12/29/2003: 
Urban Archaeology
Save Our Industrial Heritage!
or, Goodbye El
from boston.com
The elevated Green Line along Causeway Street in front of the FleetCenter -- Boston's last half-mile of elevated subway tracks --is set to come down before the Democratic National Convention in July, but it could result in massive disruption in the area through the spring and inconvenience Green Line riders for at least a year.
When finished, the $325 million Green Line relocation project will whisk passengers on trolleys from Haymarket to a new combined Orange-and-Green-linesNorth Station stop, through a new tunnel that goes under the FleetCenter and back up to an existing stone viaduct on the other side of the arena, near Leverett Circle by the Museum of Science.
The Green Line will be shut down for a year while the new route is hooked up, a process made more complicated by Big Dig demolition and construction in the area. That means riders will need to ride buses from Haymarket to Lechmere, starting in March.
With no trolleys operating in that stretch, the elevated tracks, which opened in 1912, the same year as Fenway Park, can be dismantled. The Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority aims to have the battered steel structure torn down and carted away well before the convention, which is set for the last week of July.
For more see Lightrail.com
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Elevated T project at arena debatedBy Anthony Flint, Globe Staff, 12/28/2003
The elevated Green Line along Causeway Street in front of the FleetCenter -- Boston's last half-mile of elevated subway tracks --is set to come down before the Democratic National Convention in July, but it could result in massive disruption in the area through the spring and inconvenience Green Line riders for at least a year.
When finished, the $325 million Green Line relocation project will whisk passengers on trolleys from Haymarket to a new combined Orange-and-Green-linesNorth Station stop, through a new tunnel that goes under the FleetCenter and back up to an existing stone viaduct on the other side of the arena, near Leverett Circle by the Museum of Science.
The Green Line will be shut down for a year while the new route is hooked up, a process made more complicated by Big Dig demolition and construction in the area. That means riders will need to ride buses from Haymarket to Lechmere, starting in March.
With no trolleys operating in that stretch, the elevated tracks, which opened in 1912, the same year as Fenway Park, can be dismantled. The Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority aims to have the battered steel structure torn down and carted away well before the convention, which is set for the last week of July.
Michael Mulhern, general manager of the MBTA, said the project, which began in 1990, will ultimately improve rider convenience by giving commuters from North Station and crowds from events at the FleetCenter access to both the Orange and Green lines in one new underground station, at the corner of Causeway and Canal streets. The Green Line's relocation will also provide an aesthetic payoff not unlike the removal of the Central Artery, he said.
"It will be beautiful," he said on a recent tour of the project, which has gone virtually unnoticed beside the headline-grabbing Big Dig just a few feet away. "It will open up all kinds of sightlines. Today you can stand here and don't know how close you are to the North End. It will open up all kinds of development potential."
Residents and merchants are not so sure. First, there will be the shutdown of train service right in the heart of the Causeway Street district beginning in March. Second, the noisy and disruptive demolition of the elevated tracks will be followed by more restrictions imposed during the Democratic convention.
"When this building opened in 1997, we were told the Green Line would be gone in two years," said Jane Forrestall, who can see the elevated tracks just below the window of her ninth-floor apartment in West End Place. "So in respect to the noise and dirt, we are very anxious for this to go away. The demolition is going to be another concern, because we are concerned about debris."
The manager at Sullivan's Tap on Canal Street, who would identify himself only as Al, said yesterday that his business and most of the businesses in the area will be affected when the Green Line track at North Station comes down. "Commuters want to be able to stop in," he said. "It's a concern for the whole area."
That T riders must weather a year of inconvenience before enjoying the promised new era of subterranean convenience also does not sit well with transit advocacy groups.
"This is an unfortunate pattern in the T thinking that it's acceptable to completely shut down lines," said Seth Kaplan, senior attorney at the Conservation Law Foundation, reacting to the plan to put riders on buses between Haymarket and Lechmere. "Look at the gymnastics the Big Dig went through, so as not to close things. It's a striking contrast. When we're building roads, we take incredible steps, but when we're building transit, we have lower ambitions."
