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Imagine Rutherford Avenue as a boulevard

Looks like the Charlestown roadway is getting the same treatment as the Forest Hills overpass: The city announced today it's going for the surface-road approach rather than an underpass:

"In partnership with the Charlestown community, we're working to transform Rutherford Avenue from a highway to a neighborhood-friendly, urban boulevard," Mayor Thomas M. Menino said. "Residents will be able to take advantage of new connections to the MBTA Orange Line, new greenspace for children to play, and safe access to the Charles River. The new Rutherford Avenue will offer these and countless other opportunities to enhance quality of life for the people of Charlestown."

NorthEndWaterfront.com has more, including a discussion of whether the proposal will mean more traffic in the North End.

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Comments

HEY! WHY DO I HAVE TO BECOME A HIGHWAY?! WHY?!!!!!!!!!!

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We are so screwed in CTown. Potential Assembly Square expansion, casino in Everett...time to move to Wilmington...or Billerica

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Screwed how? Making it less easy for through highway traffic to shit all over C-Town and treat the place like an expressway will likely help it regain integrity as a place.

The potential casino in Everett on the other hand is terrible. Why must the state decide that dumping a massive beacon for social problems on already economically depressed area is a good thing for anything but the state coffers?

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...that they're smarter than the free market and that we can have a finite number of casinos, leading us to eventually having monstrosities with bad traffic instead of several smaller sensible gaming facilities easily accessible by all in the Commonwealth.

But, hey, let's all ignore another election for state office.

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You would prefer every store become a "cafe" and have slots in the back room? Drive through West Virginia sometime.

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Go on...

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Keep the overpass for my walks to and from the community college orange line station!

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Aren't underpasses more bike and pedestrian friendly, taking busy traffic and putting it below grade (ie Big Dig) so the space above is more pleasant? Highways overhead likewise take heavy traffic away for pedestrians and cyclists at grade. How is more traffic backed up at traffic lights a good thing?

Which plan had the lowest carbon footprint to build and operating?

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For starters underpasses in the Rutherford street area are never a good thing. Anything built below grade in that part of town rapidly floods in a light drizzle, let alone a storm.

Elevated highways are never friendly for anyone. Underneath they are dark caverns full of filth and detritus.

By replacing such with a normal at grade intersection one acts to dissuade people from using Rutherford and McGrath like highways. If you have to stop more you're less likely to drive there at all. Neither Somerville or Charlestown benefit from the industrial blight the area suffers from and the hope is to make it more amenable to people living there and businesses (that aren't involved in dumping asbestos or PCBs) from opening there. And one step to improve the area is to stop suburban commuters from using it as a pass through.

They don't want more traffic backed up at lights. They want you and your car to go the hell away entirely.

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By replacing such with a normal at grade intersection one acts to dissuade people from using Rutherford and McGrath like highways.

If that's the goal, the first step should probably be changing the name from McGrath Highway. ;-)

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the Casey overpass at forest hills becoming at grade is a terrible idea. As someone who travels it daily, I honestly don't see how adding all the overpass traffic to street level is going to help the area. The traffic in the area is already a nightmare. I know a lot of people will say that getting rid of overpasses such as this discourages traffic from using the area, but there are no nearby alternate east-west routes nearby. I would also think that rebuilding Casey with a leaner, less eyesorey (is that a word) bridge would be more beneficial to the bicyclists and pedestrians in the area. I fear were taking the cheap way out now, only to realize after that an overpass is the only solution to the problem at a greater cost of building later.

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Goodbye dark, dead space in the middle of my neighborhood. I live in FH and am happy to see the overpass go. I know there will be traffic, but I see similarly busy roads all around the city and I don't hear those neighborhoods clamoring for overpasses.

Congratulations C-town.

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In the middle of your neighborhood? I understand people don't like the overpass, but I don't buy the neighborhood argument.

The northeast quarter of the overpass area is an MBTA parking lot. The south east quarter is a parking lot, the court and the T station. The southwest quarter is a small patch of open space and then some houses and the northwest quarter is a JP neighborhood which is again pretty far from the the corresponding houses on the southside. Where is the neighborhood?

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Shocking, I know, but there are about 9,000 people who live in the residential areas close to the overpass. That according to the city when it did some planning there a few years who. Of course if you only fly over then the vacant lots abutting the overpass are what you see. That kind of blight is pretty typical of areas near elevated highways. Now that its coming down we hope that will change.

