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Making the case for replacing mammoth overpass with at-grade crossing in Forest Hills

On Sept. 13, an advisory group working on the Casey Overpass replacement project is scheduled to reveal three possible alternatives: Two involving bridges and one involving the complete demolition of the current hulk and replacing it with a ground-level intersection.

Pete Stidman of the Boston Cyclists Union is looking for a volunteer to work on a video explaining why ground level would be better:

For cyclists, it would greatly improve connections between the parks and also improve crossings for the North South routes along Washington Street, South Street and Hyde Park Avenue, not to mention creating a much larger green space at the trailhead of the Southwest Corridor big enough to hold community events.

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Comments

I really hadn't formed an opinion yet of whether I wanted the bridge to be replaced in some form or have an at-grade roadway, but after reading the bicyclist's opinion I'm 100 percent in favor of a new bridge.

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bikers are not the only people in the city. As a pedestrian and a resident of the area, getting cars up and away from intersections and our local streets is preferable.

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I agree.

Here we go again with the militant biker groups who want to force their way into public projects. Once again I'll renew my comment about "if you build it, they will come" mentality of bikers and pro-biker projects. Sorry folks its just not going to happen that way. We have snow on the ground for 4-5 months of the year, and only weirdo bikers bike in the winter around here.

Until Bikers start paying excise and gasoline taxes like cars do, they have little have little room to be militant about it. Yes I agree it should be incorporated into the design, but shouldn't be the SOLE reason why that bridge is taken down.

And honestly the bridge should be rebuilt. There's too much traffic in that area to put it all on to the local streets. Rebuild the bridge.

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Until Bikers start paying excise and gasoline taxes like cars do,

Guess how much of your excise and gasoline taxes go towards road construction?

ZERO PERCENT. Road construction in the US (and the UK, and many other countries) comes out of property and income taxes.

Guess how many bicyclists are also drivers and car owners, or use Zipcar, and thus pay excise tax, license fees, and gas taxes (indirectly in the case of Zipcar)? QUITE A NUMBER OF THEM.

Guess how much wear and tear a bicycle puts on the road? NONE. Which is infinitely more than your car or (especially) SUV. So, the more people who use bicycles, the less wear there is on the roads you and I both pay for.

Further, the more people who bicycle, the fewer cars on the road, and the less congestion there is...which means clearer roads for busses and trucks and cars, with the same infrastructure - so you don't have to pay out your precious tax dollars for more roads.

Did I mention that I'm a biker and I think it's idiotic to not have an overpass? That area already is completely saturated with traffic and the 39 bus, one of the busiest in the system, gets stoppered up there during rush hour. That will only get worse if the bridge goes away. I just want them to keep the roads in good repair in that area - South/Washington are horrible, and I have to come way out into the lane to avoid massive potholes. And that means I'm blocking traffic. Hey, how about that, maintaining the roads for me helps out you in your car, too.

Asshole.

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What do you think would happen if you eliminated the excise and gas tax? Some of that tax money that goes to construction from property and income taxes would have to go other places. A tax is a tax. It either goes to the city, state, or feds. Sometimes those governments have bylaws which dictate where money can go, but it still goes to the same place and you can always change those bylaws.

And if everyone biked, people wouldn't be able to get to work on time and we wouldn't be a very productive economy. Some people would love to bike to work but can afford to live close to where they work.

And the weather, sewer and gas work, and water pipes do more damage to roads than cars do. Roads probably wouldn't be that much different here if you had only bikes or only cars using them.

But on the other hand, if we had only bikes, we could narrow the roadways in the state by 80% and might be able to build cheaper bridges. I also agree that the overpass there is probably better for everyone involved.

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You really should take lessons in reading comprehension and logic.

The point is that cyclists and pedestrians subsidize drivers, any way you slice it. Demanding MODERN facilities that meet MODERN INTERNATIONAL STANDARDS is hardly "militant".

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There are 82 cars for every hundred people in Massachusetts (it's true -- look it up). The 18 percent of people who do not have a car their exclusive personal use are not all exclusively riding bikes or walking, a good many of them are probably splitting a car with their spouse. I find your argument unconvincing. The system works the way it does because most people have a car, and pay taxes to maintain the roads for cars.

Do you also consider it unjust that the 5.75 million people who don't take the T on a daily basis subsidize the 0.75 million who do through the sales tax?

