The Evolution of Boston's Central Artery Greenway

The Evolution of Boston’s Central Artery Greenway

Rebecca Laree McKevitz Independent Study Summer 2014 Boston, Massachusetts

This report is a compilation of findings regarding the conception, design process and final implementation of Boston’s Central Artery Greenway. The research was focused on analyzing and understanding the factors that influenced how these parks were designed and more importantly, the unique circumstances that led to some complications in the final implementation phases of this project. In order to fully understand the intricacies of the final greenway project, it was important to acquire a good understanding of the history of this project and the issues leading the city of Boston to engineer and build one of the most complex and inventive urban mega-projects to date. Through the process of removing an above-ground highway and replacing it with an underground tunnel, the city of Boston created new land in one of our country’s oldest and most historic cities. This report was formulated in order to both understand the landscape architecture elements involved in this large-scale urban planning and design project, and also to convey an appreciation of the importance and value of landscape architecture elements in urban settings.

In 2008, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, in concert with numerous Federal and state agencies, completed the Central Artery/Tunnel (CA/T) Project. This transportation project, sometimes called the Big Dig, was conceived and designed in response to severe traffic congestion, high incidents of accidents on I-93 (the Artery) in the downtown Boston area, and the need to provide better access to Logan Airport and points north from the downtown area.

Prior to the project, the Artery consisted of an elevated two-level, six-lane highway with associated entrance and exit ramps. The Artery cut through the downtown area, with its roughly 50 foot height and 140 foot width cutting portions of the city off from other areas and the waterfront. The CA/T project replaced the Artery with a below-grade, 8 to 10 lane highway and included several other elements):

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The Ted Williams Tunnel to the Boston Logan airport

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A new Charles River Crossing called the Zakim Bridge Creation of 22 development parcels on the Central Artery 1

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Creation of new open space along the Charles River, in East Boston, and on Spectacle Island Creation of the Rose Kennedy Greenway The Big Dig did something spectacular in addition to improving transportation flow

throughout the city of Boston; it created new land in the center of a bustling metropolis. While the CA/T project is largely considered a transportation improvement project, the project's crowning achievement may very well be The Rose Kennedy Greenway, a 1.5 mile long park that tops the depressed Artery; a 25 acre park built in the middle of Boston on the equivalent of newly created land. The addition of new public green space that reconnects and transforms one of our nation’s most historic cities is a truly unique and notable accomplishment. The creation of this land and the development of the site into park space could be considered the most important part of the CA/T project, even though it is the smallest portion physically and financially. This paper seeks to explain how the Greenway came about and its evolution over the course of the CA/T project and beyond. Specifically, several factors including the public process, financial constraints, the design process, and technical constraints led to changes in the landscaped area.

Figure 1: Boston circa 1923, including the original elevated highway.

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History of the Central Artery

The city of Boston, one of our country’s oldest cities, is a lively New England city that

includes impressive architecture, a gorgeous waterfront, and many notable landmarks. In 1959 the original Central Artery opened, which consisted of an elevated interstate that comfortably carried about 75,000 vehicles a day. By the early 1990s, Boston had grown exponentially and the Central Artery was forced to carry “upwards of 200,000 making it one of the most congested highways in the United States” (MASSDOT). The elevated highway was soon known to Bostonians by nicknames such as the “Highway in the Sky” and “The Other Green Monster”.

(Greiman, XVII) This massive six-lane elevated highway was designed to, “speed traffic through the city, unclog city streets” and improve the overall circulation of Boston’s roadway system.

What planners didn’t realize during this process was that this colossal steel structure was creating a barrier through the city that created what seemed like a permanent divide through downtown and separated Bostonians from their historic waterfront and harbor (Aloisi, 6).

The most disappointing part of the original elevated highway project was that The Artery split the city apart and damaged Boston’s historic core but it “did not even serve its intended purpose of easing traffic congestion” (Aloisi, 8). The poor design of The Artery included “thirtyfour on and off ramps- ramps that collectively took up more space than the artery itself and created the unintended effect of forcing more traffic onto the elevated highway than it could bear”(Aloisi, 8). As the city of Boston continued to grow and more and more cars were traveling along the elevated roadway, traffic became unbearable and soon Boston’s Central Artery became one of the most crowded roadways in the country and what was designed to handle 75,000 vehicles per day was carrying around 200,000 (McNichol, 24).

