Howard/Stein-Hudson Associates, Inc.
MEMORANDUM
CREATIVE SOLUTIONS • EFFECTIVE PARTNERING ®
June 23, 2012
To:
Steve McLaughlin
Project Manager - Accelerated Bridge Program
MassDOT
Through:
Andrea D’Amato
HNTB
Project Manager
From:
Nathaniel Curtis
Howard/Stein-Hudson
Public Involvement Specialist
RE:
West Roxbury Courthouse Neighborhood Briefing
Meeting Notes of May 21, 2012.
Overview & Executive Summary
On May 21, 2012, members of project team for the Casey Arborway 25% design process participated in a
meeting of the West Roxbury Courthouse Neighborhood Association. The purpose of the meeting was to
provide a briefing to the neighborhood association on the status of the Casey Arborway project with a
particular focus on the transportation issues in the area between Washington Street and Shea Circle. Design
Advisory Group (DAG) member Liz O’Connor, who represents the West Roxbury Courthouse Neighborhood
Association, organized the meeting. Other community groups seeking similar briefings are encouraged to
contact MassDOT through Kate Fichter at katherine.fichter@state.ma.us or (617) 973-7342.
The meeting discussion focused on:
 Traffic operations in the eastern end of the Casey Arborway corridor.
 Parking in the area around Arborway Gardens.
Meeting participants were particularly concerned that, in order to access destinations to the west, the current
design would require them to travel to Shea Circle rather than use the U-turn under the Casey Overpass as
they currently do.1 Two potential solutions to this were offered by the audience:
 Designing a gap in the median to allow residents of Orchardhill Road to access the eastbound lanes
of the Casey Arborway; or,
 Allowing a short segment of the frontage road to be two-way near Orchardhill Road. The design
team will investigate both of these options.
Providing adequate resident parking, both during and after construction was also noted as a widespread
concern among residents. Potential construction damage to area green space and trees was also flagged as
a concern. Generally speaking, residents reacted positively to the idea of removing MBTA buses from the
frontage road and running them on the mainline Arborway.
Detailed Meeting Minutes
C: Liz O’Connor (LO): Welcome to the meeting, everyone. This is a new location for this group and I think
it’s an appropriate one given that tonight we’ll be discussing Shea Circle and the Casey Arborway
1
This is an additional distance of approximately 0.15 miles.
38 Chauncy Street, 9th Floor  Boston, Massachusetts 02111  617.482.7080
www.hshassoc.com
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project. People in this building have a lot on the line, with the design of the Casey project, and so we
wanted to ensure attendance and input. I also want to recognize that this is our first meeting since
Bruce Wallin passed away. We will all miss him.
C: Henry Allen (HA): Bruce Wallin lived on Orchardhill Road and he was responsible for bringing together
this broader neighborhood association with Liz. Bruce was a great neighbor and friend who gave
tremendously of himself to bring people together to address common issues. We pause to recognize
Bruce and are grateful to Liz for carrying this forward.
C: LO: Yes, thank you, Henry, for what you said. Our agenda this evening is about giving the DOT and
their consulting team a chance to understand your thoughts on what’s going on with the Casey
Overpass. The bridge is going away and the local street network is going to be reconfigured. Our role
is to provide locally expert input; we’re not designing by committee. We aren’t likely to come up with all
the right answers here tonight, but we do want to give our input to the experts to help them meet our
needs. I thank you for your input and patience with the project. This organization is here to represent
you and it would be great to have all of your continued participation. Arborway Gardens is represented
by Mark Navin and Orchardhill Road is represented by Hillary Kelley. Get to know both of them.
Thanks to DOT for coming out tonight and here is Kate Fichter.
C: Kate Fichter (KF): Welcome everyone. Please let me know if you can’t hear me and I’ll speak louder.
I’m Kate Fichter with the planning group at MassDOT. I’m part of the Casey team and I’ll help to
manage the flow of tonight’s conversation. I know people can get passionate about these things and so
if that happens, I’m just here to step in and help manage the discussion.
C: LO: One small additional agenda item: we need a process to pick my DAG substitute. If you’re
interested let me know tonight or later by email. If you want to make a comment or ask a question, just
raise your hand and Kate will recognize you.
Q: Community Resident (CR): Do you have Spanish translation available? Some people here only speak
Spanish.
Q: LO: Does DOT have that capability?
A: KF: We do, but we request that you ask for the service in advance of the meeting.
A: LO: O.K. I apologize for not having Spanish translation; we’ll try to figure that one out.
C: KF: If you put your questions in writing, in Spanish, we can have them translated at MassDOT and we’ll
get you an answer. We’re going to 8:30 this evening so I’ll ask that people keep their questions brief.
