By adamg on Fri., 4/12/2013 - 8:46 am
The Jamaica Plain Gazette reports residents who want to see the Casey Overpass replaced with another overpass instead of surface roads are considering suing to stop the work:
"No one prefers to go that route if there's a reasonable solution,†he told the Gazette this week. "But all our arrows are in our quiver."
At particular issue: The proposed new location of the exit from the Forest Hills busway near Asticou Road.
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Comments
They haven't considered all the alternatives
By Sock_Puppet
Fri, 04/12/2013 - 8:59am
I propose a single Place de l'Etoile size rotary with a statue of Menino on a marble plinth in the center.
That would make Boston a world-class city.
Heh.
By Scratchie
Fri, 04/12/2013 - 9:43am
Heh.
Good
By anon
Fri, 04/12/2013 - 9:20am
Residents from HP, Roslindale, West Rox, Brookline and Mattapan should all sign off on this lawsuit. This is going to have a lasting and far sprung longterm effect on a vast area.
Nonsense
By Not logged in f...
Fri, 04/12/2013 - 9:28am
"This is going to have a lasting and far sprung longterm effect on a vast area." - Yes - a good one.
YA
By anon
Fri, 04/12/2013 - 10:28am
Not really!
Because Forest Hills is just
By anon
Fri, 04/12/2013 - 11:26am
Because Forest Hills is just suppose to sit back and allow itself to be bisected by an ugly overbuilt highway for the convenience of a marginally faster pass through for other more suburban neighborhoods. These assholes should have pay for the court fees and cost of construction delays that the taxpayer will incur from this bullshit. They didn't like the public process and are now trying to go around it.
I'v live in Roslindale for 27 years
By anon
Fri, 04/12/2013 - 12:21pm
right on the other side of the Arbs, a hell of a lot closer to the Hills than most of JP. So get over yourself. THIS PLAN SUCKS! And who knew JP was entirely surrounded by suburban towns, cant wait to buy a house in Mattapan with a White picket fence and an in-ground pool!
You have South St., Wash, HP Ave, The Arborway, Morton St, Forest Hills Dr. and Traffic from Centre St.; all of which are high traffic thruways for the surrounding area. To design an at-grade intersection will create a giant cluster Fu*k. While rebuilding an bypass will eliminate traffic vs. an at-grade will only force more traffic trying to bypass Forest Hills.
You don't like it MOVE back to the suburbs you hail from.
Signed. Life-Long Roslindale Resident!
And no i don't live with my parent, i bought a home closer to Forest Hill than you probably live.
It is surrounded by suburban towns
By Matthew
Fri, 04/12/2013 - 1:35pm
And is one itself. There are no census blocks with urban levels of population density anywhere within Mattapan, Hyde Park, Roslindale, or West Roxbury, despite technically being within the political boundaries of a city. Obviously, political boundaries don't necessarily match with economic or social boundaries.
High traffic thruways are not the character of a city. In real cities, people mostly walk. In suburbs, they mostly drive. Sometimes people live in a more urban style out in the suburbs, and sometimes people manage a more suburban lifestyle in the city.
But what really marks a suburbanite, like you, is your entitled attitude towards roads. A new overpass will cost $200-300 million at least. But because you are a suburbanite, you believe that the city should spend ANY amount of money on roads for you, nevermind the consequences to the budget, or the quality of life for the Forest Hills neighborhood. It doesn't even occur to you that a rapid transit station is supposed to be a place where people walk, with dense development surrounding it. Because you are a suburbanite at heart, who only "technically" lives in the city.
"entitled attitude"
By anon
Fri, 04/12/2013 - 1:43pm
Ya i think every tax payer is and should be entitled for services they help finance collectively. It's JP who is acting like a bunch of Bit*h's, this will have an impact on people out side of you liberal birkenstock community, so please stop acting like you the only group that it will effect.
Entitlement = sour grapes
By anon
Fri, 04/12/2013 - 2:00pm
They had plenty of time to say their piece and make their case, and more than plentiful opportunity to do so.