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Well, sure there are people close to everything in Boston- that doesn't make it a neighborhood. Do you consider the area around English HS to be the same neighborhood as the Forrest Hills neighborhood of JP? To me the overpass is the north end of the Forrest Hills neighborhood, not the middle.

If you are saying a neighborhood might spring up which fills in those lots, that's a different subject, one which the NIMBYs of the JPNDC will no doubt try to stop.

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As the overpass is dead and DOT is proceeding ahead with an at-grade solution this is really beating a dead horse but: (1) as other posters have mentioned there is, actually, a neighborhood around Forest Hills. You might miss it as you drive through on the overpass, but its there and it is blighted by the overpass. Try walking under the overpass on South Street sometime; (2) If you think that overpasses make for a nicer street experience let me ask you this - which is/was a better street experience (a) walking down Atlantic Avenue under I-93 before it was torn down, or (b) walking down Atlantic Avenue today?

As for the underpass in Charlestown, the street that they are replacing/upgrading is currently a horrible post-industrial relic that needs to be replaced by something. If they could do an underpass akin to, where Huntington Ave goes under Mass Ave in the Back Bay, or Dupont Circle in DC, there might be some merit to that. However, the current configuration doesn't work and makes the entire place seem like a highway.

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Your example of Atlantic Ave is not comparable at all - they didn't take the traffic on 93 and intersect it with Atlantic Ave. That's the key to people's issue with the at-grade solution at Forest Hills - you're taking a whole lot of through traffic, basically a highway, and forcing it onto the local roads at an intersection. Actually multiple intersections, with forbidden left turns that will be replaced with turnarounds, one of which will squeeze buses and trucks against an entrance to the Arboretum.

I think people get so caught up in the ugliness factor of overpasses, that function and practicality go out the window.

And yes, I live in the FH neighborhood. I'm not as familiar with the Rutherford Ave area, but I hope that solution works out for the neighbors.

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Is forcing anything. Study after study show road utilization is a product of the size and type of road. It’s why widening highways never relieves traffic congestion, and typically makes it worse as more people opt for that route.

Impeding traffic will absolutely have the impact that less people will be taking that route. The people that do will have to slow down. Others will opt for the highway options, or find their own surface route (one of many, which keeps traffic down). That’s the whole freaking point of taking back very valuable and in demand urban land from commuters that think they should have free access through city communities to their office jobs downtown.

Might I recommend pressuring your representatives for better public transportation and denser housing / office space on transportation spokes, rather than widening highways through neighborhoods and paving over neighborhoods / in demand downtown space for parking garages.

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The overpass currently provides only one lane in each direction, and total vehicle traffic on it and the surface road combined is almost the same as it was before the Casey was built. At grade can very much handle the level of traffic. As for your concern about buses and trucks, they aren't supposed to be on the Arborway anyway, so that's a bit of a red herring.

I'm not somebody who instinctively dislikes bridges and viaducts. I actually like them quite well, but they work best in higher density areas, whereas Forest Hills is surrounded by parkland, and not a strong candidate for such a structure. The surface based plan will re-awaken connections between the four cross sections surrounding the T' station, and make development of the lots more appealing to investors.

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Being a C-Town resident, I witness the daily traffic problems along Rutherford Ave (need I mention the Sullivan Square rotary?) and the approaches to the Gilmore Bridge, Tobin Bridge, and Leverett Connector. I cannot believe that adding MORE at-grade intersections with MORE traffic lights (that I'm sure will be ill-timed) will decrease the traffic problems and make the atmosphere clean/pleasant. If anything, burying the roadway completely (and adding/repairing ramps) will allow for smooth traffic flow and unlimited green space (parks, sidewalks, bike paths) above ground.

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+1 with this guy.
I'll pay extra taxes for that.

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Isn't the NB side of one of the 2 underpasses they are talking about filling in already closed indefinitely anyway? I can't imagine that replacing a surface street and an unusable underpass with a single surface street is going to cause huge traffic problems.

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I don't know enough to comment on the effects of the proposed development plan, but...

The NB underpass closure creates hellish traffic at Sullivan Sq. Rush-hour traffic is so bad that officers must direct traffic around the rotary. the NB rutherford ave. lane is usually backed up a good 1/4 to 1/2 mile during the evening rush hour, with similar backups throughout the north-side of Ctown and the 93N off-ramp at sullivan Sq.

This area is in dire need of a makeover. The plan would appear to make traffic worse, assuming driver's do not adjust their behavior.

