An economic success story by many measures, the growth of Boston’s Seaport District has the potential to become a cautionary transportation tale.
Tensions between competing interests including motorists, pedestrians, cyclists and commercial haulers are likely to intensify as former parking lots give way to office towers, luxury high-rises and retail stores in the next few years.
The South Boston Waterfront Sustainable Transportation Plan, released in late January, contains a wide range of recommendations designed to head off future gridlock. The wish list includes reopening the South Boston haul road to general traffic, tying the Seaport into an expanding commuter ferry network and upgrading the capacity of the MBTA Silver Line.
The final report by VHB Inc. followed a year-long public process that included state and municipal agencies, consultants, business groups and Boston-based nonprofit A Better City.
Headlining the immediate actions recommended within six months:
Expand use of the Bypass Road to all vehicles from Richards Street to West Service Road full-time and from I-93 to Richards Street eastbound during the morning rush hour.
Allow all vehicles to use the northbound HOV lane from I-93 to the Ted Williams Tunnel.
Speed up the Silver Line by giving it signal priority at the D Street intersection and add real-time arrival information for passengers.
Install new Hubway bike sharing stations at Thomson Place, the Gillette Co. and Channel Center.
Consolidate corporate shuttle bus services along A Street.
“The challenging news is we need investments from the transportation standpoint to make sure the next wave of growth can be accommodated,” said Richard Dimino, CEO of A Better City and a contributor to this newspaper. “The Silver Line’s going to have to step up in a much bigger way than it has in the past to get it going at capacity.”
The Silver Line dedicated busway is the neighborhood’s primary mass transit service, although employers such as State Street Corp. have added private shuttle buses to deliver their workforces from MBTA stops to new office buildings. The report estimates that commutes to the waterfront by all transportation modes will increase 63 percent by 2035, with walking accounting for a third of the trips during peak hours. But transit commutes are projected to grow an additional 64 percent over the same period.
That would overwhelm the capacity of the Silver Line, and the study looks to water transportation to pick up some of the slack. It expands the scope of a planned city-sponsored ferry service from East Boston to the Seaport, adding a ferry from North Station to the Fan Pier. It also endorses additional bus routes from North Station to the waterfront, using Congress and Merrimac streets as a “bus rapid transit corridor.”
Longer-term enhancements to the Silver Line would include adding at least 60 new vehicles and shortening wait times at stations to 45 seconds, extending the Silver Line tunnel underneath D Street and possible construction of a new Silver Line Way station.
Next Boom: Residents And Retail
Office towers have been the predominant form of development in the district over the past decade. More than six million square feet of office and lab space is now occupied by companies paying some of the highest rents in the city including law firms, investment companies and the Vertex Pharmaceuticals headquarters. The Boston Convention and Exhibition Center, which opened in 2004, draws millions of visitors to trade shows annually, and the facility’s footprint will double with a 1.3-million-square-foot expansion scheduled to open in 2019. All told, an estimated 17 million square feet of new development is projected in the next two decades.
But future growth will have a heavier housing component, adding an estimated 5,000 units and the first significant retail development to serve that growing 24-7 population. Two residential complexes – the 369-unit 100 Pier 4 apartments and the 109-unit Twenty Two Liberty condos on the Fan Pier – will open this year. The 346-unit Watermark Seaport high-rise is scheduled for completion in 2016. And ground was broken in November on One Seaport Square, which will contain 832 apartments owned by Boston-based Berkshire Group built above 250,000 square feet of retail space. The complex has an estimated completion date of 2017.
John B. Hynes III, CEO of Seaport Square master developer Boston Global Investors, disputes the perception that development of the Fan Pier and other properties in recent years is to blame for increased congestion on surface roads in the district. The new projects replaced surface parking lots that were heavily used by thousands of suburban commuters, Hynes noted.
“The missing ingredient that no one wants to talk about is there are basically zero problems with the local streets,” Hynes said. “When you see Seaport Boulevard get backed up at 4 in the afternoon, that problem is not specific to the Seaport. It’s caused by what’s going on in the (I-93) tunnel.”
Still, there’s no disputing that the full buildout of Seaport Square will have a game-changing effect on the neighborhood, with up to 6.3 million square feet of commercial and residential space covering 20 city blocks. So will the convention center expansion approved by the state Legislature last year and a related project adding two BCEC headquarters hotels. As the population grows, internal trips within the district are projected to increase from the current 15 percent to 35 percent over the next two decades.
The report recommends various projects to improve pedestrian connections along main roads and side streets, a public- or privately-sponsored “waterfront connector” ferry with stops between North Station and the Marine Industrial park, and new bike connections.
Agencies responsible for the plan’s implementation include the city, the MBTA and MassDOT. The report does not include cost estimates, but the report also says public-private partnerships will be sought to pay for some of the projects.
“A number of these projects are looking for capital and we’ve got to work hard to figure that out,” Dimino said.
Email: sadams@thewarrengroup.com