They lost and now feel entitled to delay the project further and demand that they get their way versus the results of a lengthy and open public process that shot them down.
That's entitlement.
Entitled
By Matthew
Fri, 04/12/2013 - 2:07pm
Let's get a sense of proportion. Last fiscal year, the Commonwealth spent $200 million on Chapter 90 road funding. That's $200 million to fix roads, divided up between every municipality in the entire Commonwealth.
You want $200 million, or likely more, to be spent to rebuild a single overpass, to the detriment of the local residents. A single overpass which should not have been built in the first place, that has been a blight on the area, and a sprawl generating machine.
From what I can parse of your poorly written blather, the main reason that you think this mistake should be perpetuated is to put down "a bunch of Bit*h's" in a "liberal birkenstock community".
I'm sure that argument will work well in court. You should try it.
They should find a way to
By anon
Fri, 04/12/2013 - 4:22pm
They should find a way to rebuild it for less than that. (And a way to build the Green Line Extension for less than $1.3 billion.)
I'd much rather walk under a well-designed overpass, than across a really wide road. Would you rather walk here: http://goo.gl/maps/y3QpD or here? http://goo.gl/maps/NXI6N Which one do you think has the most accidents and congestion of any intersection in eastern Massachusetts?
Chapter 90 funding is just one small part of state transportation spending. It's for things like repaving town roads.
"Sprawl generating machine" is exaggerated rhetoric. Nobody decided to start bulldozing the landscape to put in car-oriented housing, just because of this one overpass.
They should find a way to
By Matthew
Fri, 04/12/2013 - 5:34pm
Definitely. The cost of these things are astounding.
False choice. I didn't like the wide road alternative either, but it seems they've gotten a compromise with a smaller surface road for now. In theory, it is possible to build a nice overpass. In fact, Americans don't seem to know how.
I know. It's a point of reference, not the source of funding.
Lots of people "decided to start bulldozing the landscape to put in car-oriented housing" because of not only this one overpass, but the whole system of mid-20th-century highways. Why do you think the Casey overpass was built in the first place? The Arboretum traffic?
So
By anon
Fri, 04/12/2013 - 7:19pm
Narrower roads + no bypass = better situation. Wow, JP is just full of the entillictual elite! I guess all of those Liberal Art Degrees (mom look at my cool finger painting) really have this figured out.
The bridge was only estimated ......
By anon
Fri, 04/12/2013 - 4:36pm
.......to cost 70 million. Not 200. Massdot has a budget in 2013 of 1.8 billion. The 200 million you speak of was to assist cities and towns with repairs to local, non state, roads. The Casey overpass, route 203, does not fall into that category as it is a state route.
Just like...
By Matthew
Fri, 04/12/2013 - 5:40pm
..the Big Dig was only supposed to cost $8 billion in a 1995 estimate. And only $2 billion in an 1980s estimate...
The Casey Overpass
By Grouper
Fri, 04/12/2013 - 8:55pm
is slated to be funded 100% by Chapter 90 grant funds? Really?
City of Boston neighborhoods not suburban towns....
By anon
Fri, 04/12/2013 - 3:09pm
Those of us who live in Roslindale or West Roxbury don't have the orange line. We have busses to the orange line and a commuter rail that doesn't run on weekends, is ridiculously overpriced and often late. While the outlying neighborhoods may have less density, we are still residents of the City of Boston who pay Boston proprty tax rates. We often have to go places, like to our child's school, work, court, the doctor...and often those places are also in Boston.
This isn't only about people driving cars. Many of us rely on public transportation and the last time I checked, busses drive on the streets. If you have ever taken one of the many busses that run down Washington St. to Forest Hills from Hyde Park, Mattapan, West Rox or Roslindale you would know that ANY traffic increase that could result from tearing down the Casey overpass would SERIOUSLY impact run times.
