The Boston-based business organization A Better City had been among the most vocal advocates for the at-grade design, and on Wednesday, its CEO, Rick Dimino, issued a press statement to hail MassDOT’s decision as “a critical step toward improving the mobility, environmental justice, and economic competitiveness of our region.”ĭimino added that the project was “a once-in-a-generation opportunity to restitch our urban fabric and create a Western Gateway worthy of a great city.” Task force members and elected officials attending Wednesday’s meeting expressed gratitude to MassDOT for selecting their preferred design option. A new bike and pedestrian bridge, pictured at right, would link the Paul Dudley White paths to the Boston University campus and Packards Corner neighborhood. Renderings also illustrated a new bike and pedestrian bridge spanning the highways to connect the restored riverbank and its waterfront paths to Agganis Way and the Boston University Campus: A rendering of the selected “at grade” design for Interstate 90 and Soldiers Field Road along the Charles River waterfront in Allston, a crucial component of the state’s proposed Allston Multimodal Project.
A restored riverbank would provide a buffer between the highway and the river. MassDOT officials also shared sketches of the updated at-grade plans that showed a wider, 20-foot-wide boardwalk for the Paul Dudley White path, which would be suspended on a boardwalk over the river through the “throat” section. MassDOT announced their decision to embrace the at-grade design during a virtual meeting of the project’s advisory task force on Wednesday evening. In November, Pollack acknowledged that there was “strong public support for the removal of the viaduct,” and announced that the agency would postpone a formal decision until 2021. In 2020, under the leadership of former MassDOT Secretary Stephanie Pollack, MassDOT published documents that attempted to make the case for the viaduct option, and Pollack and and other MassDOT officials publicly expressed skepticism against the “at-grade” design.īut in a formal public commenting period last fall, a broad coalition of advocacy groups and prominent elected officials, including Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley, Senator Ed Markey, former Mayor Marty Walsh, and dozens of state legislators, called on MassDOT to tear down the viaduct and support the at-grade option. Until now, MassDOT had been considering two options for the throat: one possibility would have essentially re-built the existing Turnpike viaduct in place while the other alternative – the “modified all at-grade” option – would have narrowed the footprints of the highways to fit the project at ground-level. An aerial view of the “throat” section of Interstate 90 near Boston University, looking west toward the vacant former railyards where Harvard University aims to develop a new urban neighborhood of housing, office and lab space. The viaduct runs through what planners call “the throat,” the project’s most technically challenging and contentious section: it’s an area of the Charles River waterfront where the Turnpike, Soldiers Field Road, and two commuter rail tracks squeeze through a choke point that’s just over 210 feet wide.
The decision marks a critical milestone for the state’s massive Allston Multimodal Project, which has been in planning since 2013. MassDOT officials announced Wednesday evening that they would pursue an “at grade” design for a planned reconstruction of the Massachusetts Turnpike through Allston later this decade. The aging highway viaduct that hulks over the riverbank of the Charles near Boston’s Packards Corner neighborhood is coming down – and it won’t be replaced.
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