I’m also going to try to give everyone a chance to speak do I’ll go around the room once before I call on
people a second time. So, let me hand this off to Steve McLaughlin and the rest of the team.
C: Steve McLaughlin (SM): Good evening. I’m the project manager for the Casey Arborway project. In
2008, Governor Patrick signed into law the Accelerated Bridge Program (ABP), a $3 billion, eight-year
program to fix structurally deficient bridges in the Commonwealth. The program will fix about 350
bridges, including the Casey Overpass.
The Casey Overpass was built in the 1950’s. During that time it was owned first by the Metropolitan
District Commission and then the Department of Conservation & Recreation. Shortly after the start of the
ABP, the Commonwealth’s transportation agencies were merged into MassDOT, which then inherited the
Casey Overpass from the Department of Conservation & Recreation. Along with the bridge came the
idea of taking off the existing deck of the bridge and putting on a new one. Before MassDOT committed
to doing that, we asked for a ratings report which analyzes every component of the bridge: deck, piers,
and substructure. That document is about 1,700 pages long and is on our project website
(www.massdot.state.ma.us/caseyarborway) if you’re curious, but the headline from that study was that
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every component of the bridge is beyond rehabilitation and it would not be in the taxpayers’ best
interests to keep spending money on it. The condition of the bridge was so bad that we realized we had
to reduce the bridge to one lane in each direction to keep people driving on only the most robust parts
of the structure. The bridge is safe as repaired, but we don’t know how long we can keep it that way. It
continues to gradually deteriorate and we have to put joints back and we’re forced to do costly night
repairs we’d rather not continue.
Knowing that we had to replace the bridge we decided to step back and rather than simply replacing it
in-kind, really look at what we might do differently. We did some survey, counted traffic, and created
the Working Advisory Group (WAG) to look at bridge and at-grade (e.g. a street-level road) solutions.
That process lasted 10 months with 12 WAG meetings and six public information meetings. We studied
traffic out to Route 128 and Route 93 to see where traffic would go with a replacement bridge or atgrade solution. Working with the WAG, we learned about other areas around the bridge that need
work: Shea Circle, New Washington Street and Washington Street west of the station; none of them
work all that well. There’s a lot of traffic turbulence: MBTA buses, school buses, kiss-and-ride (e.g.
vehicle pick-up/drop-off) activity, and taxis. We realized that we could make the area work better and
so we came up with a simplified roadway network for where the bridge is now. The at-grade roadways
today look the way they do because they went around the Casey Overpass, the old elevated Orange
Line, and the MBTA commuter rail viaduct. With those things gone, we can start from scratch and really
clean up the area and an at-grade solution can work.
We will discuss our traffic analysis, Maureen will tell you about that. We’ve modeled traffic out to 2035
and that includes local and regional population growth and developments; even with all that, in 2035
the at-grade solution will work better than today’s arrangement. The new bridge would have worked
better too, but it also would have cost $20 million more. Many elements besides cost rose to the top
with the at-grade solution and that’s what we’re designing now.
Coming back to the ABP, the $3 billion goes away on September 30th, 2016. That means this project
must be completed by then. We have between now and then to design, permit, and construct this
project. If we don’t do all that successfully, the money goes away and leaves us with a bridge, which is
closing itself (which we really want to avoid). The design is moving ahead. We will go through the 25%
design stage, a 75% design stage, and final design, after which we will advertise and build the job.
We’ll spend about three years in construction. In September of this year, we’ll do the 25% design public
hearing. Prior to that we’ll file an environmental notification form (ENF) with the Massachusetts
Environmental Policy Act Office. They are a wholly independent agency who will review our
environmental impacts. If all goes well, you’ll see the (construction) machinery out there in 2014.
C: Andrea D’Amato (AD): I’m the design team’s project manager. Thank you for having us, this is a great
opportunity. We appreciate the chance to hear from you and answer your questions. Tonight, we’ll
walk through existing conditions, particularly around Shea Circle, and then we’ll talk about the new
conceptual design and how it will function. We’ll discuss parking and signalization.
A few things about the design process: it is very difficult, and we’ve struggled with the issue ourselves,
but once you get into design you need to forget about today. The first thing we were asked to do by the
neighborhood is to fix the local street network because it already doesn’t work. Those streets were there
with the elevated and two bridges and so they never got the attention they needed. So the WAG told us
to pay attention to the at-grade streets. We looked at how they flow now and we sketched a completely
new at-grade system.
