THE

URBAN

RING


  
ENVISIONING AN INTERCONNECTED BOSTON

  
BY MICHAEL KEEGAN

  
 

  
George Thrush is the director of Northeastern's architecture program
  and an evangelist. He has come to David Brudnoy's nightly radio talk show
  to proselytize for his pet project: the Urban Ring. For close to an hour,
  Thrush uses aerial photographs, drawings, a keen knowledge of urban history
  and design, and forecasts of the future to try to sell the host on the
  Ring, a complex and ambitious plan to expand public transportation to better
  connect Boston's neighborhoods and its surrounding communities. By the
  end of the program, Brudnoy, a self-described hard sell, is swayed by the
  pitch. "This really is good and I'm intrigued by this," he says.

  
Yet another believer, not counting any listeners who may have nodded
  in agreement as Thrush delivered his compelling yet seemingly obvious proposition.
  But gaining converts to the concept of the Urban Ring has never been a
  problem for Thrush, who calls the plan an inevitable part of Boston's future-one
  that would improve access, spur economic development, and help to unite
  the city from Columbia Point in Dorchester to Logan Airport in East Boston.
  The real challenge for the proponents of the Urban Ring is getting it done.
  Mobilizing the many parties and political entities that will have to collaborate
  in the building of the Ring, or at least sign off, is a monumental task.
  And as Boston proceeds with the $10 billion "Big Dig," the idea
  of another expensive transportation project has received only lukewarm
  interest from Governor William Weld, a key party. Adopting a favorite phrase
  of Weld's, one observer says the Urban Ring "doesn't even appear on
  the governor's radar screen."

  
Yet Thrush and his many fellow proponents march on with their grand
  plans for the betterment of Boston, confident that community, business,
  and political influence, as well as the results of a $1.4 million state
  transportation study just under way, will convince the powers that be of
  the Urban Ring's importance to the region's future. "This is going
  to happen, no question. It's too good of an idea not to happen," says
  Thrush, a tall, youthful-looking assistant professor who readily calls
  himself an idealist. "It has the strength of a great idea so that
  the temporary trepidations expressed by people right now, I think, will
  fall to the power of this idea eventually. The question now is how long
  until these impediments fall."

  
 



  
"Our cities are like people who are approaching 
middle age, and there have been successes and 
failures. But we have to deal with those failures 
and try to make them better. We have to see the 
big picture. And we can't let that escape our view, 
no matter how long it takes." 
George Thrush, Assistant professor of architecture







  
If you've ever traveled on public transportation between Boston's neighborhoods
  or across the Charles River to Cambridge, you have seen the need for the
  Urban Ring. In most instances, making such a trip involves taking one of
  the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority's train lines inbound and
  then switching to another line and taking that outbound to your destination.
  The MBTA's century-old rapid transit system in metropolitan Boston consists
  of four lines radiating outward from downtown, like the spokes of a wheel.
  But the only provision for traveling between or across the spokes is buses,
  most of which are mired in traffic. If you're at Northeastern, for example,
  and you want to get to nearby Boston University, you must travel inbound
  on the Orange Line to either Haymarket or North Station, transfer to the
  Green Line, and take another train outbound to BU. Similarly, if you're
  in the Longwood Medical area and need to go to the Massachusetts Institute
  of Technology, that relatively short distance requires an inbound trip
  on the painfully slow Green Line followed by a train switch and an outbound
  ride on the Red Line. "It's not very practical or convenient for many
  people," says Sarah Hamilton, chief planner for the Longwood Medical
  area. Don't even mention a trip from any part of Boston to Chelsea, Boston's
  immediate neighbor to the northeast. "Bus is the only way and that's
  been a big problem for us," says Guy Santagate, city manager of Chelsea.

