all the ramps and the Route 28 tunnel is. That area really needs to be reknit as much as possible.
 
Boston02124 said:
I believe the elevated roadway in Charlestown has been torn down
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That's correct there used to be a viaduct from Mystic Ave to Rutherford Ave that went over the Sullivan Square rotary. That was removed in the late 1990s I believe.
 
cden4 said:
We're not talking about I-93 but about McGrath, in particular the McCarthy Overpass which goes from Twin Cities plaza over to Medford St. You would still need an overpass over the Lowell Line (unless you could depress it), but other than that it could simply be an at-grade boulevard.
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Oh ok, yeah that totally should be a landscaped boulevard.
 
vanshnookenraggen said:
A big problem with eliminating the elevated highway through Somerville is that it is elevated in Charlestown
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No part of McGrath/O'Brien Highway goes into or even near Charlestown.

Taking down the elevated just means restoring the road to its original design as a scenic tree-lined MDC parkway. Take out the fences and guardrails in the median, and replace them with trees and shrubs. Add lots of crosswalks. Just go a couple miles north on Fellsway into Medford and Malden to see what a surface McGrath/O'Brien should look like.

Where it crosses Washington Street in Somerville, perhaps you could have a nice rotary similar to the one at Powderhouse Circle.
 
There are two roads going out that way; people may be confusing the two.

This is a map closer to Boston, you can see Route 28 / O'Brien highway toward the bottom and Route 99 up toward the top.

maps_charlestown.png


Going further away from the city, Route 28 at the bottom heading off to Somerville, Route 99 at the top, heading off to Everett.

charlestown2.png
 
Ron Newman said:
Where it crosses Washington Street in Somerville, perhaps you could have a nice rotary similar to the one at Powderhouse Circle.
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Yeah, when I didn't have a car and found myself walking through that intersection occassionally, it seemed to me that it would be a great spot for an additional square (or circle, or something) in Somerville, if only the McGrath/O'Brien were not there.
 
IMO it would be a mistake to remove this elevated portion. It would put a lot more cars on surface streets and make busy intersections even worse. A big reason why east somerville is more affordable and has a nice diversity of immigrants is b/c it isn't scenic, it's the gritiness that keeps the rent cheaper. And the elevated highway is part of that.
 
But the highway also inhibits people in East Somerville from getting to the rest of the city, and vice versa. There should be a safe and pleasant way to walk from that neighborhood to Union Square, and there isn't one now.

The highway also greatly inhibits redevelopment of the underutilized industrial areas just to the east of it (Brickbottom and Inner Belt).
 
Well it isn't ideal, thats for sure, but if lighting improved and maybe some colorful murals were painted in the underpass, that would improve going from east cambridge to Union Sq via foot.

I'm not sure about how it inhibits that industrial area. I'm not saying it dosn't, but intuitively I'd think that an elevated highway, which almost certainly handles more volume than a surface blvd, would benifet an industrial area. Plus I was on the Somerville (My town portion of Boston.com) and they were still floating the idea of putting MLS stadium over there (which I'd love to see). I'd figure this roadway could help handle that traffic better than a surface st.
 
This same highway (Route 28) works quite well as a tree-lined surface boulevard in Malden and Medford. I don't see why we can't have the same thing in Somerville, as we once did when it was first built.

The elevated road should go away here for the same reason it went away in downtown Boston and Charlestown's City Square.

Once we have the Green Line extension there will be much less need to move car traffic through this area.
 
I'd say carefull what you wish for w/ Medford's portion of rt 28. Think of wellington circle. That has to be the most unpesdestrian-friendly intersection I can think of. Crossed it many times. And if the elevated 28 goes away the intersection of 28 and 38 in Somerville might end up looking similar to that monster (although it works well for cars). Or even if it is more of a straight ahead intersection (like 28 and broadway in somerville) you're going to end up with a pond of asfault. IMO you can do more to improve the 28/38 intersection from a pedestrian perspective by having one for the main routes above your head and not really traffic you have to deal with.
 
What I have in mind is more like the intersection of Fellsway and Route 60 (Salem Street) in Medford, or any part of Fellsway East once it splits off Fellsway West. Once you get north of Wellington Circle, the road is attractive and easy to cross, with many local intersections and crosswalks. It's also easy to bike on. It's not the ugly barrier here that it is in Somerville.
 
I personally think the whole stretch of 93 by that area in Somerville/Medford is terrible and needs some work badly. There is terrible lighting, the road signs are in rough shape.


Does anyone else this Packards Corner has some ugly building? The one next to Planned Parenthood, I think it houses a gym and apartments, it is pretty ugly.
 
agree! I used to live by that building just plain ugly!
 
GREAt old uncle was buying his Pakards there acros the strasse. OLD unkle say his vater's cars very BIG and zer gut. showroom MOST fancy with the hoganny wood und ze velvet mit der leather seatings. OLD uncle say arkitetura now CHEVY, nein von grosser PACKARD. Too bad. THIS once FIRST RATE spot.
 
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