When we first started this project, we originally conceived of it at an east/west traffic problem, but we
came to realize that it’s actually about the north/south traffic demand, which isn’t surprising given
Boston being an old city with everyone going in during the morning and out at night. The two biggest
problems in the corridor are Shea Circle and where New Washington Street meets South Street. Under
existing conditions, Shea Circle is already a high crash location and it’s hard to get through regardless of
mode. You can see these desire lines to access the open spaces around here, and because of Shea
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Circle, you can see them, but you can’t get there. During the WAG process, we spent a lot of time on
Shea and developed concepts for it including the egg-about: a modified circle with pathways through it.
Through a lot of WAG discussion, Shea Square came out the winner which is nice given, that prior to the
1940’s, this area was in fact a square; that was the Olmsted design bounded by Forest Hills Road. In
creating Shea Square, we’ll reallocate the open space and create safer crossings. So that’s the 50,000foot view. This is truly a product of the WAG and the DAG and we have Liz and others to thank for that.
They will continue to work with us good ideas. Thank you again for having us. Now, I’d like to turn this
over to Don Kindsvatter.
Q: HA: Do you have the drawing with the entire design including Washington Street and Hyde Park
Avenue?
A: Don Kindsvatter (DK): We don’t have that one here tonight; just the aerial I’ve taped up.
A: AD: We do have a smaller version. Liz asked us to redraw the map to really capture this area. We want
to concentrate on this area to really get into how you live in this space.
C: HA: I raise it because for people living here, the design at Hyde Park Avenue impacts them a lot. So as
you’re looking at those reconfigurations, those new directions and pathways, it will have a big impact
down here, so we have to see not only this particular area, but we need to see the entire design.
A: AD: We’ll walk through it with you and you tell us if we miss something.
C: DK: I’m a member of the HNTB design team. I want to give you an overview of the project and then
focus on Shea Circle. The background here is a photograph of existing conditions and over that I’ve
overlaid the proposed roadway. A large portion of Washington Street west of the station heading down
to Ukraine Way is also addressed by this project, with a widening of the roadway to better accommodate
vehicular pick-up/drop off activity. We know that’s an issue there; people tend to double-park and block
traffic. We want to let that happen outside the travel lane. Buses from the upper bus-way exit at South
Street/Washington Street and that causes lots of congestion because most buses want to head south
which requires a left turn. We propose to shift the bus-way exit to be across from the old exit from
Asticou Road2 which will remove the buses from the South Street intersection. The widening will take
place on MBTA property and allow for a bigger upper bus-way.
Moving towards Hyde Park Avenue, the proposed new roadway is roughly where the viaduct is today.
What’s New Washington Street today will become new open space that will be attached to the end of
the Southwest Corridor Park. On the south side of the new roadway, the MBTA plaza will remain in a
roughly similar condition. Currently, under the Casey Overpass is an exit stair from the Orange Line
platforms. We’ll move that to the north of the roadway so people can have a direct connection from the
end of the park to the subway.
C: AD: And if I may interject, they do not go through a tunnel to reach the platform; it’s a direct stairway
connection to the platform. The WAG told us that folks don’t like tunnels.3
C: DK: As we keep moving east, the main part of the roadway down to this area is three lanes at the
intersection: that’s two through lanes plus turning lanes. It’s the same at Shea Square, but in the center
of the corridor, it’s two on either side. The courthouse frontage road will come off the main line here
and be a service road for Orchardhill Road, the courthouse, and Arborway Gardens. It will reconnect at
Morton Street. We’re lining up Morton Street opposite to the new entrance to Franklin Park so it forms a
regular four-way signalized intersection. There’s a strong feeling in the community that the circle works
2
This dead-end is now below the grade of Washington Street.
Here, Kate Fichter paused the meeting to recognize Julianne Doherty from the Mayor’s Office of Neighborhood
Services.
3
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for vehicles, but is hard and dangerous for everyone else. As a four-way intersection, this becomes
controlled and predictable for all modes.
C: DK: This view focuses on the area from Washington Street down to the Shea area. Here’s the new
frontage road, the main line and Morton Street. The dark lines are curbs. The dotted lines represent
new open space. As you can see we’re adding a lot in front of Franklin Park, a good bit in front of
Franklin Park Villa and some in front of the Arborway Gardens.
Q: Community Resident (CR): Will you make the roadway wider?
A: DK: No, what we’re showing here is new green open space which we’re developing as part of the 25%
design. The roadway would move further away from your building.
Q: CR: Is there a traffic light for the crosswalk?
