I-90 Archives - WalkMassachusetts

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

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):

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.
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

Allston I-90 – early August 2020 update

Following an announcement of the potential alternatives to be included in the upcoming FHWA/MassDOT studies for a draft environmental impact statement (DEIS), 10+ organizations including WalkBoston sent in a letter that we hoped would help guide the writing that was to be included in a scope for the DEIS. The letter was not well-received by MassDOT and a response came quickly outlining why our letter was not going to have an effect on state/federal plans.

Shortly after these communications, the DEIS full document was distributed. It has three alternatives for the Throat area, each of which will fail to meet the standards that are prescribed in the options MassDOT proposed to develop.

The two options our groups favor fail immediately because they cannot be constructed without either temporary or permanent fill in the Charles River, and the State’s Secretary of Environmental Affairs has stated that if any option stays out of the river it will necessarily become the chosen approach.

This isn’t just an Allston thing: the Worcester Regional Chamber of Commerce is also concerned about transit access along the corridor. The Boston Globe editorial board weighed in over the weekend, saying “The state and activists should compromise on a solution that is not a throwback to 1960s transportation projects but a vision for a thriving waterfront and transit corridor.”

We’ll make sure to keep you in the loop as things continue to move forward.

Walking the Western Avenue Corridor in Allston

WalkBoston joined Allston residents, Harvard staff and others on a BPDA-led walk along the Western Avenue corridor in Allston on a sunny, chilly Saturday morning. BPDA described the many different development proposals and site characteristics on Western Avenue that will be considered as they work with their consultant to revise zoning along this corridor. BPDA is hosting more public events around their efforts on the Western Avenue Corridor Study and Rezoning.

Unchoked: Dual Paths included in MassDOT’s plans for massive Allston I90 Project!

“Unchoke the Throat!” – the rallying cry to improve the Charles River park and river edge in the I-90 Allston Interchange project – grew out of WalkBoston’s call for separate paths for people walking and biking along the river within a landscaped park. Joined by the Charles River Conservancy and community residents, the idea came to life when Sasaki produced drawings showing a vision of how it could be done. WalkBoston produced a video showing how the massive highway project could be an opportunity to create a better place for people running, biking, and walking along the Charles River.

People from around the region wrote letters to MassDOT expressing their support for dual paths and a better park in the Throat. Of the 500 letters MassDOT received during the FEIR public comment period, over 150 referenced our “#UnchokeTheThroat” video proposal.

MassDOT listened! The notion of dual paths, nonexistent in most of the planning prior to #UnchokeTheThroat, is now in nearly every paragraph of Transportation Secretary Pollack’s explanation of her January 10^th decision to pursue a new concept for the Throat (see today’s Boston Globe Mass. Pike in Allston, Soldiers Field Road are set for a major overhaul”).

The chosen plan makes dual paths and a wider park possible with an at-grade Turnpike and placement of Soldiers Field Road on a new, smaller viaduct above the Turnpike. A more generous, straightened park is also included as part of the plan that extends commuter rail to Cambridge via the Grand Junction line across the Charles River. Each of these improvements will help to reduce noise and visual intrusions into the riverside park.

What’s next?

WalkBoston’s advocacy is not done! We have tracked this project since its beginning in 2014, and we will continue our efforts to make it better.

Our focus, along with other advocates and community partners, is to convince MassDOT of the need to prepare for the traffic disruption during construction by enhancing transit access to and from the west and protecting Allston and Brookline neighborhoods from cut through traffic. Maximizing express bus and commuter rail services in the corridor served by the Turnpike and the Framingham/Worcester Commuter Rail Line will be critical. New service should include West Station to enhance public transportation options that provide additional capacity when vehicle lanes on the Turnpike are removed from service during the years of construction. Local bus connections are needed to provide a web of services that get commuters to final destinations; the stations further out, too, will need to be considered, as they will likely see an influx of new riders hoping to avoid driving delays in the construction area. Pedestrian connections to all new or supplemented services are essential.

Work on the project – some call it “the biggest highway project since the Big Dig” – goes on. It is, of course, much more than a highway project. It is a major development with public transportation components that lead outward from West Station, with repercussions that stretch all the way to Worcester – encompassing the Western Corridor and the major employment centers of Harvard Square, the Longwood Medical Area, Kendall Square, Back Bay and Downtown. Boston will gain a whole new neighborhood that will add over 10 million square feet of new employment and residential buildings that will make the area another of the region’s most important destinations over the next few decades.

The Allston I-90 Project is a once in a generation project that Massachusetts needs to get right. It is our move to call attention to everyday issues that can be improved to make it safer and easier to get around now and in the future.