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Readville could get new industrial buildings aimed at nascent 'maker' firms

The BRA board tomorrow takes a brief break from considering luxury residential complexes to hear plans for an industrial park between the Readville commuter-rail station and the Dedham line geared to small and start-up manufacturers.

The proposed Readville Yards project, by First Highland Management and Development, would include 375,000 square feet of light-industrial, manufacturing and office space in six new buildings atop an MBTA-owned rail yard and the remnants of an abandoned train line into Dedham. In filings with the BRA, the company says:

While traditional manufacturing jobs are in decline, innovation economy sectors have seen robust employment growth in recent years. The “Maker Movement” is an umbrella term for a thriving economic model that places emphasis on collaboration and innovation through the development of products that are made in the United States and blur the lines between manufacturing, arts, and technology. The Project would support a burgeoning maker movement in the city, where there is a lack of space for small industrial uses. The Proponent is a long-standing owner of properties in Readville, and boasts a demonstrated track record of supporting small business owners and bringing long-term jobs to the neighborhood through light-industrial and manufacturing development opportunities at Boston Dedham Commerce Park.

Five of the buildings, all one story tall, would be divided into a total of 51 "units" between 4,000 and 7,000 square feet apiece. The sixth would be a three-story office building.

The project would sit on the northern side of Industrial Drive, which is accessible by driving through a Readville station parking lot under the Sprague Street bridge. The southern side of the road is used as a BPS bus yard.

North of the site is a residential area along West Milton Street.

With BRA approval, construction would start in March on two buildings and end in 2018.

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Comments

Actually seems like a good idea....

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Start building condo's all around Menino's house. I wonder how he will like it?

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down in Floriduh by now?

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My neighbors are going to freak the hell out, but I say build it now, before someone decides to put an Olympic venue there. This would be a net good to the community, like the Boston Dedham Industrial Park on the other side of the Sprague St bridge is.

However, if use of the Readville yard is going to lead to increased foot or vehicle traffic, the city has to do something to control the traffic mess surrounding Readville station. It's one of the busiest Commuter Rail stations in the network, but accessing the station by foot from any direction means taking your life in your hands. We need traffic calming at the station exit on Milton Street, we need a traffic light at each end of the bridge over the tracks (between Milton St/Neponset Valley Parkway and Hyde Park Ave), and we desperately need a safe pedestrian crossing at Hyde Park Ave.

I am a daily driver and pedestrian on these streets, and it's astounding how dangerous it is for everyone involved.

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Milton Street and Hyde Park Avenue?

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There are many that are much worse.

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It's definitely on my short list. The intersection is configured for Hyde Park Ave to be the main road, with Milton as a side street, but many more drivers are using Milton than are using inbound Hyde Park Ave. The sightlines coming from Milton are terrible, so as a driver, you have to go through the crosswalk and way out into the intersection to see if traffic is clear to turn. The other end of the bridge is just as bad. The whole thing needs to be reconfigured and we need lights for control.

Fun Fact: From the light by the Dunkin Donuts in Wolcott Square, there's not another legal pedestrian crossing of Hyde Park Ave for a full mile inbound, until you get to Glenwood Ave.

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till the tear down the Forest Hills bridge, then it will be the second worst intersection in the city.

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I live about a 15 minute walk from the commuter rail station at Readville and use the same daily. If the powers that be are going to do this, they better consider, strongly, in putting in traffic lights.

Our car has been rear ended and there has been a few pedestrian deaths that I know of near where the cars exit/enter the Readville station (West Milton - near the cross walk). It is a very hairy area for both drivers and pedestrians alike.

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I definitely agree. Traffic moves way too fast between the Milton St. bridge and the station exit, plus pedestrians stepping off the curb from the station side and cars accelerating out of the stop sign at the end of the Sprague Street bridge can't see each other until the pedestrian is mid-lane.

Why isn't Tim McCarthy working on this?

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many years back on the traffic issue. While traffic lights were deemed then to be cost prohibitive, he did manage to get the crosswalk painted near the entrance/exit (for many years it was not, one could hardly tell where the heck it was) and get additional pedestrian crossing signage installed near the same. So some kudos to him.

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It's one of the busiest Commuter Rail stations in the network

51st busiest, to be precise: http://www.mbta.com/uploadedfiles/documents/2014%20BLUEBOOK%2014th%20Edi...