A: Maureen Chlebek (MC): I know the big question is can we get the traffic through and how do we make it
work? The goal for traffic is not to get level of service (LOS) B or C during the peak periods, but to
process the traffic effectively and manage the queues. We want people getting through the light in one
cycle. Right now the streets are built around the bridge. When you look at these two intersections on
South Street, the two signals are too closely spaced and traffic gets congested. In the proposed
condition these two intersections become one and that’s just one example of the kind of reorganization
we can achieve. We have a high east/west demand and we help to process that by removing the left
turns from the intersections and accommodating them with the bowties [Editor’s Note: ‘Bowties’ are a
roadway design element, designated spots for U-turns in order to allow cars to travel in the opposite
direction]. Instead of making a left, you’d proceed to the next signal, turn around and then come back
to the intersection where you wanted to turn, but your left would be made as a right. When we started
on the traffic analysis of the at-grade solution, we really thought it was a impossible and that we were
just checking off the box to say it couldn’t be done, but it turns out we can make it work.
Q: Tish Allen (TA): I live on Orchardhill Road and if I wanted to go down to the Dogwood on Hyde Park
Avenue or turn onto Washington Street left or right or go on South Street, how would I do that?
A: AD: Please let us get through everything on this and how everything will work. Then we’ll be happy to
take questions.
A: MC: All access for this area would be via the frontage road. Orchardhill Road would connect into the
frontage road and then you would come to Shea Square. You’d make a left onto the Arborway, go past
Hyde Park Avenue, go past South Street and make a U-turn at the Arboretum gate approximately where
the bridge touches down today. Morton Street and frontage road are currently set up as they are today,
a one-way loop with Morton going westbound and the frontage road eastbound. We can play around
with that, but that’s how we have it now because we have assumed that you like the one-way
circulation. We’ve also played around with parking. At an earlier DAG meeting we showed angleparking in front of the Arborway Gardens and were told to take it out; that’s gone now.
C: AD: A few more things before we get into parking: at the first DAG meeting, we were asked about bus
stop locations and we met with the MBTA on that. What we’d heard from the DAG was not to have the
bus run on the frontage road, but instead on the mainline Arborway. The MBTA would prefer that too so
we’re happy to be able to change that to suit your wishes. The buses will be entirely off the frontage
road and they will stop in the vicinity of the U-turn lane.
C: MC: We also were asked to look at how Yale Terrace connects into this. We tied it into a four-way
intersection with Morton Street. We analyzed the 2035 traffic volumes through here and it works quite
well.
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Q: Mark Navin (MN): Can you talk about the signals, because I’m not sure right now if it’s two signals or
one at the U-turn and crosswalk.
A: MC: We have a signal at Shea Square and then one at the U-turn, also called the bowtie. That U-turn
signal is the same one as the one running the crosswalk. Then, as you go west, there’s a signal at
Washington Street and South Street, just like today.
Q: CR: Going back to buses on the mainline, is that school buses too?
A: MC: We’ve spoken with the Boston Public Schools (BPS) about their school bus operations. They are
pretty amenable to moving the pick-up/drop-off locations for their buses. We’re working on scheduling
a meeting with the METCO staff about their buses.
C: CR: You mentioned lower Washington Street and the new pick-up/drop-off accommodations there.
There’s a lot of double parking on that side of the station. There’s 30-minute parking there too and I’d
like to see all of it moved. At 4:45 p.m. it takes forever to get through there. It’s completely possible to
sit through four lights.
A: AD: That is why we’re working with BPS and METCO to let the kids have access to the station without
blocking up the roads. There’s still a lot of activity to accommodate here. We’re also working with the
DAG to figure out where additional pick-up/drop-off space needs to come in, but this should give you a
sense of the tension we face between asphalt and open space.
A: MC: If you really love traffic stuff there is a bunch on the project website. All of the meetings,
presentations, and traffic memos are up there.
A: AD: The meeting presentations really put everything in layman’s terms quite nicely so take a look at
those. We have a handout for how to use the website that we can provide for you as well.
Q: CR: I’ve got a question about traffic from the South Shore. In the morning there’s an unbroken stream of
traffic coming from the South Shore and heading west. I live in the Sophia Snow House and when I
come up that roadway in the morning there’s traffic all the way to Cemetery Road and I’m confused how
you will handle it.
A: MC: Our analysis does go down as far as Cemetery Road. That was part of the discussion we had about
bridge or no bridge. With the bridge today, you get through Shea Circle and you then get to rush to
Murray Circle where you have to wait in a long queue again. One of the benefits of the at-grade
solution is that it works more like a city street and less like a highway and so because you won’t fly over
Forest Hills the flow will be metered and the queue at Murray Circle will probably not be so bad.
Q: CR: Will these signals be synched with the signal at Murray Circle so that won’t back up into the area
around Shea Circle?
A: MC: Murray Circle is pretty far away for effective coordination. Our synchronization will go from
Cemetery Road to the signal for the western bowtie.
A: AD: And we are working with DCR on this.
C: CR: There are mornings when the queue from Murray Circle comes almost back to the Casey Overpass.
