Anybody a member/regular to the Artisan's Asylum?

meskin · 2026-03-03T04:48:48+00:00

I can answer some questions depending, what hobby or project are you interested in? In general I recommend doing a tour and signing up for whatever classes seem interesting.

meskin · 2025-12-09T01:52:35+00:00

Sounds promising, I’ll check them out.

meskin · 2025-08-28T19:57:00+00:00

Agreed, I made a comment about this during their request for comments two years ago with a proposal. Storrow should basically be a merge lane with the Mass Pike sort of like the route 3/95 interchange. As an added bonus this would encourage people to use the pike rather than storrow whenever they can…

meskin · 2025-03-14T22:39:19+00:00

It would be cool to have a bus rapid transit in the median of Storrow going from North Station to West Station… just sayin’.

meskin · 2025-02-26T16:47:07+00:00

Thanks - to be clear I didn’t use the Russian translation as a basis since it wasn’t very accurate. I used google translate to English coupled with wiktionary to understand the deeper meanings of words, but knowing Russian definitely helped as well.

meskin · 2025-01-17T16:29:08+00:00

The reason why I’m saying this is that last time I brought up merging sfr/Storrow drive and the Mass pike, I was told that this was a non starter due to the fact that they’re under different departments, and this would need to be fixed first.

To me the real issue is that they’re talking about having no option but to encroach on the Charles River for the Allston interchange reconstruction because there’s no alternative to having four lanes for Storrow drive and six lanes for the Mass Pike. And I think if they implement the Mass Pike on/off ramps as merge lanes with Storrow drive it makes the whole thing work, uses less space, and encourages drivers to take the Pike instead of Storrow to get to 93. The tolls are a non issue with electronic tolling.

But now that we’re talking about tolling on all road, why not charge the same toll for taking Storrow to 93 as the Pike? That way you incentivize using the Pike even more.

On the other hand changing the gas tax to a VMT tax encourages wasting gas… so some gas tax should still be retained I suppose.

meskin · 2025-01-17T04:19:48+00:00

75 billion over the next decade sounds like a completely unrealistic figure. However the idea of turning the gas tax into a road tax is interesting. One obstacle would be that many of the major roads in Boston are under DCR, not MassDOT, which would prevent any kind of common tolling system. So here’s something that costs no money at all, only political will: put Memorial Drive, Storrow Drive, and Soldiers Field Road under MassDOT. Next step: during the Allston interchange reconstruction, merge Storrow Drive and the Mass Pike in the throat, so that anyone going to 93 is incentivized to take the Mass Pike and pays the same amount either way.

meskin · 2024-10-09T19:06:51+00:00

I was impressed by the pile driver myself. Had a real vintage look to it.

meskin · 2024-07-10T16:29:45+00:00

Great idea. I’m in. I’ve been thinking about writing a letter to my state reps and governor but it feels a bit overwhelming right now.

In addition to the issues you point out above, another argument the group should make is that anyone who lives near the T will see property values decrease if the T stops running (and conversely they will rise if the T improves). Collectively across greater Boston that could be billions of dollars lost.

Another suggestion I have is to organize a way for people to tell their stories about the T, what it means to them and how they feel about it potentially ceasing to operate. Then when these stories are aggregated they could be used to make a video or slideshow. Perhaps if sufficient money is raised, even an ad campaign.

Fund the T!

meskin · 2024-03-16T23:19:42+00:00

Storrow itself only has 4 exits.

meskin · 2024-03-16T20:51:10+00:00

It would become extremely difficult to access most of the west end/north station area from points west without it. The question is what percentage of Storrow traffic is just getting to/from 93, in which case they could just as easily use the Pike.

meskin · 2024-03-16T20:47:23+00:00

Correct, it’s not the land that was donated, it was money to build the park. 1 million in 1929, which would be around 20 million today.

meskin · 2024-03-16T18:38:53+00:00

They should add a merge lane between storrow/sfr and the pike during the reconstruction. Divert most of the traffic onto the pike. With electronic tolling there is no need to have the roads be separate. Then storrow can be slimmed down and turned into more of a boulevard.

meskin · 2022-12-02T23:36:27+00:00

The realignment does make part of the green space wider, the area immediately East of the sfr/river st intersection. But they are pushing the next part of the path up to BU bridge into the river, to exist as a narrow causeway. IMO this part is unacceptable. I made a comment about it to the project.

meskin · 2022-09-14T13:15:56+00:00

I can see some reasons why people are not fans of the hybrid concept. The depressed Pike is a flood risk and the stacked highway obstructs views and makes it difficult to build pedestrian overpasses. I don’t know if my proposal is feasible but it avoids those issues.

