Hey, there! Log in / Register
The new skylights at Forest Hills really open the place up
By adamg on Tue, 09/29/2015 - 6:53pm
And won't that make waiting for a bus tomorrow fun?
The metal coverings over the upper busway are being torn down as part of the overall Arborway/Forest Hills station changes - which, on a temporary basis, include smushing all the upper-busway routes that used to be split between two lanes into a single lane.
Neighborhoods:
Topics:
Free tagging:
Ad:
Support Universal Hub
Help keep Universal Hub going. If you like what we're up to and want to help out, please consider a (completely non-deductible) contribution.
Comments
Yes, well
we wouldn't want to provide any shade for folks waiting for their over-crowded bus.
"Tomorrow" (today now) it'll
"Tomorrow" (today now) it'll be rain, not sun.
MBTA putting up temp shelters
After the teardown this weekend. MassDOT sent out the following this a.m. along with a reminder about night work this weekend:
"Next week, the MBTA will move in temporary shelters so riders will have a place out of the elements to wait after the old canopy is removed"
Good
What? This is good news. I'm glad to read it. Now all they need to do is communicate with the bus riders.
Commuting via Forest Hills (along Washington)
Grows increasingly hellish with each passing day. Combined with the (unexplained) even-worse-than-average performance of the Orange Line at rush hour, it's now routinely taking an hour to an hour and a quarter to get downtown (or to come back), using the 50 and the Orange Line (about seven and a half miles).
And we can look forward to waiting for buses at Forest Hills all winter with no shelter at all from the elements.
World class, baby!
When your transit options are barely faster than walking, then you know you're World Class.
You're a fast walker
I mean, that's a 10 minute mile. Over 7.5 miles. Not too shabby.
As far as "world cass" goes, London traffic was going the same speed horse and buggies were going in the nineteenth century before congestion charges were instituted, so congrats, we are "world class"
This
Yes, this is true. Choking congestion is "world class". However, the London Tube is far more efficient a means of getting around than driving. Can't say so much for the orange line.
I could probably walk at that pace...
... 35 years ago. Not now. Not even close. But I often think that a horse would be faster.
I do a 15 minute mile walking
And 8:30 running. Of course, your pace getting to the station would be a lot quicker than homeward, thanks to gravity.
I used to walk a 5-mile route
I used to walk a 5-mile route home in about 90min - during rush hour this was faster than the 77 bus.
Once upon a time...
... I could walk a mile in about 12 minutes. Now it takes me at least 20 minutes -- on a cool day when I'm having no foot problems. :-(
Nobody's ever referred to
Nobody's ever referred to horse and buggies as "rapid transit."
Roofs
I feel bad for the riders in the morning indeed. You'd think the T would have some tarps they could throw over the empty section until they are ready to put new panels in.
The MBTA seems to have a particular problem with roofs. The Alewife bus area roof has completely rusted through in many sections. If I didn't know better I'd think it was abandoned a long time ago. (I suppose it was abandoned in 1986 the day after it opened.)
If you think the busses are smushed now...
just wait until this weekend when all the busses will use the lower busway while they tear down the rest of the upper busway structure. Then again, with only 1 or 2 busses an hour on Sunday, it will probably be fine.
Time for my Casey-Arborway griping
I've said it before and here's an example now of why I don't trust the engineers on this project.
So for some reason half the busway is suddenly (I know they have a schedule, but for almost all of us it's sudden) closed, with the roof coming off the side now crammed with bus riders. Meanwhile, the new busway, further away from the station, is nowhere near completion. I'd put good money on it not being completed by the end of the year. Why couldn't they have started to build the new busway last year? It has no connection to the overpass, which of course is my argument of mission creep. I have yet to hear why they need to do this. Not one good reason. Still, they were able to built this station while the old station was still operating in the 80s, and the station was basically in the lower busway. But the construction then was flawed and now, they know what they are doing, right?
This whole thing benefits solely the people who abut it, which I would be cool with, except that for the past century, Forest Hills has grown as a crossroads. So, sorry drivers, sorry bus riders. Screw you, and if you disagree you're nothing but an oldtimer who has to change.
