Tag: Sasaki

One minute, one slide: Unchoke The Throat

One minute, one slide: Unchoke The Throat

Below is a “One Minute, One Slide” presentation shared by a member of the WalkBoston staff.
Text provided is as presented at this year’s annual event on March 29, 2018.

Bob Sloane

Next month it will be four years that WalkBoston has worked with others on the I-90 project to make sure it welcomes and serves pedestrians in a 21st century way.

In recent 3 months WalkBoston has focused on the throat section of the project, where pedestrians are treated to a narrow path next to moving traffic on Soldiers Field Road – a path that is currently duplicated in all three of the options for the highway reconstruction envisioned for the throat.  To develop a better plan, WalkBoston joined with the Charles River Conservancy and hired Sasaki to design possible approaches for paths along the river.

We called the effort “Unchoke the Throat” to point out that the current plans provide only narrow unpleasant places to walk along our historic river, duplicating the narrow unpleasant places to walk that now exist.

With Sasaki’s help, we were able to project a better future for the throat – one that involves looking closely at the river as a potential location for paths in this narrow corridor where so much land is taken by highways that only 8’ remains for a single narrow path where people walk and bike in clouds of air pollution right next to a highway.

Sasaki came up with two options – a boardwalk out over the river or a fill in the shallows of the river where much more space could be provided for paths with buffers to keep them at a more healthful distance from the highway.

Then our team came up with an “#UnchokeTheThroat” video promoting these ideas and sent out over our wide Twitter network. It was timed to impact people’s letter comments written about the 90 project as it was going through the environmental review process.

Want to learn more? See the project page & an upcoming event on April 10th below.

https://walkmass.org/unchokethethroat/

Event: Unchoking the Charles River Throat

Event: Unchoking the Charles River Throat

Event: Unchoking the Charles River Throat

How can walking & biking connections to the river parklands from Allston, Brookline, and Downtown be part of the MassDOT I-90 Allston Reconstruction?

RSVP on Eventbrite or Facebook

April 10, 2018 6:00 – 8:00pm Fort Point Room / Atlantic Wharf, 290 Congress St

Presentations by:

Joe Beggan, Harvard University
Alan Mountjoy, NBBJ
Mark Dawson, Sasaki
Michael Nichols, Esplanade Association

Panel discussion and audience Q&A moderated by ArchitectureBoston editor Renée Loth with:

Jim Aloisi, Former MassDOT Secretary
Antonio DiMambro, urban planner
Tom Doolittle, Boston Society of Landscape Architects
Emily Saul, November Project Boston co-leader
Kishore Varanasi, CBT

Discussion will include:

  • Wadsworth Path, an at-grade People’s Pike path connecting Allston Village, West Station, and Franklin St footbridge
  • Footbridges over at-grade I-90
  • Separated paths on boardwalk/fill in the “throat”
  • Straightened path under BU Bridge & rebuilt Grand Junction / Soldiers Field Road Bridge

Media from the campaign (in case you missed it):