 So a lot of people who work in 10-part Plaza would tell you that their job is to build and rebuild highways and not do community development, right? This is a different secretariat to that. Now, that assumes that we all are operating in silos and We live in an interconnected world. I think the idea that we should all be operating in silos is sort of An anachronism in today's world. So I agree with you. I think these are connected now. There are limitations legal limitations on how some of that how that money much more in the highway system, which is the toll funded System that starts at route 128 and comes into Boston and connects the tunnels of What we call the big big there are limitations of what you can do with that revenue My name is Harry Madison, and I'm a board member of the Charles River Conservancy and An Austin resident and it's great to see so many of you here today and Just to introduce the evening wanted to talk for a few minutes about how sort of three different ways to think about the mass Pike and the Austin interchange. It's a regional connector It's a local barrier and It's a future opportunity so Anthony Fox was the Secretary of Transportation under President Obama, and he grew up in Charlotte, North Carolina Which was a city like Boston and many other cities got torn apart by highway Construction he said federal money and state decision-making led to two highways surrounding the neighborhood Destroying the connective tissue neighbors were separated from neighbors the corner store was gone because the corner was gone I grew up living with those barriers even though I had no idea how they came to be or what they really meant and I think that's a pretty well describes what a lot of us are living in Describes the neighborhood where I'm raising my kids and the opportunity we have to change that right now was really pretty tremendous so The mass pike and the interchange are certainly a barrier for the people who live next door to it It's a barrier for the institutions Primarily Harvard and Boston University that have campuses next to the interchange And it's a barrier for the environment back in 2014 the Boston Society of Architects hosted a pair of charrettes to Start thinking about how to take down these barriers as the interchange project Move through its design phase two different design teams that were Led by Alan and key shore who were Glad to have joining us tonight Came up with two different ideas, but you can see what they share in common is creating Significant new parkland along the river and then drastically improving the connections between that parkland and the neighborhoods around it Two years after that in 2016 the Boston Planning and Development Agency and I think this tad here with tad led by tad Reid and his team Followed up on those ideas and proposed moving Soldiers Field Road away from the river and creating the new parkland and then creating an at-grade connection from the new district over Soldiers Field Road, which would be put into an underpass and Then directly into that new parkland and I think one of the best developments. We've had in the project In the many years. We've been working on it then was Harvard Joe Beggin and the rest of the team there were able to figure out how to move Soldiers Field Road away to shift it away from the river as had been proposed both by the BSA and the BPD a and What we have now in this state's plan is the new parkland shown on the bottom there that will create wider paths and So much needed open space Tonight what we want to talk about is how really we can create a network of new connections for people walking and biking that creating new parkland Up here is great By itself though, it's not enough this needs to be connected for Certainly for residents in Alston for folks living in Brookline for our neighbors in Cambridge and Watertown and Really think about the regional connections from all those neighborhoods and then into downtown Boston and the back bay Esplanade and all of these are possible as part of the reconstruction of the highway and It's great to see so many folks here tonight interested in all of that So now I'd like to introduce Alan Montjoy from the firm and BBJ who's going to talk of More about how this can happen. So I did I did want to acknowledge that The way I got involved in this other than the early BSA suret was Having a better city ask and BBJ to help us visualize Some of the options particularly the option that they had been advocating for which was an at-grade option And you're going to hear a little bit about that today I think that Tom Nally and Glenn who are here tonight Worked very diligently on trying to work out the Particularities of trying to get an at-grade solution to work within the confines of the area that was available And really they're down to inches in trying to figure this out Where they wanted us to get involved was to help visualize what this would look like both Today and in the future because I really think that the at-grade solution While has many opportunities for the future, which the above the reconstruction of the above grade does not offer So here again, I think it's already been fully described This was the DEIR Cross-section that shows the elevated option of rebuilding the elevated highway and They did a very nice job of showing trees and plants along the edge, which makes one think that this could be a somewhat nicer narrow path along the edge of Soldiersfield Road so that's nice in section and then of course they They did a very good job of making this look Not so nice And of course it is not so nice right now, and I think that Our mindset is such that we have to think beyond Today and think a little bit about how this can be changed in the future Without the constraints that are in fact constraining DOT which is to get everything in there without having to repermit anything in the River so this is exactly what Tom and Glenn said this this makes us look this makes it look bad But we need to show a future that it won't look so bad I don't think you need to see any more than more than to see this image of Agonis way and say With that bridge in what in the place if we rebuild that bridge It will be there for the next 70 years And we will never be able to get to that get to the river from this location and many other locations along the way No matter what we do on the other areas I Happen to live in that neighborhood, which is the reason I started going to the task force meetings So for me to get to the Charles River is almost impossible Without going a mile out out of my way to get to the Charles I could make it I would love it if I could have a direct path to the river But I can't because the the nearest access point is the BU beach The by the way the BU bridge does not connect to the Charles There's stairs that go down to the highway, but they don't connect to the Charles and then Cambridge Street So really very few opportunities to get to the river. I think Harry showed something like this We would like to envision a future and we can argue about where the cars go here or not But let's let's focus on getting pedestrians Into a fully connected network of access points that provide and I'll just throw out the number Let's make sure we don't have more than a quarter mile of the riverfront Unaccessible let's make sure that there are quarter mile connections because I think that will lead to a much better environment So this is this was the rendering that Glen and Tom asked us to test MVBJ to produce which said all right We're going to accept the fact that we have an at-grade condition, which is not so pretty in the short term but What it will allow us to do is create a bridge at Agonis Way at that midpoint where there is currently no access And by the way if West station doesn't get built anytime soon There probably won't be a whole lot of pedestrian accessibility between Cambridge and Boston for the near future So can we get this thing done sooner as part of the highway project and immediately connect down to the river and and Glen was very insistent that we make sure we don't don't touch the river We have to make sure that this works within the current confines of of the of the permits But there's also an opportunity at the BU bridge right now to connect down there where it currently does not connect So two ends here could actually shorten the distance Considerably for me. I'm speaking selfishly for me to get to the river, which would be great And then I think what we have to think about is Separating the permitting of the highway and by all by no means Do we want this to open the door to allow the highway to begin to encroach upon the river? In fact, we want them to stay within their narrow confine of where they have to stay But later on let's make sure that we figure out a way to permit a Expansion into the river that is entirely for the purposes of the environment For pedestrians for activity along the river to actually extend the esplanade All the way to all the good things that Harry just talked about in front of the sort of the additional park to the south and every Or to the this is actually north or east or west and that's east It's all Discombobulated So this would be the future and then I my last slide is showing what What I think all urban designers would like to think about is what could happen eventually So we're just showing sort of the minimal Bridges here and the bridge there. We we looked to BU's Long-term master plan. They actually have plans to build additional Student village residents where there's currently parking lots and there was even some plans for something They call Commonwealth landing which suggested an additional capping of the highway at Where I ride my bike through every day, which is probably one of the worst intersections in all of Boston to get through as a pedestrian so I Would urge you to use your imagination to think what else could happen along this way if we have an at-grade Solution and how BU could eventually Think about expanding their Purview over the turnpike and making better connections to the river in the future But I think this vision is what I will end with I'm Mark Dawson. I'm a landscape architect with Sasaki Associates Our office is in Watertown. We work all over the world have international practice. So We're we're we have a pretty deep bench but in the end my passions are rivers and waterfronts and and Public open space and and that's where I exist and and that's where I Love to work and play Let me just flip through again It's important that the Charles River's Conservancy walk Boston and the Solomon Foundation approached us to help them in a little suret Collaborative suret that was incredibly quick. We had a week to work through it But we jumped right in because we know and you know, we believe in place as a as a as an ecosystem as a contributing Force in cities and great cities have