ENF Archives - WalkMassachusetts

Comments on Memorial Drive Phase III

January 27, 2022

Secretary of the Executive Office of Energy & Environmental Affairs

100 Cambridge Street, Suite 900
Boston, MA 02114
Attn: MEPA Office, Christina Lyons

RE: Memorial Drive Phase III – Environmental Notification Form 16495

Dear Secretary Theoharides:

WalkBoston is Massachusetts’ primary pedestrian advocacy organization, working across the Commonwealth to make it safer and easier for people to walk for all activities of daily living such as access to transit, school and jobs. We are writing to you to show support for the MassDCR road diet of the 0.8-mile section of Memorial Drive from Eliot Bridge east to the intersection of Memorial Drive and John F. Kennedy Street near Harvard Square. We are happy to see this project move forward since it was last discussed publicly in the Summer of 2019.

We appreciate that there is continued attention to separating users by mode whenever possible on MassDCR facilities and within the Charles River Basin, following the recommendations from the 2002 Charles River Basin Plan. Converting the existing 6.5-foot-wide path to a 10-foot shared use path paired with a 5-foot wide stabilized gravel path for people walking and running will help reduce conflicts.

We also applaud you for the addition of mid-block crossings into the project area, an opportunity unlocked by the road diet’s narrower cross-section. There is a new mid-block pedestrian crossing proposed on Memorial Drive near Sparks Street and Mt. Auburn, which provides a direct link to the MBTA Bus Stop for Bus 71 and 73 to further enhance accessibility to this important park and transportation corridor for transit riders. An additional mid-block crossing is also proposed at Memorial Drive near University Road, closer to JFK. Both pedestrian crossings will include rapid flashing beacon lights (RRFBs) to alert drivers to crossing pedestrians.

With a projected increase in biking and e-bike usage in the coming years, we encourage you to highlight any possible conflict zones between people walking and biking with paint or signage to help minimize these conflicts, particularly at the new mid-block crossings.

Thank you for the opportunity to comment.

Stacey Beuttell, AICP

Executive Director, WalkBoston

Comments on L Street Power Station Redevelopment South Boston ENF/Expanded PNF

July 7, 2017

Secretary of Energy and Environmental Affairs Matthew A. Beaton
Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs (EEA)
Attn: MEPA Office, Alex Strysky
100 Cambridge Street, Suite 900
Boston MA 02114

Brian Golden, Director
Boston Planning and Development Agency
Boston City Hall
Boston, MA 02201

Re: EEA No. 15692, L Street Power Station Redevelopment, South Boston
ENF/Expanded PNF

Dear Secretary Beaton and Director Golden:

WalkBoston is pleased to see the proposal for a mixed use development of the large South Boston waterfront site that will include the re-use of the historically and architecturally interesting L Street Power Station. Putting this portion of the City back into a productive use that invites public access is a positive change for the City and for South Boston.

The overall site design will help to integrate this large parcel into the neighborhood, and create new opportunities for people to walk from East 1st Street to the waterfront and help to link the residential portions of South Boston into the site which was long cut off from the community by fences and other obstructions. The partial extension of the local street network onto the site and between and around new buildings proposed for the site seems appropriate in scale. With sidewalks that are sufficiently wide and landscaped, both community residents and people living on-site will be served by the new connections.

Our comments below are focused on questions that we hope the proponent will respond to in subsequent filings about the project.

1. Waterside Pedestrian and Open Space Environment
We understand that the new dedicated harborside freight corridor that will connect Summer Street to Massport’s Conley Terminal and remove heavy truck traffic from East 1st Street will provide very important, and long-desired improvements to the South Boston neighborhood. But this shift will also present challenges; the new harborside route will place an access barrier and significant truck traffic (with its accompanying noise and air pollution) between the development site’s primary open space and the harbor.
We urge the developer to consider creative ways to mitigate the truck route’s impact on the
open space. This could include grade changes that place the open space higher than the truck route (Figure 3.5b may hint at this); landscaping that both masks and frames views,
soundscapes to mask truck noise, and the addition of viewing platforms that allow open space users to gain unimpeded views of the water. There may also be ways to capitalize on the site’s industrial past and on-going use through interpretive elements. WalkBoston is concerned that without such special treatment the open space will not be very attractive to the public.
If possible, the proponent might also explore with Massport whether it would be possible to
schedule truck traffic so that is interferes less with daytime and weekend use of the open space.

