West Cambridge / Alewife Area Infill & Small Developments

20 Acorn Park Drive, Alewife.
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Bonus: heron in the pond across the street.
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^^^The mistake is not getting that area connected somehow to Cambridge Park Drive, and not having another easy feeder ramp onto Route 2 West to act as a release valve for the already-existing traffic jams.

The former Abt Associates headquarters has just been leveled to the ground, meaning I think we're going to end up with 3 more 7 story residential buildings in the area soon. Pedestrians are already a big problem with the traffic flow, as every walk signal brings the rotary traffic to a grinding halt. At this point the best bet is probably to just clear the area of people, drop a bomb on it, and start over from scratch.
 
Equilibria said:
Low-rise lab in the Quadrangle:


It's... better than what's there. Not at all what the City wanted in the District Plan, so what are they going to do about it?

This project might be the first and biggest test of whether the City actually gives a crap about Alewife, but I think we already know the answer.
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Equilibria -- what is wrong with a developer putting in a quality project in a place formerly mostly warehouses and "light industry" ??

Due to the high floor loading, high ceilings, extra-heavy duty HVAC and other features associated with a "lab" his thing will probably cost as much as an office building of 7 to 10 stories. As befits a project looking to tap the demand for lab space outside Alewife -- it will probably have very nice finishes and landscaping -- so why would Cambridge be opposed?

My big concern however is that the Streets connected directly to Rt-2 are very poorly connected to the other streets in the immediate area. If Cambridge wants to do anything they need to work with the nearby communities and their own NIMBYs to build a more robust road network -- especially crossing the railroad tracks.
 
George_Apley said:
As far as new developments go, the Alewife/French Pond area is the worst planned neighborhood in the region.
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Agreed. Cambridge and Arlington are so provincial and paralyzed by NIMBYs with regards to the Alewife area that they will not come up with any kind of balanced and coordinated transportation plan.
 
George_Apley said:
As far as new developments go, the Alewife/Fresh Pond area is the worst planned neighborhood in the region.
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There are a lot of cool things in the pipeline though, with not only the originally planned bridge, but now also a second bridge across the Fitchburg Line. Cambridge also was able to get the Rindge Ave/Cambridgepark Drive realignment into the recent bond bill. The master plan for the Quadrangle shows how they plan to improve connections to Alewife as well as support other means such as biking and transit. While I wouldn't say it's creating the best new neighborhood, it's clear that the city is doing what it can to make it work.
 
sm89 said:
There are a lot of cool things in the pipeline though, with not only the originally planned bridge, but now also a second bridge across the Fitchburg Line. Cambridge also was able to get the Rindge Ave/Cambridgepark Drive realignment into the recent bond bill. The master plan for the Quadrangle shows how they plan to improve connections to Alewife as well as support other means such as biking and transit. While I wouldn't say it's creating the best new neighborhood, it's clear that the city is doing what it can to make it work.
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That's the best news I've heard about that area in a while. I just wish the city had done this infrastructure work before the private developers filled the area with housing and offices. It's backward, reactionary planning.
 
Charlie_mta said:
Cambridge and Arlington are so provincial and paralyzed by NIMBYs with regards to the Alewife area that they will not come up with any kind of balanced and coordinated transportation plan.
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'Charlie', I completely agree with your description of Cambridge and Arlington. Can you explain the role that Arlington has played in the debacle that is the Alewife area? I'm trying to think of what Arlington could do given that Route 2 is a highway until it hits Cambridge, and all of Alewife's development sits either beyond or on the other side of Route 2.

Please know that my question is meant to be sincere rather than combative. My family moved to East Arlington from East Cambridge 8 years ago, and I'm still trying to figure out the contours of the local area's inter-connected development issues (other than Arlington's stupidity of rejecting the Red Line extension in the '80s, of course). Thank you very much for any insight or details that you can provide.
 
Brad Plaid said:
55 Wheeler St, demo just about complete. This is a whopper, 525 units. For those not happy about Fresh Pond traffic now...

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Brad --not sure that it will necessarily have that large an impact on traffic. A lot of the folks moving in here might just walk to work -- there is quite an employment cluster here as well as housing

Indeed the major things that need to be done to make this a fully functional almost self contained neighborhood are a couple of crossings of the railroad for both vehicles and pedestrians. Ideally these would be done by bridges or putting the rails underground for a bit. In the interim -- just a plain old surface crossing will work as I don't think these tracks are so busy that a crossing gate couldn't be installed.
 
George_Apley said:
That's the best news I've heard about that area in a while. I just wish the city had done this infrastructure work before the private developers filled the area with housing and offices. It's backward, reactionary planning.
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Each developer is paying into a pot for the improvements. The bridge will cost an insane amount of money. I think the problem right now is that because the necessary changes are so involved and expensive, they're still gathering money for them. No project "owes" enough in mitigation on its own to warrant fully paying for the big ticket items. The City also probably can't foot the bill in advance to "benefit developers", since that's how it would probably come off to the rest of the taxpayers.
 
sm89 said:
Each developer is paying into a pot for the improvements. The bridge will cost an insane amount of money. I think the problem right now is that because the necessary changes are so involved and expensive, they're still gathering money for them. No project "owes" enough in mitigation on its own to warrant fully paying for the big ticket items. The City also probably can't foot the bill in advance to "benefit developers", since that's how it would probably come off to the rest of the taxpayers.
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That’s how master planning is supposed to work. Coordinated cooperation between city and developer. Cambridge didn’t do it here at all in an adequate way.
 
rjacobs said:
'Charlie', I completely agree with your description of Cambridge and Arlington. Can you explain the role that Arlington has played in the debacle that is the Alewife area? I'm trying to think of what Arlington could do given that Route 2 is a highway until it hits Cambridge, and all of Alewife's development sits either beyond or on the other side of Route 2.
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Arlington controls what happens to the north side of Route 2 west of its junction with Alewife Brook Parkway. If, for example, the ramps and roadways that connect Alewife Station with Route 2 were to be reconfigured, or Route 2 itself slightly widened, Arlington would be fully engaged. What I would really like to see is the bus ramp exiting Alewife Station for Route 2 westbound be changed to be more direct to Rte. 2 westbound with no stop light. Also fix up the Rte 2/Alewife intersection. All of this would require Arlington's support.
 
Not to mention Alewife is a terminal end due to Arlington residents who protested the red line continuing on through Arlington to Lexington. It was never meant to be the end of the red line and therefore is unfit to handle its position as a park n ride. If the red line had continued on it would have been able to develop much more appropriately without the masses converging on this area to begin and end every day.
 
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