Demanding MODERN facilities that meet MODERN INTERNATIONAL STANDARDS is hardly "militant"

When did this become about the metric system? Take your meters and grams back to europe where they belong.

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There are 82 cars for every hundred people in Massachusetts (it's true -- look it up). The 18 percent of people who do not have a car their exclusive personal use are not all exclusively riding bikes or walking, a good many of them are probably splitting a car with their spouse.

"82 cars for every hundred people" does not equal "18 percent of Massachusetts people don't own a car", because one person can own more than one car.

Further, what matters: WHERE the car-less people live.

http://www.humantransit.org/2010/01/three-kinds-of...

"Boston, Massachusetts 34.91%"

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Did they count students? Did unrelated students living 2-5 to an apartment count as a single household?

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Don't be an idiot. Cars are expensive and you can only drive one at a time. Car collectors are a vanishingly small proportion of the population.

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zero percent of gas or excise tax goes to road construction.

And that point doesn't really matter, since taxes all go to the same place. Just a small point you tried to make to someone that you called an asshole after your statement.

And every single tax payer subsudizes millions of things they will never use. So I still don't buy that point.

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"What do you think would happen if you eliminated the excise and gas tax?"

Irrelevant. Which part of "taxes I pay go to road construction" do you not understand? The OP said "bicyclists don't pay for use of the roads", and that's bullshit.

"And if everyone biked, people wouldn't be able to get to work on time "

Funny, I get to work faster by bike than by T.

"Some people would love to bike to work but can [sic] afford to live close to where they work."

Funny, as it turns out most people who commute long distances lose more money in commuting expenses than they do spending more on housing.

Funny how if more people biked, traffic and the transit system during rush hour would flow more smoothly.

Funny how if more people biked, traffic and transit system problems wouldn't affect as many people.

Etc. etc. etc.

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It's not irrelevant. Eliminating the gas and excise tax would increase the burden of tax money devoted to roads on non drivers. Use your noodle.

If everybody biked it'd be like going back to ye olden days before the industrial revolution. I'm not about to embrace a new dark age of lost productivity.

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Is so incredibly productive?

I'm sure drive time blather radio and minor accidents are very much engines of the economy and bastions of efficiency in your alternate universe.

Maybe all that sitting in stressful waiting is productive for the manufacturers of happy drugs, anti-stress drugs, anti-obesity drugs, cholestrol lowering drugs, ED drugs ...

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If it takes you 30 minutes for a 10 mile commute by car (18 minutes with no traffic) that might take you 40 minutes by bike. That is what my commute is like.

I think we have to look at the big picture here. In a perfect world we would all be able to travel 50mph to any destination we want to go to with the least amount of traffic. We also want to prevent the enviorment from getting fckd up from emmissions and whatnot in the process. Bikes are great for some people in some places. But some people have to work 2 jobs in 2 different locations. Biking might be faster than a bus in that situation, but it might not be.

We need to make sure bikers have safe and feasable routes to travel, but we don't have to bend over backwards for them either.

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We need to make sure that car drivers have safe and feasible routes to travel, but we don't have to bend over backwards for them either.

If you are taking 30 minutes for a 10 mile commute by car, you are traveling at 20 MPH. This is the posted speed limit on my street. If you are averaging this speed in your urban commute, you do not have a problem. What you have is a reasonable rate of travel for driving in a heavily populated area.

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But I think it is more important that we get people places in a quick amount of time (using vehicles that can go 30-80mph) than it is getting slower vehicles places(bikes going 5-25 mph.) We just shouldn't do too much at the expense of the other.

Cars already have safe routes, but bikers don't, so that is something we can work on. And I'm not sure there is much more we can do with car roads in urban areas. You can always add lanes to 128, 90, or 93, But you can't really widen Comm Ave, Beacon St or Mass Ave.

And lets remember that this is America we are talking about. People just don't like to bike here. I think we overestimate the number of bikers in certain areas and underestimate them in others. We just have to find out those places that they are overestimated, and not give in to them. Just like we don't want to give in to those car people that fight bike lanes in areas that need bike lanes.

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Sure it's anecdotal, but I've met a lot of people in Cambridge/Somerville that said they would bike places if they weren't terrified of getting squished by a car. Certainly there are plenty of lazy people that don't want to exercise either, but safety, or perceived safety, is the reason I hear cited the most. A vast improvement of bicycling facilities could go a long way.

