Old Urbanist is one of my favorite urbanist blogs (and not just because of the name), and Charlie’s got a post up about Boston that I think has a good market urbanist lesson in it. He describes how the formerly elevated Central Artery, buried by the Big Dig, was replaced with a park, with nobody seeming to understand that highways’ damaging effects comes from what they demolish – buildings, and lots of them. An excerpt:
With no one able to agree on anything in particular, the environmentalists of the late 1980s stepped in to offer the compelling alternative of nothing, packaged under the name “open space,” and obtained a requirement that 75% of the land above the buried highway be set aside for it. The realization has only recently sunk in that even “nothing” must be paid for, as the conservancy tasked with maintaining the Greenway has now proposed taxing abutting property owners to raise funds, the largesse of Boston’s citizens, already maintaining several very large parks in close proximity, apparently falling short. Thus, land that, under private ownership, might have provided millions of dollars in tax revenue to the city, and hosted thousands of jobs and apartments, has become a money pit.
The missed opportunity is even more tragic given that one of the very few neighborhoods in the United States laid out in truly traditional fashion, the North End, with its narrow winding streets and attractive mid-rise architecture, sits right next to the Greenway. The blank side walls of 19th century townhouses, their adjoining buildings demolished for the Artery in the 1950s, cry out to be extended southwards by new neighbors. The elusive vision is right there, a reality, not a fantasy, yet somehow it escaped the attention of Boston’s elected officials, planners, architects and the public itself.
On the day I visited, the North End was jammed with tourists snapping photos of the streets, students standing in long lines at pizza parlors, and many residents simply going about their daily business by foot. The few on the Greenway were walking briskly either toward the North End or back the other way, and indeed, with such an extraordinary neighborhood so close by, the appeal of lying on a shade-less grass lawn between six lanes of roaring traffic loses any appeal it might have otherwise had.
It reminded me of this great comment by Benjamin Hemric on a post last year, in which he quotes Jane Jacobs on parks in Death and Life (emphasis Benjamin’s):
We can already see that city districts with relatively large amounts of generalized park, like Morningside Heights or Harlem in New York, seldom develop intense community focus on a park and intense love for it, such as the people of Boston’s North End have for their little Prado or the people of Greenwich Village have for Washington Square, or the people of [Philadelphia’s] Rittenhouse Square district have for their park. Greatly loved neighborhood parks benefit from a certain rarity value.
Despite burying the highway, getting from the neighborhood south of North End into North End is not fun. Big, wide open spaces and lots of lanes of traffic. Seems to kind of defeat the purpose of burying the highway, as it still feels segregated.
It seems like it wouldn’t be very expensive to make this right. Junk the 6 lanes of traffic. Sell the park and roads land to developers for North End-ish buildings. “Nothing” is a nice blank slate for building, isn’t it?
I don’t think you can build anything of significance over the highway
tunnels for structural reasons.
I strolled around there last fall. My impression was that it doesn’t do a
good job of re-weaving the long-separated neighborhoods, but it’s better
than the overhead highways. It’s truly tragic.
The ultimate lesson is that the neighborhoods shouldn’t have been destroyed
for highways in the first place. Imagine all those valuable lots had never
been taken off the market, and the city fabric had not been interrupted in
the first place. Would there have been anyone talking of building a $10B
highway tunnel under the city?
The big dig was a multi-billion dollar band-aid for the tragedy of “urban
renewal” and destructive philosophies of planners of past generations.
Ive been wondering what the point of a huge stripe of parkland there was in the first place. The divide created by the freeway is NOT an opportunity to build a huge park, its a tragic divide from the freeway that remains. Ultimately they should redevelop PARTS of it and leave others as park that will actually get used. Huge parks only work in some circumstances. They are not a universal success.
Regardless, if they wanted a wide urban boulevard to replace the freeway, they shouldnt have built the big dig. Give the whole stretch a road diet.
The North End is fairly unique in the US, with its narrow, windy streets. I dont know who the hell decided they should cut a freeway through it. Clearly Jane Jacobs was smarter than all the highway planners after all. If they could develop an adjoining area in the same way, but newly built, that would be amazing.
Ive been wondering what the point of a huge stripe of parkland there was in the first place. The divide created by the freeway is NOT an opportunity to build a huge park, its a tragic divide from the freeway that remains. Ultimately they should redevelop PARTS of it and leave others as park that will actually get used. Huge parks only work in some circumstances. They are not a universal success.
