Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick unveiled plans Tuesday to build a $25 million commuter rail stop in Allston, a project that will create jobs and improve accessibility throughout the neighborhood.
West Station, the pedestrian and bike-accessible addition to the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority’s Framingham/Worcester Line, will be built as a facet of the Interstate 90/Massachusetts Turnpike Allston Interchange Improvements project, a plan to “straighten out” and remodel a stretch of the interstate that runs through Allston, Patrick said.
“You all know that’s happening, and it’s real,” he said. “What you don’t know is that a part of that project is creating the new West Station, which will be a multi-modal rail commuter station…so we can get in and out of Boston, back and forth to Worcester and make the very best use of this new space, this new land and the abutting neighborhoods.”
Patrick said renovating the interstate would help ease congestion on the Massachusetts Turnpike and, coupled with the creation of West Station, make transportation through Allston easier.
“You’ve been waiting a long time for us to fix the Pike,” Patrick said. “The straightening out of the Pike is about simplifying the commute, it’s about finally resolving one of the worst off-ramps in America, which we will do, and create some 25 or 50 acres of new developable opportunities.”
Patrick delivered his announcement along with Massachusetts Department of Transportation Secretary Richard Davey, Highway Administrator Frank DePaola, MBTA General Manager Beverly Scott and Boston Mayor Martin Walsh, who said the West Station and Turnpike projects will improve residents’ commutes to and from Allston.
“This is much more than a highway project,” Walsh said. “This project is going to be able to be a connection to the community.”
MassDOT formed a 49-member task force of neighborhood representatives, transportation advocates and other stakeholders to discuss the Interchange project, a Tuesday press release stated. The task force has stressed the need for the project to offer residents several means of transportation through Allston, including highway, transit, bicycle and pedestrian access.
“We’re going to have complete streets here,” Walsh said at the press conference. “We’re going to have bicyclists, we’re going to have walkers, we’re going to have pedestrians, we’re going to have cars, all of them to be able to coexist on roadways that we’re able to do and make safe.”
MassDOT and the MBTA plan to develop part of the commuter rail station and Interstate Interchange project in Allston’s Beacon Park Yard, currently owned by Harvard University. Harvard has partnered with the Commonwealth and City to help fund the project, the release stated.
“The investment made by Harvard, the investment made by the Governor and this commitment to this community really is outstanding,” Walsh said. “It’s legacy making.”
When asked if Boston University would help fund the Interstate Interchange project, Patrick said he had no comment.
The Interchange project aims to reconfigure the Massachusetts Turnpike, which currently curves around Allston, to run in a more direct route, reducing traffic congestion and greenhouse gas emissions on the interstate, according to the release.
“The I-90 Allston Interchange Improvement project is a true testament to the power that thinking about transportation holistically can have,” Davey said in the release. “The development of this project has been a fully collaborative effort, engaging teams from across MassDOT to make the best use of this promising site.”
Following an Environmental Assessment to be released in 2015, the full contract for the interchange project is expected to be awarded in 2017, the release stated.
“I want to thank all the members of the Allston community who worked with the task force through some pretty interesting and colorful meetings, but who brought their best thinking, their best ideas, their creativity, their creative tension to getting a really good plan,” Patrick said. “Now stay at the table everybody, because there’s a lot of work still to do.”
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