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If you spend 10 extra minutes each way, that means that you get 1:20 of exercise for a 20 minute outlay (assuming you don't shower at home and shower at work instead, that's a wash ... as it were).

I've done this calcuation time and again, Pete. Throw in the cost of a gym membership, parking and daycare and you are way ahead if you jump on your bike.

Not to mention that I don't know where you live and work that it takes only 30 minutes to get 10 miles ... Medford to the Medical Area was 10 miles by bike in 40-50 minutes, over an hour by car, and 1-2 hours by public transit.

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But that is also why I don't live in Medford, Somerville or Cambridge. I've never wanted to deal with the traffic up there going into Boston. I live down near Rt. 109 and come into Boston along the WFW parkway. I could bike it I guess, and so could the other thousand or so people I see driving. It just isn't a great biking commute. I would be in great shape if I did it every day though, and I think it would be faster if I went straght up Washington St. but thats another story.

But I like driving. I like getting a coffee and drinking it on the way in. I also like to know that I can go places after work and that I can get places in an emergency. Add in the weather, hills, crazy drivers, etc and I just don't want to do it every day and neither do the other thousand people. Call me lazy, (and I do work out and bike for recreation), but I just like my options driving than I do biking.

I'm also not in bike shape to do that kind of ride every day, but I guess it would be good for me.

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but googlemaps has my commute as 58 minutes by bike, and 23 minutes by car. And I know the suggested car route they want me to take would be at least 33 minutes, and I'm not sure about the bike speeds and how they figure them out.

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I also like to know that I can go places after work and that I can get places in an emergency.

While I hear you on the "not every day", I have to say that when I had to get places in an emergency, I generally found it faster if I had my bike (I drove to that job for over a year because I was constantly hauling equipment around the Boston area, so I know the differences).

Take 9/11/01. I was at work in the Medical Area. The T was shut down and people were stranded or had to wait for others to drive in and get them. Several roadways were blocked off for various reasons or rumors. Everything was a mess and traffic was a disaster.

And I had my bike. I got where I wanted to be - my son's child care in Somerville - in about 35 minutes. Biking can be miserable at times, but there are still very few places within the Boston/Cambridge/Somerville/Brookline area that you can't get to or from in an hour or less.

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Maybe the Boston/Cambridge/Somerville/Brookline/Arlington area is better for biking and commuting than other parts of surburban Boston.

Plus you have to deal with the parking in those areas as well. I've just never been a big Cambridge guy either.

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I want to get there in 15 minutes or less.

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If anything's going to cause ED it's riding bikes over potholes.

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"Militant"? Cyclists are now carrying guns around and forming a rebel army or something? No, cyclists are just using their first-amendment rights to petition the government to consider their needs in addition to the needs of drivers and pedestrians. That's not militancy, it's just advocacy, which drivers and pedestrians can do as well.

And remember, it's not like there are three distinct groups of people, cyclists, drivers, and pedestrians, all at odds with each other, so any improvement for one group will hurt the other two. Everyone is a pedestrian at some point. Some people drive but don't cycle, and some cycle but don't drive, but there are a good number of people who do both. The article linked to is from a cycling advocacy group, but that doesn't mean that the only reason being proposed for getting rid of the overpass is to accommodate cyclists. I have actually had more problems with the overpass as a pedestrian and driver than as a cyclist.

As a pedestrian, I am usually walking to the T station. The on-ramps and off-ramps, combined with the surface road intersection, make that intersection very difficult to navigate as a pedestrian. As for driving, that intersection can be very confusing. When I try to give directions to people, it's fairly confusing to describe that intersection, due to the fact that sight lines are blocked by the overpass when approaching, there are on and off-ramps for the Arborway as well as the Arborway service road which causes additional confusion. Of course, the bizarre routing of Washington St, so that it jogs briefly, also causes problems, but that problem isn't caused by the overpass. A regular surface intersection would likely be a lot easier to describe, and better sight lines would help people be able to figure out what's going on a lot better.

The tax argument you raise is old, tired, and incorrect. Most cyclists have a car, use a car share program like Zipcar, or use taxis at some point, which mean that excise taxes and gas taxes get paid. And roads are also funded with other forms of tax revenue, like property, sales, and income taxes, which everyone pays. And in a democratic society, you still get a voice regardless of how much you pay in taxes. Roads are one of the most prominent things that government does, that affects everyone's quality of life. Saying that people shouldn't speak up because they use lower impact vehicles and pay fewer taxes as a result is ridiculous.

