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Guy who wanted to pave over the Esplanade doesn't think it needs protecting from people like him
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Whoa, baby on the Esplanade
Before everyone piles on Mr. Sullivan, consider what Landmark status for the Esplanade might bring along with it. Yes, it might make it harder to temporarily shift Storrow Drive to construct the permanent fix for the tunnel, but it might also have far less desirable effects.
For example, if you wanted to improve the bikeway or some of the foot paths, or if the Hatch Shell started falling down, or if someone wanted to introduce a new recreational use (e.g., another community boating-type use), that proposal would likely get caught up in the endless reviews which proposals for improvements on Landmark properties always undergo.
That might sound appealing, but you should all remember that there is a sizable cohort of people who consider the Esplanade their own personal backyard. They have a lot more money than most of us (think: expensive lawyers who specialize in delay), and would be happy as could be if the entire Esplanade were devoted only to grass and tree growing (and no active recreation that might draw people).
The Esplanade already has Article 97 protection under the state constitution, which would required a 2/3 vote of the legislature if someone wanted to change what it is used for (that is, plow it under for a roadway). That is a fairly tall hurdle to overcome. Landmark status might not add much, and might be useful in preventing a lot of otherwise desirable improvements. Be careful what you wish for.
I'm still waiting ...
To see a cost/benefit analysis for keeping storrow drive at all when there is already a parallel limited access federal roadway a couple of blocks away.
Lets see the money and numbers versus pike improvements and neighborhood improvements before deciding to sink billions into the repair of a facility that will necessarily have to destroy a lot of urban greenspace to be rebuilt to modern specification (not just the tunnel, but the rest of the antiquated and crumbling mess that will have to be replaced soon).
As for Sullivan, he might as well work for a paving company or an automaker - he's either too old or just too stupid to understand that state and federal standards about uses of land and roadways and intersections - including pedestrian crossings and cycling accomodations - apply to him. Making up stuff because you refuse to listen ain't policy.
Absolutely. Certainly not
Absolutely. Certainly not my ideas, but it would seem that if BU bridge and Fenway access was added to the pike, and if some of the westbound only on-ramps also had exits, the pike could be converted to a local access road for Boston instead of just passing through, and there would not be much need for Storrow anymore. If the tolls came down on the pike somehow, say with a gas tax increase, then there would no longer be a need for a toll free alternative either. Storrow (Soldiers Field Road here?) could end at the BU bridge.
Logistics
There are logistical issues. Essentially there is no place to put the exits. (In general you don't want to put in an exit if there isn't a paired entrance on the other side - otherwise you dump thousands of cars into a neighborhood but have no way to get them back out efficiently). On the East bound side you have the railroads to contend with (which have all kinds of federal laws protecting their right of way) and on the westbound side you have almost no place to put them as most of the pike backs up to structures. People have looked - but the clearances are EXTREMELY tight. Also - while is seems like the Pike could take the traffic from storrow (which carries about 100,000 cars a day), at certain times of the day if you pushed all the traffic onto the pike you would essentially turn it into the expressway - gridlock for hours.
There is no easy solution to this - and unfortunately some of the better possibilities are financially unattainable until the big dig is paid for (like burying storrow or installing a tunnel under the charles). One of the best solutions I've seen is to run a new bridge from Leverett across the charles and onto memorial drive down to about the BU bridge and back across. While the bridges would be expensive you accomplish the following:
a) you actually straighten the road
b) you move a high traffic road away from the park and the abutting residential homes (a local access road - similar to comm ave or beacon street would take the place of storrow -sorry - a bow to modern reality)
Unfortunately while this solution has a number of positive points it would never gain the political traction necessary - those pesky cantabridgians are very happy leaving the traffic on the Boston side of the river.
Thus - we are probably stuck with the status quo - but not for a lack of trying.
clarification request
Are you proposing redirecting Storrow Drive traffic to Beacon St.?
