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World's most expensive median strip posts new vacancy
By Cynic on Fri, 03/12/2010 - 8:09am
The New Center for Arts and Culture is the latest in a string of institutions to pull out of the Rose Kennedy Greenway, the Globe reports. Apparently, backers were able to raise just a quarter of the $80 million in projected costs. It joins the Horticultural Society's Garden under the Glass and the first proposal for the Boston Museum on the scrapheap. The second bid from the Boston Museum backers, which would require $120 million, and the proposed new YMCA are officially alive, but have shown no apparent ability to raise the necessary funds.
Perhaps this would be a good moment for the city to step back, take a deep breath, and rethink the entire Greenway scheme.
As it stands, it's a stupendous failure - a relatively narrow strip of grass isolated by two wide roadways, and chopped into short segments by cross-streets. It's not clear that the city wants, needs, or can support a new array of massive cultural institutions running down its center - or at least, that's what the inability to raise funds suggests. (This, while the MFA and Gardner are launching ambitious expansions; the money is clearly there for some projects, just not for these.) So why not a redesign from the ground up? Perhaps it's time to close some of the eleven streets bisecting the Greenway - the minor inconvenience for drivers would be offset by the gains for pedestrians, and combining parcels might make it a viable park. There are a host of successful downtown, urban parks that the city might use as models. And this time, it would help if the Greenway were treated as an integral whole, tied into the streetscapes on either side, instead of a blank slate for the dreams and ambitions of a motley array of wealthy backers of fantastic projects.
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Comments
Reconnecting streets bisected
Reconnecting streets bisected by the former elevated expressway was a big part of Big Dig. Eliminating cross streets in favor of enlarging the glorified median strip's expanse would be misguided. Parcels should be auctioned off to developers for mixed use projects to reconnect the neighborhoods and districts. As it stands now, one green monster which divided the city and been replaced with another. Why not infill the scarred urban fabric to replace what was lost when the highway was built in the first place?
Completely 100% agree. Not
Completely 100% agree.
Not to mention, not only can we barely afford to keep them, they are only used roughly 1/2 the year.
Couldn’t disagree more.
Couldn’t disagree more.
Leave them as parks and open space. There’s plenty of old structures and locations to build up in and around Boston. The sea port district for starters can be completely revamped to become an extension of the financial district / downtown.
You don’t know how many tourists I’ve come across who mention their love of the RKG while asking for directions. It’s a nice oasis in the downtown jungle and helps buffer the waterfront and harbor walks.
It be a shame to plop more buildings on it.
Agreed.
It's not just tourists who love the greenway. It's residents as well. It's paradise to have open space in the city, especially right near the brutality of Government center. For some of my friends it's the only time during their commute they get to step on actual grass. During the summer I see my neighbors on the greenway constantly. Their kids play in the fountains, they have picnics on the grass. Replacing it with buildings would be a huge mistake, just as bad as building Storrow Drive.
Paradise? or...
"It's paradise to have open space in the city, especially right near the brutality of Government center."
I had to laugh out loud at this. Do you have any clue about this city's history? Government Center was built to be a sunny haven for open space to replace the dense Scollay Square neighborhood. Now, people like you look at it and remark on how dead, abysmal and "brutal" it is. And there you are, like a paid agent of history's repetition, clamoring to keep the Greenway empty and dead for generations to come.
+1
+1
I have no quibble with that.
I have no quibble with that. If we're going to have a park running along the back end of the waterfront, then we should make it a real park. If we're interested in reconnecting the urban grid, then we ought to fill these parcels not with hulking institutional buildings, but with mixed development that's friendly to the street and integrated into the surrounding areas. What I object to is the utter incoherence of the present scheme, which tries to have it both ways, and ends up with a barren, windswept, narrow strip of 'parkland' that no one uses - and a supposedly reintegrated urban grid friendly only to cars. That's just crazy.
I was about to post the same thing
What was the point of the billions to tare down the artery if there is still a swath of undeveloped land taring through our city? This isn't the Comm Ave mall, which is cohesive to the neighborhood, but a barrier. The parks are laid out in such a way that completely discourage use of any kind: the pathways intertwine and double back on themselves, discouraging pedestrians from walking parallel or perpendicular to the park. The grassy spots become barren in the winter, and are too small for activities in the summer. Trees are sparse and provide no shade, and planter boxes present intimidating barriers entering the park at all, as you don't know where to get out. I'm not against parks, but this is not a park, it is an over-glorified median that could be put to numerous better uses.
Boston has enough unnecessary useless open space *cough* west end *cough* as it is, and the fact that the city decided to add more to the mix instead of reestablishing the urban fabric and streetwall of the former neighborhoods is insane. I'm not talking mega development here either, but subdividing the land into small manageable parcels that can be handled by multiple individuals, establishing a new area with its own distinct feel. The same should be done with government center, but I'm not even going to get in to my hatred of that land, and the proposals for it.
Would someone please consider
Would someone please consider the Milennium Park example in Chicago? A public-private partnership that includes partners with enough capital to actually get something done should be the next step here. Let State Street and Fidelity put their stamp on some public art, fountains and ice rinks. Let TD put its name on a concert pavilion.
Can has bike lanes please?
This is a major North/South artery with plenty of space and plenty of need for bike lanes to get people through the downtown area. How a major city put in something new like this without bike lanes is a total mystery and a complete failure of planning and disregard for national and international standards. It wouldn't take much to add them, either.
Sadly, these roads missed out
Sadly, these roads missed out on bike lanes because they were built just before Menino discovered bicycling, when Boston had essentially zero bike lanes at all. Had the big dig been finished today, I suspect bike lanes would have been added.