  
Thrush's alternative is a tree-lined boulevard with a dedicated bus
  lane. It would begin at Columbia Point, travel through South Bay and the
  South End medical area, pass Ruggles Center, and head into the Longwood
  area and Boston University before crossing the Charles. In Cambridge, the
  route would cruise through MIT and Kendall Square, the Somerville rail
  yards, Sullivan Square, and Assembly Square. It would then cross the Mystic
  River into Everett and Chelsea before heading back into East Boston and
  ending at the airport. "Can you imagine that at five o'clock, while
  everyone else is stuck in traffic, you're in a bus that has a lane all
  to itself?" Thrush asks. "That would be a great way to go."
  Other proponents envision slightly different routes traveled by a light
  railway or a combination of rail and bus. Robert Culver, the treasurer
  of Northeastern and an ardent supporter of the Urban Ring, favors the latter
  construction, but says, "I think the first effort is to simply get
  the definition in place, identifying exactly where the Ring will go."

  
The idea of a transportation ring in metropolitan Boston is far from
  new. As far back as the turn of the century, members of the Boston Society
  of Architects proposed constructing two boulevards that would circle through
  the city's neighborhoods. In the 1970s, the state considered constructing
  the imposing Inner Belt Expressway, a highway that would have carved through
  the inner city, before vehement neighborhood opposition killed it. The
  Urban Ring conception is neighborhood-friendly, relying on a lightly traveled
  ground-level street rather than an elevated highway. It is the latest version
  of an old idea that grows more pressing as Boston's traffic worsens. "We
  have a clogged inner core and people get discouraged and they take their
  cars into Boston, and that's what we want to avoid," says Peter Calcaterra,
  spokesman for the MBTA, which launched a planning study of the Urban Ring
  in December. "We think [the Ring] is a good idea and we want to see
  how best we can do it."

  
 

  
In October 1995, Boston Mayor Thomas Menino and the political leaders
  of five neighboring communities gathered at Bunker Hill Community College
  in Charlestown to sign a compact pledging their support for an urban-area
  circumferential ring. As part of the compact, officials from Boston, Cambridge,
  Somerville, Everett, Chelsea, and Brookline promised to seek out and plan
  for future economic development along the Ring's proposed corridor. No
  plans were announced for the Ring's funding at the gathering, but it did
  send the message that support for the idea extends beyond the minds of
  idealistic urban planners. "The city feels that this is an extremely
  important project," says Richard Garver, deputy director of planning
  and zoning at the Boston Redevelopment Authority (BRA). "As a regional
  transit system, this one is the one that we are focusing on." Santagate,
  the Chelsea city manager, says, "You have to admit that it's a little
  pie-in-the-sky-but it shouldn't be."

  
The need for the project is also being touted by the Urban Ring Working
  Group, a collection of state, city, and business leaders who regularly
  meet to strategize and plan. "The Central Artery project, the Third
  Harbor Tunnel, the proposed North-South rail link, and the Urban Ring,
  these are all important because they're all pieces to a comprehensive transportation
  solution. We need them all," says working group member Hamilton, the
  Longwood area planner. "I think people involved with the Urban Ring
  acknowledge that this is a long-term goal. The important piece now is to
  identify where it's going to go so that you can put aside some rights-of-way."

  
Such advance planning for a project is a complex task, supporters acknowledge,
  as the political landscape changes along with the faces of those charged
  with transportation and economic development. "A lot of these state
  officials are used to studying and executing specific projects with a specific
  start date and a specific completion date," Thrush says. "But
  the Urban Ring is a much more synthetic idea. It synthesizes different
  disciplines and different ways of looking at the city, which makes it harder
  for people who are grounded in transportation to understand. This is a
  project that needs a master plan and all development must incorporate its
  existence. But we have to act now to plan for that."

  
 

  
An aerial view of greater boston reveals bypassed pockets of underdeveloped
  land, near the core of the city and in many cases adjacent to highly developed
  areas. What these areas have in common is a lack of easy accessibility.
  Locations such as Crosstown and Melnea Cass Boulevard in Roxbury, North
  Point in Cambridge, the Boynton rail yards in Somerville, Revere Beach
  Parkway in Everett, and the Chelsea waterfront all show the consequence
  of poor travel lanes. The Urban Ring potentially could transform all these
  areas into prime real estate.