Regardless, if they wanted a wide urban boulevard to replace the freeway, they shouldnt have built the big dig. Give the whole stretch a road diet.
The North End is fairly unique in the US, with its narrow, windy streets. I dont know who the hell decided they should cut a freeway through it. Clearly Jane Jacobs was smarter than all the highway planners after all. If they could develop an adjoining area in the same way, but newly built, that would be amazing.
Well, based upon plans I’ve seen recently for the BQE, $10B is just a start when it comes to planning new highway tunnels under the city – which are indeed still being considered.
Of course, had the BQE not been built, would there have been this conversation/need? Probably, given certain preferences for transport you have to put the road somewhere.
Speaking of Philadelphia, my biggest gripe here is the Benjamin Franklin Parkway. A mile long and six lanes of traffic wide, it’s a very short, hard to navigate highway occupying what should be prime cultural, economic real estate. It’s daunting to drivers and pedestrians alike. And worst of all: you can’t buy a coffee or ice cream or anything without walking blocks out of the way.
Close the east-bound half and lease the land to businesses and make the parkway something other than a Batan Death March between the Franklin Institute and the Art Museum.
Speaking of Philadelphia, my biggest gripe here is the Benjamin Franklin Parkway. A mile long and six lanes of traffic wide, it’s a very short, hard to navigate highway occupying what should be prime cultural, economic real estate. It’s daunting to drivers and pedestrians alike. And worst of all: you can’t buy a coffee or ice cream or anything without walking blocks out of the way.
Close the east-bound half and lease the land to businesses and make the parkway something other than a Batan Death March between the Franklin Institute and the Art Museum.
Yeah, I don’t even like thinking about it because it makes me so upset. I mean, at least with the waterfront people talk about revitalizing it (nevermind that their plans almost always involve enormous amounts of parkspace and minimal private development) – but with the Ben Franklin Parkway, it’s like people have just given up.
(Which I guess you could say about the city as a whole, now that I think about it!)
Thanks for the additional info. I wonder if the big dig was inspired by Park Avenue in NYC? The railroad was buried there long ago. Buildings are on top in a few spots, but mostly it’s roads and a median/”park” just like Boston.
To be honest, I would be very surprised if the Big Dig planners’ sense of history extended back to the railroad age.
Thanks for linking me and for the kind words, Stephen — much appreciated. I’ve been an avid reader here far longer than my own blog’s been in existence!
To respond to MarketUrbanism’s point about the engineering of the tunnel, I believe it is true that most of it is incapable of supporting heavy structures. This was not inherent in the design, however, but was a cost-cutting measure in response to the requirement of the state Secretary of the Environment that 3/4 of the route be open space — based on that figure, much of the roof was designed to support only soil, paving blocks and other park structures. The open space requirement is therefore literally “built-in.”
I don’t think Jacobs got this quite right. Morningside Heights does use Riverside Park extensively. It is not the community center that Washington Square Park is – Morningside Heights already has that in the Columbia campus – but it’s well-patronized when the weather is good. Morningside Park is the main example to look for when thinking of the Big Dig: it’s not very well-patronized because it’s really a barrier between the Heights and Harlem, which was landscaped because the land couldn’t support any other use.
What do you mean, “the land couldn’t support any other use”?
Hah! I visited a friend in Philly who lived very close to that Parkway. Biking home one evening, I was met with the most bizarre traffic chaos– absolute gridlock; people would crowd into the intersections and the lights would go through cycles without any appreciable movement. It was a real pain to cross.
On the flip side, one thing I loved about Philadelphia, as a San Franciscan– all the narrow streets. One thing I found strange: it seemed like there was a decent transit network, but the number of parking garages in the center city seemed excessive (no wonder the traffic!). I read about a major development just south of the 30th St. station, where the government had paid an enormous sum for the construction of a massive parking garage, because a private consortium had promised to build a major tower next to it– but after the garage was built the private developer quit, so now they’re stuck with a useless, government-funded garage.
I was also surprised at the abandoned buildings. The stark reality of urban decline, in a way that wasn’t nearly as apparent anywhere I’ve been in SF. But also signs of hope & change, and very nice old buildings.
Morningside Park is at 45 degrees to the horizontal; the park was built because it was impossible to punch a grid through the terrain. It’s a natural neighborhood edge that was turned into a park. The Big Dig created an edge in the same way, with the decision to make it impossible to develop above the tunnels.