Boston Warning or Danger Tips by zChris

After over 20 years of planning and 11 years of construction, the Central Artery/Third Harbour Tunnel Project, or Big Dig, is finally coming to an end. Federal, state, and local tax dollars contributed to the $15 billion project, the aim of which was multifold: the extension of the Massachusetts Turnpike (Interstate 90) via a harbour tunnel (the Ted Williams), to the airport, the expansion of the vehicular capacity of the Central Artery (Interstate 93), and the latter highway's submergence underground. Since opening in the 1950s, the elevated Central Artery has been an urban scar dividing Boston and blighting some of its most desirable central areas. The long awaited finale, the old artery's demolition, is fast approaching, though wrangling over control of the land it will free up on the surface, and what that land will eventually contain, has not yet finished. Most likely, the artery's former footprint will be reconstituted as a chain of parkland weaving through the city centre, a bare minimum of such lands being surrendered to developers.

Nevertheless, perhaps not even the most impressive result can bring relief to the beleaguered Bostonian, who has been trapped by 11 years of delays, detours, and distractions while the Big Dig ensued. Simply stated, there is little of central Boston the project did not touch, few areas that did not suffer the sight of its ubiquitous blue barriers. Perhaps the North End, most of all, has suffered: cut off from the rest of the city for over 50 years, it was even more cruelly and harshly severed when the project transformed the "scar" through the city into a vast hard-hat construction zone. Businesses and residents were forced to endure the noise and stunted pedestrian flow resulting from the activity. Now, however, as the city is being stitched carefully back together, the North End faces the question of whether this urban reunification will bring with it renewed interest in the neighbourhood from savvy realtors and developers.

Leave a Comment

At around 5:00pm, most offices in central Boston discharge their workers and an onslaught begins upon the city's ancient and beleaguered sidewalks which does not cease for at least the following hour. It is rush hour, and particularly in the Financial District around South Station, attempting to walk in a direction opposite that of the masses set upon rapidly reaching the station is a nearly impossible goal. For the skilled Boston pedestrian, the flood gates of secretaries and file slaves being opened upon Boston's streets may be seen as a welcome challenge, but for the ambling, camera-toting tourist, it is a disconcerting experience. In any case, it is rare anyone visits the exclusively business precincts of Boston, though I highly recommend it, as it contains architectural delights lacked in Wall Street or other North American financial quarters.

Leave a Comment

I just need to reiterate my admonitions not to drive a car into Boston, especially the city centre. Boston is unlike any other city in North America in terms of its physical composition, and the winding, narrow nature of its streets coupled with the heavy congestion endemic of high population densities inevitably result in a nightmarish scenario for anyone used to the grid system of wide streets so prevalent on this continent. The accompanying photo is of heavy gridlock in a neighbourhood commercial district quite a ways from downtown, which was still nerve-wrecking to endure (the photo was taken reflected off my rear-view mirror). Unpredictable events, such as construction or flash flooding (Storrow Drive, one of the city's major highways, is rather low-lying and prone to inundation from the adjacent Charles River) can turn what can typically be a 20-minute joruney into one lasting two hours or more. Many intersections lack any indication of lane delineation, some highways allow for travel on breakdown lanes and road rage is highly proliferous. I urge even the most avid automobile aficionado to abandon their vehicle for the duration of their trip and make extensive use of their own legs or of the public transportation system for safe and rapid transit about the city. Despite whatever nightmarish things some individuals may have to say about the uncleanliness or inefficiency of the public transit system, nine times out of ten it will be a superior conveyance within the city centre to a car or truck.

Parking, of course, is another issue altogether. Having lived in the metropolitan Boston region for six years, I can locate free parking in several peripheral areas around the city centre, but it is impossible to penetrate downtown Boston without having to endure exorbitant parking rates. The most economical (and centrally located) garage is that under Boston Common, but it tends to fill fast even when none of the city's frequent events are taking place.

Leave a Comment

The South End used to be home to many of the city's assorted minority groups- blacks and hispanics especially, before its "rediscovery" in the late 1960s began its gradual transformation into a gentrified district of mainly white professionals. However, many of those who were forced out of the neighbourhood by rising prices return every Sunday to their traditional churches in the neighbourhood, causing a traffic crisis as cars from other city neighbourhoods pile up and pedestrians jam the sidewalks. In the photo you can see cars parked two deep down the centre of one street, begging to invite mayhem. It's just another arcane little traffic situation which continually beguiles Boston and holds it in the grips of tyrranical gridlock.

Leave a Comment