Tag: Allston

Joint support letter for MassDOT proposal to USDOT’s FY2022 Multimodal Project Discretionary Grant Program

Joint support letter for MassDOT proposal to USDOT’s FY2022 Multimodal Project Discretionary Grant Program

Joint support letter for MassDOT proposal to USDOT’s FY2022 Multimodal Project Discretionary Grant Program

May 23, 2022

The Honorable Pete Buttigieg
Secretary of Transportation
1200 New Jersey Avenue, SE
Washington, DC 20590

Dear Secretary Buttigieg:

Please accept this letter from a broad coalition of transportation, environmental, business, and community stakeholders in support of the Massachusetts Department of Transportation (MassDOT) application for USDOT’s FY2022 Multimodal Project Discretionary Grant (MPDG) assistance to help fund its I-90 Allston Multimodal Project located in the City of Boston.

The I-90 Allston Multimodal Project creates an opportunity to dramatically improve livability and connectivity for residents of Boston’s Allston neighborhood, an environmental justice population defined by Massachusetts law, while enhancing regional mobility and creating a significant new multimodal passenger train station for the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA). In 1965, Massachusetts officials opened the Allston section of I-90, shoehorning an eight-lane elevated highway between Boston University and the Charles River, dividing a vibrant working-class community, shutting down important passenger rail stations, and wounding important riverfront habitat in the process. The highway was designed and built prior to the protections now provided by the National Environmental Policy Act, and financed without federal funding through bonds secured by tolls. Some 60 years later, Boston still endures harmful impacts from this obsolete, failed transportation policy that placed a highway above the needs of neighborhoods and the environment.

The Allston Viaduct is nearing the end of its useful lifespan. Since the spring of 2014, MassDOT has been developing a concept to replace the Allston Interchange and Viaduct. The MassDOT team worked with a Task Force composed of local residents, advocates, elected and appointed officials, representatives of local institutions and businesses, and the Allston community at-large – many of whom have signed onto this support letter. In September 2021, MassDOT identified the Modified At- Grade Option as the focus for the Allston I-90 MultiModal Project and selected the Modified At-Grade design–the clear consensus option–as its preferred alternative. We are committed to continuing our work with MassDOT to see the project to completion – building a future where the needs of public transit riders, cyclists, pedestrians, and the health of the river are as important as motorists traveling on this section of interstate.

The I-90 Allston Multimodal Project fulfills each of the USDOT’s six selection criteria in terms of project outcomes:

A. Safety: Addresses known safety problems and helps to protect both motorized and non-motorized users. The Modified At-Grade Option addresses known safety problems and protects motorized users by providing the safest horizontal alignment and vertical profile for the replacement of the functionally deficient existing I-90 viaduct by reducing curves and steep grades, which will reduce excessive speeds and crash rates. By removing reverse curves and providing wider and separated paths, it also enhances the safety of non-motorized users by increasing pedestrian and bicycle connectivity.

B. State of Good Repair: Addresses current and projected vulnerabilities that, if left unimproved, threaten future transportation network efficiency, mobility of goods or accessibility and mobility of people, or economic growth. The Modified At-Grade Option would replace the existing, deteriorating I-90 viaduct with a new at-grade highway, and will result in lower maintenance costs and reduced vulnerability to deterioration in the future.

C. Economic Impacts, Freight Movement, and Job Creation: Improves system operations, improves multimodal transportation systems that incorporate affordable transportation options such as public transit to improve mobility of people and goods, results in high quality job creation by supporting good-paying jobs, and fosters economic development. The new highway interchange will free up some 75 acres for new ground and air-rights development in one of the largest remaining underdeveloped areas of Boston.

D. Climate Change, Resiliency, and the Environment: Reduces air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions from transportation and results in a modal shift that reduces emissions. The Modified At-Grade Option will reduce congestion associated with the highway interchange, create a new major multimodal transit station, and enhance pedestrian and bicycle connectivity. It also allows for a living shoreline, or other nature-based solutions, to increase climate resiliency, improve habitat for living resources, and enhance active and passive recreation.

E. Equity, Multimodal Options, and Quality of Life: Increases affordable and accessible transportation choices by providing a new major multimodal transit station, enhanced pedestrian and bicycle access to the Charles River basin, new environmental enhancements and noise reduction strategies alongside the Allston and Cambridge sides of the river. The project would reunite two parts of an environmental justice population that has been divided for more than two generations by the original, elevated Turnpike.