A big part of the overall problem
Why does the Mayor's hobby du jour have anything at all to do with the design of a major urban roadway? There are lots of well worked out standards and examples and design criteria for professional planners to use for these things.
Because before Meninos
Because before Meninos discovered cycling, we didn't have a bike czar. And without a bike czar, calls for bike lanes were always ignored because they were "unfeasible" or in low demand.
While things are better now, we're still probably the slowest city in the country to get new bike lanes. Nost cities see a 3-6 month time frame from announcement to implementation. Here it takes 18 months.
The good news is this:
"the City of Boston is looking into installing bike lanes along the Greenway and is currently doing a feasbility analysis."
I agree with Anon and Swirley
We do not need a surface highway above a subterranean highway. Cities are meant to have buildings in them, and this is a part of town particularly suited to large buildings. Let's pay down some of the Big Dig costs by leasing the parcels for development, then close one of the abutting roads to traffic and replace it with bike/recreation lanes and a light rail line. Make it useful to the people who live and work in the area.
There's a place for that idea
It's called Jersey City. Not. One. Building.
Close one of the side roads, not the cross streets
There is no need to have two one-way side roads next to this park, when one two-way road would work just as well. Close one of the roads, put orange cones down the middle of the other one as a temporary dividing line, and keep this arrangement for 3 or 4 months as a trial. See if that makes the park better.
This is easy to do and would cost nothing to try.
Slight Problem
There would have to be some work-arounds for the I-93 on and off ramps at Purchase St. and South Station.
Not a problem - an opportunity
It turns out we actually don't need both central artery tunnels either to be used for cars. Why waste the most expensive urban infrastructure project imaginable on... a car tunnel?
* Route the Blue Line from Aquarium into one of those tunnels southwards to South Station (stop at Rowes Wharf in between), then continue it along the Fairmount Line.
* Make the other tunnel two-ways, which may require only a slight reconfiguration of existing exits
* Where two car tunnels in each direction are actually needed is around the interchanges with the Sumner and Callahan tunnels - which is north of Aquarium, so no problem there.
Meanwhile, the surface light rail continues from South Station into the Silver Line tunnels through the Seaport and onwards as a trolley in residential Southie. Northwards, it goes to North Station and on to the Navy Yard (creating a direct connection between N and S Stations, even if it's not an actual rail connection)
The infrastructure for all of these changes are virtually all present.
Rerouting the Blue Line
sounds like a major engineering project comparable to the Big Dig itself, considering that it is at a different level from the highway tunnel and runs perpendicular to it.
Yes, one surface artery for motor vehicles
And convert the other one into bike lanes and a Light Rail Shuttle connecting North Station to South Station.
Did Boston need another performance hall?
I regret seeing this proposal die, but wonder if Boston really needed it. Over the past decade we've opened or reopened the Opera House, Paramount, Calderwood Pavilion (containing several theatres), Zero Arrow Theatre, and Central Square Theatre. Soon we'll have the reopened Modern Theatre as well.
Meanwhile, the Constellation Center in Kendall Square, with a much less challenging site plan than the New Center, has yet to get off the ground. And the Wang and Shubert theatres languish, underutilized by clueless management.
Closing Down Atlantic Ave?
Although I agree with the bike lane concept because we need more everywhere, closing down either Atlantic Ave or Surface Road would create havoc with traffic. Like it or not, both of those streets have heavily traffic during most of the day (and definately at rush hour), not to mention that both serve as the sole access to several on/off ramps to the tunnels below. As for developing the parcels themselves (whether you are talking about the ramp parcels or building on top of the parks) it is cost prohibitive, as evidencenced by the fact that it was going to cost the YMCA $70million to build a relatively modest structure. That land sits on top of tunnels such that the foundational work alone requires sophisticated engineering and prohibits the load of a high-rise building. You aren't going to get mixed use development on them without allowing a developer to build a skyscraper, which they can't due to the load.
Memorial Drive
Sorry to go slightly off topic, but thinking about moving the roads to only one side of the Rose Kennedy Greenway got me thinking about a section of Memorial Drive that could use a similar treatment. Ever notice the enormous amount of otherwise spectacular waterfront parkland the road eats up in front of MIT's campus, leaving only a tiny usable strip? What a loss there too.
Google maps link
totally
I've thought about that since I moved here. Most cities highlight their waterfronts. Boston and Cambridge seem to ignore them. I did run across a plan from the late 19th or early 20th century to build an island (I think between the mass ave and salt and pepper bridges) and have it be restaurants, housing, but was scrapped. Could have been cool...
I have the sense that the
I have the sense that the Greenway is very difficult, and expensive, to build on. A YMCA is not going to succeed, there are plenty of health clubs in the area. The development rights should be given to entities that will pay taxes, not tax-exempts with weak resources. It may be better add buildings in phases and see what happens. I agree we should stop to rethink what is going to happen there. Bike lanes would be a nice addition and put more human activity along the entire length.
So critical...
I think the Greenway is great. I use it all the time. My family has picnics there, goes to the farmer's markets, and our kid plays in the fountains. The programming is increasing and year after year you see more people there. The trees will grow and mature. There is room for improvement perhaps, but it doesn't needs some radical overhaul. The people of Boston should be thankful for what they got because this cost some $14 billion, most of which was funded by taxpayers in other parts of Mass. and the rest of the country. Meanwhile, a city like New Orleans was nearly destroyed because the fed. gov. didn't think (and still doesn't think) it was worth the money to invest $5 billion in adequate levees. The Charles River Basin is also fantastic (someone said there is some tiny strip of grass). There is room there for improvement but Boston and Cambridge both have excellent river access compared to most cities.