Absolutely Not
Not really proposing anything - just citing some of the ideas that have been put forward (personally I liked the idea of diverting the traffic away from the park - the main problems with this concept are cost of bridge construction and politics of converting part of Mem drive back to high volume road). Due to double parking on both sides of the street that often turns beacon street from a 3 lane road into a 1 land road that would be a disaster even without the traffic lights!
double-parkers reduce 3 lanes to 1
That's exactly what I was thinking.
We solve that double-parking
We solve that double-parking problem by making parking laws more draconian. Frankly I think most driving laws should be more draconian; get idiots off the road!
*Raises hand* Um yeah I use
*Raises hand*
Um yeah I use Storrow Drive all the time, at least 3 times a week. I also use Memorial Drive at least once a week. I live outside of the city and when I come into the city by car I tend to try to avoid driving through the center of the city, instead I drive around it by using Storrow Drive. It gets me everywhere I tend to go faster then going from light to light on Beacon Hill and Back Bay. I would also assume that since I am moving that I am releasing less into the air then if I were stuck in bumper to bumper traffic trying to get from one side of the city to the next.
Storrow Drive is always packed at rush hour, if the road is useless then why is it always so busy?
As for the Pike I think the tolls are a killer for a number of reasons. The biggest is it is pretty much dead between Logan Airport and Newton Westbound in the morning, and East Bound in the evening. I cut my commute in half if I cough up the extra money for the 5 dollars in tolls I rack up. If they were to drop all the tolls I bet you more people would use it as a way to get from the North Shore to Newton, or even from parts of Boston to Allston and Cambridge. No toll = incentive to jump on for a single exit.
Storrow isn't useless
It is, however, antiquated and falling apart and it will cost billions and either swallow the esplanade or have less capacity due to wider lanes.
Any time there is to be an enormous expenditure for infrastructure, there needs to be a costing out of alternatives. If moving Storrow's capacity a few blocks away and across the river by improving other roadways costs less money, it should be done. The pricetag to value here is way too high to just OMFG panic and freak out and dump massive sums of money into a hole that benefits a few people.
It benefits the 100,000 who
It benefits the 100,000 who us it daily, and the thousands who do not have to smell my exhaust. I am not sure if you understand just how many people depend on that road to keep the city moving. If that road did not exist my trips in that area would increase timewise by 40 percent, and I would be driving through downtown Cambridge and Beacon Hill daily.
Shady, I don't think you understand ...
... what the terms "study the options" and "moving/replacing capacity" mean. They mean that we shouldn't be pouring billions into another rat hole unless we know it is the best option - and we won't know that until we have studied the kinds of alternatives for replacing Storrow that other cities have very successfully implemented. Embarcadero, Tom McCall Park, etc.
Those cars have to go somewhere - so show me why the best place for them to go and the most cost effective option for that capacity is for the entire state to spend billions on Storrow Drive and to destroy the remaining greenspace in the process.
Consider this as well: the pike is a federal road, and changes may be eligible for federal funding. The feds are not going to spend cent one on Storrow.
That's part of the concern
The state might get it in their head that if we build this to highway specs rather than parkway specs they can get some money for it. There is already talk of turning maintenance over to Mass Highway instead of DCR which makes this a very real concern and thus one reason (among many other even better ones)to landmark the park. Highway specs would mean much broader curves, wider roads, longer access etc. which means huge impact on the park from a road that wasn't supposed to be there in the first place.
how we got storrow drive
The history of the road is crucial to me, the sleazy way the land was acquired, and the time period when planners thought these riverside parkways were the best thing for urban development.
To me the great theft was of the access from the neighborhood to the river. It was a huge destruction of wealth. Look at the poor kids at BU sitting on the lawn looking out at the river and four lanes of traffic rushes by. The access ramp at Charles Bridge is also a huge blot that cuts Kenmore off from Comm Ave.
There are plenty of traffic obstructions in the city that we have to navigate around every day, even though we can't imagine giving up the roads we have, I think Storrow Drive could be slowed down to a Comm Ave type light situation with crosswalks etc.
After the Northridge earthquake in San Francisco, the residents demanded that the interstate which fell down and pancaked many cars not be rebuilt, and the sky didn't fall. It could be done here, it's just a matter of taking back the land that was criminally misused in the first place.