Debates about widening the roadway began almost immediately after the completion of the original Central Artery. Both

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Figure 2: Boston’s original Central Artery was not only an eyesore, but created a barricade between Bostonian’s and their waterfront.

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the idea to widen the existing highway horizontally and the option to add another level on top of the already elevated roadway, creating what would be an extremely unsafe 80-foot eyesore, seemed unrealistic and would only dismantle neighborhoods that had already been ruined throughout the original Central Artery construction (McNichol, 28). In order to combat the problems that were caused by the original above-ground roadway, a plan came about to remove the portion of the roadway that went through downtown Boston, and replace it with an underground tunnel. As envisioned, the sinking of the Central Artery into the ground would remove the eyesore from downtown, and improve the traffic congestion that was still proving to be an issue.

Public Process

When it comes to urban Mega-Projects like Boston’s CA/T project, there are many

stakeholders that are concerned about the success of the project, although typically with varying goals and interests. The obvious players in these types of projects are federal, state and city agencies who together have a pretty large stake in the project, but the other powerful force behind public projects like the CA/T, is the public themselves. The public is comprised of public agencies, certain federal, state and city agencies, political figures, and of course, concerned individuals. Because so many people and organizations are involved in the public process, it can have a dramatic impact on the course of the project as a whole.

Once funding was acquired, the next step was to begin feasibility studies and cost estimation research. In 1985, two years before the funding was approved for the project, Fred Salvucci, the civil engineer who came up with the idea to move the interstate underground, was “already searching for the strongest team of engineers and managers in the world” and “after assessing the demands of the Big Dig against the available skills, talents, and construction experiences of the various bureaucracies in the Commonwealth, Salvucci decided to use both public and private manpower” (McNichol 41). The Massachusetts Department of Public Works took the lead and was in charge of overseeing a private management team who would “coordinate, direct, schedule and review design and construction activities” throughout the 4

project. The Massachusetts Department of Public Works also prepared and published the Draft Environmental Impact Report, which was meant to inform governmental agencies and the public of a project's environmental impacts, both positive and negative.

The City of Boston and the Boston public had a huge impact on the decision to implement urban green space on top of the newly sunken interstate. In order to offset the cost overruns of the CA/T, Massachusetts Department of Transportation originally proposed to sell the air rights to the space, which would lead to the creation of new development in downtown Boston. The City of Boston then counter proposed a new residential development and the addition of pocket parks but ultimately the public did not want to see new development which could further strain the new transportation infrastructure. In addition, mitigation to offset the environmental impacts of the CA/T project was requested by several factions and the creation of parkland was identified by the public and agencies as the most desirable measure.

The first step in the public process is identifying the need for the project. The original central artery was plagued with congestion from the day it was opened and only got worse as Boston’s population exploded and soon there was more traffic on I-93 than on New York City’s West Side Highway and “the accident rate for the

Figure 3: Urban Planner Alex Krieger originally proposed to build upon the space created through removing the Central Artery Highway. This image shows a detailed figure-ground of that proposal.

elevated highway was four times the national average for urban interstates” (McNichol 28). In 1987, Senate voted through the transportation bill that allowed the Big Dig the federal funding it needed to get started.

Maybe the most representative document of the impacts that the public can have on a project is the Certificate of the Secretary of Environmental Affairs. This document is a 5

culmination of comments made by agencies and the public in which the Secretary of Environmental Affairs responds with suggestions for how to best deal with these concerns. This document has a huge impact on the project and often changes many aspects of the construction and design plans.

On August 29th, 1990, the Massachusetts Executive Office of Environmental Affairs published this document for the Big Dig project and commented that the Draft Environmental Incident Report “generated a significant amount of public comment” and that “this kind of public scrutiny, questioning, and even second-guessing or downright disagreement, is precisely what the environmental review process is intended to elicit”(Draft Environmental Impact Report). This process allows the public the opportunity for input on how public projects should be designed and carried out. The other way in which this document is valuable is so that project managers, civil engineers and other designers can ensure that they are making decisions based on the public’s goals and they can demonstrate that the final built project did, in fact, respond to the values and concerns stated by the public.

