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BU's West Station quid pro quo
By HarryMattison on Mon, 03/16/2015 - 11:13am
"Keep your cars out of our backyard" says BU President Brown
The Boston Globe reported today that in exchange for an $8M contribution to build the West Station commuter rail station adjacent to its campus, Boston University sought "enforceable language prohibiting the use of BU's West Campus as a route for buses or other vehicular traffic to carry commuters to or from West Station."
If a new commuter rail station is going to be built in Allston, shouldn't we make it easy for people to get to the station so more people will use it?
Wouldn't it be great if we could also provide new, direct routes for people driving, riding a bus, biking and walking to get from Coolidge Corner & Comm Ave to Cambridge Street, Western Ave, Harvard, and Cambridge?
Should drivers coming from Comm Ave be able to get on the Mass Pike more easily than they can today?
And at the same time should we reduce cut-through traffic on Brighton Ave, Harvard Ave, Linden Street, and Cambridge Street by giving people better north-south travel options?
Many Allston residents and transportation advocates say YES to all of these questions. Unfortunately, BU has been using its wallet and political clout to say NO.
There certainly are negative impacts associated with highways or any busy street. It might be nice if we could all live on quiet dead-end streets while still being able to travel easily in a thriving city (but we can't). Hopefully the decision makers and planners at City Hall and the State House will find a way to balance the burdens and benefits of living and working near a vital part of our region's infrastructure as they continue work on the Mass Pike Allston reconstruction project & West Station - one of Boston's largest public works projects of the foreseeable future.
Full text of the letter from BU President Brown to former Governor Patrick courtesy of Boston Globe reporter Michael Levenson: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B0Mv_n6nNyOTc0hzYXVqb2dIUC1IMWxySDFac1Z...
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Comments
BU - The City School That Hates Being In The City
BU is slowly but surely trying to wall its self off from the city as best they can and the City of Boston and the State is aiding and abetting as best they can.
Boston sold BU big chunks of Blandford, all of Hinsdale, and nearly all or all of Cummington Streets a few years ago. It was done very quietly. Those streets are now private property. They have purchased nearly every single piece of housing between Audubon Circle and the Pike easterly of the Brookline line and turned it all to student housing.
Now they are trying to bribe off and control access to more public streets behind Shaw's and Planned Parenthood by means of this contribution, which will greatly benefit their own development plans for the areas west of Walter Brown and Nickerson. Public streets are being made private by means of "contributions" here. This is not right.
Maybe BU, depending on whatever random anniversary of their "founding" they have coming up, relocate to a nice Connecticut suburb so they and their student body can feel right at home.
They should move as far away
They should move as far away as possible, then we can make Allston a livable neighbourhood and not a playground for some of the most immature transient adolescents of any local college
Campus Safety
Given the level of foot traffic through the area, I don't think this is so very unreasonable.
Being in a city does not mean becoming a car sewer.
I'm surprised
I expected SwirlyGrrl would want buses to be able to get to a commuter rail station
If the pedestrian amenities are preserved
How far of a walk is this? Not much. So long as BU is required to maintain strict accessibility, what does it matter? One already has to walk a block from North Station to get to the subway, and nearly two to get to the buses.
1) Not everyone can always walk everywhere
2) What is this "car sewer" you are trying to avoid? Forcing people to drive Comm Ave -> Brighton Ave -> Linden / Harvard -> Cambridge St is ridiculous and is a real waste of time/gas/noise/etc. Why perpetuate that for the next 100 years?
Others have considered the possibilities here much more elegantly. MassDOT is not going to do anything as grandiose as they propose but there is a lot of good thinking that still could be applied.
http://amateurplanner.blogspot.com/2014/04/the-pike-straightening-in-con...
https://davidmaerz.wordpress.com/2014/04/08/mass-pike-realignment/
Precisely, Swirly.
Let's not make the same damn mistake again. People should be able to step off the train at West Station and get on a bus or the RER/DMU or get in a cab without having to leave the station footprint, just as I can at every big city European train station I've ever been to. Further, no one should have to worry about the bus/cab/livery vehicle taking some circuitous route to/from the station.
To me, this is the biggest transit project that has a shot at happening around here for a good long while (excluding GLX). We cannot, we must not screw this up. I would put the screws to BU immediately and make sure that they understand that.
Other mistakes to make
Why so many routes through the area? The desire is to transfer directly, but the answer isn't to have buses wandering every street of a pedestrian area.
I've been to those stations in Europe, and they generally have at least one side of them set up for people to walk in and out without navigating a busy vehicular horror show in order to get to and from their surrounding neighborhoods. Both BU and the MBTA are not advancing appropriate plans here.
Those yellow lines I drew on the map
Are not meant to imply that all 3 (Babcock, Malvern, and Alcorn) should connect. But it seems reasonable to want professional study and honest consideration of the various options for cars, buses, bikes, and walking to travel north-south and access West Station from Comm Ave.
Linden Street at 5pm...
The "vehicular horror show" exists already. It's Linden Street and Harvard Avenue. These trips are happening no matter what. This is about distributing loads so the massive amount of traffic currently cramming down only two streets has more than one relief valve.
