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Love-locks fence on Mass. Ave. would disappear under plan for new towers
By adamg on Wed, 10/26/2016 - 9:06am
The Globe reports developers are eying air rights over the Massachusetts Turnpike in the area of Mass. Ave. and Boylston Street for new residential towers.
Among the things that would have to go: The fence onto which people attach locks to show their love for another.
The proposal is the latest for turnpike air rights. Developer John Rosenthal told the BRA last week he really is going to start building his $580-million Fenway Center, which will include buildings over the turnpike. Another group of developers is looking at reviving the dead Columbus Center plan over the turnpike near Back Bay station.
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Comments
Let's Break It Down.
Hundreds of Thousands of dollars a year in tax revenue, construction jobs, post construction jobs, housing (you know housing!) or a lock symbolizing your 14 week long sophomore year of college relationship with somebody that will break your heart.
Bye Bye Fence.
Mass. Ave. over the Pike isn't the most romantic of spots either, with the Eau Du MBTA Station mixing with the diesel from the buses and trucks. Pont Des Arts here is more Pont Des Ewww.
Your relationship will survive and people will have jobs and shelter.
New Lock Fence
Can be on Columbus Ave bridge over the PIke.
Great
The Green and Orange Lines and the #1 bus, as well as all the nearby roads, are more than ready to handle the new passengers
Part of this project is a new
Part of this project is a new bus shelter for Mass Ave and a completely new and fully accessible Hynes station for the Green Line.
I don't remember seeing it anywhere...
...and I'm too lazy to look in this moment, but there is a tunnel running under mass ave to the bus shelter on the opposite side from the entrance to Hynes, any idea if they plan on including that in the renovated station? I know they're talking about opening the Boylston entrance to the green line as part of this.
Yes
The closed tunnel will be opened for the Parcel 12 project:
And the Viola (Parcel 13) has plans to both shift the current Hynes entrance to the right (along with ADA compliance):
And reopen the Boylston St. entrance:
Great
Somewhere nice and clean to stand while waiting for a bus or train that isn't packed to the gills
Other projects are redoing
Other projects are redoing Hynes and Back Bay station. Along with the new Orange Line rolling stock (that includes a net additional amount of new sets for much improved headways), capacity, speed, and reliability on the Orange Line should increase dramatically. The ADA inprovements at Hynes plus the completion of the ongoing completely rebuild/overhauls of the Type-7 Kinki cars should also help there.
So, I agree - isn't it great that the MBTA and private developers are working together to ensure that the Orange Line/etc are up to snuff when all of these new building come on line in the next 4+ years ?
to be honest...
I've seen a good number of locks removed as of late anyway
Sad
Must be a delayed reaction to gay marriage or something.
Actually
Most locks are on the north side of the mass Ave bridge. That will be taken out by the Peebles project : https://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2015/01/05/developer-selected-for-m...
This project would cover the south side (there the lonely looking 1 bus stop is today) and a separate parcel over the other side of Boylston near Bukowskis tavern and Hynes. (Diagram at bottom of adam's linked Globe article).
Either way the lock fence is going.
n/s?
The bridge runs N/S. The locks are on the East and West sides.
Not perfectly N/S, though
so it's just as accurate to say north side as it is to say east side.
Pedantic response begets pedantic retort.
No.
Because I had to go to a map to see what was the north or south side. it's shifted by about five degrees from a n/s axis. And I'm on that bridge nearly every day. There is no conception of it having a north and south side. It makes zero sense to refer to it that way. Clear communication is important.
Wow.
The Mass Pike runs East/West. Mass Ave runs NNW/SSE. Technically the fence is ENE but it's far more eastward than northward. It is also on the due-east run of the Pike. It's very hard to find support for the idea that that fence is "north" given that you can watch the sunrise from it.
Turnpike Air Rights money...
1. How much money is directly associated with the air rights?
2. To whom does the money go?
3. What public good will be achieved with that money? Improvements for highway drivers? Improvements for Green Line and 1/CT1/55 bus routes? Improvements for peds and cyclists? Improvements for surface road motorists?
I never really understood the
I never really understood the locks anyway. People do the ones in France because they can toss the key into the Seine and symbolize their love being eternal, right? Are people chucking the keys onto the pike or what?
Most seem to be combo locks...
Aw..
Well there goes my Freshman flings...
Good
People should keep their litter to themselves.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/part-of-paris-bridge-coll...
Love locks and Developments
I think it is obvious no one is crying or saying the fence should stay. I'm actually pretty happy that the air rights will be used and that Hynes station will be redone as it is long overdue (it looks almost exactly the same as it did when I started college in the 90s.
I do wish the buildings were lower density or designed in such a way that the view would be preserved, and maybe set back from the sidewalk.
As for the love locks...I know it s a little sappy / lame (there are a bunch on the St Marys bridge behind BU) but I will tell you a story:
When my daughter was about four, she asked me why there were locks on the fence. She then asked if we could buy one and write our initials on them (my wife and I, and our two kids) and hang it there with the others as a sort of 'I'll love you forever' sort of thing. We did, and we used permeant marker and nail polish, then locked it with the key and walked down to the mass ave bridge and tossed it in the Charles (Sorry fishes and hippies)
A few months ago we noticed that most of the locks had been removed, including ours. She was sad, and wants to put a lock back.
It is sort of a sweet gesture - yes it goes overboard like in Paris, but I think it adds a certain character. it isn't always just the two semester long relationship you have, sometimes it is just simple sweetness. It isn't vandalism in the same way painting or tagging is.
The original lock
I recall that years before this trendy "love lock" thing ever became a thing I used to walk by that fence and there was one lonely lock there. Throughout the 80s, maybe before. Not really paying attention, it never occurred to me that it was there for any other reason than locking something. Then I noticed it wasn't locking anything, it was just there. I was kind of curious, but not overly so. Whoever put that lock there was way ahead of the curve.
Shouldn't all locks going on
Shouldn't all locks going on an overpass be TSA approved?