What was proposed and what was built.

[Arborway]

^ It was supposed to be attractive and relaxing for the drivers.

I'm pretty sure that was the idea behind The Greenway, as well.

 

[vanshnookenraggen]

The current configuration is much more elegant and efficient with the use of space. The work they've done on this stretch of the Charles has been fantastic but it will still be unknown to most people because it is so cut off.

 

[Charlie_mta]

The first plan for an elevated Central Artery in 1930. I like it, compact and preserving the dense neighborhoods it would thread through. A real city:

Here of course is the RKG corridor. I prefer the original plan above.

 

[datadyne007]

Wow, that is pure gold. Where did you find that?

 

[Charlie_mta]

Here's a link to the 1930 plan for road development in Boston. An absolutely fascinating document. In an alternative universe in which the Great Depression didn't happen, much of this could have been constructed:

http://archive.org/details/reportonthorough00bost

 

[datadyne007]

2 epic rotaries at the end too to connect into Storrow.

 

[itchy]

Check out Government Center - what an abominable waste.

I actually first caught the second picture without any context. I thought this was a rendering of what Boston would look like if sea levels rose and the city was put under 10 feet of water. The dead zones around City Hall, I assumed, were a result of buildings and, well, *things* being under flood water.

Not the case. Urban renewal just gave us a crumbling brick desert in the city's heart. Cool.

 

[vanshnookenraggen]

Man you thought the old Central Artery way outdated when it was built imagine how terrible at handling traffic this would have been.

 

[czsz]

^ With hefty transit investment in the region it could have worked okay. Expressways built in the thirties were all usually four lanes wide, which would have made it on par with Japanese urban highways -- and these work fine (at least, well enough that no one is calling for them to be torn down and replaced with massive tunnel highways).

Looks like this preserved the Atlantic Ave elevated, too? Imagine, Boston would have been like some kind of steampunk Tokyo!

Edit: Looking through the doc. Looks like the plans for roadways by 1965 (p. 11) also includes an early iteration of the Mass Pike. The regional traffic pattern predictions for 1965 (p. 33) don't appear to have anticipated the 128 being a major presence, though.

 

[deh74]

The first plan for an elevated Central Artery in 1930. I like it, compact and preserving the dense neighborhoods it would thread through. A real city:

Here of course is the RKG corridor. I prefer the original plan above.

that second picture makes me realise just how much urban renewal fucked up boston.

 

[Shepard]

But this can be fixed. From left to right on the bottom photo, imagine if

1) Pike chasm were built over,
2) Postal facility by South Station redeveloped,
3) Some Greenway parcels built up
4) Government center plaza redeveloped and built up
5) Congress Street Garage and Federal building area redeveloped and built up
6) High-rise densification of the West End (already happening, but to an even greater extent)
7) Boulevarding Storrow Drive

With the possible exceptions from some quarters of 3, 6 and 7, I think there's fairly broad support for these changes, and a good chance that we'll see this happen over the coming centuries.

 

[Semass]

Check out Government Center - what an abominable waste.

I actually first caught the second picture without any context. I thought this was a rendering of what Boston would look like if sea levels rose and the city was put under 10 feet of water. The dead zones around City Hall, I assumed, were a result of buildings and, well, *things* being under flood water.

Not the case. Urban renewal just gave us a crumbling brick desert in the city's heart. Cool.

Here is a link to a sea level rise scenario. Unfortunately, like a cockroach, Government Center survives.
See page 2: http://www.climatechoices.org/assets/documents/climatechoices/massachuetts_necia.pdf

 

[czsz]

a good chance that we'll see this happen over the coming centuries.

This is the problem. It took, what, two decades (1950-70) to wipe out at least a third of centuries of Boston urban history? And now we may have to wait centuries to get it back, if that even comes to pass...

 

[FK4]

Here's a link to the 1930 plan for road development in Boston. An absolutely fascinating document. In an alternative universe in which the Great Depression didn't happen, much of this could have been constructed:

http://archive.org/details/reportonthorough00bost

This is one of the most interesting documents I've seen in all my various archive searching... the origins of so many parkways and wide streets that clearly were not originally so, now explained. Note the American Legion Highway Overpass at Morton Street, which was the first overpass built in Boston.

It's also quite interesting and sometimes sad to what wasn't built. The Clarendon Hills Parkway, the final leg of the Canterbury Parkway (American Legion) that would have connected directly to the Neponset Parkway (now the Truman) would both have likely helped ease congestion around Mattapan Square, Roslindale, and Hyde Park Ave. Also the road that would have cut through the prettiest part of old Yankee Brookline to connect to Jamaica Pond that would have aided in crosstown movement. The Blue Hills Radial... Yeah, it would have cut through some neighborhoods, but probably in a much less destructive way than the projects of the 1960's...

Lastly, it's funny how the same ideas just keep coming back, that crosstown/inner belt/Melnea Cass/Urban Ring appears here, perhaps for the first time. Excellent stuff.

 

[JohnAKeith]

So the map in blue above is the "original" Shawmut peninsula? Amazing.

I'm losing my memory in my old age, but wasn't the Central Artery eventually built similar to as proposed up above? The big difference seems from Haymarket northward - a monstrous amalgam of twisty iron and steel, no?

 

[FK4]

So the map in blue above is the "original" Shawmut peninsula? Amazing.

I'm losing my memory in my old age, but wasn't the Central Artery eventually built similar to as proposed up above? The big difference seems from Haymarket northward - a monstrous amalgam of twisty iron and steel, no?


I'm not sure what the blue map is... (?) I think it is just an aerial shot from a similar vantage as the drawn map. But it's not the original peninsula since the North End and Beacon Hill are not blue.

 

[BeeLine]

^^^ My guess is that the blue area equals a projected urban development area or a nimby shadow map.

 

[Charlie_mta]

The "blue map" is simply a copy of a Bing Maps birdseye view of downtown Boston. I don't know why parts of it are blue. The darker "penninsula" area is just an artifact of splicing together aerial photos taken at different times, I would think.

 

[Charlie_mta]

Hey, here's a doozy, a 1950 proposal to route the then non-existent Central Artery down a drained Fort Point Channel, instead of the Dewey Square Tunnel. A bus terminal would also have been part of the project. Here's the link to the original report:

http://archive.org/details/studyfordevelopm00mass

This is, of course, Fort Point Channel today from roughly the same viewpoint:

 

[BostonUrbEx]

^ If someone were proposing that today, I'd be fucking pissed. It certainly ain't pretty now (well, the part near the PO Annex and Gillette aren't anyway. But there is just so much potential to be had there. It would be an outrage to think of losing the channel nowadays.