In real life there are no magic wands whose waving causes all problems to disappear, no magic pill that makes everything better. But sometimes there are Master Keys that open a series of blockages and create new routes forward. Even in transportation. One possible Master Key is finding ways to install new on/off ramps on the Mass Pike Extension from Allston to Mass Ave.
Right now, MassDOT planners are struggling with how to design the quarter-billion-dollar Mass Pike Re-alignment project at the Allston exit while maintaining (or expanding) the MBTA and Commuter Rail usage, with the final redesign of Cambridge Street from Harvard Ave to the Charles River, with the best way to fix the messed-up traffic on the Boston side of the BU bridge, with the appropriate design for Commonwealth Ave from the BU bridge to (and past) Packards Corner, and with what to do about the collapsing Fenway-to-Storrow Bowker Overpass (in addition to the path, initially proposed by the Solomon Foundation, from Beacon Street to the Mass Ave bridge)
AND MORE…
At the same time, community and advocacy groups are pushing for pedestrian and bike routes that reconnect Allston Village (near the new Harvard Campus) with Comm Ave, and that run along the Grand Junction railway from Somerville through Cambridge over the RR bridge (under the BU bridge) to Allston. Residents in the Charlesgate area are demanding that the Bowker be torn down and the area – an extension of the historic Emerald Necklace listed on the National Register of Historic Places as part of the Olmsted Park System – be rescued from the dominating concrete. The Esplanade Association’s Vision 2020 is seeking to slow and reduce traffic on Storrow Drive in order to expand and protect that amazing parkland. Last, but not least, the Red Sox and many Longwood Medical Area employers are desperately looking for ways to get their car-traveling patrons (and employees) more efficiently to and from their locations.
All these official and citizen efforts are finding their options relatively unsatisfying. In almost every case, the amount of traffic that MassDOT (and sometimes Boston Transportation Department) planners anticipate requires dedicating so much space to cars that transit and non-motorized modes (and users) get short changed. (It is likely that official projections of future car traffic are too high – there is a long national history of assuming more growth than has actually occurred. But it will take years and enormous technical sophistication to revise current Projected Traffic Modeling software to incorporate contemporary trends of reduced car ownership and usage, increased transit and bike usage along with a huge and slowly emerging latent demand for walkable-bikeable-trainable communities. In the meantime, we are stuck with overblown estimates that can limit and distort the available options.)
THE MASTER KEY
But here’s the amazing thing, the Master Key: the options available in each of these situations would be radically expanded, and improved, if there were more and better off-on ramps for the Mass Pike Extension as it runs from downtown Boston to the Allston toll booths. Not only would it move most traffic from Storrow to the Pike, it would make it easier to deal with the Allston toll plaza redesign and the other areas as well.
That’s a big claim, and there are so many intertwining components that our state’s Transportation Mage, Fred Salvucci, warns that it might be much smarter – and a lot more politically and financially realistic – to assume “that there will be no turnpike connections in this area in the short term…we might better place energy into getting public transportation means to attract people out of their cars.”
BOLDLY GOING…
But the potential payoff of coming up with a good MassPike Extension On/Off Ramp solution is so large that it’s at least worth some out-of-the-box brainstorming. And that’s what a bunch of people in the extended LivableStreets Alliance network have been doing for the best month or so. Some of the ideas are straightforward; some are pretty imaginative. But it’s likely that all are technically possible. And all would both move car traffic more efficiently while creating room for pedestrians, bicyclists, and lots more parkland. The bottom line, as usual, is money and political will – as well as a willingness to stretch the traditional envelope: MassDOT has done its own studies of on-off ramp possibilities and has not yet come up with a workable option.
I do not intend to give a full description of all the ideas floating around – Frank O’Dette has put together an amazing You-Tube video that gives an easy to follow and visually understandable introduction to most of them. Although the video revolves around ways to eliminate the Bowker it includes, by necessity, a creative look at ways to eliminate the traffic flow it now serves by opening additional MassPike Extension ramps. He calls the video A Cure for B.O.? Fixing Boston’s Armpit: the Bowker Overpass which he describes as “a relic from the 60’s, stinking up the city.” (If that link doesn’t work, or becomes inoperative due to future revisions, go to YouTube.com and search for “boston armpit” – which will bring you to the latest version.)
OUT OF THE BOX
Here is a list of some the ideas that Frank summarizes:
- Changing the Mass Ave. Pike on-ramp to an exit and moving the on-ramp further towards Allston;
- Moving the shift in the RR tracks further out, creating space for an on-ramp from the Fenway;
- Using part of the Pike breakdown lane for yet other potential on-off ramps;
- Creating a more direct route from the Pike to the LMA;
- Shifting a new Charlesgate-to-Fenway overpass to the side of the parkland;
- Re-using existing pavement for new loops through the area to eliminate traffic light congestion;
- Turning the road around the Fens into a one-way loop;
- Building a Comm Ave bypass and Beacon Street diversion;
- And much more…
Some of the ideas are relatively simple, some are very ambitious, and some are even further out. But who knows – maybe it IS possible to create something that’s cheaper, safer, greener, more multimodal, and just as effective!
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Thanks to Randall Albright, Parker James, and Frank O’Dette for all the work they’ve put into this effort; and to Ken Kruckemeyer, Peter Furth, Herb Nolan, Charlie Denison, and the other brainstorm contributors!
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Some related previous posts:
> McGRATH HIGHWAY REPAIRS: The Occasional Superiority of Short-Term Solutions
> FIXING THE FUTURE McGRATH/O’BRIEN CORRIDOR: A Six-Lane Boulevard Is Still A Highway
> ALLSTON-BRIGHTON ON THE MOVE: Boston’s Most Transportation Changing Neighborhood
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