A: AD: Right, and the new signals in the Casey Arborway corridor will help to temper that.
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A: MC: We did have CTPS4 involved with all this and they did the modeling of regional traffic to
complement our local models. If the proposed design wasn’t adequately processing regional traffic we
would have seen diversions, but those never appeared so this network can process the regional traffic.
Q: CR: I want to come back to the Orchardhill-to-Hyde Park Avenue example. When you say the lights are
coordinated, what does that mean? I count five lights and a stop sign and maybe six if you count Hyde
Park Avenue. Can you trace the same path and point out the stop at Morton Street then the left and
waiting at Shea Square? That’s a minor light, but how long will that be, and then when you make the
left-hand turn to go back towards the bowtie, you have oncoming traffic from Circuit Drive and you’ll
need coordinate that for the left. Then there’s a light for the first bowtie, Washington Street, South
Street, and the western bowtie. Can you step through that with the timing and the length of time you
need to get through it? If you hit a light at the bowtie, are you facing a stop at every subsequent light in
the corridor or is there a philosophy of processing you without additional delay?
A: MC: O.K. let’s talk about a coordinated system and what that means. If you get a green on a
coordinated system, there’s a good chance you’ll get the next few [green lights]. The idea is to process
cars through a band of green lights. One red could also mean hitting another red light. With the Uturns, you have to count them as half signals, because they only impact one direction. For example,
when you’re heading west from here, the westbound U-turn signal won’t stop you, but it would stop
eastbound traffic to let traffic from the west reverse to make the left-turn movement at South Street or
Washington Street. Those bowtie signals favor the east-west movements. You could in theory hit red at
each signal, but it’s not likely. You’re looking at an average delay of 50-60 seconds spread out across
the signals. The traffic figures are very conservative; we’ve been doing everything in a ‘worst-case
scenario’ kind of way.
C: AD: And in the worst case, with 2035 volumes, it is already working better than today and we haven’t
even finalized signalization yet.
C: SM: There is a travel time analysis that covers all major movements and the one you just described is
one of the most circuitous there is. All the rest of them get a lot better. I encourage you to go take a
look at that document. It has the entire area on a grid and compares all movements for both the bridge
and at-grade.
A: CR: When you say going west from our neighborhood is the most challenging movement; that’s one we
do every day.
C: AD: But it doesn’t hold a candle to what you live with today; that’s much more challenging.
Q: CR: But you wouldn’t try to go west from here using the at-grade streets, you would take the bridge; you
wouldn’t try to do that at-grade. Let me ask you this, if right now you use the under-bridge U-turn, how
much longer is this?
A: AD: It’s about a city block longer.
C: CR: I did look at the traffic reports and the travel time is about 240 seconds, which is a lot on a daily
basis. I hope you’re getting an appreciation for how many people live in this area how many are being
forced into a one-way loop. The folks at Arborway Gardens, they’ll have to make these loops and it
concerns me. Is this something you can make better? Please consider that. I also hope we’ll talk more
about parking. I’m flabbergasted you got rid of the angle parking in front of the Arborway Gardens and
I’m wondering where it will be replicated.
4
CTPS is the Central Transportation Planning Staff which maintains the regional traffic model for the Boston
Metropolitan Planning Organization.
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C: CR: I have a question about access to the frontage road. When the buses were coming through there,
you would have a smooth turn-off, but now that we have a cross-walk and U-turn light, is there an
opportunity to have an entrance onto the Arborway from the frontage road so people from this
neighborhood can skip Shea Square. That just seems like a way to cut back the volumes. When you
have a lot of people leaving at once, there could be back-ups and this would split the traffic by pulling
some of the flow out earlier. Right below the U-turn, you have a cut-through in the curb so that you can
get across those two eastbound lanes and do it while the U-turn signal is on.
C: CR: Another idea is to make the very end of the frontage road two ways so you could come down
Orchardhill Road and turn left onto the main road.
A: MC: I don’t think that works, to turn left, its median divided.
A: AD: O.K. we will consider those two suggestions as option 1 and option 2. We can look at them.
C: Frank Roddy (FR): 25 years ago, that under-bridge turn-around was put in to alleviate people from
Orchardhill Road needing to go all the way to Shea Circle just to go to Roslindale. Senator Lewis had
that installed for us and it really alleviated our headaches.
Q: CR: I live in Arborway Gardens and there’s that little stump of Forest Hills Street that’s used for parking.
What happens to that?
A: DK: For the moment we’re planning on leaving it there.
A: AD: That is what your representatives have asked to have happen.
Q: CR: Where do people go that currently park under the bridge?
A: KF: It sounds like we’re moving into parking here. Is there anything else on traffic before we go into
parking?
