I’m very excited to be living here, next to the coming redevelopment of 30 of the most valuable and connected acres of real estate in the whole country. I will be fighting hard for more city. https://www.cambridgeday.com/2024/08/08/mbta-looks-for-private-developer-to-take-on-aging-alewife-garage-and-the-acres-around-it/
@bikepedantic Commuter rail...does that mean they could use the lines they built halfway to Arlington and get the commuter rail going up Route 2?
@rednikki no, i think this refers to longstanding chatter about putting a stop on the Fitchburg line just west of where it goes under Alewife Brook Parkway. But i could be wrong!
@bikepedantic Kinda hoping they don't build themselves into a corner in a way that would preclude extending the red line. (Though I suppose that's planning for a future that'd probably never happen)
It'll be nice to get more people on the red line at Alewife, though, no matter what they do.
@wordshaper @bikepedantic they need to run the red line out to Burlington mall. Pick up route 3 and 128 traffic, turn all that flat parking there into a garage. If Arlington and Lexington don't want stations, don't argue, just run underneath.
@dr2chase @bikepedantic If they ran the red line along Rt3 to the Burlington Mall that would be amazing. Let people park there, where there's good access to 128, and shuttle them in at reasonably high speed since there wouldn't be too many places at all you'd want to stop between the mall and alewife.
@wordshaper @dr2chase according to this advocacy page, there's already an existing stub tunnel going out of the station to Thorndike Field, which development shouldn't change, and would allow something along/under Minuteman ROW to arlington center and beyond (mass ave? rt 3 to Burlington?) https://extendtheredline.org/
@bikepedantic @dr2chase Oh, nice! Yeah, absolutely, they should cost this out. TBH they should just run the damn thing under Rt 3 and the next time they need to rebuild 3 (which they will at some point) they should use the lane shutdown opportunity to cut'n'cover a rail tunnel under it.
Are they the ones that cleared that scrub area to... put in a parking lot? For some reason???
@bikepedantic shit-ton of housing, put the ramp from route 2 up on piers with extra lanes for buses and carpools, shit-ton of solar on the roof to charge all the e-cars....
@bikepedantic Assembly Row is 45 acres, so that has to be a model, which will then spur the redevelopment of the adjacent strip malls and light industrial
@chrisbegley @bikepedantic Assembly is better than the Seaport, but we should do even better than either
@DemonHusky @chrisbegley @bikepedantic Assembly isn't even done yet, so I'm definitely looking forward to more changes, but what did get built could have been better
@DemonHusky @chrisbegley @bikepedantic I look forward to retiring in Assembly Row 🤣
@inliuofjoan @DemonHusky @bikepedantic I agree that Assembly isn't great, but if that is the minimum, I think it is decent. The problem I see is that construction costs are so high, you cannot attract cheap stores. But Assembly at least has a bit of variety, and park, and public space.
@inliuofjoan @DemonHusky @bikepedantic hospital, grocery store, and bar.... Everything one needs in their 70's
@chrisbegley @DemonHusky @bikepedantic accessible units and wide sidewalks too!
@inliuofjoan @chrisbegley @DemonHusky almost everything new sucks, because public space and parcels are laid out to modern standards, and of course its all ‘luxury’ (which thankfully depreciates). Seaport is Exhibit A. We can get ‘the bones’ right on some of these mega-redevelopments (like Alewife) and set ourselves up for having real contributing parts to our city’s character
@inliuofjoan @chrisbegley @bikepedantic It's so close and in a way that feels like it can get better pretty easily. The hardest part feels like connecting with the rest of the city.
@chrisbegley @bikepedantic Cambridge Crossing is also 45 acres, and ended up much more pleasant and much less car centric in my opinion.
@crschmidt @bikepedantic a little more central though, and as the Raison d'être for Alewife redevelopment is a new parking garage, going to be hard to banish the car centricity
Hoping it goes a lot better than when Amazon bought next to me