great public spaces as does Boston, but we can do better You know Marty Walsh is certainly starting to pick up some of the the Rhetoric and the important kind of language that that leads cities to the future Our work on the Chicago Riverfront in Chicago you know That's a narrow little spit up of real estate that it was transformed with with the support of the federal government the city county And and now it's a place where you know when you take the architectural boat tour They talk about the riverfront and they're really proud of it. So transformation can happen If you've been to Portland, Oregon, of course this work that Carol Meyer re-did Has it's also transformed and provided access And intervention on the Willamette in Portland or you look at Tom Bosley's work in New York City You know these places were dilapidated peers if they existed They've been restored. They've been refurbished and now it becomes you know public open space. It's free of charge awesome on The Skookle River in Philadelphia, you know, they can do it. They've reached out into the river You know, I'm not saying this is a beautiful solution necessarily, but they were so committed to Leveraging the river and and I think we should be as well in the Boston area We talked a little bit Harry talked a little bit about it But I think you know with West station and what's happening with the Austin development There's gonna be a neighborhood right next to this There's neighborhoods just on the other side of the freeway, which is a shame that we've disconnected though So I would love to see the day when I could see Harry 10 years from now and he's able to walk across To the river without disruption and without going out of your way 10 or 15 minutes And here's what today is we all know it It's the place we want to move the fastest through because it's the most uncomfortable in its relationship to the automobile And the automobile is brutal On this section of the road. It's accelerating. It's fast. It's intimidating. It's just purely frightening We talked about the on-grade solution We we tend to agree with that that recommendation, but you just can't do this without talking about the river There's they're connected. They're important neighbors. So without without having that Connection it's it's it's sort of like you've drawn a line and there's a fence and I don't care what my neighbor is Doing and that's not Appropriate and what it may look like, you know, I don't know. Is that an improvement? It's hard to imagine But I get I get the idea I mean, I understand that dimensionally this is challenged But I think that's what we have to think out of the out of those boxes So what we were asked to do is just come up with some visions These aren't grounded in in a tremendous amount of technical rigor But based on our conversations with our team and with the client group We were able to sort of establish some some important Parameters one of it is making just a healthier community by allowing better cycling better walking better jogging and in general exercise And then some of our kind of goals around this we're really about connectivity. We've heard about that Connected tissues. I love to hear politicians talking like that. That means they're starting to listen I hope but placemaking, etc And then we really started to look at the the components of how do you connect to the river? regardless of existing barriers today, but the opportunity at the BU bridge is Critical to make that connection as it as well as it is on Leganus way and also into the into the neighborhood of Alston yards But we looked sort of compared these prototypes that we studied and now they'll be Displayed in a larger slightly larger format for you But one idea would be you fill in the river, right? You fill about 40 feet into the river to provide that needed dimension of moving the pedestrians off of the curb and In down and into a more riverine environment now. This is complicated to permit However, you have the benefits of improving ecology and biodiversity. There's there's a lot. There's trade-offs, and there's some real positive trade-offs here Needless to say what in the experience of moving through the basin might begin to look like it's as if you're further down near the Sailing and there's dimension. You need dimension here The other one would be where and more like the Skouko River where you're really out over the water on piers feasible permittable challenging Yes, but but certainly an opportunity to really allow the pedestrian to be prioritized versus the automobile and really this this is really just a vision for what that might begin to look like and and how The community could use it and I think really the idea here behind these two concepts are about vision for the river we need to have vision for the river and It's not enough to just tolerate a very narrow Passage in this particular area And that's it. Thank you. My name is Joe Beggin. I work with Harvard University in the Alston initiative group what I'm going to talk about today is as Harry said a Path that we've identified for our work in looking at the real yard and West station location and how you can leverage some Additional open space along the southern boundary of the project area But first I'm going to start with kind of the general context of what we see to the west of the area That's been talked about the throat sort of what the throat is feeding into to the west and what's feeding back into the Into the throat and then talk about a little bit of background on this flip idea We have because it's important to understand that as far as how we're creating how we see you could create some open space that would be Provide connections in and actually tie into some of the Crossings that have been discussed earlier so I'd like to start with this slide is it kind of taught kind of shows the evolution of what has happened in the Alston neighborhood over the past The past ten years and what some of the improvements are going forward if you were out in the neighborhood ten years ago No bike paths Limited access points to the river I think the story that you heard playing out in the throat area really plays out around the bend in the river as well over time You know cycle tracks have emerged Bike lines have been added and Parkland improvements have occurred Within the neighborhood others are planned more gateways are being looked at Telford and Everett Street as one piece there's improvements providing some gateways and parklands that would come through the Through our enterprise research campus area, which is this this area here between Cambridge Street and Western Avenue and then finally, you know some north south connections that start to tie all of That back into the interchange area itself This this graphic Show some of those connections in the kind of the glowing green really are Connections that might be a little bit more park like These the other connections of where you might see on street or or Cycle track connections But really these the path connections that you you see coming, you know the planned on Cambridge Street South over it over at this location Points because my work better so over at this location at Cambridge Street South Tying into the gateway that was discussed there But then also you start to see these other fingers reaching into the neighborhood Open space being created and kind of an integrated into a network So as you get down to the to the throat improvements that Could happen down here kind of feeding into this fan of improvements The piece that I'll focus in on So it's essentially an upgrade connection that runs from about hard out It would go down to that clock or gain is it could extend down and then tie into Could tie into the connection that You know that Alan had mentioned, you know as far as coming over at a gain is way It also creates some opportunity for a better Franklin Street Bridge connection at that location Just to kind of orient people. This is the current mass dot phase one option so essentially the highway is built it has an interim rail yard No, west station and then two tracks running As they do today for the Worcester Framingham branch along the southern side of the property line Here and then a connection from Melbourne Street pedestrian bike connection from Melbourne Street So come up Avenue down here also neighborhood up here What what we looked at In thinking about where west station in the really I should be is Should we rethink the idea that the what the station should be on the southern side of the Of the current storage tracks So today the car plane the long-range plane, which DOT would call the 2040 plan or later what station sits down here with the tracks to the north What we're looking at whether there was a more efficient use of space by Yeah, by flipping it putting the station on the north side and then putting The tracks on the south side What we found was if you did that you're you're able to Essentially pull those rail elements 35 to 40 feet away from the property line by doing that you create an upgrade connection Along that edge. That's a buffer park. It's almost three quarters of a mile long could tie into You know in a gainous way connection tie into Harvard Ave at grade So it starts to form a better condition along that edge with the neighborhood And this just shows some of the cross sections, you know, if you can if you looking at the two cross sections here at the neighborhood and here at BU that's what's shown here so you can see The plan for a noise wall at that location is right back up against the property So however deep those those yards are sometimes only 20 feet you then have a 20-foot wall sitting off of that What we would look at is pulling that You know the 30 to 35 to 40 feet away from Those those properties and then when this flip is done Air rights would be built the rail yard would be decked over so it kind of fits in with this idea of How do you tie the two sides the neighborhoods on the two sides of the track together? How do you hide the rail elements and provide that connection and I think that might be it. Oh one other thing That's showing a long term. So station in its final location This this is showing the possibility that you could do that as part of the early implementation so you could if if the Idea holds that the you're doing the rail flip in the stations going to the north in the future You could do an interim station on the southern side You can pull all the rail to the north and it allows you to get that the benefit of that open space connection in there from day one which we think would be a useful outcome at the at the end of the project and In one of the other things that it also allows you to do is More simple at-grade connection from Malvern Street down to this at-grade and You know if the Malvern Street bridge is built the north-south connection for bus transit connection that's