2. Encouragement of walking and walking-transit trips
At the direction of the City, the proponent has used South Boston adjusted trip generation rates to develop trip tables for walking/biking, transit and vehicles. However, the site is at a
significant distance from other land uses that would seem to justify such significant numbers of walking trips, and to suffer from overused bus lines and significant distances to the Red and Silver Lines. Figure 5-1 illustrate the 5 and 10-minute walking zones, neither of which include a great many retail, job and civic land uses.
We urge the proponent to develop mitigation measures to make the development a more
realistically mixed mode project. These could include such things as: subsidies to the MBTA to provide more frequent bus service, or creation or partnering with other South Boston
developments to provide shuttle services to the Silver and/or Red Lines.

3. Bicycle facilities
The proponent mentions that Boston has flagged both East 1st Street and Summer Street for
protected bicycle facilities, however Figure 3.5a shows an on-street bike lane.
We urge the proponent to work with the City, and perhaps provide funding for, separated
bicycle facilities on both East 1st Street and Summer Street. The distance of the site from transit and a mix of retail, job and civic facilities will make bicycling a more likely mode of off-site trips than walking.

We look forward to working with the City and Redgate as the project plans are developed in greater detail.

Sincerely,

Wendy Landman
Executive Director

Cc Ralph Cox, Greg Bialecki, Megha Vadula, Redgate
Elizabeth Grob, VHB

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Comments on the Marine Wharf Project ENF 95585

September 23, 2016

Matthew Beaton, Secretary
Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs
Attn: MEPA Office Analyst: Alex Strysky
100 Cambridge Street, Suite 900
Boston, MA 02114

Re: Marine Wharf ENF 95585

Dear Mr. Beaton,

WalkBoston appreciates the opportunity to comment on this project and the pedestrian services it provides. The project is very interesting as it occupies a key site in the South Boston Seaport District.

The site is proposed to be developed as a 245 room hotel, which will be able to take advantage of the good and direct walking access to major sites nearby: within a radius of about 2-3 city blocks (1/4 mile) are the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center, the Black Falcon Pier and Cruise Terminal, and the Boston Design Center. In addition the site is about 300 feet from a direct view of the Reserved Channel and its port activities – an exciting area of the Seaport District.

Other sites in the Seaport District are more difficult to access from the development site. Although both the performance space at the Blue Hills Bank Pavilion on the waterfront and the Harpoon Brewery and Beer Hall are within ¼ mile of the site, they are accessible only via Harbor Street, through a heavily industrial district dominated by truck traffic – not uninteresting, but somewhat unpleasant as a walking route.

Bus service along Summer Street is excellent, connecting both to South Boston and Downtown. An adjacent transit service that is somewhat complex is the Silver Line, which runs a branch along Black Falcon Avenue that connects into the main tunnel to the World Trade Center Pier and South Station. To reach the airport via the Silver Line, riders must transfer at Silver Line Way Station, not far from this site, but difficult to access because there is no direct walking route leading to it. The proponent may want to work with public agencies to secure more direct and safe pedestrian access to Silver Line Station, which is nearby – slightly more than 500 feet away as the crow flies.

Waterfront walks in the area surrounding the site are not encouraged, despite the location adjacent to the Reserved Channel. The Boston Harborwalk will someday pass directly through the Raymond Flynn Marine Park adjacent to the site, because it is a major land connection between the Seaport District and South Boston. However, at the moment the Harborwalk route is not completely signed between Northern Avenue and the South Boston parks and historic sites, leaving this area without a designated portion of its route.