I assume the city's expectation is that many more drivers will opt for Rt.1/Tobin rather than Rutherford, increasing toll revenue (with elimination of inbound tollbooth) while allowing for development of Sullivan/Assembly area. Even if traffic remains the same because of a slower commute, the city increases toll revenue on Rt 1 and the Sullivan area develops, increasing tax base.

The underpass is attractive BUT the highway becomes a road just beyond, in Everett. Traffic would remain terrible through the Rt. 16 rotary in Everett. Might as well ditch the crumbling half-highway that exists now and go full-on roadway. Significant development/changes either way.

I've talked myself into supporting the plan, although I do live in Ctown and traffic is likely to get far worse before it may ever get better.....

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I thought a lot of the rush hour traffic in that area is due to the perpetual closure (opening) of one of the spans of the Alford St. drawbridge, reducing bridge traffic to one lane in each direction between Everett and Ctown. Is that still going on, and if so, might traffic improve once they finish doing whatever it is they're doing to the bridge?

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real estate agents and developers hate 'ugly' urban 'monstrosities' like over-passes and under-passes. They love 'green spaces'. Those over-passes and under-passes were put there for very good reasons, and yes, removing them will make vehicle and pedestrian flow [and safety] issues WORSE. But, it'll all look prettier and more quaint.

And ditto the F.H. over-pass; it should remain or be rebuilt. It's there for good reasons, and making everything street level will make it more difficult for drivers, pedestrians, and people riding bikes.

If you're one of those souls who hates seeing 'ugly' over-passes and under-passes, MOVE TO A SMALL TOWN OR RURAL AREA. Cities have them for legitimate reasons. In fact, we should have more, not fewer.

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Cause everyone LOVES living under an overpass or next to a train yard.

I personally LOVE when people who use a road strickly as a shortcut go about telling residents to suck it up because, hey "I use that road to get through your shitty, under the overpass community".

It's why we can have nice things.

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they exist to make traffic flow better, and safety for both vehicle and pedestrian traffic. Are they pretty? No, but they can be made to look prettier with a little ingenuity. As for living next to them, sorry sometime it goes with the territory. Again, if you dislike certain aspects of urban life, move to a small town or rural area. You can't turn Boston into a big version of Bennington,Vt. Won't work.

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... if these features were built AFTER you bought the property they are near. Otherwise, your cost (purchase or rental) is diminished to the extent that these nearby features are in fact "undesirable".

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The Casey was built at 6 lanes to accommodate the 100,000 cars a day that were expected when the Inner Beltway and SW Expressway were planned. Those never arrived and neither did that traffic. The Overpass has been down to one lane in each direction for several years now and surface roads can handle the traffic as do surface roads around the city. Sounds to me like you're the one who doesn't like city life.

I don't know Charlestown well but this plan seems to have significant neighborhood support.

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Most people like you are at your core anti-car. I understand. But cars, trucks, etc., aren't going away. That's a fantasy. And it's desirable to keep traffic flowing. It's also desirable from a pedestrian standpoint to keep as much traffic off surface roads as possible.

Yes, I was unaware of the history of the Casey, but am well aware of the non-built I-695 and southwest corridor debacle [it sat empty and desolate for 20 years or more; I lived as a kid about 6 blocks from it, it was a scary place that epitomized urban decay.] It in fact would have been better to have built it and located the 'new' orange line as part of it, like it is north of North Station into C-town and Malden. It's nice we now have a 4 mile plus long 'green space' and 'new' orange line below grade, but at what cost did it take? I'm always amused by some people who didn't live in JP or Boston in general prior to us becoming an expensive, so-called gentrified 'world class' city dismissing viewpoints of people who did. The reason Boston is so desirable to live in today has A LOT to do with the many people who didn't abandon it like they did in many other big cities across the country. We were not all 'losers', or living off the public tit, and we kept this city viable. Now, we are looked at with scorn and contempt by many. We're 'parochial' and don't present the desired multicultural and 'hip' mantra that both public and private institutions and businesses promote.

*rant off*

Back to the subject at hand:

Yes, traffic will get WORSE for everyone, without most overpasses and underpasses in place. The cars aren't going to magically disappear anymore than they magically disappear off Washington St in Roslindale just because the street sucks and is congested. It still doesn't deter people from driving en masse on it.

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The reason these things failed wasn't just lack of maintenance, but the fact that they are all located on a former tidal area - read, not firm ground.

If you are personally willing to pay a toll to pay for the building of all this excessive infrastructure, as well as to maintain it properly and prevent flooding and sinking, well, how much are you willing to pony up?