So, how about an argument that actually describes why an overpass would be better than a surface road, keeping in mind that it's for a road that is now a surface road on either end of the overpass, instead of an argument that boils down to "cyclists shouldn't ask that their needs be considered in transportation planning."

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The Casey bridge alternatives both fix of the two big intersections along New Washington Street (the street in front of the T stop) . The confusing turns onto New Washington Street that you're describing will be gone. In exchange, there will be at least two fewer lanes of surface traffic than the no overpass option. Since the bridge is narrower and shorter, the supporting columns will be much smaller too, improving sight lines.

The "no overpass options", on the other hand, have the disadvantage of prohibiting some common left hand turns. For example, you won't be able to turn from New Washington Street directly onto Washington Street going towards Roslindale: you'll need to make a U turn up be the Arboretum and then take a right. Similarly, you won't be able to turn from New Washington Street to Washington Street inbound.

No one knows yet how bikers on the road are supposed to make those common turns -- I guess most will choose Ukraine Way.

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I think drivers are reacting to all the adjustments that have already been made in the city that allegedly benefit bikers while reducing speed and safety for everyone. Take the bike lanes on Commonwealth Avenue by BU. They reduce everyone's safety -- the motor vehicle traffic lanes are now narrower, the bike lane threads between traffic lanes and parked cars then cuts across turning lanes for that horrendous double jughandle that connects Comm Ave, Storrow Drive, and the BU bridge. That's a poor situation for everybody.

Let's be honest with ourselves, bikes really have no business on heavily traveled, multi-lane, numbered state routes with a prevailing speed over 30 miles an hour. If bikers need to get downtown from Allston and Brighton, they should take the esplanade, the T, or a cab.

Given the implementation of pro-bike traffic designs thus far, It's not too hard to see why a driver's knee-jerk reaction would be "if the bikers are for it, then I'm against it"

I use Route 203 all the time commuting between Brighton and Quincy. The southeast expressway is impractical and overburdened, driving out to 128 is equally absurd. The stretch from the Arboretum down to Dorchester is a surface road, but it's a multi-lane, divided, limited access parkway, and the cars get going pretty fast on it. You don't want that traffic coming up to the Forest Hills T stop on a surface road, that's just silly. Keeping that higher-speed, through traffic out of the way of that neighborhood (and vice-versa) is a net benefit to everyone.

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"Bikes really have no business on heavily traveled, multi-lane, numbered state routes with a prevailing speed over 30 miles an hour. "

I agree with this. The number of such routes should be reduced within the city limits and speed laws should be enforced, so that transit and our neighborhoods may be more convenient and safe for all.

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No -- the number of these roads should be increased, and they should be linked into a coherent urban inner ring highway system so that people and goods can travel throughout the city more efficiently.

I have no problem with a parallel and separate system for bikes, everyone will be safer and happier if they aren't on highways.

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They tried bringing a "coherent urban inner ring highway system" inside 128 in the 50s - 70s. The Master Highway Plan was published in 1948. The inner ring was to be called 695. Is that what you would have preferred? Unfortunately for you, the people who live here chose a different option. Read up.

People who live in the city get around here just fine, using cars, trains, buses, bikes, feet, etc. Making it easier for people to travel through the city in cars will not make it easier for people who live in the city to get around. And our preferences come first.

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People still believed that building more roads would alleviate traffic congestion.

BWHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

When cities and towns are required to clear snow from sidewalks on critical pedestrian arteries and start getting fined for clogging handicap ramps and bus stops with snow, we'll talk about fair use of tax money.

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You know why building more roads causes more traffic? Because driving is faster and more convenient when there are better roads.

FYI: it snows here, buy some boots and suck it up.

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Driving is faster and more convenient for about two or three years. Then more people buy more cars and the traffic mounts up again.

The web is full of evidence of this phenomenon. Google "can't build your way out of a traffic jam" in standard google, or research the rich literature on google scholar for more information.

P.S. buying boots doesn't help people who need wheel chairs to get around, or those who simply don't like to break their legs in three places trying to get to work. Plowing is a hidden, but completely clear example of how property taxes heavily subsidize driving over other modes.