Harry linked to one of my posts above, but this post goes far more in depth on the real issues surrounding not extending at least one of these BU streets through. And it's not just about cars, or the station. it's about every single person travelling from one side of the pike to the other regardless of mode. Putting a few bridges here decreases pollution, congestion, and trip lengths for all users.
But it isn't Grand Central...
It's one stop on the commuter line.
not just one stop
If the DMU vehicle proposal gets through, it will be part of a line linking to both the North and South Stations as well as Cambridge. It's kind of a big deal and isn't being installed just for the use of BU staff and students.
The DMU train proposal is
The DMU train proposal is exactly why the station doesn't need buses. Because it will create those dark purple lines that travel between Allston and Cambridge and Allston and South Station. And you'll still have the Yawkey line right there and the b-line/57 bus just a minute away. Obviously this station and the straightening of the pike is a HUGE deal, but I don't know where everyone is getting this stuff about it being a bus hub. That's never been the plan. BU isn't ruining the plan. I think BU's main concern is them trying to extend Babcock to connect Comm Ave to Cambridge Ave so cars can bottleneck a half a mile sooner than they would at Linden and Harvard Ave. And I agree with BU...Babcock would a terrible thorough way and (in my opinion) would ruin the chance of the space between West Station and the straightened Pike being a green way solely for pedestrians and bicyclists to move between Allston, Cambridge, and the Storrow Drive bike path without clogging up traffic on Comm and Cambridge.
That DMU proposal to run on
That DMU proposal to run on the Grand Junction is a pipedream. In order to do so it needs to compete for space with freights, amtraks, and CRs that use to shuttle equipment between the northside and southside. They mostly do those ops at night or off-peak, but even then you're having to contend with the fact that the Gj crosses all the important east-bound exists from Cambridge at grade. You can't cross them that frequently without backing Cambridge and Boston traffic back through Kendall and fucking up the 1 bus. Then you'd have to create the stations which is extremely expensive, buy the equipment, establish a maintenance regime which isn't cheap, and then to boot you wouldn't be able to run it at frequencies for the reasons I described, that are high enough to warrant the expense. It would be quicker in all likelihood to take the bus to HS and then to Kendall.
The immediate future of West Station is as a bus hub, you can't expect the MBTA to roll out the GJ for another few decades, and busses will absolutely already run from at least from WS' north side. Extending the bridge means people from the 57 and Brighton is general also have the best access possible. I'm not getting into the congestion issues for cars, others have done that. BU doesn't own those streets, it's using PILOT as leverage to buy what is and should be public property and that's not okay.
Minor clarification
There's no way that the same DMU will run NS-WS-SS and then repeat. It's West Station - North Station via Kendall, but even then there's probably too many immediate obstacles to overcome (grade crossings, sharing the track with Amtrak, CR, freights, building stations) for it to be an immediate (or useful) reality. All your points stand, but for now West Station will have to be a CR/bus hub
There is ZERO reason for it to ever be a bus hub
57, 66, and 64 bus lines are right there, along with the green line. There is literally no plan or good reason at all to have new buses moving along Ashford or Babcock. So that point is moot. These proposed strings (no matter their intent) are exactly what the community needs. You'd have to be a moron to write the MBTA a blank check and, for once, I'm glad someone is there to strong arm them into sticking to their plan. Which completely and totally hinges on DMU trains. Without those trains, you have no Indigo Line. One commuter rail stop and one glorified bus stop is not worth the trouble and money that will go into it. The area needs a major overhaul, the plan is a major overhaul, and I'm glad someone with sway is forcing the damned overhaul.
You're not paying attention to anything I'm saying.
You're not paying attention to anything I'm saying. That "Indigo DMU" li isn't going to happen. Even if it does get bullied through, the grade crossings in Cambridge are going to limit it to at most 3 departures per hour. That's unavoidable. There's no point in laying out money for DMUs when they aren't going to be a effectively disperse Kendall-bound traffic from the west, back Mass Ave and Main St traffic back into Kendall/over the Longfellow/into MIT's campus, and force a significant outlay for a Kendall station. All that for a paltry payoff. MassDOT already tried to weasel out of West Station (so much for the grand plan), which was included in the 2024 opium dream of MBTA service expansion - if 20% of that vision comes to pass I'd be shocked because there are many issues with enacting all of it, both technical and financial.
Therefore, if the DMU isn't going to serve the circumferential needs of transit in Boston - busses will. And there's an immense payoff to it. Even if only one of the dead-ends is extended and only for crosstown West Station to Harvard route then you've gone a long way to siphoning people away from the overly congested transfer stations downtown. And yes, for that to happen you need door-to-door transfers - people don't want to alight, trudge over the Pike to the 66, especially when a much better solution is right there. You can cut the 57 connection, that's less important than WS-HS, but passing up the opportunity to improve circumferential transit in Boston, the achilles heal of the entire system is too great to pass up because BU is pissy Harvard got Beacon Yards. And we haven't even gotten into the ridiculousness of forcing vehicular traffic away from medium-to-lightly traffic back streets and towards the pedestrian and business heavy Linden/Harvard cutoffs.