been discussed That would be one way to do it if it's a pedestrian bike connection You could imagine that it could be pulled into that alignment Instead of ramping up next to the homes here. It could ramp up here and cross over kind of giving You know moving the infrastructure away from those areas And this is just what we see is some of us the benefits You know creation of the open space Simplification also the Franklin Street pedestrian bridge which right now has a lot of switchbacks in it We think right of way can be made made available to provide a more simple bridge connection at that point Kind of create some space between the noise wall and the residents And then the final piece for fans of utilities is that it would give you better access to a utility line that runs under there Yeah, so I'm here to talk about sort of two guiding principles for how we might connect East of this project and you know certainly we would we would relish the opportunity at the Espana to be a direct Abutter right now. We're sort of just kind of in the neighborhood and to Alan's comments from earlier I'm delighted to talk to you all tonight also as in a butter myself I live in the Audubon circle neighborhood sort of just inside of this project And so the pain is local for a lot of us the pain that gets experienced on this project gets felt by sort of Those that are representing thousands here tonight and really honestly feel like those little represent generations to come and so for You know our guiding principles and thinking about this project It's promoting the establishment or improvement of connections to and from the Esplanade and throughout the riverfront And so getting to the riverfront and then moving along the riverfront and that includes making improvements It's off that screen there But making improvements to the public realm that accommodate increased usage through the improved access Which we all know will come with improved access And so I think many of you know what the what the sort of traditional definition or understanding of where the Esplanade is The back bay Esplanade has been referred to tonight. We're the 3.1 mile span Principally between the Museum of Science and the BU bridge As was discussed a little bit earlier you can't easily get then from the BU bridge To the other side to the western edges of what could be this new Esplanade So there's 3.1 miles there We're mostly accessed through nine-foot bridges over Storrell Drive So we share some of the same pain points that are experienced in this area Our two at-grade connections are though from the east and from the west so coming from the Museum of Science or coming from the BU bridge albeit in the condition that it's in today and Improving the connection to the west from the Esplanade and back to the east from this area You know allows the three million visitors that spend time in the Esplanade each year the opportunity to move Farther up the river to enjoy all the benefits of the Alston neighborhood this newly developing area And everything that exists in that area today that makes it great You know and I'll talk just a little bit today about some of the ongoing maintenance improvement That's been happening on the Esplanade that it will help plan For this project and and hopefully improve the connectivity of this project So these first you know three slides I just will say are the pain points as we sort of experienced them today And I along with mark. I'm having my own PowerPoint issues, but Dr. Paul while deadly white path. So this is a pretty well-known area today This is one of our real pain points the fact that there is no seamless connection underneath the BU bridge going east-west There's the the sort of very narrow wooden boardwalk that many of us know and and probably don't love That kicks out around the BU bridge. I myself this this past October found myself in this area Given that I live just a couple minutes on the other side of the BU bridge In Audubon circle trying to figure out how do I get from the head of the Charles back over to where I live in the most Efficient manner possible, which of course at that time was crossing Storrow Drive You can see that sort of cut out right there. That is probably not what anyone should be doing But when faced with a number of bad choices, sometimes those are the ones that people make and so as was discussed earlier There there's no staircase up to the BU bridge to then cross over The be using the BU bridge to cross over the highway Back over to to the neighborhoods and so a real pain point that's in that area A second is that the Esplanade on the riverfront get cut off from the city from BU in Alston By a number of sort of these problems that have been highlighted today And I think everybody knows that it's difficult to access that area and this is a picture I believe taken from from the hotel That sits sort of right along store soldiers field road and you can see you know I like this particular particularly because you can see both the The train, you know area the train tracks over to the right showing that opportunity But also the incredibly narrow strip of parkland that exists there today between the highway and the river which really presents a Dynamic opportunity and then finally the third opportunity is to and pain point as it exists today The substandard public realm that I just discussed and showing that really small sliver that exists between the roadways and and the water So there has been some work done to date that I think can segue nicely into this project About four years ago mass dot in DCR commissioned to Charles river basin pedestrian And bicycle connectivity study that we're at the Esplanade beginning to to at least try to implement At the Esplanade Association, I should say trying to implement east of this project But you can see a lot of thinking that's been done on how to improve a number of the connection points From the neighborhoods to the public realm along the riverfront But you know as you can see in this graph most of the area that's being talked about today between River Street and the BU bridge was not much the subject of Imagination or dreaming or what could be or any any form of improved connection that could come through Unchoking the throat and giving more thought to how to bring these neighborhoods back into connection with one another And so and even as sort of as thoughtful a study as this one was there's still some room for growth in in moving Moving minds around the concept of improved connection in this area And so, you know some work's been done at least again east of this project on the Esplanade in recent years by DCR You know with the with the support of a number of advocacy groups to Repave the pathways to make them more accessible and open to people to try to correspond to the way in which people are using the area And of course I think that's an important thing to keep in mind ahead of any improvements to the the throat area is Taking into account the fact that we have good data associated with the the usership of the other public realm Opportunities in this area that would look most like what the throat could look like With with an improved infrastructure in that area. And so, you know, there's just one quick example of that You know with our work at the Esplanade Association something that we're doing this year is commissioning a study on the the possible Separated use of our own pathways, which I think could serve as a model for the throat area the fact that again with improved access and and increase in both Population and I think certainly the bicycle population We're finding that there are a number more users of our pathways than there used to be and that those are not always at at I guess like-minded odds are like-minded ways in which of wanting to use that area and so Sometimes one use can frustrate another a high-speed commuter biker for example, and we're seeing sort of the takeoff of Delivery bikers looking to access the Esplanade and sometimes that isn't sort of the same narrow area Where you have runners walkers? strollers And so we're trying to you know, certainly get out ahead of and I think can can certainly dovetail with the efforts of this this Project, how do you imagine a system that allows for all uses but does so in the most safe and efficient manner possible? And so you know we're doing some thinking that'll begin this year on that with I think we have the expectation of possibly a pilot Project by the end of the year that could reduce some of the amount of pavement on the back bay Esplanade And create a an improved condition for runners That is both permeable surfaces better for the environment and sort of begins to try and be a test case for how down the river We also could think about the Alston Esplanade And then we're we've been partnering with a number of groups principally the Emerald Necklace Conservancy and the Charles Gate Alliance on a Reimagined park area in another area of the waterfront that's very near This site that has been sort of choked off by Storrell Drive by roadways from the river And so there are some wonderful plans also seated with the support of the Solomon Foundation to think about how we might reclaim Parkland that can serve as an important connection between the Esplanade and the Emerald Necklace And so this is yet another area that with an improved set of conditions over at at the throat You could imagine how it would then provide easy access to not just the Esplanade You know east of the throat, but actually also the Emerald Necklace and So you know in just sort of summary I mean this this opportunity this project provides a really Important set of opportunities to better connect Alston in the newly forming neighborhood in Alston to the Esplanade to the riverfront Provide an improved riverfront experience, which I think you've heard a number of ways in which that's been imagined today and and the Esplanade Association, you know is looking forward to hearing more about all the different opportunities to improve You know the public realm relative to the park space and certainly we you know We know there's a number of stakeholders in this this process and we've been you know thankful for our ongoing partnership with the Charles River Conservancy to imagine how you know any newly developed park space in This area might be managed in the future and in making sure that it is the result of a true public-private partnership That doesn't just rely on on the strapped resources statewide of DCR in the state But that from the very beginning I think the best parks that we've seen here and around the country are the ones that have thought at the beginning about not just Their development, but also their ongoing operations and we're thrilled to be a partner in that ongoing conversation And then you know considering all the various different possible enhancements That that would be that