Seaport to get new freight road, park

another park is always nice, still seems as though castle island and the surrounds have a glut of green space.

I just hope they plant a Starbucks right in the middle of it.

the border of the Seaport, as defined by the city, extends south as far as East and West Second Streets.

I can see First St, but Second St seems like a stretch if you ask me.

Well, there is no such neighborhood/section called the Seaport.

There is the South Boston Waterfront, which is a section/neighborhood/area within South Boston.

Only in the new Boston would the Seaport not be considered the Seaport.

The McCallen building and the condos across from Broadway Station are advertised as being in the Seaport. It's the realtors who suck the fools from New York into thinking they are buying into something. In reality they are furthest from the Seaport.

yes, I'd consider that the Seaport. Owned by Massport, adjacent to water, part of the Port of Boston, patrolled by the State Police, etc. It's a marketing term for sure, but so is anything where you have real estate people trying to split hairs between property values.

Hey that being said lucky you if you live on East First St. finally!

It's tucked in the back along the Channel. Will run from Conley Terminal (which is expanding westward on some of the empty space along the Channel) and meet Summer roughly diagonal to the intersection with Power House Rd. MBTA owned the land because their long-demolished Southie power plant was on the Channel side of E. 1st. Will divert the Conley trucks so the only city streets they have to go on is Summer St. bridge-proper. And then there's supposed to be some reconfiguration of the Pumphouse Rd./Summer intersection done separately so the trucks can diagonal onto Massport Haul Rd. without tying up traffic right in front of BCEC. Though I don't know how exactly, and think there's some land acquisition to do on that block too.

They've been aiming for this for awhile. That's one of the reasons why that speed-trap monstrosity of a 4-lane bridge was built 15 years ago despite Summer mashing down to 2 lanes when it does get to the neighborhood. They had this truck diversion in mind back then. Should open up some new development opportunities on a few of those crap parcels facing E. 1st since the road subdivides them into nice rectangular plots and filling them in is what makes the trucks truly out of sight/sound/smell for the neighborhood. Should be a very good thing for the residents, the traffic, and T buses with the truck route overlap slashed back to the barest minimum at only the bridge-proper.

I *think* the new road allows for a very small reservation strip to the side for laying down a single RR track in the future should they want to build a parallel bridge across the Channel immediately adjacent to the Summer St. bridge and send a freight rail spur off Track 61 to Conley. But that might have been from an outdated plan. Conley hasn't had rail access since all that paved-over street-running track on E. 1st was abandoned eons ago. Right now Massport's only planning to send renewed freight rail access to Marine Terminal. Then cover the bases by segmenting the container traffic headed for rail to Marine T. while Conley handles the truck-only transloads. If the little RR track-sized grass strip is still in the design it's just as reserved space for unanticipated needs decades in the future.

Road's not going to be of any use as a semi-dedicated Silver Line reservation like the new Eastie Haul Road is for the Silver Line Chelsea route. Too short because of the terminal's westward expansion and just dumps into the new side entrance on the expansion wing. Simply getting trucks off E. 1st and the most over-capacity parts of Summer is where transit gets its indirect gains in the deal.

The road will run from the Conley Terminal through what was MBTA property and intersect with L/Summer Street just before the bridge. Traffic along there in the evening rush hour is already bad (and also mornings going into the city from the south) so it will only be worse with a traffic light (assuming) that will be installed there to allow the trucks to turn on/off Summer Street.... the road will pass through the former power plant property and involves building a bridge over a section of the Reserve Channel there. I don't have the cost for this at hand but it is a huge sum of $$ to move the freight traffic off East First Street.

Here's a map:

https://www.massport.com/media/228632/Conley-Terminal-DFC-and-Buffer-Ope...

Speaking of the Olympics, is this the precursor to moving those businesses out to the seaport?