I'm with Swirly
It's a block or two. Not a far walk. What was going to happen? The 57 bus was going to take the small detour around the corner at the Super 88 and cut up Babcock Street? That's way less efficient than the straight shot down Commonwealth. Public transit isn't door to door service like a car. That's the nature of it.
The MBTA
The MBTA bus routes are set up to act as feeders to rail - a longstanding policy that dates to when streetcars roamed about. It's rare for transit agencies to do that, but all of Boston's bus system is calibrated to this end. The three of the top five bus routes in regards to ridership (39, 28, 23) feed Back Bay and Ruggles respectively. The 3rd and 4th most trafficked routes, the 66 and 1, are circumfertenial crosstowners that hit a ton of rail connections on their routes. Public transit is very much about providing door-to-door service to rail transfers. That's the whole damn game.
T bus routes feed subways.
T bus routes feed subways. Not commuter rail like West Station. (And for good reason -- an infrequent bus feeding a very infrequent Commuter Rail line is a good way to waste 2 hours getting to work.)
They feed the CR, too
All CR stations are fed by bus routes, MBTA as well as RTAs like the MVRTA or the WRTA - that's just how the network is set to operate. West Station is not an infrequent bus route on an infrequent CR line. If the 66 (3rd highest in ridership) and/or the 57 (9th highest) are altered to hit West Station you've got two top-ten lines, including the sacred cow of transit in Boston, a crosstown route hitting a well-used transit hub. If the MBTA follows through on it's plan (which will have extremely difficult to overcome technical hurdles) to connect West Station to Kendall or Harvard via a primitive urban ring, it then becomes the main hub for all commuters heading to Cambridge from the west - which is not an insignificant number, Any way you wanna cut it, there needs to be a direct bus connection and to do so you need to use the public streets by BU. No ifs, no and, no buts.
So which buses and which streets by BU will need to be accessed?
Clarifying for myself...
Just a loop
You need a crossing on any of the Ashford/Babcock/Agganis Way. Run the 66 or a 66 flank route to WS, turn around, head back through the new street grid in LA to HS. You can even cut private autos out of the equation, I think it would be a mistake, but I'm not going to get on a soapbox to defend it. It would be better to run a crosstown, 66-like inner loop, but again the overarching promise of West Station is taking people away from DT and making it easier to hit Cambridge from the west. If you do that, I'll have your back concerning ped/bike-only access on the other crossings.
"All CR stations are fed by
"All CR stations are fed by bus routes"
Really? Ok, I'll hop the Commuter Rail to Lincoln, and stand on the nearest corner waiting for the bus that will take me down the road to the DeCordova Museum or Walden Pond. I'm going to be waiting a long time.
Or let's look at a station that actually has buses, like Belmont. Let's say you live in West Cambridge right near the 74 and 75 buses, and you need to go to South Acton during the morning rush hour. Outbound trains depart at 7:47 and 10:10 am. The closest connecting buses arrive at Belmont Center at 7:41 (pretty good unless it's 6 minutes late), and 9:46 (hmm, big waste of time waiting -- about the same as the entire trip to Concord if you drove).
Going inbound, don't bother. There are no buses in the neighborhoods west of Belmont Center. And nobody would backtrack if they lived east of the station, to catch one of 5 commuter rail trains between 6:30 and 9:33 am, when they could just head east to Harvard and catch the Red Line running every 4 minutes.
Which is why I said that T buses don't feed commuter rail stations. (There's a few exceptions on the North Shore, but I'd still hate to waste my life waiting for infrequent trains in Salem or Lynn.)
I'm failing to see your point.
Even if all of the outer CR are serviced by bus routes, which most North Shore and inner ring suburbs, what's your point? And what relation does it have to do with CR hub in the middle of Allston, which served by 3rd highest and 9th highest ridership lines of the MBTA bus system.
I was born and raised in West Cambridge, and if you're going to be using the Fitchburg Line walk to Porter and catch it there. Why you would ever trudge out to Belmont is beyond me. And I'm not seeing your point, beyond just a rant - why are we even discussing South Acton when we're talking about making sure West Station is serviced by bus routes. The busses aren't calibrated to accommodate reverse commutes..nothing is. And no where am I arguing that bus service to outlying CR stations in better than driving if you're going against traffic. Also both Waltham and Watertown - both west of Belmont and the lightly settled suburbs outside it - have collectors route feeding their stations. But idk how we've even got to this point.
The 66 might be one of the
The 66 might be one of the busiest routes Boston's got, but it still only runs every 9 minutes at the peak of rush hour.
In Moscow, people start to grumble when they have to wait 5 minutes for a subway...at midnight.
West Station will be north of the pike
It will be a hell of a walk.
It will be on the north side of the Pike opposite the Star Market. The only way people would be able to connect to the B line would be to somehow catch a 64 or 66 bus to Allston and walk/connect to the 57 bus to Packard's corner or walk up Cambridge (over the pike) to Harvard Ave and then down Brighton to Packards Corner. Any option not straight over the pike would be long and circuitous with multiple connections. Or they could build bridges over the pike to connect Comm Ave directly to the station. Most urban planners would opt for option 2.