would uncongest the area if you will One of them that I know some thinking has been given to is the Grand Junction And that that serves as sort of the the main impediment between the east-west connection at the Esplanade at the traditional understanding of where the Esplanade ends at the BU bridge and so you know You know we're we're not the planners and there's some fine ones in the room today So really you know we would look forward to some thought being given to how how do you specifically? Reconnect in that area, so I think with that I'll turn it back over to Harry Great. Thank you. So to sort of summarize and wrap up the presentation portion of the evening Antonio de Mambro who's a Urban planner who's been working and it's all over Boston and sort of well beyond for On all kinds of fast fascinating projects is going to share some thoughts about about this project And then we'll move to the panel discussion portion of the evening I'm really thankful to all of you that have made the presentation tonight because usually the highway presentations and The infrastructure presentation are so dry are so dry and There is no feeling of the place But we need to pay a lot of attention to those dry diagrams so I my comments tonight are divided in several Pieces first of all, I want to encourage all of you to continue this marvelous work that you started I want to offer my first Comment that while I am grateful I Am also a Little bit disappointment disappointed and I wouldn't be Antonio de Mambro if I wouldn't do that I Would define the ideas as Tothful timidity and I didn't ask for that and I think We should unlock those two words and I Encourage you not to be timid Tothful but think about the whole and think about the future and not The unfortunate historic moment that we are living in today Connectivity is the name of the game and that's where the sum of the The Timidity in my opinion still is I think you have done a marvelous job on the Unlocking these news at the corner there however You have missed a beautiful opportunity this diagram shows For example This tree here, which is called Cambridge City South You know all these streets in the engineering diagrams. They're all the same size and They all look the same and then the other thing that you need to pay attention is the color Because something that is yellow something that is purple or something that is something else It makes a big difference visually when you see it built and That's what I'm scared of When it's built the deck over West station is going to be a plus 24 feet and then this Small strip of paper connects it down to zero It's true It's three flaws three flaws that thank you that Need to be negotiated So The first encouragement the same thoughtfulness that you have shown in your riverfront design Please extend that To the nightmare of the grid another very important missed opportunity This street here is going to be by far the most important street in this new neighborhood Is Cambridge Street South? It's not going to be this one year Well when you get here, we have seen that image is so timid It should be the the meeting of the river should be emphasized should be welcomed and Connectivity why why at least now that you are dreaming you don't build here a fantastic beautiful 21st century pedestrian bridge Which symbolize the union of the river for the pedestrian and the bike the river that has been taken away Because of the car So please pay attention here as well as you have done here very very important and I want to emphasize that because you do a beautiful environment here along The river but then you have to negotiate the bottleneck at the river street the same way you had to negotiate down here Give up to River Street Go across and go to that beautiful park that is on the other side Another idea always in the timidity thoughtfulness I Think that you have here a fantastic opportunity I know how much work it has taken to put the ramps here The sort of drive going down And you have gotten us that sliver of green I'm sorry about Harvard. I have to disclose by the way. I was a Consultant to Harvard. I am not under contract and I do not have any Any Conflict of interest and I don't have an office and I do not look for work. So I am speaking my mind So my dear friend Joe Birken. I think It is wonderful these sliver But we should be more generous When you do the negotiation of the buildings that are going to be there Try to give us on the other side and other 200 feet 150 feet in some places so that the park On this side is as generous as the one in Cambridge and then connected so Pay attention to the different colors because from here you got to get down there and then you got to go up and All of that world has not been explored and we need to do it Because we cannot resolve this year and leave everything left behind now to the most painful piece and the greatest opportunity I Started thinking about these 50 years ago when I was an undergraduate at the 19th And I always wanted to have I saw this always for 50 years as One of the greatest opportunity to make the most important investment for this century in terms of transportation hub and connectivity and Accommodate the idea of the West Station and I have done for Harvard some images which Remain within the the draw in Harvard because they are not ready to talk about that However, I am thankful for the good work that you are putting here to make this happen but We must make sure that becomes an An investment an important infrastructure that connects all the nexus of New mode of a transportation that go from the high speed rail to the Urban ring a thousand other connection that will allow then the three universities that live around here and the neighborhood to really make here a remarkable new piece of city I Hope that as you proceed to make plans for these Because of the usual thing of oh, it's a it's a budgetary is you then end up with a station Similar to the one that they built at Fenway Park Look at that station the T This may end up twice as large, but pretty much there So I encourage you all not to be timid one last thing it's about the neighborhood here They deserve better They deserve better they haven't gotten you cannot Build the wall 20 or 30 feet high and then make an effort and say well, we'll push it back 30 feet. I Can tell you since I've fought some battles here in Boston. There is one of these examples and Is in East Boston? Jeff Lee point go see it That's what you should not design there This year is a wonderful opportunity if you deck it I'm not asking for the decision to be made to deck I'm not asking for the decision to be made to deck these but as The the the powerful people that will decide this matter Begin to make decisions make sure make sure that These new infrastructure is designed in such a way That it can be decked over Because otherwise they will build it and nothing would be done. Oh, we cannot put new structure there and Important thing that relates to all the work that you have done year I noticed that After a lot of discussion everybody seems to coalesce Around the idea that we should bring the highway down now an interesting challenge because the Railroad that from here has to go to Cambridge As to negotiate at one to three percent go over The highway and then deep down and go on the bridge that is Under the bill bridge. It's not easy Look at these three-dimensionally, please and Make sure that you don't take down the highway you have the beautiful view corridor on back Babcock or Aghanis and then you see the train trying to do that Which may be okay But pay attention to all of these look at these things three-dimensionally one last thing and I will I will shut up I've designed a few stations so When they present to you a diagram with four tracks and It's a minimum width Tell the engineers, please show us what it should really be because Every time I was confronted with that diagram The the fatness of the station increases 30 percent okay, so I Think that is still a little bit more work and I'm picking on Joe Bacon because I work to be a Mac. I Can do that and thank you and your institution for everything you are doing So thank you. I'm back and I will not leave again. Thank you Antonio So we're now going to have a panel discussion Moderated by Renee Loth. Renee is the editor of architecture Boston magazine Before that she was the editorial page editor for the Boston Globe. She's a neighbor of mine in Brighton and We're very fortunate to have her and a Wonderful panel when the turnpike was first extended from 128 route 128 to South Station in 1962 There was a plan to have it be an at-grade Highway running into the city, but it required Moving star our drive in taking about eight acres of land that was that owned by the then MDC the Metropolitan District Commission which controlled the excuse me the the Riverways the River highways and they the Massachusetts turnpike authority was going to take that land by eminent domain and you know pushed star our drive out of the way and Extend the turnpike along the road where star our drive is now into the city. So the MDC sued it became a you know political struggle the turnpike authority According to Fred. Let's see if I can get this right the turnpike authority was run by the Democrats and the MDC was run by the Republicans and you know never the twain shall meet so The SJC got involved. I'm really compressing some very complicated political history But the Supreme Judicial Court got involved and they ruled that both agencies had equal powers of eminent domain So they could each keep taking seizing each other's property forever at Infan item and so the turnpike authority chairman at that time William Callahan decided Kind of in a fit of peak To just abandon the whole idea and build the 3,000 foot long viaduct Elevated over You know to bring the highway into South station. So that's a little history about How we might have thought about this otherwise, okay, so I Think I just want to start with Emily for a second because I think the We heard the word connectivity a lot tonight. This is an underlying theme How to connect People to the river how to connect from the Esplanade downtown up through the western parts of the river how to connect north Austin Which is you know with a new Harvard University? Whatever it's called enterprise Neighborhood whatever the thing is being called. I also used to live over there on on Bagnell Street And you know connecting north Austin to this part of Austin south Austin and Camelot Avenue so Talk a little bit about the work you do and how Outdoor spaces and public spaces Connect people so the November project for anyone who doesn't know about it You did a great job explaining it really is about building a worldwide community through fitness and so we do offer completely free weekly workouts that people can simply just show up to and Recognizing that a lot