Developer proposes large office center, stores, restaurants in marine industrial park

Awesome! More development that is nearly impossible to reach in the seaport! Are they planning a levitation device to move people in and out?

What does Google have to do with Woven Rubber Hose

What does biotech have to do with wires?

What does Partners have to do with Cars

All of the above are adaptive reuse of abandoned areas in Cambridge and Sommerville:

American Biltrite Rubber Co, Kendall Boiler and Tank, Simplex Wire & Cable, Ford Motor Company and of course Boston Woven Rubber Hose*1

Things change -- if you don't adapt to the tide -- you become King Canut or Detroit

Boston Woven Hose and Rubber Company circa 1960
https://cambridgehistory.org/research/boston-woven...

....where the Boston Woven Hose and Rubber Company fits into the picture today. It must be admitted that our Cambridge plant is inefficient by modern standards. Most of our buildings are four-story, long and narrow, with elevators of too-limited capacity. The efficient plants today, such as our own newer ones outside Massachusetts, are all on one level, with raw materials coming in at one end and flowing through automatically from machine to machine with little or no handling until the finished product comes out the other end. This efficiency is not possible in our older buildings.

In 1954 our company’s operations resulted in a loss of close to $1,000,000 before tax credits. In 1956 the American Biltrite Rubber Co. of Chelsea, Massachusetts, a highly successful manufacturer of heels and soles and floor coverings, acquired the controlling interest in our company. In 1957 Boston Woven Hose was merged with, and into, Biltrite, and thereupon Woven Hose ceased to be a corporate entity. Since then BWH has been a name only, or style under which our industrial products are marketed.

But the future of the American Biltrite is bright. It operates a dozen plants, most of them new, in five different states. Its growth pattern is impressive. Its stock is listed on the American Exchange, symbol ABL. Fortune magazine includes it in its list of the five hundred biggest companies in the U.S.A. It is a company with a promising future.

NO

The Silver Line can be real transit if its primary route is isolated from the surface traffic

There is not much of a difference between rubber tires on a Silver Line bus and steel tires on a Green Line Trolley

The one big difference between Silver Line in South Boston Seaport and a real transit line is the fact that all of the the Silver Line Service from South Station to and through South Boston Seaport surfaces and crosses D Street en route to Silver Line Way

This was the result of Mega-Stupid-lack of Coordination between elements of the Mass Dept. of Transportation -- specifically the T and Massport with the Turnpike thrown in for good measure.

However it is not too late to fix this problem -- very valuable land is about to be developed behind the relatively new [but now already old] John Hancock [aka Manulife] building located at D and Silver Line Way

Here's the solution in steps:

• Start building an underground Silver Line Way super station [a la Harvard Square on Red Line] supporting Silver Line and regular buses
• Start digging a tunnel under D street and providing a replacement for the ramp out of the World Trade Center Station [probably needs a new name anyway]
• Open the under D connection and start high frequency all underground service from South Station to Silver Line Way
• Get the legislature to approve use of the Emergency Ramp to the Ted for Silver Line vehicles
• Connect the Silver Line Way Station to the Ted ramp allowing all restricted ROW service from South Station to Logan -- here buses have a huge advantage over trains as they can climb and turn much much easier than railed vehicles
• Replace all of the Silver Line vehicles with those that will run on battery power when off the wire -- compatible with Massport going to battery powered busses at Logan
• Expand the number of Silver Line routes all based at Silver Line Way Station