F. Innovation: Adopts innovative practices in project delivery and financing by providing for design-build procurement and innovative approaches to highway and transit financing, as well as an ongoing task force of over 50 stakeholders to continue its important advisory role. As residents, business, environmental, institutional, and transportation advocates, we remain deeply invested in this project and know the support of the USDOT’s FY2022 Multimodal Project Discretionary Grant will help move this long awaited project toward construction and completion.

Sincerely,

Douglas Arcand, Allston resident
Jay Arcand & Rita DiGiovanni, Allston business & property owners
Stacey Beuttell, Executive Director, WalkBoston
Rebecca Bowie, President, Cambridgeport Neighborhood Association
Tina Chan, Allston resident
Anthony D’Isidoro, Allston resident; President, Allston Civic Association; MassDOT I-90 Allston Task
Force member
Kendra Foley and Caleb Hurst-Hiller, Interim Co-Presidents, Kendall Square Association
Laura Jasinski, Executive Director, Charles River Conservancy; MassDOT I-90 Allston Task Force
member
Erika Johnson, AICP, LEED AP BD+C, Allston Resident
Jarred Johnson, Executive Director, Transit Matters
Wendy Landman, Senior Policy Advisor, WalkBoston; MassDOT I-90 Allston Task Force member
Anna Leslie, Director, Allston Brighton Health Collaborative
Harry Mattison, Allston resident, MassDOT I-90 Allston Task Force member
Steve Miller, 350 Mass/Cambridge
Galen Mook, Executive Director, MassBike
Josh Ostroff, Interim Director, Transportation for Massachusetts
Deb Pasternak, Chapter Director, Sierra Club of Massachusetts
Cheryl Pavlik, Brighton resident
Jessica Robertson, Allston resident; MassDOT I-90 Allston Task Force member
Staci Rubin, Vice President, Environmental Justice, Conservation Law Foundation
Hazel Ryerson, Allston resident, MassDOT I-90 Allston Task Force member
Stacy Thompson, Executive Director, LivableStreets Alliance
Julia Wallerce, Boston Program Manager, Institute for Transportation & Development Policy
Jack Wofford, Cambridgeport resident; Cambridge Community Representative to MassDOT I-90
Allston Task Force
Becca Wolfson, Executive Director, Boston Cyclist Union
Fred Yalouris, Cambridge Community representative, MassDOT I-90 Allston Task Force
Cathie Zusy, President, Magazine Beach Partners

CC: Jonathan Gulliver, Highway Administrator, MassDOT; The Honorable Michelle Wu, Mayor, City of Boston: Jascha Franklin-Hodge, Chief of Streets, Transportation, and Sanitation, City of Boston: Christopher Coes, Office of the Assistant Secretary for Transportation Policy, USDOT: Paul Baumer, Program Manager, Office of Infrastructure Finance and Innovation, USDOT

76 Ashford Street Comment Letter

76 Ashford Street Comment Letter

April 23, 2021

Michael Sinatra
Boston Planning and Development Agency

Re: 76 Ashford Street PNF

Dear Mr. Sinatra:

WalkBoston has reviewed the PNF for the 76 Ashford Street Project with respect to its impacts and benefits for people walking and using transit.

We are very pleased that the proponent is reserving the land and right-of-way necessary to provide walking, biking and bus access to West Station, and that the built condition will be at the elevation necessary for this connection. This is an absolutely critical element of a successful multi-modal West Station that will allow this part of Boston to become home to transit oriented development. We request that the City make this reservation for walking, biking and bus access to West Station a requirement for the project to receive its environmental and development approvals.

We support the interim use of this access reservation land as open space and urge the proponent to work with the City of Boston, MassDOT and the MBTA to ensure that once the I-90 Allston Multi-Modal Project is built that residents of the building will have access to high quality open space in the neighborhood and along the Charles River.

The building ground-level retail space which will face West Station is a welcoming element of the project to transit users and people walking, and is an appropriate and welcome project element.

We are also pleased that the project has been proposed with a low ratio of parking spaces (approximately .25 spaces/unit). We believe that this is appropriate for a development that will be in such close proximity to West Station and that is also well served by existing bus and Green Line service.

Overall, we are excited that the private development community is responsive to the promise of West Station and its potential for excellent transit service, and look forward to seeing a transit oriented development that includes on-site affordable units.