of times the hardest part about staying fit and continuing to be active in our lives in the harshness of winter and In that sort of thing with lots of excuses available is just showing up. And so once you're there We have a strong community of really inspiring and excited Motivated people to help that movement happen and continue to build the health of our community in our our physical health And if we are able to connect communities and make it geographically Possible for people to make it to workouts and one of the the biggest things that happens is people say Oh, the the workout on Monday is x number of miles away Or I can't get public transportation to there or it's just too hard to get there Then we lose that opportunity for people to show up and to be connected in that way And so what we find with the community like the November project is that people from all around different communities and and areas of Boston and Greater Boston are able to Meet each other get to know each other and build what really becomes a much stronger community as a as a foundation and not just Not just working out but a bigger stronger community. Yes So I I just think it's interesting to think about the social connections as well as the physical connections you know, Boston is a city that's Balkanized and This you know very complicated transportation project also offers I think opportunities to integrate the city better socially as well as physically So not to be a buzzkill because we saw so many beautiful presentations here tonight, but I'm going to turn to Jim now and Ask him and then really the whole panel You know Why aren't we doing this then? I mean, what are the impediments that are keeping us from moving this forward? I mean, I understand it's a complicated engineering problem and a transportation problem and so on but I Think everybody here kind of agrees with the basics. We're looking for a 21st century Solution here not something that's going to be repeating the problems or the mistakes of 1962 or earlier Why can't we get there? Well, we might get there. I mean, you know, I think part of the part of the issue is that you still have people Unfortunately who were planning projects like this who are stuck in 20th century auto century thinking now You gave a good history lesson About how the first chairman of the turnpike authority wanted to fill The river to build a highway and he couldn't do it. So we have the elevated on you're looking at the last chairman of the Distinction without that comes without honor But as the last chairman of the turnpike authority I can say That was a mistake But it was not viewed as a mistake then right it was viewed as what you did in an Auto-centric environment to move people through a city that nobody at that time believed anyone really wanted to live So now fast forward to today And so I think part of the issue Part of how we solve this is framing the argument So framing the argument begins by saying the last thing we should be doing is doubling down on a mistake Right and doubling down on a mistake means several things in connection with the site It means keeping the highway elevated It also means keeping the throat choked Why is the throat important? It's important because if you look at this Now you'll see that what we're really talking about Is or ought to be a sustainable mobility ecosystem, right? That's what this is and if you look at today's drivers of jobs Today's drivers of the economy a better city we talked about a better city Tom Natalie And I worked on a report that was issued in February Talked about the importance of transit to the Metropolitan Boston economy talked about Where jobs are happening where housing is happening where the growth is happening. What's fueling our economy? I often like to joke and say nobody lives here because of the weather This the spring kind of proves my point They live here because they're looking for a particular quality of life And so and one of the aspects of that is our our ought to be our multimodal mobility system If you look at where where the jobs are where the gross domestic product is in Massachusetts 84 82% of the gross domestic product in the state is generated in Metro Boston And most of that disproportionately happens in transit clusters That's what this is or will be when West stations built the The idea that you would deny people the ability to pleasantly Connect from the downtown of Boston to this site by not Unlocking this choke point is an idea that runs against The kind of sustainable mobility that we know helps grow the economy and jobs so part of part of the issue is we have to candidly say to the folks at MassDOT We won't accept mid 20th century thinking This was that was not a mistake then but in retrospect it was it's no different than the big deal And we won't accept doubling down on that, but we need to be armed with the data that shows Jobs growth housing growth quality of life all of the factors that make This place the livable enjoyable place that we wanted to be That we aspire for it to be are connected to getting all these pieces, right? And so I think that's the way to do it the other way to do it I would say quickly you've got to leverage the important stakeholders. I mean I don't know how many people in the room can pick up the phone and Take it get a meeting taken with the highest officials and say government of the city, but Harvard can't Be you can't and so and you know They're going to be asked they're being asked to put real money into West station if I were them I'd say you want my money Well, how about improving this? My what's where's the quick pro quo going to be and so the practical political reality is to hopefully have the Powerful stakeholders who can't pick up the phone In a position where they're supporting Doing something along the river That in and of itself shouldn't be looked at as an in a vacuum It is a connected part to what ought to be and should be The most sparkling sustainable mobility development site of this part of the 21st century It's good Tom do you want to Offer some thoughts about why we're not here or how to get there Well, I think sort of picking up on on Jim's theme a little bit one of the other themes Connectivity has certainly been a theme that we've talked about another theme has been investment and and a realization that this is an investment For several generations going forward, you know, we won't have an opportunity to come back and do this correctly Again for a long long time, so we really need to find the right solution On on how to move forward with this I Appreciate mark studies. I think you did an amazing job in a very short period of time To come up with the schemes that he did specifically for this Choke the throat issue here But I think we need to really stop and think about those and figure out which one is the right investment and which one is the long-term solution To me that that question is is pretty simple as a landscape architect Something on ground is a whole lot easier to maintain and invest in than something that's up in the air over the water and I realized that has a more complicated permitting path and and and technical issues and so on and so forth, but If we come back 50 years ago 50 years from now and look at this as Jim is doing Will we have made the right decision and will that decision be good at that point in time as it is today and To me, it's just you know The reality is that that doing something on ground If that means filling in a portion of the river is the right decision for the long term And we just need to figure out a path that makes that possible for for everyone Acknowledging the complications that are on the way to doing that and I'm sure there's many great minds in this room and elsewhere who can help Figure out that path and figure out the way to make that all happen. I did work on the the charrette with Allen Looking at the overall opportunity. So I want to talk about two scales in a one that Antonio asked us to think about You know, we have a project at hand. That's not the project that we want That's really the problem if you think about the triangle between Commonwealth Avenue the river and Cambridge Street You know, it's about 150 160 acres. It's going to get a brand new transit station Great riverfront You know two major landowners that doesn't happen usually, right? This is a simple problem to think about unfortunately, we're only able to think about only one of the many dimensions that we need to think about just the Infrastructure and a few other things any other large project like this anywhere else. You're fighting on all angles urban form economics public space making programming, you know all kinds of things And there is a push and pull in all of these that influences infrastructure urban form Tells what infrastructure do and vice versa in absence of that You know, we're left with this an imaginative drawing. I mean if even if I'm looking this is a plan For the place it scares me because it doesn't have any public space. Just forget about it You know, we're doing Suffolk Downs right now same size 160 acres in East Boston 160 acres 40% open space. This is where the contemporary practice and urbanism is going It is solving ecological environmental connectivity health and wellness All sorts of things and then of course 16 million square for development on top of that You know Kendall Square is 230 square feet the best acres the core of it as you know Ultimately when Volpe is and it's going to have 23 million square feet This is a big opportunity for the city. It is a three-dimensional problem But right now there is that rest station which nobody wants to deal with and there's the world other side So I think some of the shred and the work that has been done. They're not being timid I was done But that kind of thinking continuously Needs to expand and I one thought I'll throw out There is some of the work that we did for East Cambridge community on a pro bono basis when Kendall Square was going to go through the Transformation East Cambridge community needs wisdom hired us with a very small amount Tell us what the vision should be and that became a part of the vision for Kendall Square that went into zoning So I think there is an opportunity to think about that for all of you and the community about the future of the overall thing Otherwise we'll end up with this and specifically about the about the throat. I think you know It's a no-brainer. Nobody argues that the highway ought to come down and even though It basically unlocks for the future that we don't know but it's we know that it unlocks for the best The problem seems to be the problem of the project that we have versus the project of the future is the the pedestrian connection along the river and I I happen to think none of the solutions are good And none of them whether it's the elevated highway or even with the highway expanded