C: CR: I am going to really ask, if not plead with you, to think about making a cut-through for people on
Orchardhill Road. There will be hundreds of cars going down to Shea Square just to head west. The
schools are west, everything is west. There’s no reason for me to go east.
A: AD: We’ve got it, you are strongly reinforcing that we should analyze this.
C: CR: I want to second the concern about the two churches in the Orchardhill/courthouse area. They will
generate a lot of cars. Sending all of them down to Shea will generate a lot of congestion and so a Uturn would be just perfect for Orchardhill Road.
A: MC: Just bear in mind that right now there is a lot of traffic on that frontage road, 400-500 cars in the
peak hour, that’s all the volume that came on Washington Street or South Street and wants to go
eastbound. In the future condition, those through cars are going to be on the mainline of the Arborway.
The volumes on the frontage road will go down to 70-80 cars in the peak hour.
C: MN: This is something that was explained to me and it really helped me make sense of everything.
Today, all of the traffic that took a right from Hyde Park Avenue or a left from Washington Street goes
right in front of our houses. With this plan, it won’t be there anymore, but instead out onto the Casey
Arborway. It will cut down the traffic dramatically. And, there will be no MBTA buses either.
A: CR: I’m thrilled with that idea and I endorse it. In something that I know is a bit of a hot-button issue for
planners, I want to take about the elimination of east/west left turns at the ends of New Washington
Street. Could we have that during off-peak hours? I’d expect it will happen anyway.
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Q: CR: I’m pretty sure I’m one of the few people this impacts, but my daughter gets picked up by her school
bus on Morton Street and we’re very happy about having our bus stop there because we don’t have to
cross the circle. Will that still be allowed?
A: DK: Yes, we’re talking about MBTA buses going out to the mainline. We’re actually happy to get school
buses off the mainline given the kind of stops they make.
Q: CR: Is there an allowed left turn for buses at Hyde Park Avenue, because if that’s so, you do actually
have a left turn light cycle.
A: MC: Routes 16, 21, and 31 will get an exclusive, bus-only, left-turn pocket lane with a signal to allow
them to turn left. A bus doesn’t come every signal. We looked at the pace of bus arrivals with the MBTA
and it’s one every seven minutes during the peak hour.
Q: CR: How would that priority signal get triggered?
A: MC: There are some systems where the bus ‘talks’ to the signal and some where it drives onto a
magnetic detector. We’re thinking magnetic detection here. When the bus pulls into the lane, it would
get to jump the westbound queue and go just before the westbound traffic.
Q: CR: When we get all this traffic on the Casey Arborway, have buses stopping in traffic been factored in
and how they might contribute to a back-up? How’s that going to work? That bus will stop traffic in the
travel lane.
A: MC: We’re going through that right now with the MBTA, but we haven’t analyzed it yet. The simulations
you may have seen do include the queue-jump phasing at Hyde Park Avenue, but it’s an ongoing
process. We may look into bus pull-outs.
C: AD: We were asked to inventory the parking in your neighborhood. We’re still working on getting onstreet parking for the whole corridor, but I’m going to ask Don to tell you about the parking around
here.
C: DK: We’ve divided parking into two categories: on- and off-street. We know parking is a big issue in
general. In terms of off-street, there are 105 spaces under the viaduct, the LAZ lot has 250 spaces
which may go away, and the MBTA itself has about 188 patron parking spaces. There are ideas for
development on that parcel, but they include replacement parking.
C: Valerie Schechter (VS): You missed some. The courthouse has parking behind it and the church also has
some parking.
A: DK: Yes, what we were trying to do is capture public off-street parking. There’s also parking all along
Morton Street, but we won’t be making any changes there.
Q: Elizabeth Wylie (EW): If the LAZ lot gets developed, will the parking there be just for residents living there
or shoppers?
A: DK: That would most likely be the case. There’s also the island in front of the Arborway Gardens, which
is signed for courthouse parking. That’s around 38 spaces. There are 16-17 spaces in front of Arborway
Gardens itself and then in front of the courthouse are 10-12 spaces with three handicapped spaces.
Our plan is to provide limited parallel parking in front of the courthouse, some handicapped parking,
and the area in front of Arborway Gardens would remain the same as it is today.
Q: VS: Does that include the five trees in front of Arborway Gardens and the median with trees? We have
residential parking in front of our units. Can we keep our trees, median, and resident parking?