This is not about being a suburbanite living in the city. This is about the concern we have as the residents of the City who live in the areas that will be most impacted by potential plans to re-route traffic.
When the orange line was
By Christie
Fri, 04/12/2013 - 4:19pm
When the orange line was built, and even into now, I would guess that a looooot of the residents of WR don't *want* it to come down there at all, for various reasons.
I don't understand?
By Grouper
Fri, 04/12/2013 - 8:39pm
Soooo, since the Forest Hills area is not dense enough to be considered "urban", and NONE of the immediately surrounding areas are "urban" (your words here), it should not have any suburban-ish infrastructure? I'm not seeing the logic here, sorry.
Furthermore, where exactly are these "real cities" that you speak of? You know, these urban centres without four-lane parkways (like the Arborway) and minor fly-over bridges? Certainly nowhere in the U.S., perhaps Europe? Paris -nope, London -nope, Berlin -nope, Copenhagen - nope, Oslo - nope. So, what the heck are you even talking about? Do you realize how quaint this overpass is when compared to the larger scope of urban life?
Perhaps the most amusing part of your post is the notion that JP is some sort of marginalized area. Dude, it ain't the 1980's, and unless you live in the projects, or you live in the house that your grandfather bought, you've got money. JP is fancy, sorry. Regular people live in Roslindale, Hyde Park, Mattapan and West Roxbury, not JP.
The Casey overpass is no Cross-Bronx Expressway, and your over-the-top condescending tone leads me to believe you grew up in some "heavenly hamlet" like Burlington, VT.
Get a grip.
I've lived in Roslindale for 3 years
By DaveA
Fri, 04/12/2013 - 1:53pm
and commuted by bike, train, bus and T through Forest Hills for over a decade. Occasionally, I've had to drive through there, and I agree the current road configuration is a mess, but I think bringing that bridge down will help bring that area together. I've always wondered who lived behind the American Legion post; that place is basically isolated now...and many people don't know the area above Hyde Park Ave and Walk Hill is actually a part of JP, not Mattapan or Roslindale.
I don't think any of the armchair traffic engineers who are so terrified about the apocalypse that will come if that hulking monstrosity is taken down really have any better ability to predict the future than the rest of us, so I guess we'll just have to disagree. It looks like a good plan to me and I look forward to riding my bike up from Roslindale Square onto the SWC without having to cut through the MBTA station or go all over the sidewalks to get through. If I have to sit in a traffic jam on Washington St in my car on the way to the zoo, then I'll try another route next time and approach from American Legion or up Centre to the Arborway.
Well ...
By anon
Fri, 04/12/2013 - 1:35pm
Bullshit like this is why the feds hand all the money to states that don't let idiots jump in with frivolous suits late in the process.
So, yes, yet another example of why the entire state gets screwed out of getting as much federal money back as its citizens put in. That's the vast area and long term effect.
How could this affect anyone in Mattapan or Brookline?
By Ron Newman
Fri, 04/12/2013 - 11:30am
If you live within a 4-block radiius of this project, it will have a significant effect on you. Why would it matter to anyone as far away as Brookline or West Roxbury?
Parkway traffic
By anon
Fri, 04/12/2013 - 11:44am
I think the assumption is that all the traffic on the Jamaica Way / Centre St connecting JP to Roslindale and West Roxbury is going to be a disaster. It's already very heavy at the Centre St. rotary and if the Casey traffic backs up into that rotary, it will impact traffic all the way up to Rt 9. If people start trying to cut through south Brookline by going by the Park School and through the Putterham rotary, that's going to be the Brookline impact.
Well you can tell Ron
By anon
Fri, 04/12/2013 - 12:24pm
isn't from the area and/or is new!
This ^
By Jeff F
Fri, 04/12/2013 - 12:32pm
I understand that the overpass is crazy sketchy now - doesn't feel safe at all when driving over it. So something needs to be done - either replace or rework it.