Because the certification was written for the entirety of the Big Dig project, there is a lot of content related to the construction methods, mitigation and infrastructure related to the relocation of the interstate. Further into the document were several points related to the 27 newly created acres on top of the roadway. To summarize, the Secretary of Environmental Affairs wrote “In the main, I am supportive of the overall concepts of the project to help relieve traffic congestion. The development of this project also affords Boston with the unprecedented opportunities to improve the human environmental experience in New England’s largest urban area and one of the nation’s key historical seaport cities. The resolution of a number of vital concerns within this public environmental review process is critical to the implementation of not only the transportation improvements, but to the long range quality of life for our citizens”(Draft Environmental Impact Report).

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The certificate goes on to discuss the specific plans for the current greenway space, but up until this document there had been much debate about how exactly this space would be developed. Many individuals and organizations showed support for building upon this prime downtown land, but according to the certificate, the strong suggestion of the Secretary of Environmental Affairs called for urban green space. There were a few specific requests that were published in the certificate including 75% of the land be maintained as publically accessible open space, continuous pedestrian/bicyclist paths along the entire length of the corridor, limiting surface streets to no more than three lanes wide, and the development of a Winter Garden for the Massachusetts Horticultural Society.

Financial Constraints Financial constraints in terms of budget overruns, unfulfilled fundraising which eliminated elements, and ongoing maintenance and upkeep also affected the outcome of the Rose Kennedy Greenway.

Budget Overruns The original budget of $2.5 Billion for the CA/T project turned out to cost closer to $14.8 Billion, almost six times the planned cost. The huge cost overruns that occurred during the CA/T project include an inaccurate original cost estimation, technical complexities, environmental concerns, conflicting opinions from the community and other interested parties, and the sheer size and scope of the overall CA/T project. Fryer writes that, “the federal government was initially supposed to pay 90 percent of the Big Dig's tab, but as the project's costs grew, Congress eventually capped its contribution, forcing Massachusetts to pick up the rest of the tab� (Fryer, 1). Due to the nature of the CA/T project, the planning, designing, and implementation of Landscape Architecture elements came very late in the project. Although the original Environmental Impact Report that was written by the Massachusetts Department of Public Works in 1990 proposed the idea of adding public green space to the surface of the central artery, when it came time to implement this design idea, the overall project was significantly 7

over budget and the park space remained to be built, making it a target for budget reductions.

Within the original master plan for the Central Artery Parks, it was planned that financing would come exclusively from the Massachusetts Department of Transportation (MDOT) as a part of the overall CA/T budget, but as the project’s expenses were growing exponentially, planners, politicians and Bostonians alike began to wonder who was going to make this promised park a reality.

In the end, the construction of the greenway was financed from a multitude of sources, but the simply put, in order to implement the greenway, 50% of funds would come from public sources and the other half would need to be raised through private funding. When the Greenway Conservancy was established it was

Figure 4: The North End Parks are some of the most successful parks on the Greenway. Not only is the design comfortable, it is also functional. These parks act as a front yard for Boston’s residential North End district.

“charged with the responsibility to raise $20 million in endowment and other funds by the end of 2007” (Greenway Conservancy) and after meeting this goal, the remaining funding came from the Massachusetts Department of Transportation.

Missing Attractions There is no question that the instillation of the Rose Kennedy Greenway is a huge improvement from the previous ‘Highway in the Sky’ and provides a huge asset to the city of Boston. Unfortunately, there is still some confusion and disappointment associated with the current state of the parks and what was originally promised to Bostonians. When the project was originally planned, there were many attractions that were suggested to be included across the greenway including a history museum, an arts and culture center, and a YMCA facility. Most often spoken of is the “Garden Under Glass” that was supposed to be sponsored by the Massachusetts Horticulture Society. Unfortunately, MassHort, a non-governmental, non-profit agency was not able to raise enough money to bring this plan to fruition. Even though the 8

greenway offers Boston residents countless amenities including a venue for sunrise yoga and evening jazz concerts along with weekday food trucks and weekend farmers markets, the lack of attractions has caused criticism.