  
"For logistically sensitive businesses, good access and infrastructure
  are very important. Improving those two things in these areas would certainly
  contribute to a stronger foundation for businesses," says Whitney
  Tilson, executive director of the nonprofit Initiative for a Competitive
  Inner City, which recently completed a study of the economic conditions
  of Boston's inner city. To bolster his point, Tilson cites the successes
  of the New Boston Food Market and Newmarket Square, located on the edge
  of the inner city in the South Bay area of Dorchester. "Almost all
  of New England's food-processing cluster-butchers, produce, all types of
  meat, and seafood-are located in these two distinct areas. And they are
  there because most of their big customers are downtown and they need quick,
  easy access to the highways. That speaks to the power of good infrastructure
  and easy access, so if we can extend that access further into these communities,
  I think we can create more logistically sensitive businesses in these communities,"
  Tilson says.

  
Many officials in the communities along the path of the Urban Ring view
  improvements in access as the key to economic development. "We see
  this as an 'if you build it, they will come' scenario," says Todd
  Fontanella, director of transportation and commercial development for the
  city of Somerville. "Not only will improved transportation along the
  Ring better serve our existing residents and businesses, but we're looking
  for it to attract development."

  
Indeed, Boston city officials are convinced that the Ring would not
  only lure new development, but would also bolster the expansion of current
  sites of economic growth. "There are certain areas where the economic
  development activity is already there: the South End medical area, Longwood,
  Northeastern. But if that growth is going to continue, then it's important
  to enhance the transit access," says Garver, the BRA official. "Then
  there's the other areas, like Melnea Cass Boulevard, where there is less
  going on and where a clear investment in infrastructure will create a new
  sense of the potential of that district."

  

  
In this proposal, incorporation of Roxbury's Melnea Cass 
Boulevard into the Urban Ring-signified by a tower marking 
the route-could boost the area's economic development and 
turn the corridor into the gateway to Roxbury.

  
 

  
Not everyone agrees, however, that transportation and economic development
  necessarily go hand in hand. MBTA officials caution that their planning
  study of the Urban Ring will explore only the transit needs of the affected
  communities. "This study is about transportation, not whether or not
  it generates economic development," says the MBTA's Calcaterra. "It's
  a very tricky thing to assume that if you build it, they will come. Transportation
  is not the tail that wags the development dog. It has to be the other way
  around. You have to decide that somebody is going to build something and
  then you ask the question how to get people in and out of there."

  
But supporters believe state officials should take a broader view of
  the Urban Ring's potential before making a decision on whether to pursue
  the project. "I don't know that [state officials] did a demand study
  for Route 128 when they built it," says architect David Lee, a partner
  at the Boston firm of Stull & Lee. "I think that if this system
  was adequately promoted and run well and well-designed, we would get the
  ridership."

  
 

  
Lee's support of the urban ring centers on another aspect of its promise.
  Beyond improved community development, he and others say, the Ring brings
  the potential of improved community. A prominent African American architect
  and former president of the Boston Society of Architects, Lee has long
  been frustrated by Boston's reputation and reality as a city divided racially
  and ethnically. "The fact is that we still are plagued with the perception
  that this is a community in which the various races and ethnic groups can't
  get along," he says. "I think the situation is much better than
  it was, but it still has a long way to go."

  
He became one of the primary architects of the Urban Ring back in 1992,
  after riots had erupted in Los Angeles following the Rodney King verdict.
  Although the case was about police brutality, Lee saw the larger problem
  as a lack of access in the inner city, where residents are often cut off
  from jobs, education, and other opportunities. As a result, he has relentlessly
  pushed for the Urban Ring as a way to create access in inner Boston and
  minimize the barriers that exist between neighborhoods. "The idea
  of breaking down these sorts of isolated wedges of groups and getting people
  at least on the same trains, working in the same places might be a meaningful
  way to bring the city closer together," he says. He cites as an example
  the South Bay Shopping Center, situated just off the Southeast Expressway
  in Dorchester and a short bus ride from South Boston, Roxbury, Mattapan,
  and the South End. "Everyone has looked at it as neutral turf,"
  he says. "People from all these different neighborhoods are coming
  here and at least being civil in that particular environment, and those
  stores are the best-performing stores in their chains throughout the state
  and, in some cases, in the country. That's very promising for this city."