But as a Roslindalian, I'm also very concerned that the new street-level plan will end up being a complete fiasco for anyone trying to get downtown from the southeast. I know enough to know that I can't judge a road plan just by looking at it - but honestly, the diagrams and animations of the proposed new crossing look pretty ginned up. At this point, I'm placing a grudging faith in the civil engineers, but I'm still prepared to be disappointed (just hope I won't be).
Also, the attitude of many JPers that this project will affect them the most is laughable. 98%+ of them have the Forest Hills crossing "at their backs". Whether it works well or not won't really change their day-to-day - except, ironically, if it does turn out to be more roadblock than thoroughfare for the southern neighborhoods and reduces through-traffic. And having been a JPer for years, I can attest that there are plenty of folks there who are privately hoping that this is the case - the level of over-entitlement and lack-of-clue of many in that neighborhood (at least the west side) can be mind-boggling. Cf, the anon above, actually calling Rosi and Mattapan "more suburban". LOL!
There was precious little outreach to any neighborhood other than JP before this plan got off the ground. A lot of working folk from the southern end of the city who will be seriously affected by this project (either positively or negatively), are still unaware that this major interchange is going to be completely reworked. I suspect that if a lawsuit makes the news, the powers-that-be might find more support for it than they suspected.
So...
By Neal
Fri, 04/12/2013 - 10:14am
Did they run out of windmills to tilt at?
The Boston Way
By Charlie
Fri, 04/12/2013 - 11:28am
Hey it's the Boston way. When you don't get what you want just sue. Like the principal in Arlington who spend $60,000+ and hired lawyers to fight against bike lanes on Mass Ave. Or the two Medford residents who live nowhere near the Green Line Extension and are suing that it will cause environmental issues. Seriously people, your voices were heard. But your opinions are unreasonable. Get over it and move on with your lives.
Your attitude = Southwest Corridor *Highway*
By Jeff F
Fri, 04/12/2013 - 1:02pm
Personally, I would rather have a Boston where we have the Corridor and Park rather than an 8-lane highway. Thank you, citizen legal action!
Ditto, CAUSE and the Tent City protests. And the Boston harbor cleanup forced by citizen suit in the 80s. Or the Boston Water and Sewer Commission now being forced to find and close illegal municipal sewer outfalls into the Charles.
Alternatively, I bet there's more than a few folks of the former West End who would have rather seen a legal battle than the "get over it" clear cutting that actually occurred.
Agreed on those points
By Charlie
Fri, 04/12/2013 - 2:18pm
I'm with you on all of those points. It's good that citizens banded together to stop the Southwest Expressway and Inner Belt highways. It would be been great if citizens could have stopped the bulldozing of the West End.
If you don't want 8 lanes on Casey Arborway (which I don't want either), I think your efforts would be better spend working with the people who are working to convince MassDOT to build fewer lanes with the option that has been chosen. (You can even build it to be expandable in the future should you desire to do so.)
I find it ironic that the people who are touting the stopping of an elevated highway through the neighborhood as a successful use of citizen legal action are the ones who are arguing for suing MassDOT because they don't want to build an elevated highway through the neighborhood.
It's sad to me that people are so afraid of theoretically traffic backups that they're so willing to advocate for building such an expensive and divisive structure to try to avoid it. It's the same line of reasoning that government officials used to build I-93 through downtown and the same reasons they were using to try to build I-95 through Forest Hills -- they needed to accommodate the traffic! Don't let this false premise lead you to unnecessary solutions. I don't think you'll be happy with the results.
Fighting "The Man" ain't necessary if "The Man" is right
By Clay
Fri, 04/12/2013 - 5:34pm
The Casey Overpass was constructed in the early 1950s to span two elevated train lines and a trolley turnaround that no longer exist. These are not coming back thanks to the sunken rail lines of the Southwest Corridor. The bridge is no longer necessary, and any bridge is an impediment to improving this complex network of streets and pathways that exist now.
It has always seemed to me that the professionals involved - with the help and oversight of volunteers representing the interests of the community at large and all our common goals - have been seeking the best 21st century transportation solution for the entire area.