Maintenance and Upkeep Over the past two years, there has been much concern about the continued funding of the Greenway and how exactly it is going to be sustained indefinitely into the future. The Greenway is taken care of by the Greenway Conservancy which is a non-profit organization that “maintains, programs, and improves the Greenway on behalf of the public and in partnership with the Commonwealth of Massachusetts” (Greenway Conservancy). Currently, the greenway leases its land from the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority and “continues to raise money to support daily and seasonal park maintenance, special events and performances, and educational programs for students, families, and life-long learners” (Greenway Conservancy).

As of now, the Greenway Conservancy is leasing the land from MDOT, who also happens to be the Conservancy’s single biggest funder, but due to the fact that this agency is “understandably strapped with its own transportation priorities and looking for every dime”, the Rose Kennedy Greenway Conservancy has been asked to “produce a business plan that demonstrates the group’s ability to operate the Greenway without state cash by 2018”.

Unfortunately, it is looking as if the Conservancy won’t be able to renew their lease unless they can come up with a plan to operate without any state funding (Boston Globe).

According to CommonWealth Magazine, if the Conservancy agrees to these demands, they “would financially gut the Conservancy…and force the nonprofit to rely entirely on private fundraising efforts that have never hit the levels the group would need to survive on its own” (CommonWealth). The bigger question though, is why the Greenway needs to be self-sufficient in the first place? The Boston Globe points out that many of Boston’s other public parks rely on public funding. For example, neither The Esplanade, which is operated by the State's Department of Conservation and Recreation, nor the Boston Common and Commonwealth Mall, which are 9

operated by the Boston Parks Department, are privately funded. The Greenway is a public park and therefore has a responsibility to organize itself in a way that serves Bostonian’s and visitors alike.

Design Process

Boston’s CA/T project was imagined, planned, and built over a span of more than 30

years , with the design of the Rose Kennedy Greenway coming toward the later end of the project. The design ideas behind the Rose Kennedy Greenway are “the product of nearly two decades of debate and design about what to do with the swath of land opened up by the Big Dig” (ABC). In 1990, The Massachusetts Environmental Policy Act declared that 75% of the space created above the Central Artery tunnels was to be kept open, but the precise boundaries of the corridor and what constitutes open space were never fully defined. Currently, the greenway consists of 15 parcels that are divided up into five distinct districts.

Multiple Districts, Multiple Designers

Each of the five districts was designed by a different Landscape Architecture firm, or

team of firms. Halverson Design Partnership oversaw the entire design process and formulated the overall Master Plan for the project. Just like the financing of the greenway evolved over time, so did the design guidelines of the greenway parks. When taking a look at Halverson’s original Master Plan and comparing to the current state of the parks, it is clear that the overall design was scaled back due to financial constraints and that there are some missing elements throughout the parks.

While walking from one end of the greenway to the other, the differences in design from one district to the next are very apparent and raise some questions about the original design goals and guidelines. It is also important to understand what kind of client these Landscape Architecture firms were designing for in order to better comprehend design concepts and decisions. (Figure 5) 10

Figure 5

Due to the fact that there were many levels of clients associated with the greenway design process, landscape architects were dealing with pressures from many different sources and were assigned the task of appeasing them all. Both federal and state government officials had say in the designing of the Greenway and had a completely different vision for the parks than some of the other clients. Parsons Brinkerhoff, the planning and engineering firm that oversaw the entire CA/T project, was in charge of setting strategic objectives for the project as well as extracting a profit. Halverson Design Partnership was heavily invested in designing the parks and was responsible for keeping the project on schedule and within budget as well as managing risk and safety, while also ensuring quality of design. And most importantly, the public, who were to be the main users of the space had their own ideas of what they wanted in their new urban park. With these three differing views of what this site should be, Halverson put together a master plan for all five districts which were then divided up and assigned to other Landscape Architecture firms for their final designs.

Technical Constraints

The project that was originally expected to be completed by 1998 was not finished until

2006, largely due to difficult construction conditions and never before utilized construction techniques. The concept of building a “giant roof deck� on top of an interstate tunnel was a new idea that came with new challenges. The most obvious and important technical constraint associated with the greenway was building an urban green space on top of complex infrastructure. The highway tunnel below meant that there were not only weight limits to consider during the design process, but also utility lines to avoid during the construction process.

Another interesting aspect of building a park on top of transportation infrastructure is the lack of soil designers and builders had to work with. According to Laura Janinski at the Rose Kennedy Greenway Conservancy, the soil depth in some areas of the park is as shallow as six inches. Chinatown is an especially good example of how designers overcame constraints like this.