Why would Storrow need wider lanes?
Since trucks are not allowed on this road, 9 foot lanes (or whatever it has now) should be sufficient. It is a parkway, so applying current-day 'highway' standards to it is neither necessary nor desirable. If we have to keep it, keep it a 1950s-standard road -- sharp curves, low bridges, and left entrances/exits included.
The Bowker (Charlesgate) overpass should be entirely removed, except the part where it crosses the Mass. Pike. Move the traffic to the existing Charlesgate East and West side roads.
Something called "safety standards"
I should probably have my dad e-mail you about the specifics of internationally accepted safety standards on roadways, but the short answer is that Storrow Drive does not even meet current standards for auto-only roads.
Lane width isn't just about vehicle width - it is also about room to maneuver at speed. There are also issues with the curves being far too tight for the speed rating of the road. Storrow Drive is not a safe road and is grandfathered only so far as it is not reconstructed. Reconstruction brings requirements to update the design.
But if those standards conflict with preservation ...
... of green space and a historic landmark, I'd hope the preservation standards would take precedence, as they did on the Merritt Parkway in Connecticut.
The only real safety problem on Storrow is the low bridges, and those aren't changing no matter what you do. To solve that problem, find some way to intercept trucks before they reach the bridges.
A standard that makes sense for an 80-mph Interstate through wide-open spaces in Kansas doesn't necessarily make sense for a 40-mph parkway tucked into narrow space between a neighborhood and a river.
If it's paved for at least a
If it's paved for at least a quarter mile, you can use it for a drag strip on the days leading up to the 4th of July. That would be great for tourism and would divert dollars away from New Hampshire. The Mongoose vs. the The Snake right next to the Charles--yaaaa.
I wish I had Swirly's power
because I could, just like that, ignite a fully-fledged debate over east-west automobile travel through the Back Bay and Kenmore area in response to a post about landmark status for the Esplanade. That is what I call UHgravitas!
So what the hell. I'll join in.
It is unrealistic to talk about Storrow going away until we start talking about an RER-type system for Boston. The Turnpike serves a useful purpose of taking automobiles into, out of, and now, through the urban core. Storrow Drive serves that purpose for "crosstown" travel. The city streets handle the very local stuff.
While the location for Storrow is less than optimal, it and Memorial Drive fulfill that critically important middle role. If either went away, they would have to be replaced by something.
And that something should be an RER-type (Paris) system for Boston. Just think, you could catch the (east-west) RER-type at Logan, somewhere downtown, Kenmore (alleviate Red Sox traffic on the Green Line!) or the Harvard/BU megaplex (which could be our Gare du Ouest), Harvard Ave./st./Brighton Ctr (branches?), Newton/Watertown, somewhere west of there, then 128. Obviously, you would have a north-south line as well, and the nascent urban ring should also be an RER-type, and follow the inner belt route. With the RER taking the middle, the existing subway network could more efficiently serve the very local trips(like the city streets), and the commuter rail could speed people in and out of the city (like the Pike and 93).
Now all I need is a few billion dollars more, and we can get to work. Anyone have a rich Aunt? Swirly, can you use your powers?
Um, what does RER have to do
Um, what does RER have to do with my car? That does not solve the problem unless you can load my car onto the back of the train.
shady's car
underlying my entire post was the tacit acknowledgement that your car has to be accommodated until the bike-riding, supertransit, never-ever-burn-fossil-fuels crowd can make it economically infeasible for you to drive it. ever again.
This is why you super green
This is why you super green guys lose so much, and never get the projects you really want. You can't even convince an otherwise green loving person like myself (who happens to be car dependent and would be even if the entire state was hyperlinked with trains, its just the nature of my job) that your ideas are worthwhile. You just assume we will all pack up our stuff and hop on a bike or train, and do not care that it is not possible for many of us. So instead you get less then stellar support and your bike lanes vanish after 2 blocks, and your trains are inept, and your trolleys crash. If you want the rest of us (otherwise known as the majority of Mass residents) to support you please consider us in your future plans...
