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Seaport to get new freight road, park

The Boston Business Journal reports Massport will use some land it bought from the MBTA between E. 1 Street and the Reserved Channel for a "freight corridor" that should take trucks off E. 1 and to build a 4.5-acre park.

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Comments

It would be nice to have our own esplanade in South Boston. Hopefully there is a walkway/running path along the Harbor.

Castle Island is a circus now. Too much parking brought in traffic.. which ruined the whole vibe.

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another park is always nice, still seems as though castle island and the surrounds have a glut of green space.

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I just hope they plant a Starbucks right in the middle of it.

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I know it is actually a port, but is it really considered the Seaport if it's on the other side of the channel?

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the border of the Seaport, as defined by the city, extends south as far as East and West Second Streets.

I can see First St, but Second St seems like a stretch if you ask me.

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Well, there is no such neighborhood/section called the Seaport.

There is the South Boston Waterfront, which is a section/neighborhood/area within South Boston.

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But I would like to point out the irony here between your username and comment.

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Don't feed it.

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SoBo, Southie, Seaport, Rozzie, Eastie..etc are just slang and not official names.

You can find a list of official names on the city's website:

http://www.cityofboston.gov/neighborhoods/southboston.asp

"Today the breathtaking South Boston Waterfront is emerging"

For slang, I prefer SoBo because it has a much more positive image than Southie (at least for me).

- The Original SoBo Yuppie.

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For slang, I prefer SoBo because it has a much more positive image than Southie (at least for me).

Yikes.

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Only in the new Boston would the Seaport not be considered the Seaport.

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The McCallen building and the condos across from Broadway Station are advertised as being in the Seaport. It's the realtors who suck the fools from New York into thinking they are buying into something. In reality they are furthest from the Seaport.

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That's Broadway Village!

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Yes, we can get a lot of people to move there and drive the real estate prices.

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yes, I'd consider that the Seaport. Owned by Massport, adjacent to water, part of the Port of Boston, patrolled by the State Police, etc. It's a marketing term for sure, but so is anything where you have real estate people trying to split hairs between property values.

Hey that being said lucky you if you live on East First St. finally!

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Be nice if they had a map of the project. Looking at google, you can see an empty parcel, but there are businesses between this parcel and Summer st - so not sure where this road is going to go to be far from 1st street.

(Also curious where the trucks will go that they're doing all this work but have no interest in connecting the rail spur that goes almost ll the way there...)

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It's tucked in the back along the Channel. Will run from Conley Terminal (which is expanding westward on some of the empty space along the Channel) and meet Summer roughly diagonal to the intersection with Power House Rd. MBTA owned the land because their long-demolished Southie power plant was on the Channel side of E. 1st. Will divert the Conley trucks so the only city streets they have to go on is Summer St. bridge-proper. And then there's supposed to be some reconfiguration of the Pumphouse Rd./Summer intersection done separately so the trucks can diagonal onto Massport Haul Rd. without tying up traffic right in front of BCEC. Though I don't know how exactly, and think there's some land acquisition to do on that block too.

They've been aiming for this for awhile. That's one of the reasons why that speed-trap monstrosity of a 4-lane bridge was built 15 years ago despite Summer mashing down to 2 lanes when it does get to the neighborhood. They had this truck diversion in mind back then. Should open up some new development opportunities on a few of those crap parcels facing E. 1st since the road subdivides them into nice rectangular plots and filling them in is what makes the trucks truly out of sight/sound/smell for the neighborhood. Should be a very good thing for the residents, the traffic, and T buses with the truck route overlap slashed back to the barest minimum at only the bridge-proper.

I *think* the new road allows for a very small reservation strip to the side for laying down a single RR track in the future should they want to build a parallel bridge across the Channel immediately adjacent to the Summer St. bridge and send a freight rail spur off Track 61 to Conley. But that might have been from an outdated plan. Conley hasn't had rail access since all that paved-over street-running track on E. 1st was abandoned eons ago. Right now Massport's only planning to send renewed freight rail access to Marine Terminal. Then cover the bases by segmenting the container traffic headed for rail to Marine T. while Conley handles the truck-only transloads. If the little RR track-sized grass strip is still in the design it's just as reserved space for unanticipated needs decades in the future.

Road's not going to be of any use as a semi-dedicated Silver Line reservation like the new Eastie Haul Road is for the Silver Line Chelsea route. Too short because of the terminal's westward expansion and just dumps into the new side entrance on the expansion wing. Simply getting trucks off E. 1st and the most over-capacity parts of Summer is where transit gets its indirect gains in the deal.

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Thanks for details on this. That's somewhat the route I suspected, but it really goes right through Exelon's back yard (776 summer) - wasn't sure if they were in on this routing or not )

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The rail ROW for stacked containers is still in. MassPort has been land banking the bare minimum space for restoring a single track of freight through South Boston for several years now should a rail operator ever want to make the investment to serve the port.

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The road will run from the Conley Terminal through what was MBTA property and intersect with L/Summer Street just before the bridge. Traffic along there in the evening rush hour is already bad (and also mornings going into the city from the south) so it will only be worse with a traffic light (assuming) that will be installed there to allow the trucks to turn on/off Summer Street.... the road will pass through the former power plant property and involves building a bridge over a section of the Reserve Channel there. I don't have the cost for this at hand but it is a huge sum of $$ to move the freight traffic off East First Street.

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Thanks for the map. Interesting angle cut across the water to hit Simmer st. Also kills the hope of the guy who wanted a waterfront esplanade.... Actually, for the 'expanded terminal' area, it doesn't look like much of a buffer at all with 1st street...

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City Point is now Seaport?

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Whether you loved or hated the guy (and very few fell into the latter category), he was a was a fundamentally decent sort that you wanted on your side because he played the political game better than most. It's a fitting tribute to a man who was taken too soon.

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This news is so old. This has been in the planning stages for years and ground was broken last year. Construction is well underway. Maybe the BBJ will be at the ribbon cutting after the Olympic Games are over.

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Speaking of the Olympics, is this the precursor to moving those businesses out to the seaport?

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