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A: DK: That’s pretty much what we’re proposing. Those big trees will stay. Those are legacy trees. The big
question is about the 105 spaces under the viaduct. One option is for them just disappear. This is the
only courthouse that offers parking; most other courthouses, you have to take the MBTA. Another
possibility is maybe using some of the spaces at Arborway Yard. We haven’t yet begun that discussion
with the MBTA, but we will do it. Some employee parking at Forest Hills Station will be removed to
expand the bus-way so it’s going to be a balancing act. 500 Arborway will be vacant in about a year
and that may go away and be available for courthouse parking. With a signalized crosswalk, getting
over the road wouldn’t be hard.
C: CR: One perfect spot for parking that’s untapped is the section of New Washington Street you’re
currently planning to making into new green space. Its right across from the MBTA and you wouldn’t
even have to remove the pavement.
A: CR: You can’t do that; the Emerald Necklace folks would have a fit.
A: DK: And we would have to rip up the pavement and change it around anyway to make a parking lot.
C: VS: I want to know that there will be a solution for the spaces lost under the bridge. Right now people
leave their car in front of Arborway Gardens all day and in the future there will be even less of a chance
for our visitors to find a place to park.
Q: DK: Do you suspect those are courthouse parkers?
A: VS: Yes, and folks taking the MBTA.
C: Julieanne Doherty (JD): So that is supposed to be two-hour parking and if you’re finding that to be an
issue, I can go talk to the Transportation Department about enforcement; I’ll put that on my list.
A: DK: That’s a very good point. There are things we can do with design solutions, but there are
enforcement issues too.
C: HA: There’s already a solution to this. As many residents know, there are agreements in place, signed
by the MBTA and City of Boston that move parking out from under the Overpass and over to Arborway
Yard and unless someone breaks those agreements, that parking won’t go away. There is designated
parking for all courthouse employees and users in the Arborway Yard so you don’t need it anywhere
else. There’s parking and it’s all been agreed to in the past. 5
C: CR: I think that one thing to look into before we get rid of courthouse parking is to ask who the
courthouse serves. Are they people that can generally get there by MBTA train or bus? I don’t know if
this courthouse serves people without MBTA service, but I think that’s important before we decide they
don’t need parking.
Q: HA: Why haven’t you built the Arborway Yard parking agreement into your planning?
A: SM: Actually we have held all planning for the Arborway Yard to the highest level. We took the design
of Arborway Yard and matched it directly. That’s how important it is. That being said, I haven’t found
any agreement like that for courthouse parking and I would love to see that document. At present, the
design contains one level of underground garage parking, but that’s what we know.
C: HA: There’s an agreement to change that to surface parking to save the MBTA $40 million, so you don’t
need the garage.
5
Here, Kate Fichter paused the meeting to welcome Councilor Matt O’Malley.
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A: SM: And that’s what we’re looking at now to see what’s available in the Arborway Yard given that 500
Arborway is coming down. We’re looking at both interim and long-term solutions. One of the plans you
saw earlier had 65 angle-in parking spaces. The community said no and we made them parallel. In
doing that some parking might just go away. These are decisions we need to weigh. We are looking at
Arborway Yard.
C: VS: We also want our median green with the residential trees. I don’t think we’re talking about the
same trees. They are newer trees, not legacy trees in terms of age, but they are legacy trees to us
because they are the buffer between us the roadway and we want to keep that.
C: CR: Commenting on the idea of the balancing act for parking, to look through the documentation and
see 188 spaces going down to 56, that’s a major leap. It seems like an extreme reduction. I get the
concept of squeezing people to take transit, but I think that’s too much. I’ve struggled over the provision
of green space at the possible expense of the most efficient system. To bank on the future parking at the
Arborway Yard is a disservice to us. The end of the Southwest Corridor is a perfect location for parking.
C: CR: Several of the residents here had concerns about whether the bus route will be changed or our bus
stop moved.
A: DK: The bus stop will move slightly because of where the sidewalk will be, but you will still have a bus
stop out front.
C: CR: We’d also like to see a signalized cross-walk to get us to a westbound bus stop on the other side of
the street.
A: DK: We’re planning for a signalized crossing already. We can look at the idea of westbound bus stop.
Q: CR: So it sounds to me like the Overpass might not make it until construction. There’s no guarantee of
its structural soundness. So could we lose the 105 parking spaces in a few months?
A: SM: I don’t foresee anything like that. Maybe we’ll have a bad winter with a lot of salt and that could
degrade it faster. I don’t know when it’s time, but it’s not as imminent as you just suggested. The
bridge is safe; it wouldn’t be open to traffic if it wasn’t. What we can’t do is give ourselves the luxury of
discussing that bridge being there in 2020.
C: CR: But my point is we’ll lose those parking spaces before the at-grade solution is in place. We need to
protect the thousands of residents who live here and our parking spots.
A: SM: Those spaces will go away during construction. At this point, we’re looking at all of this for the date
of the ribbon-cutting: September 30th, 2016. During construction we need to figure out and we’re
working on it.