  
Northeastern's Culver similarly sees the Ring as a catalyst for positively
  altering Boston's geopolitical landscape. "Would it allow for Boston
  to become much more of a melting pot as opposed to what is always cutely
  defined as a tribal environment? Yes," he says. "There would
  be crossing of neighborhood lines that would be much more easily done,
  both socially and economically, and it may result in politicians even looking
  at politics differently, with people being able to share issues in ways
  they haven't before."

  
 

  
A story on the urban ring in the october 29, 1995, issue of the Boston
  Sunday Globe noted that "the MBTA is about to launch a two-year, $5.1
  million study" of the proposal. The study did begin, but more than
  a year later, and it's expected to last sixteen months at a price tag of
  $1.4 million. That delay and downgrading, Thrush and others contend, underscores
  policy-makers' attitudes toward the project. "The problem is that
  state officials have not yet been persuaded that this is something that
  we need to pursue, and I think the reason for that is that they perceive
  it to be a big-ticket expenditure item," Thrush says.

  
MBTA officials deny that they're dragging their feet. "The proof
  is in the pudding and in the million-plus dollars that we put into this
  study," Calcaterra says. "This is a planning study. This is how
  we've gone about things for twenty years. No matter what I say, there are
  people who refuse to see the facts." But the fact is that the Urban
  Ring is bound to be expensive. That's a difficult pill for politicians
  to swallow in this age of tight transportation funds, particularly when
  the Central Artery/Third Harbor Tunnel project-the Big Dig-is already claiming
  billions of federal dollars. Observers say there is a reluctance on Beacon
  Hill to ask for money to cover another Boston megaproject.

  
But that's the wrong way to view the Urban Ring, Thrush says. "Thinking
  about it in terms of cost analysis, like it's a single thing, is what's
  thwarting some of the people in government from supporting it right now,"
  he says. "You just can't think of it in that way." Instead, the
  Ring is likely to be built in phases, each of which should be able to stand
  on its own merits. "I think the most likely outcome is not one common
  system, but rather a series of different pieces which are appropriate to
  the density and usage along the corridor," agrees the BRA's Garver.

  
For that reason, solid estimates of the eventual cost of building an
  Urban Ring are hard to come by. Indeed, one of the main purposes of the
  MBTA study is to quantify the various options. One thing is certain: the
  light rail system that some people dream about would cost hundreds of millions
  of dollars. A surface road, covering all or part of the circuit, would
  be far less expensive, in part because portions of the route were cleared
  in preparation for the ill-fated Inner Belt, Lee says.

  
Whatever the eventual cost, a project of this magnitude requires political
  leadership. That bodes poorly for the immediate future of the Urban Ring,
  says one observer who asked to not be identified. "Until a governor
  gets enthusiastic about it-and I don't think this one is-it's going to
  be a tough thing to sell," he says.

  
Proponents of the Urban Ring are nevertheless confident that the growing
  ground swell of support for the project eventually will be felt in the
  state's highest office. The Ring's effect on greater Boston, they say,
  goes beyond cost-benefit analyses of traffic flows or even economic development.
  "And that's why it did not start out in a state office or in the offices
  of some regional planner. This started from community people and people
  in the institutions around here. It's about their real needs," says
  Northeastern's Culver. "It's far more complex than either the Big
  Dig or the Orange Line's move to the Southwest Corridor. Those were simply
  the upgrading of worn-out transportation lines. This is different. This
  will redefine how we travel around Boston, and it will challenge certain
  ways in which we have related to each other."

  
George Thrush understands the political difficulties, the financial
  cost, and the long horizon that the Urban Ring obligates. He is undeterred.
  "My favorite quotation is from a great architect and designer from
  Chicago in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century named Daniel
  Burnham, who said, 'Make no small plans for they lack the power to move
  men's souls.' I know things are different now than they were back then.
  We are not fresh, young cities. There's no clean slates," he says.
  "Our cities are like people who are approaching middle age, and there
  have been successes and failures. But we have to deal with those failures
  and try to make them better. We have to see the big picture. And we can't
  let that escape our view, no matter how long it takes."

  
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