Driving
I am presuming that your "you" was intended as the royal you, and not directed particularly at me, as I also thought it was implicit in my original comment that I am also a Storrow driver, and am under no illusion that individual car travel will become obsolete at any point during in the remaining portion of my life (hopefully 60-70 years).
With respect to the alleged majority for whom you claim to speak (and of which I may be a part - I just can tell), how is the Big Dig working out for all of you? As a threshold matter, I would say that you (and I) got roughly $15 billion worth of consideration. It works great for me considering that old bottleneck on the Turnpike where it met 93 has been almost completely wiped out during the a.m. rush.
I wish
But the real answer is free hovercraft for all!
In the mean time, while a billion or so in state tax money is on the line, some truly comprehensive regional transportation planning would do nicely - you know, all that scary stuff about transcending unnecessary turf divisions between DCR, Mass Highway, MBTA and all that?
Around here, such "radical" thinking from other places is about as scarce as hovercraft.
I havent done a study...
but man I couldnt imagine storrow drive not being open. Ive never really used the part from Fenway-west. but man I can't imagine having to go down Comm Ave, or over to the MA pike in Brighton if I had to get downtown or to North station from the places Ive lived.
Imagine Kenmore square and Comm Ave if you got rid or changed Sturrow drive?
Some numbers
I'm doing this from memory - but I think the daily flow on Storrow is about 100,000 cars (50,000 in each direction and the numbers don't change much even when the sox are in town-everyone was surprised by that). About 40% of that is commuters. If you can eliminate the commuters - and maybe a few others you can get storrow to look more like Memorial Drive - medium traffic density with some traffic lights for grade level crossings and a much improved environment. There is no one silver bullet to that - but a few ideas that were floated - a boat shuttle that runs from watertown to MGH - possibly with a stop or two along the way. Also a park and ride outside the city with van transfers for high density destinations (MGH, downtown, copley and Longwood medical) - among other things. It can be done and would be a vast improvement - the numbers work - the politics of taking away people's cars are the hard part (most commuters feel their rights have been violated if you suggest putting traffic lights on Storrow drive at key intersections like Arlington Street - it would also save the state almost $100 million in reconstructing the tunnel-the interest on that alone would probably pay to subsidize the water shuttle and the vans).
Bottom line - the park is essentially being held hostage by Storrow drive which is there for the convenience of 20,000 commuters. Not a small number -about 5% of the city's commuter force I believe - but at the end of the day it's a value call.
Full disclosure - I'm biased - I live downtown - they could close Storrow completely for all I care. I have friends in Watertown that want to lynch me for that opinion though!
Watertown ferry
A ferry from Watertown to Downtown is a very cool idea. I'm sure it would be popular with tourists. I'm not sure it would be popular with commuters. Are you imagining it would tie in with the Red Line at MGH/Charles? You could add stops at Arsenal, Harvard, and BU, and ask the Unis to pitch in. It wouldn't take much to make a station. I do wonder how practical it would be for people who live in Watertown, however. The town is pretty spread out. How would people get from their houses to the ferry? Would they drive and park downtown? Where? Would they take the bus? Once you're putting three modes in the mix (bus-ferry-train, with walks in between), it seems likely people would rather drive.
My Understanding
I thought it kind of a cool way to commute too - this is what I thought they were talking about (wasn't my idea - just heard about it when they were studying tunnel options for storrow) -
Watertown, Newton and others coming in from that direction would park near watertown square (I think there's a bus depot that perhaps could be used). Stops would probably be near bowker and MGH - may have other side service to say harvard and Kendall Sq
Bowker stop would be for people going to longwood and maybe back bay and MGH for the hospital and maybe downtown/govt center
Just an idea that was floated -never saw any numbers viability etc.
Not for everyone - but might work - esp for the greenies (although there were the usual natties that oppose everything new!).
Probably similar to taking the train into Manhattan, getting on a subway to go downtown and walking a few blocks to work - but I realize our perspectives are a little different here in a smaller city. Have to make sure the duckboats can stay in biz though :-).