Since this station would benefit Cambridge as well as BU (and other occupants of Boston), it would make sense to make it a bus hub as well. Why can't the bridges over the Pike be pedestrian/bus only with bike lanes? This way, drivers wouldn't use it as a short cut to get onto the pike (which they would definitely do) and actual public transportation commuters would be encouraged to use the hub. Without bus or T access to the station, they'll have to build parking for commuters, increasing the traffic on Cambridge Street.
Drivers SHOULD be allowed to, though
I'm usually the most anti-car guy around. I haven't had a licence in three years and counting, HOWEVER
Harvard Ave:
Dense commercial street, tiny sidewalks, one and a half bike lanes, and one travel lane in each direction. Carries one of the busiest bus routes in the city, and is gridlocked pretty much 20 hours a day.
Linden St:
Dense residential street, even tinier sidewalks, no bike lanes, barely one travel lane in each direction, and blind spots at every intersection. Gridlocked northbound half the day.
Malvern/Alcorn/Babcock St:
Low density commercial/industrial/institutional streets bounded mostly by parking lots and fields. Malvern has a smattering of houses on one side. Decent width sidewalks, wide travel lanes, probably room for bike lanes. Barely any existing pedestrian or automotive traffic currently, except on event days.
BU doesn't want cars on vastly underutilized city streets that its property abuts because a few times a year they have an event there. Meanwhile Allston is gridlocked pretty much 24/7 from Packards Corner to Union Square, the majority of which is through traffic heading to the Pike. There is no reason Malvern and Alcorn/Babcock couldn't be made one way pairs, with nice wide sidewalks, raised crosswalks, and bike lanes. Automotive traffic could filter from Comm Ave to the new Pike ramps without clogging up Allston. Cyclists and pedestrians wouldn't have to walk a mile for no reason. Everyone wins... except BU which seems to think it's in the middle of the burbs, not a dense, growing city.
Underutilized by who?
"BU doesn't want cars on vastly underutilized city streets that its property abuts because a few times a year they have an event there."
Vastly underused by cars but is that all that matters? Maybe their 18K undergrads use them to get around the campus. They already have to dodge the traffic mess at the BU bridge. I'm not surprised that the school wants to give their students safe pedestrian pathways. It's not like BU has a quad or other big green space connecting the campus. Along with Comm Ave those roads are it.
No reason those streets couldn't be pedestrian and bike only, right?
Have you ever walked back there?
Or looked at a map? It's like a scene out of a post-apocalyptic movie. The 18k students are everywhere else. Because there is no campus there. There are parking lots. And a field.
The whole point is they shouldn't be ped and bike only because letting cars use them will drastically reduce traffic on Harvard and Linden, where there are massive amounts of pedestrians and cyclists, including BU undergrads.
I'm sorry, but the interests of Allston Village outweigh the people parking back there.
Nope. West Station is planned south of the pike...
Both the current pike and future, straightened out pIke. But, yes, near the Star Market as far as I can tell. That is 3-5 minute walk to nearby subway lines (Packard's Corner/Babcock on B line and 57 bus). Those narrow, basically single lane roads like Babcock...they're just not suitable for increased traffic or large vehicles like buses.
Improvements
Some sidewalk improvements and some better lighting would be an important improvement to consider, especially along Babcock, especially if that's to be the main pathway between the new station and the 57 and the Green line.
There will also need to be some significant bike racks at that new station!
Yes
I lived in the BU-Allston area for 10 years, and BU's "West Campus" area (Commonwealth Ave from the BU Bridge to Packard's Corner, and then Brighton Avenue from Packard's Corner to Union Square, Allston) is incredibly unfriendly to pedestrians, especially considering how many pedestrians regularly access those roads to take the B line and the 57/66 buses, or to do their errands. Just try walking from, say, Allston Street x Cambridge Street to Star Market, or from the BU perspective, Buick Street to Allston Village. It's an unpleasant, unattractive walk, with poorly marked or timed pedestrian crossings (gotta love being stranded on a 12" "pedestrian island" as semi-trucks and trolleys whiz by inches from your nose!)
Many of these pedestrians are not only undergraduate students at BU. Many attend other smaller universities in the city that have practically no dorm space, while the majority of people in that section of Allston are graduate students or young adults just starting out, the elderly, and immigrant families.
A new mass transit portal would be a huge boon to Allston especially for this reason: a huge number of the people who live there would greatly benefit from increased transit access to the rest of the Boston area. But turning Commonwealth and Brighton Avenues into auxiliary turnpikes would be absurd and a huge quality of life problem for people who live in the neighborhood...but the locals who live in the neighborhood don't have the time, money, or resources to fight it. BU does. Kudos to them.
How would Comm & Brighton Ave become auxiliary turnpikes?
Extending some streets north-south would take traffic off Brighton Ave.
If drivers heading west on Comm Ave could turn right on Babcock, Malvern, or Alcorn to get to Cambridge Street that would reduce traffic in Packard's Corner and at the intersections of Harvard Ave at Brighton Ave and Cambridge St
What?
Extending all or any of the dead-ends north of comm ave over the new alignment is going to go a long ways to remedying the situations you describe. It's going to siphon all Cambridge bound traffic away from the Harvard/Linden to Cambridge street detour and increase accessibility by foot/bike to boot. Then you can start to rejigger bus routes to hit West Station (as they should) and then dive into Lower Allston without having to brave their way through the sh*ishow that is Union Square traffic on Harvard/Brighton/Comm Ave. You sound like you should be opposing BU, not supporting it. If these streets don't get upgraded then the people who will suffer are those in Union Square, and Lower Allston.