Wayfinding signs would help hotel patrons find the many attractions of the South Boston Seaport more easily. The proponent should work closely with the group of organizations that have been planning and experimenting with wayfinding networks throughout the Seaport over the last year.

Sidewalks surround the proposed development on both Summer Street and Drydock Avenue. The lovely Raymond Flynn Marine Park, immediately adjacent to the site, affords additional open space for hotel patrons, but has not been incorporated into plans for the building and service areas.

Thank you very much for the opportunity to submit these comments.

Sincerely

Robert Sloane
Senior Planner

Comment Letter: ENF and the PNF for the Back Bay/South End Gateway Project MEPA: #15502

June 17, 2016

Matthew Beaton, Secretary
Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs (EEA)
ATTN: MEPA Office
100 Cambridge Street, Suite 900
Boston MA 02114

Brian Golden, Director
Boston Redevelopment Authority
One City Hall Square
Boston, MA 02201-1007

RE: Comments on the ENF and the PNF for the Back Bay/South End Gateway Project MEPA: #15502

Dear Sirs:

WalkBoston reviewed the ENF and PNF for Back Bay/South End Gateway Project.

We are very interested in this project, which is superbly located to be served by public transportation, walking and biking. However, we have concerns about pedestrian access into, through and around the site which we would like to see addressed in the next project submissions. These are:

1. Relocation of the layover site for the Route 39 bus
The proposal states that the layover site for the Route 39 bus will be located “off-site.” Back Bay Station is one end of this bus route, which is one of the busiest in the MBTA system, serving Back Bay, the Fenway and Jamaica Plain. Buses congregate here and wait until schedules require them to return to the main route.This bus route is too important to the MBTA system and its many riders to shift the layover site to another location which could lead to a major change in the frequency of bus service. A layover location must be found nearby.

2. Sidewalks that surround the site
Sidewalks along Stuart and Clarendon Streets have been designed at minimum widths for their functions. The MassDOT Design Guide calls for sidewalks in busy downtown areas of cities to be between 12 and 20 feet in width. These guidelines should be generously incorporated into the planning for this project. The City’s Complete Streets Guideline Manual suggests that 8 feet is a minimum but prefers a width of ten feet.

This is particularly important for the Dartmouth Street side of the project. Foot traffic on Dartmouth Street is already heavy and likely to increase, due to the new development and to moving the principal entrance to the station to the center of this frontage. The plan calls for a portion of the Dartmouth Street frontage to be as narrow as 8 feet at one point, and 13 feet otherwise. The 8’ foot width, which appears along a planned ADA ramp into the first-floor retail area, is not adequate for this location. Perhaps this width could be expanded by moving the ADA ramp into the retail area of the building or by selectively eliminating portions of the drop-off/taxi lane which extends from the station entrance to Stuart Street. Alternatively, perhaps a thoughtful reduction of the number of trees and their placement might be appropriate to widen the clear width of the walkway.

3. Garage exit on Dartmouth Street
One of the unfortunate consequences of the design for re-use of the Garage East and West portions of this project is the potential use of Dartmouth Street as one of the exits from the on-site garage. This appears to result from redesign of the existing garage which currently has two entrance and exit ramps.

The proposed new parking facility removes two the existing garage access ways – those leading in and out of the garage in drums connecting with Trinity Place. It retains the existing entrance and exit ramps on Clarendon Street. The design calls for no new entrance ramps. However, it calls for a new exit ramp that requires removal of the Turnpike on-ramp. If the Turnpike ramp is retained, the proponent maintains that there is a need for a replacement exit onto Dartmouth Street.

The proposed exit ramp onto Dartmouth Street is deeply consequential for pedestrian traffic. It is difficult to imagine a more inappropriate design than the insertion of a major vehicular exit from the garage onto the Dartmouth Street sidewalk, the primary pedestrian access route to and from Back Bay Station. Certainly there must be a better place to provide a garage exit than this, possibly by retaining one of the drums could be retained for exiting traffic directly onto Trinity Place.