They are attempting to rationalize the traffic patterns in a complicated transit hub that has grown piecemeal and haphazardly for more than two centuries. The solutions evolving now will and should involve changing traffic patterns on the ground throughout the project area. The goal is not an idyllic restoration of 19th century parkway notions as some have claimed, but certainly the history of the area can and should inform all decisions about what works, what doesn't, what's necessary, what isn't, what the result should look like and how it should be used, shouldn't it?
I firmly believe that the majority of the community supports the chosen course, has confidence in the professionals, and applauds their efforts going forward (not backwards). The same very few voices are heard weekly in the local print media (and here perhaps) making the same tired claims of unfairness, issuing the same hollow threats, inciting the same fears while attempting to impede a process that needs effective and persuasive community input, not fear-mongering based on false claims - and they're already injecting themselves into the earliest phases of a crowded mayoral race in an effort to thwart progress and a thorough public process that has not gone their way.
Despite their noise, I look forward to celebrating the opening of the new Casey Arborway sometime in late 2016.
Rosi rez here
By Andrew
Sat, 04/13/2013 - 8:16am
I'm a Roslindale resident and on the fence over this projects.
PRO- taking down the overpass will allow the Forest Hills neighborhood to blend together better. Right now it feels split into parts.
CON- there certainly will be a negative impact on traffic. I simply don't trust traffic engineers. One simply needs to visit the Roche Brothers Supermarket parking lot in West Roxbury to know that traffic engineers haven't a clue how to design for real life situations.
One thing I do see happening here is similar to the Whole Foods debate. A loud, vocal, and self-righteous minority , similar to the "Whose Foods?" crowd take it upon themselves to speak for everyone else in the debate.
Enough with the scare tactics, please
By Anonnie
Sat, 04/13/2013 - 10:18am
Enough with the scare tactics, please.
The Casey Overpass has only 2 lanes of traffic (though built with six, four lanes have been closed for years), and those 2 lanes are busy only during peak hours. The traffic jams below are largely because of the poor street grid that will be redesigned as part of the at-grade plan.
Is anyone watching the transportation budget stand-off on Beacon Hill? We don't have the funds to keep the T running safely. But we should spend an extra tens of millions of dollars for a TWO LANE bridge that sees real traffic only a few hours of the day?
To those who think my neighborhood should be sacrificed to shave a few minutes off your commute, I wonder: if the state wanted to add an overpass through YOUR neighborhood to help commuters who use your roads, what would you say?
I live within spitting distance of the Casey and I'm really tired of people who live elsewhere telling me that shaving 5 minutes off their commute is more important than the quality of life in Forest Hills.
To my neighbors who support a new bridge, I remind them that they may be loud but they are the minority. Please help us plan for the future, not waste our time clinging to the past.
Bring back the highways!
By anon
Sat, 04/13/2013 - 1:23pm
Highways over JP! Highways over Roslindale! Highways over Mattapan!
What happened to I-95 and the beltway? Let's bring that project back, that was awesome! SW Corridor? Pshhht—pipe dream. No one will ever use it. And why exactly do we need the Emerald Necklace??? Pave that thing it's totally perfect for a highway! Add six lanes to Storrow too, I don't like waiting to pass.
Use your heads people. If all of our streets were moved up into the sky, we would never had to stop at any traffic lights ever. It would be like flying and we'd always get to where we're going like, a minute or two sooner at least! That would be utopia.
I just hate being in my car any longer than I have to so let's pave everything and make the car king! It makes perfect sense right? Right?
bridge
By anon
Fri, 06/28/2013 - 9:36pm
Fix what's there and put it back to 2 lanes.I'm sick of all this goddamned traffic. It's causing a lot of pollution. And do me a favor. Drive over the bumps faster. You'll feel em less.
What a brilliant solution.
By Scratchie
Fri, 06/28/2013 - 11:41pm
What a brilliant solution. You must be a professional traffic engineer.
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