I guess this looks to me like 2021 > 1969, unless I’m missing something?

The 1969 expressway is awful.

Edit: Big dig was probably not the best solution but it is a bit better than previous, it seems to me

Huge mistake not building the inner belt and southwest expressway

Yes I agree

also should have built something that connected north and south stations

Yes, imagine not having highways to transport thousands into the city everyday to work.

What West End?

Yeah, Roxbury didn’t really need to exist anyways (/s in case it wasn’t clear)

Yeah. Real awful that there’s no highway there to improve access and raise home values. Not sure I need the /s. 😉

Big dig was the perfect opportunity to connect north and south stations. Even if they didn’t have the stomach for a tram, a dedicated bus lane from north to south through the seaport to the airport would have been great.

Highways have helped Boston. Can you elaborate on your thoughts process regarding this?

I dislike the destruction and cultural environment caused by them

Highways have helped Boston

[citation needed]

In Boston and many other cities, neighborhoods were demolished for "urban renewal" and highways cut through them. The highways take up valuable space, make transportation infrastructure more car-dependent, and segregated neighbors along class and racial lines. Yes, 2021 > 1969, but we're still living with the repercussions of the choices our forefathers made 50+ years ago, and we need to make better choices now for the next 50 years.

Unfortunately I think the Big Dig was the best solution

You have no idea what you’re talking about. The 93 tunnel essentially goes in at north station and out at south station, it was the perfect opportunity. That’s no where near Roxbury, it would have just been another tunnel under Downtown and North End

Unfortunately I think the Big Dig was the best solution OFFERED at the time

​

If this was put forward today, I am confident there would be better solutions.

This all just looks like one big clusterfuck to me.

Indeed. That’s what I referred to above with the expressway.

Why so hostile? It literally would’ve: https://www.leventhalmap.org/articles/visualizing-change-in-boston-activism-over-time/ I think you’re thinking of the southEAST expressway aka the O’Neill tunnel aka 93. The unbuilt SouthWEST expressway already damaged Roxbury - Melnea Cass is a remnant of the start of that planned but unfinished highway

It's funny, I think of the old Central Artery elevated and I remember:

"Kneeland St. CLOSED" When was it ever open?

Getting to Logan Airport was awful since you had to take the Callahan Tunnel to get there on 93.

Legit my bad, thought your comment was in response to a north/south station connection.

Apologies, have a great evening!

I have not actually driven in Boston much since the big dig, so I don’t have much personal knowledge of the difference. But from a driving perspective as well as a walking perspective the Expressway was hell, from my memory. Especially going to the airport.

Love Storrow Drive though. Maybe screws up the riverfront but a driving dream.

Just like London

Boston between 1969 and 1972 was the inspiration behind a pretty interesting, though likely now somewhat forgotten book on ecology, anthropology, architecture, and urban development called Placeways: A Theory of the Human Environment by the (late?) E.V. Walter

Guess where the black neighborhood was? Hint, it’s government center plaza

Like what? Put more buildings in? The greenway is at least park like verse more buildings.

The elevated highway probably gets a little too much blame for this one. Much of it was just centered on postwar urban renewal policies

I more amazed someone was able to get a picture like that in 1939!

Mike Dukakis had a great idea :)

It will destroy Cambridge and Boston had both projects went through. Which will create a near bronx like level urban decay in the 70s to mid 90s in surrounding areas, plus, crime. At least the state should've improved existing roads, ramps and interchanges after canceling all highways on 128 and inside as well

[deleted]

Ngl I can’t make any sense of this image

Damn...imagine living in that Boston today, bet it'd be more fun

Just MGH and a few apartment buildings now

like a train??

It was one guy with one of those old-timey cameras and a really tall set of stilts.

I don’t see any hurt depicted in these images. Can you elaborate on what is shown here?

Those poor country club folks from duxbury might have to get on a… train 😱

Or Paris

Greatest decision Massachusetts ever made to cancel that project.

Literally an entire neighborhood was razed, large swaths of the city are stuck next endless pollution/noise/ugly road ways, And this led to far too much car traffic inside the city

How to tell someone lives in the suburbs in 10 seconds or less

Helped so much that the state had to undertake the most expensive infrastructure project ever in the US because it was actually helping too much.

The highways are what led to white flight and urban decay in Boston and elsewhere

That entire area north of beacon hill needs to be re demolished and completely redone. What a travesty

Lol - I’m not from the suburbs. I’m all the way in rural. I had no idea there were neighborhoods in the top picture.

It amazes me that anyone could say that the inner belt should have been built. It was so bad that it wasn’t even built during the peak of white flight and highway construction

So you’re saying that we should have continued to travel via stagecoaches and wagons?

One word: Trains

lol all good!

As a kid, my Mom was convinced if we walked around the Expressway, we'd be murdered. She very much had a "white flight"/combat zone view of downtown so most of my knowledge came from what I could see from the Expressway. The only thing I knew of Quincy Market were the glowing neon tubes in that glass breezeway.

Now as an adult, I can project my own fears on my kids: cars are fucking awful and drivers will blindly run you over while you're trying to walk or bike to school. Of course, the difference is that I'm right.

How ironic coming from someone who lives in Cambridge…. Lmao 🤡

My grandpa and his family got kicked out of the west end when they tore it all down, sad that I’ll never get to walk around his old neighborhood

Highways destroyed like a fuckin quarter of the city

Yes Cambridge, the suburban utopia. Unlike Boston, Cambridge rioted and stopped the inner belt from being built.

The West End and Scollay Square neighborhoods were obliterated to make way not only for a highway, but for an underutilized wasteland of concrete to serve bureaucracy and government purposes (City Hall, IRS Building, JFK Federal Building).

​

Downtown looks different, but this is due to redevelopment to make way for modern high-rises and an evolving commercial district.

The West End is still a weird area that feels like a little gated community. The Big Dig opened up a lot of the area for good redevelopment in the Bulfinch Triangle/North Station area and throughout downtown and the Seaport, though.

It would be nice to see this graphic a little zoomed out so we could see the Seaport area.

Aligning one’s fears with statistics is always a good idea!

will the water be brown in 50 years

Yea I'd rather city have more green spaces than buildings.

The highway into the city was necessary one way or another.

It gets better. I'm old enough to have driven on that very same highway in its last years of existence. It was bloody narrow 6 lane highway split upper and and lower decks going Northward exiting city.

At one point, it had merge with single lane split to the Tobin bridge. Some people whom I knew who drove this "fun" stretch of the road called it the "Fun Game of Merge". This was because it was so bloody narrow and drivers were so frustrated they got highly...aggressive. I'm certainly glad above ground Central Artery is toast. It was one worse ideas for highway, I'm glad the other section wasn't built. The I-695, it would done worse things to the city.