4. The station area concourse
Back Bay Station was designed as a large arched hall, flanked on both sides by hallways leading to ticket and waiting areas. Each platform has its own stairways, escalators and /or elevators connecting the platform to the station concourse. Train platforms are split, with the Worcester/Amtrak Chicago line platforms near the north edge of the station concourse, and the New York/Amtrak Washington platforms near the south edge. Access to the Orange Line platform is directly in the center of the station, under the arched portion of the station structure. On either side, outside the arched hall, two wide concourses connect through the block between Dartmouth and Clarendon Streets.

Within the large arched hall, pedestrian movement is presently blocked for concourse movement by a fence that surrounds the major access stairways and escalators to and from the Orange Line. The proposal calls for a removal of some of this blockage and relocation of the two principal concourse pathways between Dartmouth and Clarendon Streets into the arched hall. The present concourses, outside the arched hall, are then repurposed for retail and other facilities.

The relocation or shrinking of the passenger concourses and repurposing the space occupied by the old ones raises a concern as to whether the new routes are sufficiently wide to handle projected growth in passenger volumes. Although it is uncertain what projections of passenger volumes might show, according to the project proponent, the station already handles 30,000 passengers per day. The MBTA currently maintains there are 36,000 Orange Line passengers here, plus 17,000 commuter rail passengers. Amtrak may constitute an additional 2000 passengers. New projections of traffic should be undertaken to determine likely future volumes of people using the station.

With the knowledge of the likely future traffic of patrons of the Orange Line, the commuter rail lines and Amtrak, the plan must provide good access to and egress from the following locations:

– The Dartmouth Street entrance
– The Orange Line station (two stairways, escalators, one elevator)
– The underpass beneath Dartmouth Street to the Copley Place mall (one stairway)
– The commuter and Amtrak rail lines west toward Worcester and ultimately Chicago (two stairways, one elevator) serving 15 stations and communities
– The commuter and Amtrak rail lines that generally go south and follow the east coast to Providence, New York and Washington D.C. (two stairways, two escalators, one elevator) serving 47 stations and communities
– The proposed new passageway to Stuart Street and into the Garage West office structure
– Ticket machines for passes and Charlie cards for the subway lines.
– Amtrak ticket offices
– Commuter rail ticket offices
– Restrooms for the entire station concourse area
– Food and retail outlets proposed for the concourse level
– Food and retail proposed for the second level
– Food and retail outlets proposed for the third level
– Waiting areas including seating for passengers traveling by rail
– The existing and new parking garages in the Garage West/East areas
– The new residential building in the Station East area at the Clarendon Street end of the project

All but the last two of these movements take place primarily in a compressed space that extends about 100’ from the main entrance on Dartmouth Street into the station. The proposal significantly diminishes this portion of the existing concourse, serving the movements listed above and lowering the space of the waiting area from 9,225 square feet (41 bays each roughly 15 feet square) to 6,075 square feet (27 bays, each roughly 15 feet square. It calls for eliminating the principal existing waiting area and replacing it with a large food service facility. All waiting passengers will be moved to backless benches located in busy pedestrian passageways, including the major entrance to the building. The proposal also calls for diminishing the size of the concourse by narrowing the existing passageways between Dartmouth and Clarendon Street and replacing them with retail space. It calls for new entrances to the proposed second and third levels in the midst of the existing waiting area. The proposal moves the ticketing area away from the waiting area and into new space along the proposed new passageway, where queuing to purchase tickets (now possible in the waiting area) will compete with pedestrian movement. It is hard to imagine that all these activities can be accommodated in the space planned.

A new design should be undertaken to accommodate the growing number of pedestrians and waiting passengers as well as patrons of food and retail outlets who may choose to sit in this busy space. The existing waiting area should not be removed but instead enlarged to accommodate anticipated future use. Ticketing space should be provided close to passenger access areas. Access to and from the second and third levels should be moved away from the waiting area and into the space that is gained by closing the existing concourse passageways. Retail areas adjacent to the passenger waiting area should be scaled back to remove potential blockage of clear and very visible access to and from the stairways leading to transportation facilities below the concourse. Benches for rail passengers should not be relegated to busy portions of the concourse, especially where they might interfere with pedestrian traffic through the concourse.