In order to establish vegetation in the Chinatown Park, raised planters were built in order to allow for soil depth and more ideal conditions for the species planted there.

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One challenge that is continually being worked on is beautifying the parcels that include highway ramps that provide access to the roadway beneath. These parcels are still being developed as they must function safely and properly, and ideas for how to improve the aesthetics of these unique parcels are still being adjusted and enhanced.

Evolution and Future of the Greenway

The addition of the Rose Kennedy Greenway to downtown Boston has greatly enhanced

the urban landscape, and the future of the greenway looks promising. Over the past six years, Bostonians have gradually embraced their greenway and are beginning to appreciate the contemporary urban park space and all of the flexibility and variety offered by this amenity. The most recent addition to the greenway is the long awaited Greenway Carousel, which opened just about a year ago and has been a hit ever since. This attraction is just one of many that are planned for the greenway in the near future.

According to Laura Jasinski, a project manager at the Rose Kennedy Greenway Conservancy, the original plans for the park called for the space to be much more broken up by buildings that were planned for the greenway. The addition of a museum, YMCA facility and the greenhouse, the greenway would not have been as unified. Currently, the very open plan for the park leaves space for flexible programming. With the recent restructuring of the programming on the greenway, the park is being better utilized with over three hundred public programs in the park each year. Because of the relatively uninterrupted greenway parcels and the improved organization of programming, the park has a large diversity of functions and caters to the needs of all its users, and in turn, the people of Boston are starting to show their support for the greenway (Jasinski)

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Conclusion As discussed above, the Central Artery Project resulted in the Rose Kennedy Greenway, which went through a significant evolution as it was planned, designed and built. It is also important to examine the factors that led to these changes in the park through the course of the design and implementation. Fortunately, even though the Greenway was not part of the original scheme, it was identified as necessary mitigation through the public process and is now being embraced and utilized by many Bostonians.

The main downfall of the CA/T project was the massive cost overruns. Impressively, the Greenway park survived budget constraints but not without some major cutbacks. The original design for the park was scaled back substantially because outside entities could not deliver on proposed elements due to fundraising constraints. Unfortunately, this meant that many of the exciting amenities promised to Bostonians were not implemented which, in many cases, was confusing and disappointing. Other outside entities, like private businesses nearby and the Artery Business Committee, were then called upon to fund the parks implementation and maintenance.

The design of the parks was begun after construction of the transportation project was underway. A number of factors affected the final design of the Greenway, including financial and technical constraints as well as government processes and public opinions. Four firms undertook the design of different sections of the Greenway and focused on designing the parcels to respond to the characteristics and desires of each adjacent neighborhood or district of downtown.

Halverson Design Partnership oversaw the design and construction of the landscaped parks and even though there were not strict design guidelines written, most of the parks seem to be very successful in that they are being used. Though the design may not necessarily be trendsetting or innovative, the most interesting aspect of the Greenway design is that it has been responsive to the public and is still continuing to evolve. This relatively new green space continues to be a work in progress and is focused on providing a space for Bostonians to spend time learning, exploring 13

and embracing their city. Even though the Greenway parks have been criticized as being underwhelming, the Greenway could be seen as successful based upon its great utilization.

Boston’s “Big Dig” will be known as a legendary urban megaproject that pushed the limits of modern engineering, construction and urban planning. The impressive infrastructure that was built during the project improved much more than just Boston’s age old traffic problems; it transformed the urban landscape of one of our country’s oldest and most historic seaport cities.

Even with all of the challenges associated with this project, the final result remains successful and sets a precedent for future traffic projects across the country. The most innovative aspect of the CA/T project is that through the process of shifting the interstate from the street surface to an underground tunnel, 15 acres of new land was created in downtown Boston. The development of this land into public green space was a fitting design decision for the urban fabric of Boston, and the Rose Kennedy Greenway continues to prove itself to be the crown jewel of the Big Dig project, and an invaluable asset to the entire city of Boston.

Figure 5: Boston’s Central Artery before and after the Big Dig Project. The CA/T project proved to improve the traffic congestion in the city but more importantly beautified the city through the creation of new urban green space.

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