There is a connection
There is a connection to the overpass. The new arborway design requires relocating the 39 bus pickup/drop-off to the upper busway. So it's being expanded to accomodate all the buses from that route. I imagine construction was delayed because all the work went out in a single contract
I don't think the whole upper busway was thought through very well, It will look good from the Washington Street side (and the future bike lanes are badly needed) but on Hyde Park Ave it's going be to an ugly cantilever. And MassDOT and BPS have decided to consolidate all school bus drop off and pick ups in the area beneath it (where the kiss and ride used to be) without having any traffic data as to how many buses and parental cars will be using it--never mind how they will get in/out of that one entrance on Hyde Park Ave, which has no traffic signal. The neighborhood asked many times and never got any of that info.
Wow
That whole screed is seriously derailed and has almost no basis in fact.
1. The project is on schedule so far.
2 They couldn't start last year because the Mass Historic Commission took a year considering the fate of Shea Circle.
3. The new busway is necessary to accomodate the new 39 bus terminus and to improve vehicle circulation throughout FH - essential goal of the project.
4. Good reasons: the 39 clogging the South/New Washington intersections and ending under an overpass that had to be demolished; improved non-serpentine exit from upper busway, permanently relocated cab stands; rehabbed upper station plaza; bike paths; landscaping.
5. Abuter argument ignores a host of improvements for T and Bus riders, pedestrians, cyclists, and drivers that are designed into - and the purpose - of the whole project upon completion and of which you are well aware, if skeptical. I've recited them ad nauseum in the past at ArborwayMatters.
A little rain dampening your day?
Wow!
It may be nice if anyone had a clue how traffic works. Right now they have messed up the upper lower busway's. Hyde Park Ave Washington St and the overpass road, all at the same time. Add on that they removed 30% of the parking at the lot and you get gridlock. It sometimes takes 20 minutes to go from Ukraine way through 2 sets of lights. Of course BPD and the T officers stand there watching. It is just dumb, and wait for winter!!
We need the rain
And it is bad luck that demo of the roof started after months of little precipitation. But bad planning can happen in any weather.
1. The project being on schedule just makes this worse. Why demo the old busway, why squish the bus riders into too small of a space, before the new bus area is constructed?
2. How is Forest Hills Station related to Shea Circle? The actual work on Casey-Arborway yes, I see that, but if MassDOT wanted to improve Washington Street or Hyde Park Ave, there's no reason why that work had to wait.
3. Why is the 39 terminus being moved to a less convenient spot? And yes, I remember when the 39 (and 16, 21, 31, and 42) used to stop upstairs, but it wasn't the best thing then or now.
4. Correct me if I'm wrong, but they did demolish the overpass while keeping the 39 where it's been.
5. I am ready to see failure with this project, but yes, the goal theoretically is a better flowing area. I've been a skeptic, as you know, and flubbing the busway is validating my viewpoint. As I always say, I won't mind being wrong, but I fear I will be right.
Temporary conditions
The whole project area is planned to work as a more integrated system, beholden to the multi-modal sorts of ideals that give equivelant accomodation to all modes using the area. Obviously there are many elements: cars, buses, trains, bikes, peds and many differing constituencies (locals, abuters, regional car thru-traffic, T-riders, bus riders, the MBTA, DCR, the city) and several that historically get the short end of the stick (bikers, recreational users of the Emerald Necklace, pedestrians, those requiring handicapped accessibility, etc). So... what happens at Shea Circle (the roundabout closest to Franklin Park) does indeed have an impact on the functioning of the bus terminus and all the rest. It has to work as a whole system when it's done.
Plus: the project was bid as one overarching contract, with one contractor in charge and all those constituents holding them accountable. The temporary conditions and specific inconveniences of any one piece of this complicated demolition and construction challenge shouldn't be confused with the end result. And remember they're demolishing and building while keeping service (more or less) intact, in temporary locations in some cases.
The things you usually characterize as "mission creep" are the result of operating and design guidelines like MassDOT's GreenDOT program http://www.massdot.state.ma.us/GreenDOT.aspx , the city's Complete Street guidelines http://bostoncompletestreets.org/about/ and DCR's Historic Parkways Preservation Initiative http://www.mass.gov/eea/agencies/dcr/conservation/cultural-resources/his... that were all part of the mix. They're also part of a little thing called "compromise" and the trade-offs that came about in the community process from trying to juggle all of the above.