I think he is in concordance with you
It sounded to me like the anon poster was advocating the bridges BU is against. The "Kudos" was sarcastic.
The "auxiliary turnpikes"
The "auxiliary turnpikes" comment tripped me up, I still can't tell what side they fall on
I'm the anon
The situation I'm opposing is that slice of Allston becoming even more gridlocked and unfriendly to pedestrians than it already is. Based on the written summary, it sounds like that is what BU is trying to achieve, but the map is tiny and doesn't contain a link to the larger one, that I can't really see what streets are highlighted.
It sounds like it would make sense to expand the pedestrian, bike, and bus access to the station from Commonwealth Ave, but make cars/taxis/Ubers go around the long way via Cambridge Street.
I wish I got to write this
I wish I got to write this earlier. And yes, those who seen me here around long enough know my background. But I know BU’s history. And I said earlier to Will LaTullipe, BU long ago planned for some kind of campus. And keeping track of current plans, BU still hold to some hopes despite the resources it will take now to make one that won’t disrupt Boston (like decking the Pike or ideas like the railyard that ultimately went to Harvard). I don’t think that’s unreasonable for a school for wish that unless you also view MIT, Harvard, and Northeastern should move to the suburbs too.
Back at the turn of the century, BU basically started building in a giant empty field. Some lots, even a century later, still never got truly built on (parking lot on Grandby St for one). If you check out the library, you can see a display showing one of BU’s old plans: A Charles River campus with the today’s Charles River building originally planned to be longer and more expansive.
That got scuttled by the damage from the Great Depression then Storrow Drive push through. I will mention now, for those who now all of a sudden feel how great Storrow Drive now, remind now that it got named Storrow Drive after James and Helen Storrow, key players in making the Charles River and its parks today, fought their whole lives against it where the legislature waited until they died. I digressed as I got a feeling that some here may feel celebratory over Storrow where they won’t in different context like how the state did something so petty.
But speaking of celebratory, I guess part of me that got irritated to write this is because I’m pretty sure the other schools would not get the same flak. I completely understand that denying traffic to have to funnel all the way to Harvard Ave when we don’t have to is nonsensical. Matthew noted the Urban Ring needs. Just that if this was going through MIT, Harvard, or Northeastern, I’m pretty sure the vitriol won’t be as strong. I’m not saying there won’t be disapproval. But just not 46 thumbs up saying Leave Boston, “Go to Hell”, or similar comments. I, for one, understand that BU likely have an idea for the area for decades before CSX moved out and then the idea of redoing the entire highways changed all the conditions.
Yes, I get that “it’s a dead end street full of parking lots an trivial buildings”. That is probably why BU was slowly building into that area until CSX and the Pike changed the entire potential to the area. I imagined that plan would have worked to get a semblance of a campus without disturbing people, if the tolls and CSX never changed the conditions.
I do operate that the needs of the many outnumber the needs of the few. And despite BU’s long term plans, it again have to take the backseat. Just that I’m pretty sure if this was about the other schools, the disdain towards the news would not be so bad.
If the BU bus gets to use
If the BU bus gets to use public streets through OUR NEIGHBORHOODS MBTA buses should get to use public streets through BU's campus!
(Expletive) you, Brown
You're not from here. Go back to Texas:
http://www.bu.edu/president/biography/
(Says the guy from Vermont)
.
Yeah, but
I don't go around telling people where to drive.
True
You just tell them whether they deserve to die for alleged crimes based on your own internal version of the Spanish Inquisition.
ahahahah
Trivia Will you just got...."got"
The Irony
The Irony is that Will probably would have approved of John Silber from a basic "me strong-man, give both-barrels" perspective.
Even though Silber was also from Texas.
I used to
But I'm retired from talking about death on UH after I had a really unpleasant dream a while back about a fictitious execution.
Has only lived here 35+ years
Has only lived here 35+ years... more than half his life.
Payback
I'm feeling there's not a little spite on BU's part to the whole interchange, West Station project. They wanted that land, but Harvard got it. Now they'll just be as indifferent and difficult as possible. Stupid, really. Considering West Station could be massive boost to accessibility/east of commute (as opposed to packed GL trolleys) of the area, they shouldn't be acting like a spoiled child.
Go to Hell.
should be the Commonwealth's and the City's response.
If someone wants to talk about prohibiting private vehicle through traffic (and by that, I do not mean to exclude livery vehicles) on a single street, maybe we can talk about that, but there is no way in hell that any money should come with a restriction that would prevent West Station from becoming the intermodal transit hub that it should be.
I am particularly aghast at this suggesting because if we ever get the Inland Route for real high speed rail, this is going to be a critical stop for it. To suggest that travelers arriving at West Station should not have the most convenient intermodal connection is beyond offensive.
BU stands only to benefit (hugely) from this project. Allowing them to attach strings like this to a project that they should be contributing to without further consideration is absurd.