Otherwise, I see no reason why the taxpayers of MA should make your personal life easier - which is seriously doubtful anyway - when we have a public transportation crisis on our hands.

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I don't think so -- that's been solid ground, well inland, for many hundreds of years.

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Swirly used to go clamming under the Casey when she was a kid.

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Not sure about the Casey, but the general post is about Rutherford Ave.

Everything in this state is either swamps or rocks anyway. You either get easy tunneling in a high water table area that will flood, or costly blasting and still have water problems.

The general point still holds: if you think that having a tunnel or an overpass is value-added (considering the downstream choke points, you just get to get up to speed a bit before you stop. Yay for you), then how much of a toll are you willing to pay to pay for it? Simple.

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Infrastructure is a necessity. As for it making my life easier, it is desirable from a quality of life and economic standpoint to make as many people's lives as possible 'easier', if that's the word to use.

AGAIN...removing most overpasses and underpasses will mean simply MORE congestion at street level. Delivery trucks, commuters, etc., will not magically disappear because they now must use congested surface roads.

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raised highways that cause blighted areas for crime below them, and parkways that cut neighborhoods in half with lanes of traffic that only pass through are a big problem.

There's major roadways all through metro Boston (Mass Ave, Tremont, Huntington, Beacon, Boylston, ect), and yes they have traffic and get quite busy.

They're also built around the idea that the city is a city first, and make considerations that don't put cars passing through as the ultimate need.

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I'm not anti-car. I drive too. I'm anti-make a neighborhood live with blight so folks from elsewhere can shave 3 minutes off their commute time. Will the surface roads be busy, especially at peak hours? Yes, and I'm okay with that. Obviously not everyone is.

(My last post on this so folks can get back to talking about Rutherford.)

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Where do I begin?

Most people like you are at your core anti-car.

Wrong. We're pro-neighborhood. That means not destroying them with highways ripping a gash and blocking access where people need to walk.

That means not turning a formerly thriving community and transit hub into the crumbling, disgraceful, post-apocalyptic wasteland that is Sullivan "Square".

The reason Boston is so desirable to live in today has A LOT to do with the many people who didn't abandon it like they did in many other big cities across the country.

The reason why people abandoned so many cities across this country is that the cities decided to screw over their own population by building massive urban highways and overpasses which destroyed the neighborhoods that people were living in.

It in fact would have been better to have built it and located the 'new' orange line as part of it

The Southwest corridor was built and the 'new' orange line was relocated into it. The highway part was not built.

*rant off*

I'm just going to give you a break and ignore the completely wacky, inferiority-complex driven parts of your rant.

Yes, traffic will get WORSE for everyone, without most overpasses and underpasses in place. The cars aren't going to magically disappear anymore than they magically disappear off Washington St in Roslindale just because the street sucks and is congested. It still doesn't deter people from driving en masse on it.

Pure garbage. I cannot emphasize this enough: TRAFFIC IS NOT LIKE WATER.

Read it again: TRAFFIC IS NOT LIKE WATER.

Just wanted to make sure you saw it: TRAFFIC IS NOT LIKE WATER.

If it were then we'd be dealing with cars piled a dozen stories high and overflowing "sewers" of streets. Because traffic engineers mostly fail at what they do. But luckily, TRAFFIC IS NOT LIKE WATER.

Water molecules don't have brains, they don't have plans, they don't have destinations or impatience. They don't have news helicopters, they don't have Google Maps, they don't have eyesight or intuition. So any attempt to analogize the two DOESN'T WORK.

It has been demonstrated for EIGHTY YEARS that people make decisions about travel, decisions about land use, decisions about commute choices based on the available resources that actually exist.

When massive new capacity is opened up, it gets filled up within a matter of months, if not weeks or less. Similarly, when capacity is reduced in a measured and permanent manner, the prophesied "Carmageddon" that the hysterical media always trots out actually NEVER MATERIALIZES.

The lesson is: you build your infrastructure to serve the community first and foremost. Everything else will adapt.

Oh, and unless you have $300 million burning a hole in your pocket, there's no money to rebuild the grade separation. Last I checked, the state is having trouble raising money. Seems like we need a cheaper solution. Overpasses and underpasses cost a lot of money. A lot! So unless you can pick up a multi-hundred million dollar tab, I think you're demanding a gigantic subsidy for something which is harmful to your own neighborhood. Brilliant!

And a quick note about pedestrian grade segregation: nobody likes those pedestrian overpasses above the highways. Why do you think it would be any better for city streets? That's nonsense. Segregating city streets is a surefire recipe for disaster (just look at Newark, NJ). That's why I also don't support pedestrianizing streets; except for a few cases it generally doesn't work.

