There's already outdoor municipal wi-fi in Christopher Columbus Park and Quincy Market, which abut the Greenway. Will this be an extension of that system?
Columbus Park got its outdoor Wi-Fi hot zone a few years ago as part of a series of proof-of-concept trials for a citywide outdoor Wi-Fi project. Some big commercial equipment manufacturer hoping to get a piece of that eventually-doomed project donated the hardware, and a local electrician's union donated the labor to install it; the City foots the Internet access and power costs.
The new Greenway project was done by Anaptyx, the local Wi-Fi company that installed and operates the Harvard Square outdoor Wi-Fi hot zone; I suspect they're getting paid for their efforts. They use equipment from Meraki, a Google subsidiary that was not involved in the Boston municipal Wi-Fi project.
In theory, you could interconnect the Greenway and Columbus Park hot zones, but there isn't much value in doing that for simple public Internet access purposes.
...for UHub's official review of the service quality, best places for highest signal strength, best places to plop down on the grass and check email...
Sitting on grass between six lanes of traffic in the middle of summer with not a bit of shade to be found. Sounds enticing.
I can't wait for 2030 when the trees have had a chance to grow in. A pity most of them were planted alongside the six lanes of traffic, and not in the interior. At least the cars will get shade from the median strip.
Sarcastic ass that I am, I was PO'ed when they announced greenway plans to have so many lanes of surface traffic. Isn't that what the tunnel was for? It should be all pedestrian with one emergency/restricted delivery lane in each direction. And lots of trees.
BUILDINGS
- Limited access lane (deliveries, hotel drop-offs and the like)
- LRT / BRT lane with signal preemption for the cross-streets. (Of which there should be about half as many as there are now.)
- Bike lane
GREENWAY
With trees INSIDE the Greenway, not simply on the periphery.
When y'all criticize the design of the Greenway, try to remember two things:
- There's a *maze* of pipes, wires, conduits, and other important things that were stuffed into the top of the tunnel by engineers before anybody asked the landscape architects if they wanted to plant trees. On the parcels near Rowes Wharf you can see places where the street-side trees aren't planted in a straight line 'cause they would have had to dig up electrical lines.
- A lot of the Greenway parcels were supposed to be temporary designs, awaiting something else to be built on top of them (remember the Boston Museum? The YMCA? The Garden Under Glass?) or to host temporary exhibitions. They look empty because they were *designed* to be empty.
That said, it looks like they're going to be open-space parks for a while. I wish a real public park agency (the DCR? Boston Parks?) would come in and take over already. The public would have more of a say in what happens there, and it'd cost half as much to maintain.
Comments
Extension of existing wi-fi system?
There's already outdoor municipal wi-fi in Christopher Columbus Park and Quincy Market, which abut the Greenway. Will this be an extension of that system?
No: different Wi-Fi equipment in Columbus Park
Columbus Park got its outdoor Wi-Fi hot zone a few years ago as part of a series of proof-of-concept trials for a citywide outdoor Wi-Fi project. Some big commercial equipment manufacturer hoping to get a piece of that eventually-doomed project donated the hardware, and a local electrician's union donated the labor to install it; the City foots the Internet access and power costs.
The new Greenway project was done by Anaptyx, the local Wi-Fi company that installed and operates the Harvard Square outdoor Wi-Fi hot zone; I suspect they're getting paid for their efforts. They use equipment from Meraki, a Google subsidiary that was not involved in the Boston municipal Wi-Fi project.
In theory, you could interconnect the Greenway and Columbus Park hot zones, but there isn't much value in doing that for simple public Internet access purposes.
So we'll be waiting...
...for UHub's official review of the service quality, best places for highest signal strength, best places to plop down on the grass and check email...
Oh, that'll have to wait until the fall
I don't do well in the sun and heat - give me the free WiFi at Copley Place (or in the courtyard of the BPL, at a bare minimum) any day :-).
Now if the city could only
Now if the city could only keep water running in the fountains.
Kinda useful if you can see your screen through the glare
Sitting on grass between six lanes of traffic in the middle of summer with not a bit of shade to be found. Sounds enticing.
I can't wait for 2030 when the trees have had a chance to grow in. A pity most of them were planted alongside the six lanes of traffic, and not in the interior. At least the cars will get shade from the median strip.
I gotta mostly agree
Sarcastic ass that I am, I was PO'ed when they announced greenway plans to have so many lanes of surface traffic. Isn't that what the tunnel was for? It should be all pedestrian with one emergency/restricted delivery lane in each direction. And lots of trees.
Ideally
BUILDINGS
- Limited access lane (deliveries, hotel drop-offs and the like)
- LRT / BRT lane with signal preemption for the cross-streets. (Of which there should be about half as many as there are now.)
- Bike lane
GREENWAY
With trees INSIDE the Greenway, not simply on the periphery.
Hopefully they'll build some
Hopefully they'll build some skyscrapers along the Greenway so we can get some shade.
sounds like
Sounds like everyone here supports chiafaros towers and the much needed shade it will provide,
"Much needed"
Not exactly the words I'd use to describe the newest yuppie play palace proposal.
It wasn't supposed to be this way...
When y'all criticize the design of the Greenway, try to remember two things:
- There's a *maze* of pipes, wires, conduits, and other important things that were stuffed into the top of the tunnel by engineers before anybody asked the landscape architects if they wanted to plant trees. On the parcels near Rowes Wharf you can see places where the street-side trees aren't planted in a straight line 'cause they would have had to dig up electrical lines.
- A lot of the Greenway parcels were supposed to be temporary designs, awaiting something else to be built on top of them (remember the Boston Museum? The YMCA? The Garden Under Glass?) or to host temporary exhibitions. They look empty because they were *designed* to be empty.
That said, it looks like they're going to be open-space parks for a while. I wish a real public park agency (the DCR? Boston Parks?) would come in and take over already. The public would have more of a say in what happens there, and it'd cost half as much to maintain.