and Encroaching into the river. I think there is a big way and big opportunity to think a little bit differently here We have so much of the Esplanade that looks the same throughout and we don't need to create more of that here Since we don't have that much land. Why don't we create an elevated? Pedestrian promenade over the Storo drive. It does a number of things You know, this is where I walk across BU bridge all the lot of times I live on the other side by the way, I live in Cambridge port and I enjoy access to the river unlike you all Only one side hopefully hopefully we'll get there actually my wife does more than I do she runs every day and You know, what if we think about a solution that is elevated, you know, there is I think there is some delta of bringing the whole thing down to grade and Being even after that by the river behind the auto wheels all the noise. I don't think it's going to be pleasant So can we think of an elevated promenade that sort of makes all the connections because the world is not at grade there You want to connect to BU bridge? You want to connect to Commonwealth Avenue, which are all 25 to 30 feet above grade So can we think about a much bigger move for the city and the waterfront riverfront that is different from everywhere else The three miles that we have That can actually solve the problem. It doesn't have to be super permanent You know, there are many wonderful ways that we can Design these things short term long-term. Maybe that gets us out of the river for a little while in this particular iteration But you still get that right now. You're not sort of pushing yourself to a later date So you're talking about like a this is the first time I've heard of this. You're talking about kind of like a high line Yeah, I don't want to use the word high line. But yeah, that's a good example But you know, you know, the leach me a wire deck without the train would be a great example You know being up there actually because of the bend of the river you have a fantastic view to the city And it's a really nice place to be and you know, your experience of going over the BU bridge for example So and again, there is a much larger connection there is one connection We're in fullness of time. There is a diagonal here from Bikini Arts along the turnpike Equation all the way to Fenway Park and into back bay if we get it all right. We're thinking, you know, 50 hundred years So that throat actually at that elevation actually can link you into a very different system as well So my my sort of anybody worked I'm sure somebody had this idea before Can we just give up on at least in this round? Asking for pushing into the river can we ask for an elevated promenade that really creates a great Sort of an offset and mitigation that links some of the future opportunities. So it's very interesting and Do you expect that that would be easier to permit than filling in the river or the other boardwalk ideas? I don't know much about the permitting It seems as though that would be the case because you're not going into the river And you know, we talked about the experience I think it provides a better experience because you're not dealing with the noise and you know Eventually the city builds up to it. It's even better. We can You know create some kind of a tiff mechanism that whoever benefits from it, you know, well, you know Eventually payback or something, but I think it sets up a different data line that overcomes a lot of Dimensional challenges that we have there right now. Yeah Well, you know, we talked a bit about investments how this is an investment in the future and thinking about how it will unlock certain economic development and other kinds of financial Good things But you know when we we compared it a little bit to the moment where we decided to take down the elevated Green monster central artery and build the Rose Kennedy Greenway, etc One of the big differences between then and now and it was only, you know, whatever 20 years ago But we're facing a very different period financially in terms of support from the federal government I don't can't even remember was it 14 billion dollars? I don't remember how much it turned out to be 20 I don't see us getting that kind of support from the federal government one of the problems I think with this this whole Proposal is that, you know, there's the city is involved in this but the state is involved and you know There's a lot of different layers of of governance Competing so I'm looking at Jim again Where do we get the money for these kinds of projects should it be a? You know even a discussion point at this at this early, you know phase this sort of visioning phase How practical is it? Wow So the money issues Complicated and difficult issue, but we can let's talk about it. I just want to react to that I think it's a brilliant idea, but I also want to make the point. So I think about the Trowell's River and how it was Created into what it is today by some very something minded people James Jackson starl and folks like that at the turn of the last century and Think about who's paid for the Upkeep being clean and everything else that's it we keep Tent to forget as taxpayers and citizens these assets are ours We own that their hours and so the idea that we want to intrude into the river Our quality of life Just let that absorb a little bit as opposed to I want to build my highway into your river right different way of thinking about We have a revenue Crisis, I mean let's I call it a crisis. It's a crisis because we can't we don't have enough New net new revenue to do everything we need to do right we know this we read about it all the time The MBTA has a seven point three billion dollar state of good repair gap And if you knew what was not in the seven point three billion that should be in there if you want to think about what really needed to be done It would be mind-boggling, right? if so We have a net new revenue gap we need to raise money there lots of ways to do it, you know The city was very creative last week or so and thinking about what we're gonna ask Scofflaws to pay more money and fines and we're gonna use that money. We're gonna dedicate it to sustainable mobility Enterprises, you know better Dedicated bus lanes and better cycling that that's one way to think about it I've been calling a long time for things like putting a carbon fee on non-residential parking in the city imagine all the parking spaces non-residential and Capturing some of the actual impact of these fossil fuel driven current number this idea falls apart if every car is electric but we're not close to having that happen and Asking people to pay some fish here and dedicating that money to things like better Safer streets complete streets safe cycling zones and transit. That's what we're talking about here really is is a safe welcoming place To have the many thousands of people who use it and want to use it Encourage them to do what we want people to do which is be safely mobile through the city But you're right. I mean right now We're in a we're in a place where you've got too much competition for two little revenue And unless we as citizens let political leaders know that we would actually have their back if they did something about it people this senator's here, so I Not saying when you him out. He's one of the more progressive people on these topics, right? but if political elected leaders are fearful that the consequences of doing difficult votes on taxes or fees is Going to put them out of work. Well, we know what the end there's a fight of flight syndrome whenever this fear and they're not Going to fight, right? They're just going to say no If we need to let them know we have their back that we support Principal reasonable efforts to raise the net new revenue that we need To get done what needs to be done. We also need to support the efforts of people who are trying to squeeze out efficiencies I'm all for that. I'm not for profligate spending and I believe in performance metrics But we still need Revenue to accomplish the goals we need to accomplish getting West station built early for example, right? We're asking Harvard be you to pay money Right. We're asking people to engage and pay to play is this expression because we don't have enough net revenue So we have to be realistic about that, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't say no to a bad idea We should say no to a bad idea. Sometimes having getting nothing done is better than getting the wrong thing done Others on that question revenue or political will to get this done Okay, hearing hearing none Hearing no other comments I think I'll I'll turn to the audience and see because I know there's going to be actually I wanted it is tab read still here Can you just say a few words, please? Representing the city and I think is Harry pointed out we did Leave the placemaking study. I think you know, we're on record is saying we want to see the kind of Community here that that Jim described. I think the term you use was sustainable Mobility ecosystem, and I think that would be a good description of what the placemaking study called for here And we're on record as well through our comment letter on the DPI are that You know we started the reaction is what's not to like about the app rate option And I think the the the question for us is the permitting question If you listen to the different parties if you listen to mass DOT you get one set of answers about The uncertainty in timing and cost that the permitting questions post for the project the secretary has made it clear that they've got and Of I duct it's at the end of its useful life, and it needs to replace soon She's concerned about Cobbling together the funding just to replace that piece of infrastructure must much less You know all the other wonderful things we all think she part of this project So I know she's very concerned about timing about being able to move forward with this quickly And the permitting uncertainty for her is a big question So we're sympathetic to that notion and what we'd like to see is these you know some sort of meaning of the minds about these permitting questions there are other perspective to ABC has has done some research on the permitting issues and Has concluded that they're not as as complicated or dire So can we bring together those two perspectives and get some answers about those issues? There certainly there are some some people have raised questions about Losing the breakdown lanes and reducing the lane widths and the safety issues that that brings and The air quality impacts that the traffic congestion that would do a suit on Sue from a breakdown And so we know what are the answers to those questions as well So again, what's not to like, but let's get to the bottom of these permitting issues I'm going to say my name. My name is Anne Lusk. I work at the Harvard Chan School of Public