In other words, not that busy.

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Okay, I was kinda shooting from the hip with that one. I hazily remembered a uhub comment some time ago regarding the fare differential between Fairmount and Readville citing it as one of the busiest in the network, but was too lazy to try to track down actual facts.

Retroactively giving myself some credit, I think it's the highest Boston station on that list.

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but it is still traffic choked area, at times with when the trains arrive and deposit commuters, the school buses are returning to Readville yard to be store, and the amount of general rush hour traffic around the area.

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It's the busiest commuter rail station in the City proper according to those stats and a large commuter rail station serving 3 different routes in an urban neighborhood is bound to be more burdensome locally than some parking lot in some sprawling 495 suburb. When you compound this location with a terrible road layout of Milton Street and Hyde Park Ave and the fact that many (myself included) use this route as an alternative to hopping on 93 and, to a much less significant degree, parents shuttling kids to Broderick's gymnastics (lol) and you have a pretty tough traffic situation over there.

The mbta report you cited isn't really intended to capture any of this, but if you drove, or worse tried walking, through here just once, you'd realize these guys are right about the need to improve traffic there.

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Actually, Readville is served by 2 lines, not 3 - Franklin and Fairmount.

And while yes, it is the busiest station in the city in terms of inbound boardings, the stations busier than it are, for the most part, located in urban centers (Providence, Salem, Beverly, Worcester, Lowell), rather than 495 park-and-rides.

Also, if you use those roads as an alternative to 128, then you are a huge part of the problem, because those roads were built to serve local traffic, not traffic that belongs on the interstate.

Finally, I HAVE driven through there, and while it is an awkward setup, there are an abundance of other intersections all around eastern Mass that are much, much worse. At work tomorrow I can pull up state GIS data including things like HSIP sites, if you'd like to know how these intersections rank in the state.

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Good point about 2 rather than 3 lines. I forgot the providence line goes to HP station, but not Readville. Thanks.

I realize avoiding the highway isn't ideal, but cutting through Readville to get from Milton to Route 1 in Dedham really doesn't seem all that unreasonable to me. Given the traffic on our highways any time of day (even the weekends are terrible on those stretches of 93 and 128), I think it's clear the traffic on those roads far exceeds the capacity for which they were built. The thousands of South Shore commuters who cut through local roads in Milton everyday to avoid 93 seem to agree.

I don't disagree that there are worse intersections in Mass., but that doesn't mean the posters above are wrong to raise traffic concerns when new development is proposed which will generate new traffic in an area that apparently isn't on any transportation priority list.

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No I absolutely agree with your last paragraph!

I just want to make sure people keep the discussion factual. It's undeniable that there is traffic in Readville. Just not the severe traffic seen elsewhere. Yes, improvements should be made, but only once the city and the state take care of more important business.

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That used to be a very busy place , auto rail cars came in there , lots of heavy traffic!

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I moved to the area in 1971. While the route from west to east over the railroad bridge and through Wolcott gets backed up at rush hour, it's certainly not a particular problem otherwise. The school buses slow things down, but it only takes them a few minutes to clear out. A Maker shop isn't going to bring in large numbers of people, and they'd be on their own schedule, unlike a factory.

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I always get curious when abandoned rail lines come up. The BRA document calls it the "Dedham Secondary Branch", and found this info at a bike path site

Also known as the Belle Avenue Corridor, this disused railroad right of way ran from the Star Market on Spring St. to the Dedham border, very close to the Dedham Mall, until the MBTA sold it off to abutters in 2006.
Originally, the Dedham Secondary Branch of the Providence and New Haven line, it was closed in 1941 and later bought by the MBTA, probably at the same time as they acquired what is now the Needham Commuter Rail line. It was nearly intact in the city except for a missing bridge over Spring St. At the Dedham end, it runs into the Super Stop and Shop and is buried y the parking lot there. The bridge over the Mother Brook is long since gone, as is the right of way to Dedham Center. The location of the Dedham station is now the terminus of two trails planned by the Town of Dedham. The line originally continued on to Providence, but the next part of the right of way is now buried by US 1. In early 1998, after the Boston and state park departments refused to by the land, the MBTA expressed interest in selling off part of the line to developers, but no developers were chosen.

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