Longtime Arborway observer Clay Harper took a look at the new sidewalks around Forest Hills station today:

Sidewalk open from FH Gate of @ArnoldArboretum all the way to @harvestcoop. Bike paths, not quite.

The Board of Appeal today approved a developer's plan to replace the current Laz parking lot across from the Forest Hills T stop with three six-story apartment buildings.

Criterion Development agreed to set aside 20% of the units as affordable - the city requires only 13%. Read more.

Todd Consentino attended a MassDOT update session on the Casey Overpass/Forest Hills rehab project tonight and reports that the work has fallen a year behind schedule: Three months due to the inability to work under the mega snowpiles of 2015 and now nine months because the state is having problems buying six ceiling-mounted "jet fans" to ventilate and cool the Orange Line tunnel under the new ground-level Arborway. Read more.

A Brighton Municipal Court jury today convicted Nikloas Papadopoulos of negligent operation - a misdemeanor - for a Sept. 6, 2013 crash that paralyzed a Dorchester man in the pickup he smashed into and put one of his own passengers into a wheelchair with a traumatic brain injury, the Suffolk County District Attorney's office reports. Read more.

State officials say next week is when workers take the first real bite out of the Casey Overpass - they're scheduled to remove a piece of the abutment on the rotary side of the hulking, crumbling bridge.

Along with that comes the first overpass-removal detours: Traffic heading from the rotary into Jamaica Plan will be diverted onto the temporary road that's been built alongside the Arborway bus depot - which means the gazillion traffic lights the state has installed will blink into use.

Prescient drivers who brought long books with them had plenty of time to catch up this morning. Hyde Park Avenue into Forest Hills was, once again, a complete mess. It was joined this morning by the West Roxbury Parkway and Arborway/Jamaicaway where delays stretched way back, in turn causing a backup on Walter Street that extended all the way to Henry's, where, at least, motorists could stop for a candy bar and a lottery ticket.

The Globe reports on a hearing this morning in West Roxbury District Court for Nikolas Papadopoulos, charged with causing a crash that sent six people to the hospital last year - permanently injuring two of them, one a Dorchester father of three, the other just 14 at the time.

The Suffolk County District Attorney's office reports that because he withdrew his plea, Papadopoulos is now scheduled for trial in March.

State historic-preservation officials on Friday acknowledged there's no feasible alternative to replacing the apparently historic Shea Circle when the Casey Overpass comes tumbling down, Clayton Harper reports.

Harper attended a Friday meeting between the Mass. Historical Commission and the state highway officials anxious to replace the crumbling overpass with a series of surface roads before the thing tumbles to the ground of its own accord.

Friends of Mark Delamere are organizing a Hypnotist Night fundraiser Saturday night to help his family with the costs of recuperating from the spinal-cord injuries he suffered in a September crash on the Arborway that put one driver into a coma, sent four other people to the hospital and led to criminal charges against the driver of the SUV Delamere was in.