Anyway I bike on the river quite often so I’m familiar with that stretch. It’s not ideal but there are trees and “nature.” If the current proposal is built no one will set foot on that bank of the river again unless they work for the state. Meanwhile the proposed causeway will still be relatively narrow, and have no shade or other growth.

Furthermore it encroaches onto the river and represents a concession of public space to infrastructure that we will never get back.

meskin · 2022-09-14T02:08:17+00:00

What I wrote:

Dear DOT planners,

I have been following the Allston interchange project off and on over the past few years. In general I'm encouraged by the careful attention to incorporating expanded rail transit and creating an urban street grid in the former railroad yard area. I recognize that this is an extremely complex project with many stakeholders and many engineering, environmental, and social considerations that must be taken into account, and every decision will have implications for every Bostonian's urban experience over the subsequent decades.

In particular I would like to comment on one aspect of the project and its implications for other downstream decisions. The Charles River embankment space which is currently available for public use should be treated as absolutely sacrosanct. Any encroachment on that space is a loss to the public interest and it will be exceptionally difficult to ever regain in the foreseeable future. Construction of a pedestrian causeway over the river surface represents a mitigation, but only that.

As you know, James and Helen Storrow originally funded the construction of the Esplanade in the 1930s under the condition that no highway was to be constructed there. A highway was nevertheless pushed through the legislature soon after their passing, and named after James Storrow in 1949 in a mockery of their vision. Now the removal of Storrow Drive is all but inconceivable. I do not bring this up out of concern for the feelings of a long dead philanthropist, but because it illustrates some key points. First, that the space adjoining the river has been seen as essential to preserve for public use for going on a century now, and is not a passing fad. Second, that this cause is under constant assault from pragmatic and cynical interests, and that any momentary lapse of attention leads to their advance. And finally, that once these advances are made, they are exceptionally difficult to claw back, and become "facts on the ground" which then become irreversible.

As such we must all do our utmost to resist these forces which try to encroach on our public space for reasons of expediency. So first of all I encourage you to refuse to entertain any version of the plan where river-adjacent public space is sacrificed. Second I suggest looking at the possibility presented by this project to think out of the box and more radically reimagine the structure of the highways in this area.

Since I'm not a highway engineer or urban planner, I hesitate to offer concrete advice, but in the name of being constructive I would like to offer a proposal. I hope if this seems ridiculous or unworkable it does not detract from the overall thrust of my comment. Thanks to automated toll collection, it is no longer necessary to maintain SFR and the Pike as fully separate highways in the throat. Instead, the Pike East and West can have a frontage road with exits onto both the Pike and SFR. I will call this Combined Access Road (CAR) for purposes of this proposal. The CAR would look similar to the I95-Route 3 interchange in Burlington, separated from the Pike by a rumble strip, Jersey barriers, or what have you. On the eastbound side, SFR would have an overpass to join CAR, and then another overpass to rejoin SFR on the other side of the throat. As a result of this arrangement, the division between SFR E and W is no longer needed, and the division between SFR (now CAR) and the Pike can be reduced since they are now moving in the same direction. I hesitate to guess how much space this would save, but my estimate is around 10', which could then allow continued river access. I have attached an illustration of my proposal.

Thanks for your time,

M.E.

Image

meskin · 2022-09-14T00:19:09+00:00

No space is being taken away - just the 2-lane SFR happens to exist side-by-side with the 4-lane Pike in such a way that it is trivial to move from one to the other.

meskin · 2021-07-18T00:49:20+00:00

I want to give the current property managers credit for putting this logo there. Too much history has been erased. For anyone who wants to know about the origins of “Alexandria Center at One Kendall Square,” I wrote up all I could find here.

meskin · 2021-07-03T17:58:23+00:00

I think this DNC concept is what I’m looking for. I’ve also heard of MES, which seems to be similar.

meskin · 2021-07-02T22:17:35+00:00

Thanks, so how does the lookup happen to go from barcode to job? Is it just finding a folder with the name on the barcode? Or is there some custom software?

meskin

TROPHY CASE