Shuttle buses and public transit buses pack to overflowing, bodies jammed against one another. Lines of cars and trucks shimmering in the heat, all enveloped in exhaust fumes. The waterfront parks deserted, too difficult for the public to reach because the streets and public transit lines are jammed with traffic. Waterside pavilions and benches taken over by the homeless who have claimed the forgotten space, along with others who freely conduct illegal activities, scaring off even the few hardy souls who make it to the parks. The endless noise of engines and horns, the sense that trucks double parked to make deliveries are proof that the rules were made to be ignored and that this neighborhood is overrun and out of control.
No, it is not some foreign city in a desolate country but the vision of the South Boston waterfront if the assumptions about parking, traffic and public transit upon which it is now being constructed are really as one interest group The Conservation Law Foundation (CLF) put it, "A house of cards."
For while a great deal of effort has gone into planning there are still some unanswered questions. The wrong answers could mean that instead of well tended parks, and comfortable cosmopolitan sidewalk cafes, the South Boston Seaport will resemble a teeming third world city.
"Good public transit will be the key to the success of the Fan Pier and the entire South Boston waterfront," said the Massachusetts Executive Office of Environmental Affairs. Without adequate transit there will be congestion on the streets, trucks will be unable to reach the working port on the far side of the South Boston waterfront and access to the waterfront will be hindered as heavy traffic makes the streets unwalkable.
An examination of some of the projections and statistics for the waterfront's growth prove that the potential problems are not only very real, but very likely to occur much sooner than expected.
By the time the South Boston waterfront is built out, anywhere from ten to twenty years from now there will be three times as much office, residential and commercial space as there currently is now. All the plans if carried out, (and they will sooner or later depending on the demand in the property market) will result in 17 millions new sq. feet of space, bringing the total amount of space in the waterfront to 34 million square feet of built out space, twice as much as there is right now. Population will swell too. There will be some 15,000 residents, some 25,000 office workers and so many visitors to the harbor excursions, the new ICA, other galleries, artistic events, restaurants, cafes and the parks that swarms of people can expect to fill the new neighborhoods on nice days. In essence the South Boston waterfront once it is completely built out will be a small city. The transportation implications of this development boom cannot be ignored.
Many who are involved in the development of the South Boston waterfront see traffic and transit problems occurring sometime after 2010 as the area becomes substantially developed. But it appears that there may very well be serious transit problems starting as soon as this fall when the new Manulife building opens and employees gradually move in over the next four months. Designed to house Manulife's private wealth division the building will accommodate some 2000 workers who will come and go each day via mass transit. They will have to; there will be no parking at the building save for a 175 underground garage spaces.
As the other projects are built, parking will disappear. That is deliberate. The city and conservation groups want the waterfront to be as vehicle free as possible. The way to do it according to planners is simple: do away with parking.
Most of the agencies that have studied this plan feel that the strategy in reducing the number of cars (by constrained parking) is questionable at best. The The Conservation Law Foundation (CLF)thinks the transportation assumptions are built on a house of cards and there will be a shortfall by 2010.
At Fan Pier there will be .77 parking spaces /1000 sq feet of built out space, lower than other comparable mixed use projects, leading the BRA to observe that, "..the fan pier project will be a major traffic generator..." The Channel Center in Fort Point for example which is already open will have 200 residences, but only 102 parking spaces. It will have a total of 1000 parking spaces in a garage, but almost all of them will go towards future residences to be built in the third phase, and the rest will go to the 800,000 sq. ft. of office space that will be built.
There will be far fewer parking spaces pers resident, square foot of office space or per commuter according to plans for the waterfront than any other location in the city. That means there will be a need for mass transit.
But the Silver Line is the only mass transit system planned to serve the waterfront and it won't be in operation until the end of this year at the earliest. Even the plans to deal with the expected demand are skeptical; there will be eighty nine articulated buses that can carry 100 people if they are packed in and in order to meet demand will supposedly run one and a half minutes apart. That means each one must stop, discharge and pickup passengers at the stops from South Station out to the airport and South Boston beyond D street, turn around and start again without stopping at any of these stops for more than one and a half minutes between. One problem and the whole line of eighty nine buses is stalled.
Further problems will come when the Silver Line reaches South Station. There everyone will have to get off and all the new passengers who came off commuter trains, the Red Line or commuter buses will have to get on, all within one and a half minutes according to plans. To be truly effective the second phase of the Silver Line, an underground tunnel from South Station to Bolyston Street and Tremont Street, should be in operation to make it easier to disperse passengers into the system but it won't be opened until 2010 at the earliest, meaning that the Silver Line capacity appears to be just enough to operate without breaking down and that just as it is about to suffer from excessive demand another section will open that will then be immediately pushed to capacity by swelling demand.
Even so, estimates at this point indicate clearly that within ten years, maybe even sooner, there will not be enough capacity in peak commuter hours on the Silver Line to handle the demand. Indeed by BTD estimates, the Fan Pier project alone could consume 20% of the Silver Line Capacity during peak hours.
The only solution is much more comprehensive mass transit system. But there are no plans for any more mass transit, nor any plans for easier assess. No developer for instance has offered to build out connecting tunnels under their buildings to the Silver Line as part of the development of their sites. Indeed the MBTA ignored the opportunity to build an attractive large station to accommodate the 15,000 - 25000 people who will mainly use the Courthouse stop and the World Trade Center stop, opting instead for simple head houses that sit on opposite sides of Seaport Blvd. That discourages the use of public transportation (if the traffic jam of buses running precisely one and a half minutes apart doesn't do it first) and make people want to use cars. Parking will be hard to find. Estimates indicate that during peak hours, the parking supply will be exceeded by demand up to 10%. And the current assumptions do not take into account the very real possibility that the 25 acres McCourt property across the street from Fan Pier will be built out as densely as Fan Pier itself.
Making matters worse, the opening of the Silver Line may encourage others to drop or scale back mass transit now in use. The MBTA may end or cut back bus service through the South Boston waterfront once the Silver Line opens. Likewise if Fidelity and the World Trade Center stop paying for shuttle buses once the Silver Line opens, that will affect the Silver Line. And there are no plans for cross waterfront transit services. So if someone wants to go from the Channel Center to an office building on Fan Pier, Pier Four or to the World Trade Center, the only option will be to drive or walk, a good ten to fifteen minute walk that will not be pleasant in inclimate weather
The MBTA has no plans to run any type of bus service looping around the waterfront which means that there is a distinct possibility that private shuttle buses will fill the streets of the waterfront once it is built up. But that will add to traffic, gridlock and pollution, not to mention cause problems loading and unloading passengers at transit stops on streets that are not going to be parking friendly.
Unless the private developers and the owners and operators of major public sites, such as the World Trade Center and the BCEC and the developers get together and come up with a plan, long waits for public transit and uncomfortable overcrowding, lines of stalled cars and trucks, frustrated drivers and breathing in exhaust fumes may be the future of the new city on the sea.
Seaport Blvd. is empty now, but may be a parking lot within six years.
The Boston Harbor Journal