Thank you for the opportunity to provide comments.

Sincerely,

Wendy Landman, Senior Policy Advisor

MassDCR Birmingham Parkway Comment Letter

MassDCR Birmingham Parkway Comment Letter

April 7, 2021

Jeff Parenti
Deputy Chief Engineer, Division of Planning and Engineering
Department of Conservation and Recreation

Re: DCR Birmingham Parkway

Dear Jeff:

Thank you for the opportunity to provide comments at this early stage of project development. We are very excited to see DCR’s approach that improves safety for people walking and biking, that repurposes significant areas of pavement into enlarged parklands, and that is designed to slow and tame traffic.

We have several overall observations about the designs, as well as more detailed comments organized into three areas as they were presented during the March 25th public meeting.

Overall comments

  • As we have commented during several DCR design processes, we believe that multilane, relatively high speed traffic roundabouts are less safe for people walking than signalized intersections. We are especially wary of multilane roundabouts where pedestrians can face a double threat when crossing the approaches and exits. People with low or no vision are particularly disadvantaged at these uncontrolled crossings. In this location, less than a mile from the Perkins School for the Blind, this is a specially cogent issue.  We urge DCR to refrain from considering multilane roundabouts.  Tight, traffic calming mini-roundabouts (see MassDOT Guidelines for the Planning and Design of Roundabouts page 11) on VERY low volume, low speed neighborhood streets where sharp turning angles are maintained (primary vehicle movement is not essentially a straight-through path) may be safe.
  • We urge DCR to provide separate walking and bicycling paths wherever there is the space to do so. The speeds of walkers and bicyclists are quite different, and as the number of cycling commuters increases, the conflicts between these two modes are becoming more and more pronounced. In particular, the Birmingham Parkway project area presents ample space for separate paths. This project area includes the Dr. Paul Dudley White Bike Path which is a heavily used bike commuter route so separation is even more important.

The “Eye”

Alternative 1A is our preferred approach in this area because it:

  • Simplifies, rationalizes and signalizes the intersections (and does not use a multilane roundabout).
  • Returns significant usable square footage to the parkland along the river.
  • If better access to the recreation area at the old pool site is deemed to be important for its future use, Alternative 1D could be a reasonable approach.

We suggest considering several design details as the project advances:

  • Add pedestrian safety refuge islands where the crossing distances are long.
  • Tighten up turning radii wherever possible, particularly on those approaches where trucks and buses are not permitted to travel.
  • Ensure that the signal timing is set to allow fully adequate crossings times for walkers of all ages.

Parkway

Alternative 2B is our preferred approach in this area because it:

  • Maximizes the amount of land returned to park and active transportation use.
  • Re-uses the existing pavement in an efficient manner.
  • Will help to calm traffic by having two-way traffic.

We suggest considering several design details as the project advances.

  • Reduce the pavement and lane width of the roadway to help calm traffic.
  • As noted above, provide separate walking and biking paths.

Secondary Intersections

The approach described at the meeting of calming traffic, providing signalized intersections that will provide WALK phases for pedestrians, and reducing the amount of paving all seem appropriate. We look forward to seeing the design concepts as they are developed later in the project.

We look forward to seeing the next iteration of the project concept.

Best regards,

Stacey Beuttell, Executive Director
Wendy Landman, Senior Policy Advisor

Advocates letter re Allston I-90: Next Steps (March 2021)

Advocates letter re Allston I-90: Next Steps (March 2021)

March 30, 2021

Jonathan Gulliver
Highway Administrator
Massachusetts Department of Transportation
10 Park Plaza, Suite 4160
Boston, MA 02116

Subject:  Allston Multimodal Project Recommended Next Steps Regarding Upcoming Notice of Project Change

Dear Administrator Gulliver:

Thank you for convening the recent Allston Multimodal Project Task Force meeting, and for your request for ideas to make Task Force meetings and the environmental review process more productive moving forward.