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Similarly, when capacity is reduced in a measured and permanent manner, the prophesied "Carmageddon" that the hysterical media always trots out actually NEVER MATERIALIZES.

This is absolutely untrue and all the more so in Sullivan Square. Just try to get near the Alford Street Bridge on Rte 99 during rush houre since it's been reduced to one lane in each direction. Traffic backs up all the way to Rte 16. This has been a daily occurrence on this stretch of road for the last 2 YEARS. Shouldn't that have been long enough for these people with brains to change their commuting pattern?

By the way, there are already underpasses on Rutherford. It will cost more money to fill them in to complete this project.

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Congestion is an equilibrium state that is reached where so much traffic is attempting to use a street that additional users begin to be dissuaded. That means there will always be congestion on popular routes -- otherwise people would see the available space and fill it.

This notion that you could ever "solve congestion" is a complete red herring. The question isn't that, it's how to make Sullivan be less of a shithole and more of a real place.

Oh, and underpasses need to be maintained too, they have plenty of concrete and steel that can spall and corrode and become very expensive to replace.

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If so, then yes, it'll get worse on those surface roads. AND it'll make things more dangerous for pedestrians and bike riders.

But it'll look prettier, this is true.

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Hopefully it is not too late to post this response as this news post enter the last spot before going to the next page.

You keep bringing this up over and over that congestion is just an equilibrium.

We both agree and operate on the understanding that increasing capacity tend to increase usage by cars. Increasing capacity rarely reduce congestion because demand doesn't stay constant. Paradoxically, sometimes increasing capacity increase congestion just having the perceived great capacity induces even more demand. This then also applies the other way around that reducing capacity tend to paradoxically reduce congestion.

However, what we keep disagreeing on the application. You may say you're not claiming this, but countering previous poster's point about how traffic gets back to Route 16 rotary because capacity at the Alford St. Bridge as it reduces to a single lane by saying congestion is just equilibrium is an claim that capacity does not matter and all congestion is all the same. By dismissing the previous poster argument of the congestion at the Alford Street Bridge as equilibrium, you just dismissed it by saying it is a moot point.

However, capacity does matters. We both see that we should not aim to defeat all congestion. Yet, this doesn't mean waving off things like the backup caused by a choke point caused by construction reducing two lanes to one lane as "equilibrium". I know its a strawman argument say let's just turn all roads into dirt road cow paths and its congestion is just equilibrium. But you just made an argument that dismissed congestion that wasn't an issue before the bridge was reduced to one lane.

That said, I'm not writing this to give support to an underpass or a surface road. What I do sympathize is the history I read of Sullivan Square was it was actually once a nice square. I can also nod to the idea of a surface road boulevard because I am assuming the numbers hold up like in the number argument of the Casey Overpass (Note: unlike Casey Overpass, I haven't seen the actual calculations so I'm going on faith here and gut sense when around the area that the current set up is over-engineered - plus gambling that the underpass is not justified enough by its utility because maintenance is higher being under the water table as I read here).

So it is likely we are in alignment on Rutherford Avenue. My objection to stop using that damn argument. Congestion always existing does not mean its okay to hand wave away the validity of pointing out congestion caused by construction of a two lane road choked by a one lane bridge as not a legitimate problem. It does not mean we should ignore capacity.

I suspect you will say (if you read this) that you do not meant to mean that. But if you don't, you can't hand-wave the previous point of the back up of traffic from the bridge to RT 16.

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Congestion always existing does not mean its okay to hand wave away the validity of pointing out congestion caused by construction of a two lane road choked by a one lane bridge as not a legitimate problem. It does not mean we should ignore capacity.

I agree that it is not ideal to have a choke point like that. But that will be repaired someday (2014?). Then what happens?

Currently the bridge is acting as a choke point because the capacities of the roads feeding into it are larger than the bridge itself.

Once that is resolved, the choke points will move outward to the next bottleneck. And if nothing else changes, then Rutherford Avenue will continue to be a miserable, traffic-congested non-place.

The purpose of removing the underpass and restoring the street is to give Sullivan Square a fighting chance of becoming a real place once again. Yes, there will be traffic. There will always be traffic. You can apply all the traffic engineering tricks you want but it doesn't change the fundamental problem that demand for the road exceeds supply. That's the point of the "congestion argument:" a place shouldn't be forced to suck just because there is congestion there.