C: CR: This gentleman has said there’s an agreement in place for parking at Arborway Yard. If that’s an
option let’s consider that seriously. I live at Arborway Gardens and I served jury duty and at New
Chardon Street and there’s no parking available. They tell you to take the T. Forest Hills Station is a
major transit hub and that helps with livability, sustainability, and being green and nothing defeats
green like including lots of parking. I suspect this will need some parking, but to expect that the
courthouse needs that many spaces defeats the purpose of having the station a block away. It’s crazy
with the price of gas, why would anyone want to fight traffic when they could take transit? So I guess
I’m concerned about resident parking, but it doesn’t make sense to provide lots of parking for everyone
else when the station is a block away.
Q: VS: Is there a slush fund for this project?
A: SM: There is not.
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C: VS: We are in a situation at Arborway Gardens such that during construction there will be impacts on
how we get in and out of our homes. It will damage the property and landscaping and will there be a
way that DOT will be willing to fund help for people who have impacted property, like if we have to drive
over the grass?
A: SM: If we enter anyone’s property and I’m not sure where the property lines are off the top of my head,
but if we have to do that, we will get an easement to make sure it’s all done correctly.
C: VS: We want to work with you here, but we’ll need to drive across the grass to get in, trees could be hit.
We need some assurance it will all be put back.
A: SM: We’re some way off yet from knowing if anyone will have to drive over the grass to get in and out of
their home.
A: AD: At the July 18th DAG meeting, we’ll come out with ideas for construction phasing and staging. It will
be a draft and done earlier than is generally the case, but we want the community to see them so you
can help us adjust them.
Q: CR: A little different question: when you decided to take the Overpass down, did you consider how long
a new bridge would last and doing something like what you did with the Neponset River Bridge?
A: SM: That’s a replacement bridge. We could put back a new bridge and we looked at doing so
extensively. Frankly, there are a bunch of reasons why we chose this solution. Both (a new bridge and a
new roadway system) work equally well for traffic and so if traffic is your concern, they are pretty much
the same, but the bridge costs $20 million more. $20 million is a big thing when you can get
comparable traffic operations with the cheaper solution. A new bridge would be $73 million and last
about 70 years.
C: CR: I know we’re going with the at-grade here, but we’d all like to hear more about going through all
these lights. It seems like they will be a big hassle and inconvenience and I worry about people taking
the prohibited left turn anyway. Like Amy said, we all go west. We all go the way that will be impacted
by the turnarounds.
C: CR: It feels like local convenience is being sacrificed for regional traffic movement. I think the measures
we discussed tonight are good ways to meet us half way.
A: AD: And that’s our meeting on June 18th. We’re working on off-peak treatments. We may not have all
the answers by June 18th, but we’ll do our best.
C: KF: O.K. folks, that’s it. Thank you all for your time tonight. Liz, Hillary, and Mark are your
representatives on the DAG. Make sure you talk to them and get us your questions and comments
through them.
Next Steps
The next milestone in the public involvement process will be the DAG traffic primer on May 24, 2012. The
3rd DAG meeting of the 25% design process is scheduled for June 18, 2012.
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Howard/Stein-Hudson Associates, Inc.
Appendix 1: Attendees
First Name
Last Name
Affiliation
Tish
Henry
Nathaniel
Maureen
Liz
Joe
Edward
Bethany
Kate
Gwyn
Glenn
John
Swati
Scott
Hillary
Don
Blanca
Steve
Ivy
Joaquin
Magdala
Mark
Amy
Liz
Jeffrey
Frank
Irene
Sonia
Horace
Valerie
Rufus
Gail
Anna
Shirley
Espreda
Elizabeth
Allen
Allen
Cabral-Curtis
Chlebeck
Cinquino
Claeys
Couzens
Duncan
Fichter
Helie
Ingram
Jacots
Joshi
Kelley
Kelley
Kindsvatter
Lada
McLaughlin
Mills
Morales
Nagy
Navin
Nestor
O’Connor
Rand
Roddy
Rivera
S.
Schearer
Schechter
Sharpton
Sullivan
Walters
White
Wright
Wylie
Community Resident
Community Resident
Howard/Stein-Hudson
McMahon Associates
Community Resident
Community Resident
Community Resident
Community Resident
MassDOT
Community Resident
Community Resident
Community Resident
Community Resident
Community Resident
DAG
HNTB
Community Resident
MassDOT
Community Resident
Community Resident
Community Resident
DAG
Community Resident
DAG
Community Resident
Community Resident
Community Resident
Community Resident
Community Resident
Community Resident
Community Resident
Community Resident
Community Resident
Community Resident
Community Resident
DAG
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