As evidenced by the voluminous formal comments made to MassDOT last October, as well as the letters from our coalition, there is a demonstrably strong consensus for the Modified All At-Grade option from stakeholders across the region. Based on that strong consensus and in response to your request for ideas to improve the public process associated with this transformative project, we write today with a few specific suggestions requesting they be incorporated now into the upcoming Notice of Project Change (NPC):

  1. Please refine the Modified All At-Grade to ensure no roadway in the river—and include that version in the NPC. MassDOT’s most recent drawings (shared in the fall of 2020) showed about 4-feet of roadway intrusion. Members of the coalition have worked collaboratively and individually, on numerous occasions, to offer design modifications that avoid unnecessary incursion into the river. Refining your current design will allow for continued productive collaboration with stakeholders and ensure that the NPC begins with a refined, improved, and community-supported design.
  2. Please develop a list of issues requiring further analysis to be included in the NPC. Despite several years of hard work by both the project team and the public, this coalition and other stakeholders strongly believe that a number of key issues have yet to be fully developed or presented to the Task Force. We suggest the top three issues on such a list should include:
    1. Constructability and maintenance for all Build and No-Build options, as well as the Substantial Repair Option to temporarily repair the highway viaduct in its current location initially introduced by MassDOT in November 2020;
    2. Methods of mitigating construction and traffic impacts; and
    3. Details for the remediation of the degraded riverbank, infrastructure upgrades needed to address untreated storm drainage, details about ecosystem services, such as constructed wetlands, and the integration of the improved river edge and the Paul Dudley White Path with the Agganis Connector, Cambridge Street South promenade, and River Street into a unified high quality urban design, as well as broader corridor-area analysis to minimize impacts on the Charles River and optimize mobility and open space access.

We know you and the team have a lot on your plate and are up against important and fast approaching deadlines. We are happy to work with MassDOT to identify a more comprehensive list of issues needing further analysis so that the MassDOT project team can maintain its ambitious schedule, while also continuing to resolve outstanding questions to keep us on a positive path to improved communication.

In short, we believe that advancing an improved All At-Grade Option as well as a list of issues requiring further analysis in the NPC will lead to a productive process—and the most ideal outcome for the project.

We look forward to continuing to work with you to ensure the success of the project.

Sincerely,

A Better City
Allston Brighton CDC
Allston Civic Association
Boston Society for Architecture
Charles River Conservancy
Conservation Law Foundation
LivableStreets Alliance
MassBike
Sierra Club of Massachusetts
WalkBoston
Kendall Square Association
Anthony D’Isidoro, Allston resident and Task Force member
Harry Mattison, Allston resident and Task Force member
Jessica Robertson, Allston resident and Task Force member
Fred Yalouris, Cambridge community representative on the Task Force

CC: Secretary Tesler, Project Manager Davidson, Secretary Theohardes, Ken Miller, Commissioner Rooney

 

WalkBoston testimony to a joint meeting of the MBTA Fiscal and Management Control Board and the MassDOT Board

WalkBoston testimony to a joint meeting of the MBTA Fiscal and Management Control Board and the MassDOT Board

Testimony as prepared for joint meeting of the MBTA Fiscal and Management Control Board and the MassDOT Board, September 21, 2020. During the COVID-19 pandemic, public comment to the Boards is via short phone messages that are played to the Board members at the beginning of each meeting. The I-90 Allston Project was on the agenda for the meeting and the following comment was provided by WalkBoston as a phone message.

Good morning Board members.

This is Wendy Landman, WalkBoston’s member of the I-90 Task Force and a veteran of the many-year I-90 environmental process.

I would like to begin my comments by thanking Secretary Pollack for specifically calling out walking and biking access to the Charles, and planning for dual paths along the Charles in her recent Boston Globe op ed.

As the Board and MassDOT turn to selecting a preferred alternative for the project I would like to remind you of the following sentence from the purpose and need section of MassDOT’s I90 Scoping report:

…“including service that provides a north to south connection through the Project Area as well as for options that do not preclude future intercity rail service and transit service on the Grand Junction Rail line.”

Of the three alternatives now under study by MassDOT, only the at-grade and hybrid options rebuild the little Grand Junction bridge over Soldiers Field Road which would permit twotrack rail service along the Grand Junction line to be added in the future. Because the highway viaduct option does not rebuild the little Grand Junction bridge, future Grand Junction service would require very significant, expensive and disruptive construction in the throat area again – essentially precluding such service. Hence, the highway viaduct option does not meet the project’s purpose and need as defined by MassDOT.

Among the alternatives under study, we believe that the at-grade alternative will best meet the project’s full purpose and need. We are pleased that conversations are now underway between some advocates, pro bono design teams and MassDOT to identify an atgrade alternative that serves all modes and all users of this critical transportation project AND helps restore the health and vitality of the Charles River and the Charles River Reservation.

Thank you for the opportunity to comment on the project.