MassDOT proposes straightening Beacon Park interchange

[Pete from Boston]

Now that CSX has left the Beacon Park yard in Allston, there's talk of straightening out the Mass Pike's bend around it.

http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2014/04/09/highway-project-holds-promise-for-revamped-region/2lCX89t55FWnHWSxmZe2xM/story.html

A couple of fact questions regarding this article:

First, (not really a question) the Grand Junction may be lightly used, but it's certainly not "disused."  It's the MBTA's only connection between its north and south side commuter systems.

Second, am I wrong or didn't Harvard buy this land from the Turnpike Authority rather than CSX?  I think the Mass Pike bought the whole inside-128 corridor from the New York Central then leased back the part the railroad used.  I recall that Matt Amorello, then MTA chairman, rejected the pleas of people in and out of state government to not surrender this strategically valuable real estate to the region's largest tax-free development company for some short-term cash.

[PHLBOS]

Flickr photo showing a color-keyed overlay w/mock BGS'

Upshoot (from the Flickr graphic):

1.  It appears that the re-aligned/relocated Storrow Drive & Soldiers Field Road corridors will piggyback w/I-90.  Love the BGS' along the new Soldiers Field Road w/Exit numbers (1 through 3) lol.

2.  Toll plazas/gantries appear to be eliminated from this reconfigured interchange (a good thing IMHO).

3.  The relocated Storrow Drive/Soldiers Field Road corridors will likely not have the same low clearance overpass issues that the current corridors have.  The Western Ave. overpass over the current Soldiers Field Road was where a 42-passenger bus (12' clearance) carrying high school students from Bucks County PA slammed into over a year ago injuring several passengers.  The existing/relocated Soldiers Field Road tie-in point appears to be north/west of the existing 10' high Western Ave. overpass.

4.  The exits off I-90 are marked as 19A-B & 20; what happened to Exit 18?  It probably won't matter, by the time this interchange is constructed; I-90 will likely already have mile-marker based exit numbers (130A-B-C for this interchange) implemented along it.

OTOH, the graphic shown in Boston Globe (from the OP's link) shows a more simpler ramp arrangement w/no relocation of Storrow Drive nor Soldiers Field Road.  It only shows direct connections to Cambridge St.

Either option would be an improvement to what's out there now.

[SidS1045]

Toll plazas/gantries appear to be eliminated from this reconfigured interchange (a good thing IMHO).

Since the project is slated to begin in 2017, that is well beyond the date by which MassDOT will supposedly have converted the entire Pike to ORT.  However, the original diagram of the ORT gantry locations showed one in Brighton and one in Allston and the diagram makes it impossible to tell exactly where those two will be.

[Alps]

If there's a toll on either or both of the ramps in the Flickr photo, I see it as a non-starter. Storrow to Soldier Field has to remain untolled.

[vdeane]

I think I found exit 18: https://www.flickr.com/photos/47771788@N05/13586555594/in/photostream/

[PHLBOS]

I think I found exit 18: https://www.flickr.com/photos/47771788@N05/13586555594/in/photostream/

Good find.

That said, I honestly believe that the Flickr diagrams w/the relocated Soldiers Field Road/Storrow Drive and Pike-Piggyback as well as the connections w/Greenough Blvd. (was this where the I-695/Inner Belt would've crossed the Pike?) looks to be more of a fantasy pipe-dream.

The graphic from the Boston Globe that only shows simple connections w/Cambridge St. & U-turn ramp w/the I-90 realignment looks to be the more believable alteration.