On the 39: it has mostly stayed where it's been so far except during night work, which included demolition of the overhead steel and the piers closest to the old head house. Just as soon as they can move it to the expanded upper busway, then I expect that is what they'll do - I'm under the impression that it will stay where it is until there is room.
Do you actually have to deal with this station...
... as a routine part of your life everyday. Or is all your cheerleading for every detail of this project based purely on abstract theoretical grounds?
I live a block and a half away
The construction inconvenience is a daily (and at times nightly) part of my life. But I have a long-term commitment and investment in the neighborhood, and I continue to believe - based on the data and a close study of the details - that the eventual outcome will be a vast improvement over conditions, say, two or three years ago in Forest Hills in just about every possible way.
Even if those results turn out to be somewhat disapointing to me in one regard or another (considering all the many elements involved) I would vastly prefer what's coming to what was there.
Your mileage may vary.
Living a block and a half away...
... isn't necessarily the same as having to depend on it for most of your regular transportation needs. Just saying.
Technically
He is more dependent on the station than we are, but he is unaffected by the modality issues we deal with.
That of course has been my issue, not with him, but with the whole project. But as both of us say, let's hope for the best.
Hope
I have moderate hope but low expectations.
Someone dealing with (probably) significantly increased property value on the one hand -- and no need to use buses to get there, on the other, will obviously have a radically different perspective from us residents of bus-dependent Roslindale.
Not all are driven
...by immediate or economic self-interest. I'd tread lightly on your assumptions.
I don't often ride the bus, almost never from FH station. Doesn't mean I don't have empathy for those who do.
MassDOT sent this out today as part of a reminder about night work this weekend:
"Next week, the MBTA will move in temporary shelters so riders will have a place out of the elements to wait after the old canopy is removed"
I live nearby too
I live nearby too. Woodbourne. And while I'm happy that about the overpass going away and all the new amenities for the area, I'm unhappy that Hyde Park Ave gets all the crap to solve everyone else's problems. We get ugly infrastructure, more MBTA bus noise and lights, all the school bus traffic. Nothing for MassDOT or the WAG to be proud of there.
And the BRA completely dropped the ball on bringing the goals of the Forest Hills improvement Initiative to the table during these discussions. Remember that? The MBTA parking lots were supposed to be developed. Hard to do with a cantilevered busway covering much of the lot.
Because a road is going where
Because a road is going where the 39 is now. Do none of you look at project documents?
Personally it's way more convenient for me to have the 39 moved to the rest of the busses, since now I won't have to even enter the station when transferring, but yeah, keep looking for failure instead of actual information.
So are they going to be
So are they going to be replacing this with anything else? I know the busway as a whole is getting moved further from the station, but will there be any kind of cover in between the station and the busway or... ?
new flat roof coming
I believe the new upper busway will have a new flat roof covering the passenger waiting areas rather that the pyramidal roof there now. I don't know for sure if there will be temporary shelter provided (other than inside the station).
A flat roof?
Sounds cheap and ugly -- and could be a big problem if we get lots and lots of snow again.
A construction project not a transportation project
There are times when I wonder if all transportation projects have as their raison d'être providing work and employment instead of transportation. Work for construction companies, employment for construction crews or folks who manage to get a sinecure at the T.
This morning at DTX there were 4 T staff on the platform. Two by the closed entrance. Niether doing anything and one actually sitting on a chair biding her time. At the other end was the person who waves the flashlight (tough job but someone has to do it.) The other just standing around.
Then there are the T staff at Back Bay whose job apparently is to yell at people with bikes but make no other contribution.
If only the transportation agencies (subways and buses, commuter rail and cabs) actually made transportation the reason for their existence getting around Boston might not be the journey through Hell it usually is.
But here is a money making opportunity for sign makers whom the T could employ: place above each subway entrance and before each commuter platform a sign reading the famous words of Dante: "Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch'intrate" (we're in Boston, we can do Latin). Underneath in English: "Abandon all hope, ye who enter here."