Why is Dartmouth St so wide?

I'd love to see citations to the Dartmouth bridge during the planning of the Back Bay development. I've never seen any discussion of such a bridge, but I'm willing to be proven wrong.
 
I still think a bridge to Ames Street in Cambridge would help reduce traffic volume across all of the other bridges and calm Mass Ave by more evenly dispersing traffic. The creation and parcel sale of a new landmass in the middle of the Charles would more than pay for the bridge, buying Storrow Drive, and building a blue line extension riverbank subway Charles/MGH (with a stop on the island) to Kenmore. An Isle Cite between Boston and Cambridge likely would be the most valuable made land ever created in the US.
 
Problem is, that part of the river has been a sailing basin for over a century. It would not be easy to just declare that era over.
 
Public and private boating institutions would loudly protest a new bridge spanning the Charles River basin. Ditto for an island that would reduce the size of the basin.
 
Nothing that can't be fixed with a marina.
 
Why any debate over an aesthetically appealing part of the city? Don't fix what isn't broken. Any increase in density the island would bring could easily be achieved by upzoning parts of underutilized Boston or Cambridge. Traffic sucks on the Mass. Ave. bridge? Time for a subway that branches off the Red Line at Central and proceeds down Mass Ave.
 
Lurker said:
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Want
 
So wide open suburban parks = bad, but maintaining a giant basin of water IN A PORT CITY WITH A GIANT HARBOR AND PLEASURE BAY =good?
 
Are you really comparing the active harbor, with its tankers, ferrys, coast guard, private boats, barges, debris, choppy water, boat wakes, pollution, and security concerns to the calm that is the charles river basin?

As for pleasure bay, have you looked at the charles during the nice weather? It's packed with boats. There is no way they would all fit there, and even if they could, the boathouses would take up the entire circumference.

We are really, really, REALLY lucky to have the Charles basin. I would actually argue for recreating the south bay in hope it might create a twin on the south side of the city.
 
I thought this was an architecture forum where members liked playing God and not a maritime forum?
 
You're right. Someone quick dig up Frank Lloyd Wright and let him know water is completely irrelevant to architecture.
 
Lurker said:
So wide open suburban parks = bad, but maintaining a giant basin of water IN A PORT CITY WITH A GIANT HARBOR AND PLEASURE BAY =good?
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For recreation? Absolutely. Anyway, I'm not arguing the point, just highlighting it.

If we're playing God? Sure, Island Ho!
 
Boating is a benefit - but so too would be an island. I've often thought that more could be done with that part of the Charles. An island with a walking bridge would be sweet. Let's face it - they raped the Back Bay estuary to build housing for the 1% of the time. Boston as it is the product of a long land-making project. I see no reason why that project has to be over. The biggest problem would be the bickering over what would be built on the island. Can anyone say 'affordable housing?'
 
"raped the Back Bay estuarty for the 1%" is a rather dramatic misinterpretation of what happened.

The Back Bay was a cesspool after years of industrial development (it was criss-crossed with dams)and massive sewage and runoff pollution. It's not like it was some tranquil wetland park... that's what they turned it into!
 
The bay, with dams, was flushed every tide. It stunk from sewage at low tide on hot days, but that wouldn't have stopped wildlife from inhabiting it. Boston's heavy industry was not located on the Charles side of Boston - most was in South Boston, and some along South Bay. The fact is that a vast area of estuary was filled and destroyed. At the time it was filled, it was far from an ecological wasteland.
 
Worst of all, Botolph's Island would likely mean the 4th of July fireworks would have to be moved!
 
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