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There's an inherent fallacy in the "can't build your way out of a traffic jam" argument. It's that the traffic jam is a sign of failure.

It's not.

It's a sign of success. More, larger, faster roads are more convenient, they stimulate growth and result in additional traffic.That's what successful infrastructure does.

Saying traffic jams show that interstates are a failure is like Yogi Berra saying "no wonder nobody goes there anymore, it's too crowded"

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If i were wheelchair bound here in winter I'd definitely use a snowmobile.

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I live in the city, I know about it, and they were wrong to cancel it just because some Cambridge professors got their undies in a bundle.

It's a pain in the ass to work your way across town; I can drive to New Hampshire faster than I can get from the South end to Central Square.

The CT1/2/3 busses are a start, but they'd be even better if they didn't spend all their time tied up at lights or in rotaries. On a bad day I can easily beat the CT1 walking.

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At a minimum, Central Square, Inman Square, and Union Square in Cambridge/Somerville would have been either wiped out or severely blighted. So would a swath of Brookline. I suppose the Melnea Cass area can't get much worse.... because it was already cleared out in preparation for this highway that wasn't built.

All for the convenience of a few cars. It would probably be a congested nightmare today anyways. I'm glad I don't live in a city like Houston, and blocking this highway kept us from becoming just that.

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I'm not sure what you're talking about. Houston is an excellent walking city... in January when it's a reasonable temperature like 60°.

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It's a good thing very few people who live here feel the way you do, or this city would be much uglier and harder to get around. You may recall the sole standing legacy of the great project was the Central Artery - and you remember how fast traffic went up there and how easy it made it to get to the North End and Waterfront.

If they'd built your highway network, you'd pick up the ring down by where Melnea Cass is, and swing through where they tore down Wentworth and Boston Latin, up past where they tore down Emanuel and parts of BU, across where the BU Bridge used to be, and up to where Central Square would have been... because the freeway (maximum design speed 50MPH) would have cut that into pieces too. It would be a big trench and a tangle of ramps. It's unlikely your job would be there.

You'd obviously rather be living somewhere else if you'd prefer they tore down huge swaths of Boston and Cambridge just so you could run your motor in limited access traffic jams. If you are really so frustrated about how long it takes to drive from the South End to Central Square that you'd bulldoze half the city and isolate chunks of it one piece from the other until it looked like the West Bank, then maybe you should get a bike instead. It's a two mile straight shot up Mass Ave and if you're incapable of doing that, you should be more worried about your health than your bus.

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Whoah there, whose the history buff now? The BU bridge still would have been there if they went with the beautiful 8-lane tunnel option. I also seem to recall the Tobin bridge was part of the ring project, and last I checked, it's still standing, unless you and the rest of the bike Taliban dynamited it.

It wasn't at all difficult to get to the North End before they tore down the Artery, driving or walking. And you only remember it as a blight because they let maintenance slip once they knew it was coming down anyway. Granted it took them like a decade to bring it all down, so it looked pretty unsightly at the end.

Only a luddite would think that bringing in a highway would destroy active urban centers like Inman or Central; making them easier to access would increase their vitality. Copley and Prudential sure haven't been hurt by having ramps to the pike. Look at north shore cities that missed out on the proposed Northeast Expressway extension -- Lynn and Salem blighted from lack of access to an interstate, while the cities and industries along 128 boomed. There'd be more jobs along an urban ring highway, not less.

The hyperbole about the urban ring being the great wall of china or creating some sort of urban balkanization is stale and laughable. 93 doesn't carve up Dorchester, the pike doesn't divide Allston (obviously it's less divisive than the old rail lines were). People work around it and adapt, and they're better off being able to get more places faster, and have more stuff come to them faster and cheaper.

What is it about riding a kid's toy that makes cyclists so smug? Just because someone has a car they're a rolling wheezing blob of fat? Look, the rest of us know the world is more than 2 miles across and we have things we want to do other than trying to get places. I'll give you a little free advice. You seem to think that inconvenient hard work is virtuous -- it's not. The three primary virtues are laziness, impatience, and hubris. All human progress depends on the avoidance of unnecessary hard work. Working hard for it's own sake is probably the most sinful activity you can engage in because it destroys something valuable and irreplaceable -- your own time. If everyone listened to people like you, they'd still be living in harmony with nature and getting eaten by tigers.