Health I have emailed you I've emailed Tom Nally. I Came to Boston 15 years ago And I worked extremely hard attending all of the meetings to try to get a cycle track on the outside edge of the Rose Kennedy Greenway and Was told no and now we have a rose Kennedy Greenway and we have a lot of biking in the road The city's finally getting cycle tracks, but we kill people while we wait for the cycle tracks Thank you for the lid over the throat I've attended every meeting about the Harvard Alston Brighton area and In the very beginning meetings if any of you've been at those meetings. I asked for the lid over the throat I'm a lid over it's a it's a cover over the throat. You can cantilever it out. You can do it affordably I already worked with Ari and I know that if you're coming up from the Pau Dudley white that it's 80 a Accessible my PhDs in architecture in environment behavior So I also have to look at the environment and putting a park beside the river means all of that Mobile source air pollution and noise is right beside the path so if you cover over The throat area you could have a beautiful park lid So it was proposed what five years ago, and we all started attending the meetings about this one section and Other than sending it to Harvard and sending it to Tom Nally and sending it to everybody else I don't know how to make the point more clear. It's a great idea Boston should be much more visionary than we have been. It's easy to put a park beside the river It's easy to take the land and do that Why can't we be as visionary as having a millennial park or a high line in Boston? Thank you. Thank you My name is Steve Miller. I'm with the People Streets Alliance I want to pick up on something that key shore said and turn it into a question for Jim This really should be as you started to describe a community development project This is about creating a neighborhood and economy, but in fact what we have is a transportation project And we have a transportation project because the money is the transportation money. It's coming out of the turnpike How as a person who was a secretary? Can we create use that funding because we're not going to in the short term in the time? We have to build rebuild the viaduct. We're not going to get new funding out of nowhere How do we take a transportation funded project and have the internal politics that turn it into a Community development project within which there's a transportation component instead of the tag that the dog wagging the other time well, you know So a lot of people who work in 10-part Plaza would tell you that their job is to Build and rebuild highways and not do community development, right? There's a different secretary now that assumes that we all are operating in silos and And we live in an interconnected world. I think the idea that we should all be operating in silos is a sort of And anachronism in today's world. So I agree with you. I think these are connected now. There were limitations legal limitations on how some of that now that money much upon highway system, which is the toll funded system that starts at route 128 and comes into Boston and connects the tunnels and What we call the big dig there are limitations of what you can do with that revenue But I keep saying what I understand that We need to find new creative ways to raise net new revenue That are not constrained and that can be dedicated to these issues But I think you raise a larger point, which is how it goes in this work connectivity keeps coming up You can't look at anything including the throat in a vacuum any longer, right? These things are all connected if you think about the issue that was just talked about this fellow from BPA So the description of some of the challenges that they're confronting is they're trying to sort out the issue, right and People raising concerns of something like the air quality because of traffic jams Well that assumes that we're doing nothing to encourage modal shift, right? modal shift means getting people who drive and putting them on a commuter rail, right? That assumes we're not rethink rethinking The whole way we think about commuter rail, right? And we just transit matters to sort of report Promoting the concept of regional rail as a way to completely rethink how we move people between Boston and the gateway cities around the city So all of these things are connected now. They're converging in a time crunch here I get it with you all are facing the imminent decision-making that could make or break This area for the next 50 years And so we don't have the luxury of time to say well We'll do regional rail with all these things are connected, which is why I say I think Practically speaking right now. You need to do a little triage. You need to say Where are the powerful stakeholders? Can they be helpful? What's the what's the what is the framework for this? Discussion that needs to be consistent Right and make it a powerful frame the discussion powerfully in a way That the powerful stakeholders can adopt as their own and and do something here that won't lock you in to You know again, I think people should be clear that the current preferred view of an elevated road and keeping the throat the way it is is Basically what the state is saying in an election here The state is saying we're doubling down on the mistakes of the past, right? Imagine the thought process that goes into saying admitting that that's what's going on We're doubling down on the mistakes of mid 20th century for you folks in Austin. Isn't that great? All right, because the answer to that should be what? right Because that doesn't respond to the mayor's go Boston 2030 vision It doesn't respond to the at the values of the people who live in the city today Their values are not represented By mid 20th century autocentric thinking and that's what this represents. That's what the preferred DEIR solution represents right West station sometime in the future elevated highway and Be careful because you might get it by a car as you're walking along the river that you own Hi, Alan Fried a Brooklyn resident a few blocks from BU My interest is obviously going to the river where people have said I'm really appreciate Harvard's presentation because it's great that they're at the table. It's their land I would expect them to be there investing in this. I don't see BU stepping up I've been to meetings where they don't want any connections. They don't see this as a new front door They see this as people traipsing through their yard, and that's disappointing. I love the idea of the lid I wonder and I think of the example of the East River Plaza in New York, which is great unless you're in a car Could we think of this as something that's terrorist? Is there any way to reduce to lower the road even a little bit? Submerged a bit. I know that's pricey, but how about some combination? I think If you put the right set of variables on the table and you know, I don't know if we're asking the right questions If you ask the right questions, then the priorities will change right now I think we're given a project and we're just trying to figure out how to get around it rather than completely redefining the the the project so You know again, I think the lid is a much bigger idea What I was talking about is not something that granted doesn't have to be eventually it can get there But I think you know it can be done much more economically But provides the connectivity and so on so there are lots of ways to rethink this if you know the time is not an issue and if You know there is a process in place that allows for that kind of an investigation again There's a finite amount of real estate there You know, do you go horizontally or vertically? You have it right now It's always vertical because that's the the nature of it So part of it is if you don't want to encroach and extend the permitting period You just reverse the equation and solve for everybody's problem in some ways But then ultimately if we can expand it to the river 10 years 20 years 30 years from now That's even better. It becomes an opportunity You know, I think I understand that Liz leary is here from BU I don't want to put anybody on the spot here But you want to say a few words to answer the gentleman's question So just to clarify where we are and we've also been very supportive of transit at Melbourne Street Maybe there's some this information out there, but thank you for giving me time So and I don't know if we're not at once to come up So I'm Wendy Landman most of you many of you know me I'm the executive director of walk Boston and we are the co-host of this event with Charles River Conservancy, and I just wanted to say that this is actually an advocacy moment So we've had wonderful panelists speaking about lots of different opportunities and lots of different things that I think people need to Be thinking about in terms of getting their voices at the table So when we with Sasaki's help put together this little video on choke the throat that generated Where's by 160? Comment letters to mass to MEPA which led to a different kind of scope that Mastod has to respond to About this project But that's sort of a beginning of the advocacy There's a lot more work to be done in the coming years and many of you represent all sorts of Interesting viewpoints that haven't been heard very loud yet many of the people in the design community Again, some folks have been sort of coming up and coming up with ideas But I think this idea that what we need to do is not I like Jim's phrase not double down on the mistake Mistakes of the past but go forward in a positive way. So we need your voices to do that This advocacy has been being done I guess I would say on a shoestring by the organizations that are doing it We're not you know, we're not underwritten by anybody who's saying hey You know the future of the city is to get this right So, you know that kind of support is helpful too, but really speak up speak out the design community should really be weighing in Some of you in the room know that walk Boston before my time was deeply engaged in the greenway And we didn't end up at a perfect place But boy we ended up at a place that was an awful lot better than it would have been which would have been essentially a highway on top of the highway and we're not there because people said we need to be able to walk We need to be able to have development opportunities here and make this a part of the city and as much as you know We can talk about some of the flaws by comparison to what it used to be with a highway here This is a really really different place. So I think most of you signed in tonight We'll write back to all of you But really you know use all the different ways you can to be speaking out about this so that we end up with a Place that we want to be and and we don't you know our children and grandchildren don't look at us and say Where were