Mulhern said it was not possible to finish the Green Line relocation project any other way. The trolleys need to be off the elevated tracks so that the new tracks can rise up out of a tunnel behind the FleetCenter and join with the existing stone viaduct before Science Park, he said. That connection had to be choreographed with Big Dig work in the area.
The Green Line relocation was planned mostly to join the Orange and Green lines in one underground station, and also as an urban redevelopment project, Mulhern said. The elevated tracks were deteriorating and would have had to be replaced if they were not torn down, he said. Design and construction began in 1990. The tunnel under the FleetCenter, which widens to allow space for the storage of Green Line trolleys, has been done since 1995, the year the arena opened.
The final result will be worth it, Kaplan said, because a well-designed underground pedestrian tunnel linking North Station and the Orange-and-Green-lines "superstation" will allow commuters to access the subway without having to be outside in bad weather or cross Causeway Street. By making it easy to get from commuter rail to the subway, he said, "you build ridership on both."
The new route will also be more efficient if the T builds a planned extension of the Green Line from Lechmere, now the end of the line, to West Medford.
The demolition of the rattling, looming elevated Green Line -- as familiar a part of the urban landscape as Fenway Park or Downtown Crossing, especially for Bruins and Celtics fans making their way to the Boston Garden and now the FleetCenter -- will mark the end of an era for Boston.
The shadow-casting tracks, which currently rise above ground alongside Canal Street, turn down Causeway Street in front of the FleetCenter and the Thomas P. O'Neill Federal Building, and then turn again down Martha Road to Leverett Circle, are the last significant structures of their kind in the city. The elevated Orange Line down Washington Street and the Atlantic Avenue elevated line, which ran from South Station to the Charlestown Bridge and beyond, were torn down decades ago.
Since the Tremont Street subway opened more than a century ago, public and private entities in Boston have built a mix of elevated and underground subways, similar to New York. The elevated tracks were never as extensive as in Chicago, but were necessary in the area of the FleetCenter because of soggy soil that made tunneling difficult, said Bradley H. Clarke, president of the Boston Street Railway Association, a nonprofit educational group.
Causeway Street is at the top edge of an upside-down triangle formed by North Washington and Merrimac streets, known as the Bulfinch Triangle, that in Colonial days was the Mill Pond. Change has been a constant in the neighborhood. The turn-of-the-century flatiron buildings south of Causeway survived urban renewal in the West End in the 1960s, while the old North Station and Boston Garden gave way to the FleetCenter and the O'Neill building.
There was never a grass-roots campaign to tear down the elevated tracks along Causeway Street, Clarke said. Merchants bemoaned the demolition of the elevated Orange Line down Washington Street, he said, because the lack of transit sucked the life out of the boulevard.
Causeway Street will be transformed by the removal of the elevated Green Line tracks as well as the elevated Central Artery nearby, said Mulhern. Demolition of that structure has already begun after traffic was moved into the new southbound Interstate 93 tunnel last weekend.
MBTA officials concede that the upcoming year will be difficult for the Causeway Street area and will mean a disrupted routine for many riders.
They point out that even if the project was finished sooner, it could not be used during the Democratic National Convention. The new tunnel goes underneath the floor of the FleetCenter, where candidates and dignitaries will be speaking. The Secret Service will not allow uninspected trains to take that kind of route directly underneath the venue.
Boston is awaiting word on how much of the entire FleetCenter/North Station area can be used for routine transportation operations during the convention. The MBTA wants commuter trains to stop at an extended platform a safe distance away from the building, but security officials may require all commuter rail to stop further away, requiring commuters to board buses.
It is not known whether the new North Station "superstation" will fall within the arena's security perimeter, but one possible plan is for Orange Line trains to pass through without stopping. Green Line passengers will already be on buses, from Haymarket to Science Park and Lechmere.