What I do sympathize is the history I read of Sullivan Square was it was actually once a nice square.

I was thinking about that too. I was also thinking about an analysis a friend of mine did about five years ago when he was looking for a home to buy. He's a smart guy and entered all the MBTA transit routes into a database, then wrote a program that picked the location closest to the most transit. The answer was Sullivan Square, so he moved to East Somerville.

I also think about the amount of money being dropped on Assembly Square not too far up the line. The big motivation for that development is access to the Orange Line. Yet, here we have an existing station, plus one of the busiest bus stations in the area, already built. And the land around it is basically deserted. It's a disgrace.

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1) People left primarily because of: bad urban violent crime wave from the late 60s onwards, suburbs were being developed and becoming viable, PEACEFUL places to live, real estate blockbusting which wouldn't have worked if there was no violent street crime wave, crappy school system getting crappier, then the final nail in the coffin, forced busing.

2) The so-called southwest corridor sat empty and desolate for DECADES after I-695 was stopped.

JP is NEVER going to be a 'nice place to live' until, at a minimum, they get rid of the root of almost all the street crime in the neighborhood, housing projects. Doesn't matter how nice and pretty the southwest corridor 'green space' is, or how convenient the orange line is. If you fear being pistol whipped and robbed of your phone and IPAD coming home from work, it's not a nice place to live.

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1) Yes, the causes of the miserable decline of the 60s were varied, including some very ugly racial politics. But one of the causes was "urban renewal" and the destruction of urban neighborhoods to create highways. The built environment has a role to play in crime-fighting. Desolate streets are dangerous streets. Superblocks discourage circulation. Economically segregated housing projects breed crime. These mistakes and more were all part of the "urban renewal" craze which swept the nation and nearly destroyed all American cities in a misguided attempt to remake those cities after the image of the suburbs.

2) The Southwest Corridor still stands "empty and desolate" in many parts. It's a shame. But the Orange Line was re-routed there in the mid-80s. I don't like the fact that the neighborhood was leveled to build the canceled expressway, I don't like the way the cleared parcels were allowed to remain vacant for forty years. But at least there's hope; if the highway had been built, there would be none.

3) If JP is such a bad place then why can't I afford a home there? It strikes me that you may still be living in the 80s.

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While I just made a large point to Matthew on his insistence on making that argument. I did note it was actually used as generally known truth in this site and thus pointed out by several commentators.

It is true that and it is called a paradox with a couple of applicable names related to the general point in the case of roads, over-engineering can be a bad thing to both adjoining towns and traffic itself. The Casey Overpass may be a good example as the overpass is created to deal with demand far more than exist but the demand never came. Demand remained the same as before it was built (doesn't this also undercut the argument to say demand always rises to capacity?) and it sounds like it was able to handle just fine before the overpass existed.

Yet, this means in the case of the Overpass and in now in Rutherford that the idea is to build a road that balances priorities. We want Charlestown to not deal with a wasteland, yet it doesn't necessarily mean the only option is a traffic wasteland or making driving suck purposely. If it must be, then we have to choose.

So my point I take the optimistic view that none of that is necessary and we are not making that choice as some of the above are arguing. Hopefully, calculations are correct and we are choosing the appropriate option for the based from it. That the current set-up is an induced demand type of congestion with over-engineered roads and the boulevard allows a neighborhood to rise while appropriate to handle the real demand of traffic (and not view that congestion doesn't matter).

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Where exactly is this neighborhood going to rise to? Do you think there are a large number of Charlestown residents that are clambering to get to the other side of Rutherford Ave? And go where exactly, the Hood plant. To take a lovely stroll on 93? Or do you think the MBTA will decide to give up their yard across from the Sullivan Square parking lot and a beautiful high rise apartment building will take its place with views of the electric plant and scrap yards across the river.

As a Charlestown resident I'm not looking forward to the drivers who decide that Rutherford Avenue is too congested and they go looking towards Main St. or Bunker Hill St. as a replacement. Let Rutherford be the barrier, and let the interior Charlestown streets be the peaceful, walkable neighborhood that they already are.

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The Sullivan Square MBTA station is on the other side of Rutherford Avenue. Besides the Orange Line it's also one of the busiest, if not THE busiest, MBTA bus station in the Boston area.

Last time I checked, most people walk to stations (or roll, if they're in a wheelchair). There's certainly not enough parking for everyone to be driving there.

Walking from Charlestown to Sullivan is currently a miserable experience dodging traffic and huddling on crumbling curbs. Let them fix it.

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