you? You know what happened here? You know, this was a bad idea when the highway was built and now why are we Why are we doing it again? So I think the governor needs to hear from you the secretary of transportation needs to hear from you the secretary of Economic development needs to hear from you. I think this is a terrific sort of wrap-up statement, but you know what? I'm not done yet Thank you for that. I should have called it you on your last, but we didn't organize this obviously Ahead of time so there are some more questions. I thought we would go to it There's one way in the back there I'm with the Charles River Alliance of boaters And I'm one of the people that put together the deck chart of the Charles River the short one in a hundred years There's been a lot of chat tonight about extending the land out into the river Okay, that is going to impact the river community in a big big way Taking 45 feet 50 feet of river is a big There are roughly 6,000 rowers that use that river every single day and That region down there is a very busy region for So we want to be very careful when we start talking about taking some of the water Okay, because it's going to impact the recreational habitat that we have And I just want to leave you with the idea that Charles River is probably the busiest recreational river in the country if not the world It is a jewel for us we want to protect it as much as we can and Allow it to be the jewel it is today Keep question, you know what it the Mass out alternative the ABC the other alternatives all the soon that you're having an 8-lane mass pike you're having a four-lane soldiers field road next to West station you're having 14 lanes That's three or six lanes of the mass pike and then four lanes frontage roads on the other side right now The mass turnpike is only I think six lanes in that section So the question is you know with the the modeling that was done with all this What happened was that you know mass that put in the model said we're going to assume the same single occupancy vehicles We're going to move X number of cars. It was not about X number of people. So the question is you know in all this process Why not focus on bringing soldiers field road down to one lane each direction at the throat making mass turnpike three lanes in each Direction so least of them you're limiting the cross-section. You could then have the wider park you don't impact the river You can do all sorts of things so You know let's let's let's let's not assume We should just have the same number of highway lanes and let's make one of those lanes that's a vote for non thoughtful timidity, right? That's a that's a proposal for You know Let's sort of zero-sum this thing and say you know Let's start the roads with one lane and see you know how far we really have to go So it's very interesting from Louisville streets alliance. We've talked a lot about the what's and there's some wonderful ideas here I hope that some of them could be bolder. Let's talk a little bit more about the howl And Wendy took us back to the central artery I'll take you back to the Southwest Corridor and Governor Sargent's decision not to build the Southwest Expressway in 1972 And I think that the lesson to be learned there is that we didn't say Yes, but we said no and here's what And in that case here I think we have to figure out how to talk and this is the question of how to get at a state and city administration That are not necessarily headed in the right direction in the case of the state They have given away their rights to back base station and to make it into a shopping mall so that it is going to harm Commuters and reduce their income from increased fares In the case of the city They're still trying to cut down trees on Melny Kess Boulevard to make a bike lane when the bike lane could be behind those trees Rather than cut down the trees So how do we get at the city and how do we get at the state to get them to understand these building of an entire piece of the city with connections between BU and Harvard with connections to the river Are things that actually are essential if work is going to go ahead Yeah, I think it just goes back to the point that I was making that you know any other place most places at every place Would look at this through multiple lenses and we unfortunately are still Looking at this from only one lens. I don't know I know that they're everybody's trying to do their best, but I don't think there's a singular force here that can actually Bring it all together. I that's the frustrating part of this and I agree with you. I don't have an answer It's a little bit of Advocacy one-on-one I mean, I know a lot of people in this room who know how to do Is this on yeah, yeah, yeah, all right. I tend to burn these things out All right, so I'm just gonna so you know Half the room are people I know who would like know how to do advocacy so there's no you know how to do it I think the question That I would put back to you is There's a larger conversation to be had about how to get this perfect and that should take place, but you're faced with a Schedule you're faced with decision-making in the short term So you've got a triage this you've got to figure out how to get To the secretary and the governor and the mayor in particular To be aligned with your thinking. I mean in the short term when it comes to Dealing with the throat dealing with making sure that West station is not built in 2040 But you begin building sooner and again I think the way to do it is to find like-minded people hopefully some of them are Among that like-minded group are powerful stakeholders. I think the media is on your side. I think that Advocacy groups, livable streets, transit matters and others who tend to get Noticed and tend to be able to get some things done or on your side. So bring them all together in a call to action because the time is short and Frame the argument well and make the case for why The mistakes of the past shouldn't be repeated. I mean that's really all this is but there's no magic to it there's no magic to it and And to the gentleman who spoke about folks who were rowing and and on the Charles I think I would say that in this moment Folks who appreciate the value of the river and open space need to appreciate each other's point of view and come together It's it's a finite asset. It has historic value Going back as I said earlier to the days of James Jackson Sturro and and folks who understood that the river could be something that it wasn't through most of the 19th century and It's important that people take that public asset and understand its value and understand its value to as many people as possible Right without harming a lot of people in other words There's a way to think about its use and its relationship To the users of the river and to those who use the embankment in a way that should be compatible and not at all those things are not easy to work out but they need to be worked out because the last thing you need is for advocates for open space and Recreational space to be at odds with I just I I agree I am a rower myself and I can appreciate being both on the river and next to the river I think about What is what's nice and what's necessary? I'm a strong advocate for Maintaining the river to the best of its use and I also think about the the safety that comes up with Any pedestrians that are on the on the path next to the river? And so yes, there may be differences in in the river if if the plan that that gets carried out does Change the bank of the river But I also think that we need to look at the bigger system and how we're all integrated looking At how we all move not only on boat not only in boats But as pedestrians and also the vehicles that need to get through that area as well And I think if we take that one step further We can look at whatever happens through that particular section and frankly along that entire length along the Alson Yards As a potential asset to the users of the river to not just for the people on the bank How do we create opportunities for more people to get into the river as long as as well as walk along? How do we make that area better for the people who are using the river for rowing? Be they in skulls or some other type of vessel? How did that how does that work for both of that interfaces? And I think if you look at the Chicago example, that's a very successful illustration of how you do that kind of thinking So but just to back up to the other idea of how do we get all these people together? We did it for the central Arden we did it for the streetscapes through the do the staff process through the surface transportation action forum Which was the state the city and all of the stakeholders sitting down? through a fairly compressed schedule and Looking at every inch of that corridor and arguing about you know How many lanes and how many crosswalks and how many whatever we had in that and how the streetscapes were built and so on and so For so there is there is precedent for it You know Joe and Wendy were involved with that very early I sort of came into the middle of it when a lot of the big grand picture decision-making had been done But it's it's been done before and it's possible to do that again I would have to assume acknowledge that it has to happen quickly But it there is precedent. Yeah, thank you. I mean I'm gonna take a minute of you know Moderate or prerogative here and say that you know I Just got my property tax bill from the city of Boston and maybe it happened last quarter, but I just noticed it There's a 20-something dollar fee on my property tax for the Community Preservation Act fund and you know maybe I'm being naive but That was passed by the city of Boston's citizens with that with a tacit approval of the business community I mean we haven't really talked about their role in this and they stand to benefit tremendously I think from from doing this right But you know the Chamber of Commerce and others who might have spoken out against a new tax didn't But it was the citizens of Boston the people who said tax me, you know, yes I will take a small increase in my property taxes in order to pay for affordable housing development of open space and preservation Projects and we're seeing that you know, it's not a huge amount of money yet. It's about 20 million dollars I think in the fund right now, but you know, that'll go over time. We're seeing it actually happen I think that something similar can happen here. I don't know you have to involve the legislature I understand but no offense out there, but it's senator But you know, I think that that people shouldn't underestimate you know their own power and and to you know make get the right decisions made on here by You know showing that they're willing to even dig into their pockets a little bit to get it done, right? So I'm gonna have to wrap up now and thank everybody for coming