5. Construction on the rail station platforms
The proposal calls for use of the station platforms for supports for the new high-rise building being built in the Station East portion of the project. These new obstructions narrow the platforms for waiting or alighting passengers and add complexity in an environment where moving to or from access points is already complicated. This true of both the Orange line platform, serving both directions for subway passengers and the southernmost railway platform serving commuter rail passengers to and from the south and southwest, including Providence, New York, Washington and the entire eastern seaboard.

Using the existing rail platforms for construction of these supports will obstruct passenger traffic during construction as well as after completion. Designs should be carefully integrated with existing obstructions such as columns to minimize interference with passenger traffic flow.

We are very concerned about the changes proposed for the station, the bus layover and the sidewalks and interior passageways. We would appreciate your consideration of our comments and look forward to your responses to them. Please feel free to contact WalkBoston with questions you may have.

Sincerely,

Wendy Landman
Executive Director

Comments on the ENF for “The Point”

March 16, 2015

Secretary Matthew A. Beaton
Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs
Attn: Deirdre Buckley, Director, MEPA Office
100 Cambridge Street, Suite 900
Boston, MA 02114

RE: Environmental Notification Form
The Point, Boston

Dear Secretary Beaton and Director Buckley:

WalkBoston has reviewed the ENF for the license of DCR right-of-way to the developer of The Point for streetscape improvements. We applaud the effort by both public and private entities to improve the pedestrian environment and traffic safety in this rapidly developing area and want to ensure that development occurs in accordance with the city’s 2013 Complete Streets Guidelines. Our comments focus on the pedestrian environment and the need to integrate the project into its surroundings.

We support replacing the current pedestrian island and free-flowing right turn lane with a landscaped plaza. Eliminating free flowing right turns will improve pedestrian safety and comfort. However, right turn traffic from Boylston St onto Brookline must be handled very carefully, with appropriate signage reminding drivers of their obligation to yield to pedestrians when turning, and as the intersection will remain large and complex, accommodations for visually impaired pedestrians including audible beacons to assist with orientation are crucial. The end of the plaza must have adequate space for a large number of pedestrians to wait for a walk signal, and signals should be timed to minimize queuing, particularly in conjunction with Fenway Park events.
The removal of existing sidewalk parking (on both DCR and private property) along Boylston St to create a connected and well-maintained sidewalk will provide substantial benefits.
The potential improvements that this project can bring to the area are substantial.The proposed development should follow City of Boston guidelines for the creation of wide sidewalks (as recommended in the Fenway-Longwood-Kenmore Transportation and Pedestrian Safety Action Plan). The new sidewalks are part of a long-range plan to change the overall design of buildings along Boylston Street and to provide a standard street wall of setbacks on the Boylston Street and Brookline Avenue frontages. The plan calls for wide sidewalks to alleviate the significant pedestrian congestion that results from games and other events at nearby Fenway Park, which is one-half block away.

The Proposed Conditions figure in the ENF shows a sidewalk surface that is only 5’ wide. This is not sufficient for the existing volume of traffic, much less for the increased foot traffic that is anticipated with the ongoing redevelopment of the area including The Point. The Boston Complete Streets Guidelines call for a preferred sidewalk width of at least 18’6” in a “downtown mixed use” zone, including at least a 10’ wide pedestrian zone. Every effort should be made to maximize usable sidewalk width to accommodate the anticipated volume of pedestrian traffic as well as meeting the needs of pedestrians with disabilities.

Thank you for the opportunity to provide comments on this aspect of this important project. We regret having missed the notification of the recently approved Notice of Project Change, but do feel that concerns with sidewalk width and traffic flow as it impacts pedestrians can still be addressed within the context of this license. Please feel free to contact WalkBoston with questions you may have.

Sincerely,

Wendy Landman
Executive Director