Waltham Infill and Small Developments

FK4 said:
This is off topic, but what happened to the rail line beyond Berlin? It's hard to find on Google Earth after Berlin... is it totally gone and is there a chance there would ever be a rail trail from Northampton to Boston?
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Maps might not, but Mother Google knows ;-) The http://www.masscentralrailtrail.org makes it easy on this map (green = built sections; red = unused)
http://www.since1951.com/MCRT/index.cfm

I will cross-post this to the Biking in the Boston Burbs thread where it is on topic :)
 
thanks, i guess i was just bein lazy, but i do wonder why it seems all the impetus is to get the trail to berlin and not northampton...
 
Waltham has talked about the wayside trail again recently. Our 3 Mile segment from Weston Line to Main St and Prospect Hill Park to Linden Street will cost $6 Million due to required bridge work.
 
It's really hard to make something out of nothing. I would love to see them quickly complete an easy, cheap section of trail. Lyman Street <--> Lexington Street, for example. I feel like that would be just the momentum they need to get public support and get more trail sections complete.
 
bigeman312 said:
It's really hard to make something out of nothing. I would love to see them quickly complete an easy, cheap section of trail. Lyman Street <--> Lexington Street, for example. I feel like that would be just the momentum they need to get public support and get more trail sections complete.
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At that rate, it looks like they could do Lyman <-> Main Street/117 without much trouble. That skips all of the major bridges while providing a cross-city bike route. You might need want to stick some extra protection at the busier crossings, but otherwise that dodges the major expenses. You don't really need to go beyond those limits anyway until Belmont & Weston are ready to meet you at their respective borders- particularly west of 117 you're only connecting a single office park for the time being. East of Lyman you could easily go all the way to Middlesex Circle; both of the bridges are still east of there. Plus, on the west end it looks like the Polaroid site development actually built up a small stretch of trail where they put in a new access road.
 
Uncivil_Engineer said:
At that rate, it looks like they could do Lyman <-> Main Street/117 without much trouble. That skips all of the major bridges while providing a cross-city bike route. You might need want to stick some extra protection at the busier crossings, but otherwise that dodges the major expenses. You don't really need to go beyond those limits anyway until Belmont & Weston are ready to meet you at their respective borders- particularly west of 117 you're only connecting a single office park for the time being. East of Lyman you could easily go all the way to Middlesex Circle; both of the bridges are still east of there. Plus, on the west end it looks like the Polaroid site development actually built up a small stretch of trail where they put in a new access road.
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Agreed. Middlesex Circle <-> 117 without much trouble.

Re: Belmont, it's important to note that the "Wayside Trail" doesn't extend to the Belmont Border. The connection from Linden Street to the Belmont Line is technically a different project, even if in practice it is the same trail.
 
There is one problem. The Waltham Police Station Parking Lot and DPW yard on Lexington Street were built on the right of way.
 
matredsoxfan said:
Wayside Rail Trail in the News. Waltham city council wants to fund the preliminary engineering and design to 25% level for the 3-Mile segment in Waltham. Preliminary construction estimates are $5.3 Million.

http://waltham.wickedlocal.com/news/20160112/council-pushes-for-rail-trail-development
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'Bout time. There's absolutely nothing environmentally sensitive through that whole stretch, so the EIS waiver was years and years overdue.

Only design wrinkle they've got to contend with is that couple of the narrower residential streets have pretty miserable grade crossing sightlines. Might require a little bigger chunk of that money earmarked to reflective paint, reflective signage, and/or a raised crosswalk surface where the drivers aren't so keen on paying enough attention or obeying the 25 MPH speed limit.
 
Work is getting ready to begin on the development at 20 Cooper Street in Waltham. J.Derenzo Companies will be doing the site work.
 
20 Cooper St. development is fascinating for how it is geographically poised exactly straddling the "amenities"--Charles River & its assoc. bike/walking trails, Embassy Cinema, and Moody St. just beyond--and the "liabilities"--the industrial zoning that begins on all the abutting lots on Elm St.
 
DBM said:
20 Cooper St. development is fascinating for how it is geographically poised exactly straddling the "amenities"--Charles River & its assoc. bike/walking trails, Embassy Cinema, and Moody St. just beyond--and the "liabilities"--the industrial zoning that begins on all the abutting lots on Elm St.
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Are there any renders? I googled no to avail.
 
Waltham fights against 195-unit apartment plan

Plans for a 195-unit apartment complex on Second Avenue in Waltham are in limbo as city officials continue to fight a project they say should not be built under the state’s affordable-housing law.

Officials contend that the city already meets the state’s threshold for affordable housing, and are concerned that the project is too dense and not in an area suitable for a large-scale residential development.

But the state recently rejected the city’s affordable-housing inventory calculations, and a spokesman for the Phoenix-based developer, Alliance Residential, said it is confident the project will move forward.

[...]
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NIMBYs are the worst....
 
not in an area suitable for a large-scale residential development
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I normally disagree with these bullshit NIMBYs trying to block development, but they have a point here. There are many transit-oriented locations in Waltham that are well-suited for dense development. This is not one of them. It's nearly a mile walk from the end of the 70, and even farther from the 70A. And that's a long, not particularly frequent, ride to get anywhere.

There is a lot of great, dense residential development in Waltham's core, right by the Common and the train station. That area would have been far more appropriate. As it stands, this development is essentially a huge, quasi-urban residential building, being built in office-park shitland, out beyond -128. They have something of a legitimate gripe.
 
Rents will never drop as long as we never push the limit of which areas are "suitable" for development.
 
+1 the solution isn't to say there isn't transit and its not a pedestrian friendly area now so don't build the solution is to let them building and improve transit to that area to encourage more developments like this one.
 
^ The proposed development is also ugly as all get out.

ProposedWalthamDevelopment_AllianceA.jpg


Im just so sick of these stupid square turrets as a means to pretend that an ugly box with cheap materials has something of visual interest to offer. The design has become so linked with cheap development in my mind that it automatically brings it down when I see it.
 
^ Right, but it's on some back road in Waltham. It's nowhere even close to a prominent location. This is the exact sort of situation that calls for an inexpensive box that gives people a place to live.

And it's not that bad. Criticize the square turrets all you want, but they do succeed in making this thing more than a box.

I bemoan cheap and lazy architecture in locations that deserve something better as much as the next guy, but take a look at this's neighbors. It'll be the best building around.

I get mad when buildings like this are built on the harbor, steps from Maverick Square, for example. I'm fine with them in the suburbs among low rise office buildings and a Costco.
 
^ In both cases - Waltham as well as the Harbor - I actually think a completely bland brick box would actually look better. These paneled buildings with the papier-maché turrets are sickenly cheap-looking... If something is going to look like it was cheap, then I'd like it to at least be honest about it. Phony flourishes only make it tacky and do nothing to hid the truth of the cheap design, but instead accentuate it.
 
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