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Here we go again with the militant biker groups who want to force their way into public projects.

My neighbors don't even own cars, but their taxes pay for "militant drivers" who demand that all such money be spent on their transport ... FAR MORE than the amount they contribute.

Tough shit, toots. Grow up and do the math why don't you?

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I'd even let them skip the taxes if they were required to carry insurance, or you know, stop at red lights.

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as it will restore Olmsted's original plan for the parkways connecting Jamaica Pond and the Arboretum to Franklin Park.

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...a few months before the Wright Brothers' first flight in December of that year.

Does that mean we should declare a no-fly zone over the Emerald necklace to avoid interfering with his alleged vision?

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Don't you know - Olmsted didn't serve the public - the public serves Olmsted.

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Other commenters here have acted off put that the boston cyclists union would be talking about how this decision affects cyclists. I don't get why you're upset about a cyclist advocacy group talking about how it would affect its members.

To the anon who is a pedestrian/resident, I suggest you investigate what happened in lots of other cities when elevated highways were removed. Car traffic was reduced and people used other means to get where they were going. Moving to an at-gradeintersection will not cause people to travel the speed they were on the overpass and will actually increase the walkability of the neighborhood. (I assume, as a pedestrian, you have tried to walk through that area and recognized how horrible the experience is.)

One of the fallacies presented by people is that one day there will be a bridge, and the next there will be at-grade and all the same will be trying to go through it. No matter which way the bridge is replaced, there will be a long period of disruption to the traffic, it is just whether you spend a bunch of money to let cars return to zooming over your heads again or you spend less money to increase the pleasure of your community and undo the mistakes of the past.

For many people, it seems illogical that tearing down an overpass can have these benefits, but evidence in many other cities shows this to be the case. Some of the first evidence came from earthquakes that tore down elevated highways that weren't rebuilt. Then some urban planners noticed the effect and experimented and had the same results. At this point, it is whether you rationally follow the evidence or try to create your own theories that are contradicted by real world experience.

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Yeah, people stop driving on routes that are slow because they can't get to where they're going in a timely fashion. People would stop taking the southeast expressway if we put stoplights on it, but it would hardly be beneficial to the surrounding areas. The solution is more, bigger, faster roads, not less.

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Yup I agree.

The poster above this one is referring to the Embarcadero Freeway in San Francisco, which was never rebuilt after the 1989 earth quake. (it was already falling apart anyways)

Yeah its a PRETTY sight now (I've been there). But there's a few things to consider.

1) The Embarcadero Freeway didn't go anywhere. It was never completed in the 1960s so it was kinda a road that took traffic off of city streets and put them onto the Embarcadero Freeway so they could get faster access to US 101 Freeway (and the bay bridge)

2) Yeah much like the poster above has said, the traffic has to go SOMEWHERE. Yeah it may not use the Embarcadero anymore, because it has too many traffic lights, but please ask someone on Van Ness in SF how they feel about the Embarcadero being gone. Most won't have many good things to say (since this is the new designation for US 101, which takes traffic from the Golden Gate to the 101 Freeway (to Oakland or South San Francisco). It just pushed all the traffic onto Van Ness from the old Embarcadero Freeway. Which I find funny now because they are doing so many 'upgrades' to Van Ness to make the traffic smoother and faster.

JP is hard enough to get in and out of, lets not make it even WORSE than it is now because some biker group wants better access?

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It takes forever to get from the airport to the Golden Gate Bridge on Van Ness. Whenever we drive it, I wish and wish there were a freeway we could take instead. I don't think it's an improvement to put through highway traffic on surface roads. And if I lived along Van Ness, I would think that even more.

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When the Casey Overpass was built, Route 203 was a major artery bringing most of Dorchester and the southeast suburbs to the Jamaicaway, which was the major route into Boston. There wasn't any I-93, there wasn't any Mass Pike, and Rt. 128 was a pathway of suburban roads. The Orange Line was a elevated railway, trolley lines led to Southwest Boston, and the Casey Overpass was designed to take the burden of all this traffic over the whole mess.

Now most of that traffic goes up the Southeast Expressway, and the Orange Line is buried underground. The Casey Overpass is tremendously underused, and as evidence note that there are rarely any backups despite half of it being closed due to crumbling. Nobody even knows what Route 203 is anymore.

