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Comments
Nice
Seeing things like this really gives me hope that it will happen. Its amazing that this area has remained a sea of blacktop for so long considering how close it is to the water and to downtown. It would have been nice of them to build another back bay, but with land prices as they are, its not as if I would have been able to afford to buy a $12 million brownstone there anyway, which is what they probably would have had to charge. I go down there pretty frequently and they are already constructing one of the phases next to the courthouse. Hopefully it will all come together. And hopefully they will restore the Northern Avenue bridge!
The ICA seems to be missing?
The ICA seems to be missing?
ICA is someone else's property
ICA is part of the Fan Pier project, not Seaport Square. Different property owner/developer.
Don't worry!
The ICA is there ... it's just so small in comparison that you can barely see it. It's on the Harbor (top of the pic) right below the "Seaport Square" box. The ICA will be pretty well boxed in - the two big buildings to the right of it are tall. Those are part of the "Pier 4" development, separate from Seaport Square. No word on plans for that project.
6,500 parking spaces
And not a bit of mass transit to be found.
Gotta love the car-centric direction Boston is headed towards. Pollution, congestion, poor walkability. Why follow what worked in the past when we can emulate what has failed other cities?
But
The Silver Line is going to make it all better... It's already got two stops waiting for a reason to exist...
the silver line won't make
the silver line won't make anything better. It is nothing more than a glorified bus. How is that bus supposed to serve 20,000 people on the verge of downtown, all the while still going to the airport as well. The silver line should use trolly's, especially as they would be initially cheaper to construct. The T is paying a $600m premium to construct new wider bus tunnels, when the existing tunnels just need rehab.
Yet
You still have to crawl through a bumpy tunnel at roughly half the speed of the Green Line, in a vehicle with roughly half the capacity. Somehow it doesn't make the $600 million premium we're paying over light rail, nor Seaport Square easier to stomach.
Other cities want to be like Boston, and Boston wants to be like Atlanta or Hartford.
Bringing thousands of new cars into inner Boston is not a good idea. A proposal this obviously broken should never have been allowed to get any traction at all. Then again, looking at the existing new development on the Seaport, you can understand how low the bar has fallen. The minimum standard seems to be "Four walls and plenty of parking".
Silver Line
I guess I'm in the minority here, but I think the Silver Line works pretty well getting people from South Station to Courthouse and WTC stops. All of the development will be within walking distance of those stops.
That's because no one rides it yet
The ride is slow, uncomfortable, and the buses cramped. Add thousands of new potential riders to the mix, and you have something that just can't work. It's the #39 bus that almost everyone agrees is a terrible replacement for light rail, but underground and much, much more expensive than light rail.
When the Green Line is often at crush level, rolling out a new line with less capacity doesn't make the slightest bit of sense. Especially when you've got a clean-slate opportunity to build it right from the ground up (er, down).
The bus-bunching seen elsewhere will be nothing compared to the Silver Line once the Seaport is actually built up. It wouldn't surprise me to see bumper-to-bumper buses lined up halfway to South Station.
Parking
The number of parking spaces in Boston is frozen. Therefore the 6,500 that are apparently going in either exist on-site, or are going to be taken from the parking bank. Boston will be just as "car centric" after this project is complete as it is now. As to how "car centric" Boston is, go ask someone from Altanta or almost anywhere else for that matter. We are still the walking city.
Its also my understanding that the Silver Line tunnels were designed to allow for light rail in the future. I agree that light rail is preferable to busses, but it also requires vastly more up front capital for an area that is intended to be built out over the next 50 years. I wouldn't worry about over-crowded busses between S.Station and City Point any time soon.
Silver Line costs
Going with BRT for Phase 3 of the Silver Line is going to cost $600 million more than going with light rail.
Exactly true
Yes, 800 spots will be taken from the "bank". It looked to me as though the 2,000 residential spots are allowed, as of right? So, there will be an added 2,000 cars in that neighborhood than exist, now.
Um, we live in a city? That land is empty? If you put in one house on just one acre of land, you're gonna get at least one car.
You'll just have to accept it.
The failure of the state to build adequate mass transportation into the Seaport District is not this developer's fault.
Of the $50 million in city property taxes and hundreds of millions collected in sales taxes, income taxes, excise taxes, perhaps our elected officials could find some money to construct a better mass transit solution?
One quick suggestion - a new bus down D Street?
Web site
http://www.seaportsquare.com