Further, if they pull back the $$, I will be the first one to push for a value capture regime from the added benefit to BU - perhaps in the form of any BU development happening within X distance of West Station will NOT be tax exempt, and will even be hit with a surcharge (as other real estate nearby should be.
Campus = Streets?
The article is really Globe "reporting" at its worst. No facts, little analysis. Here's what needs clarifying: BU has said they don't want their "campus" to be used as a cut-through to the station for cars and buses. I can't tell whether that would include the yellow hypothetical bridges/streets highlighted in Harry's map - presumably if built those would be public streets and not part of the "campus." perhaps they literally meant they didn't want campus roads used for access, and would be fine with these new public streets that bridge over to the station?
What BU does not want
has been made clear at the many MassDOT public meetings in 2014. BU does not want any changes to the roads between Comm Ave and Linden Street.
Gonna sound like a BU/NIMBY stooge...
But living in the area, I'd prefer not seeing an increase in car traffic because of the new station. To me, it's another point of access in and out of the city, which is already a huge improvement. Won't the station be a quick walk to Comm Ave, the b-line and 57 bus? It doesn't get easier than that. Well, sort-of, it's still Comm Ave, the b-line, and 57.
The only way to reduce car
The only way to reduce car traffic is to increase ped/bike/bus connectivity.
Also, the traffic Harry is talking about already exists. Today it goes from Comm Ave to Brighton to Cambridge St. It's a matter of rerouting it.
And rerouting that traffic three blocks up ain't gonna do much.
I live in Allston, I get that the traffic sucks on Harvard and Linden Ave, but elongating Babcock (for instance) will just create another bottleneck that I think will be far more disruptive, especially to the B line. BU is reading the cards right in this case. West Station and it's Indigo line will take people to Cambridge and connect directly to two other southeast-bound lines that will take you to Fenway and another line that will take you directly to Back Bay Station and South Station. AND, on top of that, it will be a quick walk to the B line and 57 buses. It shouldn't be a bus hub moving through Allston and the west campus and it shouldn't be a shortcut for cars between Commonwealth and Cambridge Ave. It would better serve locals by being a green space where pedestrians and bikes can move more easily between Allston/Cambridge/Storrow without traveling on Cambridge or Comm Ave, where cars have rule of the road. I mean, the whole way this was presented by the blogger was clearly biased and why this turned into a BU Sucks circlejerk. I've got a laundry list of grievances with the university (namely how it houses it's students), but I happen to agree with them about this.
Bigger version of that map?
Can you point me to where I can get a closer look at that map?
Thanks.
If they're not careful, they
If they're not careful, they'll end up demonstrating something I've been saying all along: that this proposed location for West Station makes no sense.
Not that I think prohibiting
Not that I think prohibiting all but a circuitous route to the station is a good idea, but the language in Harry's post is dishonest.
"And at the same time should we reduce cut-through traffic on Brighton Ave, Harvard Ave, Linden Street, and Cambridge Street by giving people better north-south travel options?"
Brighton Ave, Harvard Ave, and Cambridge Street are through streets, so by definition it's not cut-through traffic. On the other hand, Malvern, Alcorn, and the northern piece of Babcock *are* quiet neighborhood streets that don't see a lot of through traffic today. (Even though they mostly face parking lots today, I assume that area is planned for a campus redevelopment.)
We may have different definitions of "cut-through"
but what is dishonest about what I wrote? You describe Alcorn Street as a quiet neighborhood street. Whose neighborhood is it? The Star Market parking lot, the entrance to the parking lot below BU's New Balance Field, the non-access side of Planned Parenthood, or the non-access side of Star Market?
If you are driving from Coolidge Corner to Harvard Square, I think it is reasonable to say that you are "cutting through" Allston. Is it OK to want to let those people drive through our neighborhood more efficiently than they can today?
If you are driving from Harvard Square, Harvard Business School, or Harvard Athletics south to the Comm Ave / BU / Coolidge Corner area, does it really make sense for people to have to take the following streets, all of which are partially or completely residential?
North Harvard St to
Cambridge St to
Harvard Ave OR
Harvard Ave -> Brighton Ave -> Babcock St OR
Highgate St -> Farrington Ave -> Linden St -> Ashford St -> Babcock St
Cities grow, evolve, and change. Many streets that were once quiet neighborhood streets today are a lot noisier with a lot more traffic. The redevelopment of the Mass Pike Allston interchange in Allston will be a very big change in Boston. Some day thousands of people will travel to destinations that today do not exist. To suggest that Alcorn Street, Malvern Street, and Babcock Street in Allston - all of which will become much more valuable than they are today as a result of these changes - should bear none of the burden of increased activity seems quite unfair.
As I said, I'm not opposed to
As I said, I'm not opposed to providing more through streets to improve efficiency. I'm just opposed to misusing terms to form a dishonest argument.
Cut-through traffic means using quiet neighborhood streets (the ones with stop signs, etc) to avoid backups on through streets (the ones with double yellow lines, bus routes, and stop signs on the other streets that intersect them).
North Harvard St, Cambridge St, etc *are* the through streets, even though they have houses on them.
How would you feel about encouraging through traffic on Seattle or Windom Streets in the name of efficiency?