The overpass is a blight and it's unnecessary. With the money they save by not rebuilding it, they could redesign the complicated intersections to fit today's traffic patterns. And we would no longer have to look at this massive, ugly bridge that towers over what could be an attractive city square.

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No one's talking about maintaining the Casey's current designed capacity. Any new bridge would only have one travel lane in each direction. Bridge or no bridge, the roadway system will be look and work better than it does now.

The overpass currently carries about 2000 cars per hour at peak AM and PM rush hours. Even if a chunk of that traffic somehow disappears, that's still a lot of cars to add to existing surface traffic that bikers and pedestrians will have to compete with.

A bunch of locals inside i-93/128 use the Casey to travel across the spokes of Boston's hub. The circumferential roads aren't good substitutes, and no practical transit options go where the Casey goes.

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There, I said it. And I'm proud I said it. I see it every day. I've driven, walked, and run under it at various points. I've thought about what others have said, but I don't see it as a blight.

Heck, I've watched the Fourth of July fireworks from it (having left my car elsewhere). It's a pretty cool bridge to walk on, too.

The slope from the Arboretum is conducive to an overpass, and even the numbers say that surface traffic would triple without a bridge. A nice bridge would be a landmark.

That said, I'm glad to read the plan to get rid of the Shea Rotary. You want to talk about something that is bad for bikers and walkers- try getting to Franklin Park from Forest Hills Station. Even for cars, you take your life in your hands in that rotary.

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I'm not a highway militant, by any means, but agree that a thoughtfully-designed bridge and careful, standards-based engineering of the surface roads, walkways and cycling rights-of-way below, will likely benefit the larger number of constituents.

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I like it, too. It seems to fit the geography of the area which is a narrow valley, and it is one of the few good crosstown routes between Dorchester and Brookline. I've enjoyed the views from it by bike, car, and foot, and am also not bothered by the way it looks underneath it. The only problem I have with that area is that it is lacking in buildings, with the exception of South St. Hopefully Arboretum Place will help, but overall, the area cries out not for redesigned traffic, but more apartments and stores.

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the surest way to kill that is to put up another overpass.

Ever wonder why most of the Forest Hills business district has been empty for years? Why the first investment in decades on the barren stretch of nearby Washington Street is a huge 4-story storage facility (with a bit of housing and retail thrown in to distract the ‘hood)? I work in real estate so let me explain:

No one wants to build housing next to an elevated highway. Retail business won’t locate where potential customers are flying overhead and can’t stop. My dream pitch to clients: a development parcel in JP, walking distance to the T, commuter rail, and the Emerald Necklace. Forest Hills has all that. Unfortunately, it also has an overpass. It’s a deal breaker, unless you want storage facilities at the Arborway Yard too.

The Casey Overpass is only two lanes and doesn’t carry any more traffic than a lot of other city streets--and those neighborhoods are doing just fine. Instead of spending tens of millions of taxpayer dollars to rebuild the status quo, spend it to reconfigure the surface roads and make the area more attractive. You’ll get housing and a nice business district, with the higher real estate values and property taxes that go along with them. Don't kid yourself that even a smaller overpass isn't still a blight on the neighborhood.

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Those empty lots around the station would have been developed already if the neighborhood busybodies hadn't blocked everything proposed at their endless 'community meetings.' And through the whole process, I've never seen the overpass mentioned as a problem. And while most people who want the overpass taken down claim that the traffic won't be any worse, you obviously think it will- and you think it's a good thing. Interesting.

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but I'm not convinced in this case. There are other obstacles to Forest Hills area development such as the open rail trench, the shape of available parcels squeezed between streets, railroad, protected open space, etc. Add a smattering of NIMBYs and brownfields, and I'm not so sure the overpass is the main issue. That said, I have yet to make up my mind here. I recognize that much of my interest in preserving the bridge has to do with personal aesthetics.

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I went to numerous of the public hearings on what to do with the Forest Hills area. I came in hostile but agreed coming out with the recommendations that a key solution is making the circuit around the FH station one way.

Like the Jamaicaway, that area is too narrow for its uses, particularly obvious when you bike or drive North on Hyde Park-becoming Washington. With the pick-up and drop-off plus the restaurant/bar traffic, the one-way begins to become, oh, yeah, why didn't I think of that.