(What's the history of the Hooker-Sorrento Playground -- did those streets used to go through?)
Seattle St = Malvern St???
I'm not going to play hypothetical with you about Windom Street. The construction of Stadium Way from West Station to North Harvard (crossing Cambridge St & Western Ave) is a much better way to promote efficient travel. If Stadium Way crossed over the Mass Pike and connected with Comm Ave it would be even more efficient.
You can see at http://www.bahistory.org/1925_Plate26_LO.pdf that Sorrento St was never fully connected.
I still believe that people driving from Brookline to Harvard Sq or Central Sq to Watertown are "cutting-through" North Allston, even if they drive only on roads with double yellow lines. Why you think I am dishonest for having that opinion I have no idea.
...
"Cut-through traffic means using quiet neighborhood streets (the ones with stop signs, etc) "
You just described Linden, Highgate and Farrington. Which are LOADED with traffic overflow during rush hour because Harvard Ave can't handle it.
So yeah, making Malvern, Alcorn and/or Babcock cross the Pike would be reducing "cut-through" traffic by both your, and Harry's definitions.
I'm also not sure how talking about streets in Lower Allston, north of the project site, have any relevance to anything. We're talking about traffic created by limited points to cross the Pike, not the vehicular meanderings through L.A.
Harry said we should make
Harry said we should make quiet streets like Malvern into through streets to reduce traffic on streets like Harvard Ave, Cambridge Street, and North Harvard.
I asked if we should do the same north of the Pike. The vast majority of traffic is going to be through traffic, not traffic to West Station. (People driving from Brookline to Cambridge aren't going to park-n-ride at a commuter rail stop in Allston. Maybe they'll take a one-seat through transit trip, if it isn't slow as molasses.)
Turning quiet dead-ends into through streets to reduce cut-through traffic on other quiet streets which are already through streets is an interesting idea. But that's a complicated enough scenario that neither of us can declare if it will work or not.
I don't blame BU
I lived for 2 years at BU West Campus and 7 years off Cambridge St in Lower Allston. BU has always suffered from not really having a campus, but just being a collection of buildings along Comm Ave. I don't blame them for trying to defend the few places where they have a bit of a "real" campus. They should not be able to buy their way into blocking sensible transportation improvements, but at the same time they shouldn't have an excessive number of outside vehicles rolling through, disrupting where their students live and attend school.
People who live & work on Harvard Ave & Linden St
also shouldn't have an excessive number of outside vehicles rolling through
Agreed
Like most things, the devil in all this in the details. You shouldn't have to drive all the way up to Linden or Harvard to get across to Cambridge St. At the same time, BU should have some say in how new streets are created and what they will look like.
Like any negotiation, BU is doing what it can to maintain a position where it has some say in the final outcome.
Yes, BU probably should have some say
But that say shouldn't be "you VILL NOT run traffic down these streets."
I blame them
The river and Comm Ave were both there when they built it. I didn't tell BU to put the college there.
Boston wasn't there
Know your history Will. The land BU is on is reclaimed land. When BU first started in the area, it was a giant vacant field. It's first big plan was a campus along the river. Only they got hit with the Great Depression then Boston shoved Storrow Drive (whom I should remind again James and Hellen Storrow fought against it their whole lives only for the state to wait for them to die then legislature quickly move to build through it - BU did not have the clout then to do anything about it).
To say it's BU fault they didn't have foresight when they first started building in the area 1910's is a bit of an ass thing to say.
The bigger picture for transit
I think some here are missing the bigger picture. A bus route that crosses the turnpike at around West Station isn't about West Station alone. That's just one stop.
The point of a bus route that crosses the turnpike at that point is that it can serve Harvard, Allston, West Station, Boston University, Brookline, Longwood and Ruggles, while also connecting with all Green Line branches and several important bus routes. There is no other way to achieve this kind of connectivity (barring a crazy subway tunnel).
It would essentially be a highly useful, achievable piece of the Urban Ring. But it can only happen if buses are able to cross the turnpike. The detour to Harvard Ave is too long and too congested (just look at the 66), and would wind up skipping both West Station and Boston University.
All the chatter about people being able to disembark a bus and walk to West Station is missing the point, entirely. Running a dinky shuttle bus between Harvard and West Station isn't much of an achievement. Opening up a new crosstown bus route between Harvard and the Longwood Medical Area is huge.
Why is it than the amateur
Why is it than the amateur planners ranting on slightly obscure news websites on the internet often make more sense than MassDOT engineers?
exactly
West Station with buses across the pike (and pedestrian and bike lanes) is a game changer for making it easier to get around town. Without, and it will benefit suburban dwellers who work in the Cambridge area and some of the Allston residents (me included) where our walk to the station wouldn't be impacted much (West of Linden Ave people or Lower Allston people).
This site has the full plan for the MBTA for 2024 (not all approved - the map can be blown up using the link). If the Indigo line is installed with buses over the pike to access West Station, public transportation for Boston will be revolutionized and will hopefully reduce traffic in town. West Station will link to Cambridge and North Station. People could get to South Station in 15 minutes instead of the 1 hour it takes with the B/Red lines (if you're lucky enough to be allowed onto a train that is).
http://www.masslive.com/news/boston/index.ssf/2014/01/massdots_plan_for_...
Game changer for Cambridge and maybe Longwood, too.
It's also a potential big deal for Cambridge, and the gridlock getting off of the Turnpike every day. If you look at commuting surveys for employers in Cambridge most people bike/walk/transit. The big outliers are west of Boston: there is no connection from the Framingham/Worcester Line to Kendall/Central/Harvard without going all the way in to South Station. So, a trip from Newtonville to Kendall takes 42 minutes, 30 of which are spent getting to Yawkey Station. Similarly, a trip from Harvard Square to Wellesley Farms takes an hour: after 40 minutes you wind up going through the old Beacon Park Yards, a mile as the crow flies from Harvard Square. For trips like these, having a good connection at West Station would save commuters 45 minutes per day: a bus (or in the long run light rail, or even subway) connection to Harvard Square (quite possibly privately-funded by Harvard or as part of the MASCO routes) and a rail shuttle along the Grand Junction to the Kendall area (again, potentially privately funded). A lot of the gridlock getting on and off the Turnpike results from people for whom it's faster to drive, because the transit options from points west only work if you're going to Back Bay or Downtown. Yawkey helps the situation for the LMA somewhat, but West Station would help the gridlock on the other side of the tracks. But it's all about connectivity: the ability to drive (or at the very least have transit) between Harvard and points south makes too much sense. Imagine a bus (or other transit line) that went from Kenmore Square to Harvard Square via Comm Ave and the West Station area, part of that way in exclusive transit lanes. That is a huge connection, but only if we don't let BU walk all over us.
Go big on it.
West St. to Harvard is the holy grail of the urban ring. The mode is ultimately going to have to come down to the necessary capacity. As much as I deplore the way BRT is used as a (not really at all-) "substitute" for light rail on corridors that could support light rail service, there could be a case for it here. The real question is whether the Union Spur can be extended through Cambridge via Porter (or not, sort of depends what happens to Union Square on the employment front) to Harvard Sq, then through Lower Allston. I don't see how it could farther south than that initially without a tunnel - reaching LMA is a toughie. Really the whole thing is one grande opium dream. You're 100% right though, the issue in Boston is the over-reliance on the hub-and-spoke - it's slowly killing the transfer stations through congestion and whole system goes down if any of those start to fail consistently, nor does it reflect the commute patterns of the current city.
The Grand Junction is whole nother can of worms. I don't see how it's possible to run decent headways on that without screwing up auto traffic on every east-west arterial out of Cambridge and screwing with the #1. The MBTA has looked at it before as a bypass for a few F/W trains, but decided it would be too disruptive. You might be able to run a limited headway here, but nothing approaching rapid transit frequency. Idk how anything changes for the GJ before NS-SS link. I'm glad the T has slated something for it, but I'm worried it'll be one of the first connections to slash when the inevitable cuts to the capital program pop up.
Man, the Grand Junction comes
Man, the Grand Junction comes awfully close to Union Sq, Somerville and Inman Sq, Cambridge.
The advantages of the West Station bus connectivity Matthew wrote about and the ability to connect Allston, Kendall and North Station by rail with the Grand Junction ought to more than make up for the cost of a few bridges or underpasses.
That's the problem with the
That's the problem with the Grand junction. It looks so useful. And it will be, but not for a while. The CR, Amtrak, and freights all use it, the CR and Amtrak to shuttle their equipment northside to southside. The next closest loop is Framingham and they're not going to give up the GJ for anything. You can't build up because of air rights, can't pop over the crossing because those grades will be too steep for push-pulls, can't bury it for the same reason and because the red line tunnel at Main. You need to use it as is, and using it as is comes with a host of problems - the question is, do you run a low(ish) frequency service in full knowledge of the high costs of readying that line for DMUs or do you wait until you can do it right when the circumstances are better for it. Allston-Kendall isn't going to happen for a long while.
Mass Pike off-ramp @ Beacon St
Would let a bus/car travel from Harvard to West Station via Stadium Way, get on the Pike, go 1 mile on the Pike, then get on Park Drive to Longwood
I'll try to not let perfect
I'll try to not let perfect be the enemy of good, but a bus, even with its own ROW, is a short term solution. West Station to Harvard is still a reach at sub-10/15mins during peak hours. JFK bridge reconstruction (if that shit every gets done) will help, but the pinch in Cambridge is the killer - also I'm assuming that it'll run in a segregated ROW through Lower Allston. Going all the way to Longwood doesn't make sense in my mind if the WS-HS route is established - west originating riders can get off at Yawkey instead and make the trek, and I'd be surprised if there was significant Cambridge-Longwood demand to warrant it (I know Harvard med is down there, but in my experience at least, most of the med students/doctors/professor are holed up in the pill hills and not so much Cambridge, I could be completely wrong, granted). A Beacon St offramp is probably a must, or at least something to ditch the Bowker and get cars off Storrow, but what/where exactly you'd know better than I. I'd still like it to be light-rail one day, but it would need to reach the ridership threshold for that which could take a while and would probably need to link into the Green Line somewhere, but ultimately that's the most economical and quickest option.
Ugh, just build 695 already.
Ugh, just build 695 already.