The my-God-we-can't-change-anything folk were the ones who were terrorized by taking up the trolley tracks. I bet they still wear onions in their belts.

I bike a lot, walk a lot, drive and T sometimes. Forest Hills is a real horror, overpass and otherwise. Honestly the overpass is the least of it. The Arborway/203 is a driving nightmare morning and afternoon, and benign the rest of the day. Commuters need to stop pretending that it is the right way to and from downtown Boston. Get real; it leads to the two-lane carriage trail that is used at the four-lane Jamaicaway, a relentless accident lab/congestion arena.

The overpass fails and at each end, it is a solid jam or field of broken auto parts of failed yield merges. At-grade crossing forcing motor vehicles and bikes to wait their turns at what is really a rail/bus terminal is sensible. The rest is historical fantasy.

IMNSHO

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I suppose all the people causing the congestion in the morning and afternoon are just fantasizing that they're commuting.

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Mornings and afternoons on 203 both directions and 1 N (J' and Riverway) bicycling is much faster, more pleasant (except in terrible weather) and less anxiety producing. The saps basically idled on those roads delude themselves that car travel over the T, bike and foot gives them freedom and control. Think the grocery-store bozos who cling to the handles of their carts, blocking the aisle so they don't have to get even a few feet away from THEIR cart. Rethinking the vehicle use and process is in order.

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Get real. A bike would lose a race from quincy to brighton any time of day. Guaranteed. You could drive it like 3 times before Lance Armstrong could bike it.

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I've had friends who have tried both driving and biking between those places. Unless you leave very early or commute on Sunday, bikes win for time and consistent amount of time to commute. 6am, you would be right. 10am, maybe. 7 or 8 am, bike wins, hands down.

Cars can't win when they are holding one of their twice-daily critical mass events and do their own intersection corking and take up so much space on the roads that none of them can move.

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Because you can get right on I90 and the only backup is usually on 93 North.

How about Charlestown to Hyde Park at 2pm? I might take the bike on that one.

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I used to do Medford to Longwood - much of the route would be simiar. The bike wins pretty much any time except 11am-2pm, before 6am, and after 8pm. Bike was also consistently 45-50 minutes - driving varied horrendously, even at 3pm.

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at least during rush hour. I think as the distance becomes greater and the likelihood of at least some stretches of open road increases, the car ends up winning, so I agree that Quincy to Brighton is probably a win for the car.

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Speak for yourself.
I take the T when I commute into Boston and enjoy bike-riding recreationally but I'd rather poke a stick in my eye than ride a bike on the 203.
Come on. There are daily car crashes. People walk away from (most) of them.
Fucking goner when some multi-tasking douche creams you on your bike.
No thanks.

And I've never seen a death-grip on a shopping cart.
Did you grow up in Detroit circa RoboCop?

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If I gave the impression that I thought local traffic would be worse, then I expressed myself badly. I was trying to make the point that the neighborhood would be much more attractive to development without the kind of barrier that an elevated highway inevitably produces. And that we shouldn't fear the surface traffic. Surface roads easily handle traffic levels/intersections similar to those around Forest Hills. And as others have noted, look at other cities that have taken down elevated highways. No doomsday traffic problems. Traffic flow improved even when traffic counts stayed the same. Adjacent property values spiked. The neighborhood got new housing and new business. That’s why every other city in the country with a chance to take these monstrosities down is doing so. Somewhere in city planner heaven, Jane Jacobs is telling Robert Moses that she told him so.

I used to live in the area near Doyle’s and am still fond of the neighborhood. For those residents the worst case I can imagine is lots of new development on Washington Street and a new overpass, which forces people to get to Washington Street from wherever the overpass touches down, rather than directly. The Casey already encourages local drivers to use Forest Hills Ave, Rossmore and Williams Streets as shortcuts. Now imagine that Washington Street is a destination for more than just local residents. Shudder.

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Why would anyone visit the projects just because someone put a stoplight on 203?

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Sullivan Square lost its overpass a few years ago, and it's still a total disaster of a square.

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I don’t believe anything replaced that overpass when it closed. Now there are plans to replace the underpass in Sullivan Square with a surface boulevard—though that’s not without opponents.

Charlestown Patch

Somerville wants to take down the McGrath highway and turn that into a surface boulevard. That has a lot more traffic than the Casey.

MassDot Grounding McGrath

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