See the North Point project to design a car-free neighborhood between Somerville, Cambridge and Charlestown.

URBAN TRANSIT PROJECT ON TRACK


The Boston Globe, November 19, 2001

 By Anthony Flint, Globe Staff


Even as the economy slows, the proposed Urban Ring transportation network could jump-start development on industrial land and city parcels, in addition to moving people around more efficiently, according to state environmental documents.

Supporters hope the economic development potential will help sustain momentum for the project, which has been stuck on drawing boards for years.

   The six-city corridor connecting existing routes that radiate from downtown Boston like spokes, is set to be the mass transit equivalent of Route 128, enticing developers to build both commercial and residential complexes along its path and near key stations.

Land use and transportation would be intertwined as the Urban Ring goes through its long approval process, according to papers filed late Friday by the state office of the Massachusetts Environmental Policy Act. The office sets the framework for how the project proceeds. "This project is as much about urban redevelopment as it is about transportation," said MEPA chief Jay Wickersham. "It epitomizes smart growth - putting infrastructure where it benefits our cities, and thus easing development pressures on natural resources outside of the cities."

Wickersham also applauded what he called the unprecedented cooperation of the six cities in the planning compact for the Urban Ring - Boston, Brookline, Cambridge, Somerville, Everett, and Chelsea - and urged them to continue coordinating both transportation and land-use policies.

The MEPA papers are the first step in the environmental review process for the Urban Ring, following a major report released in July that constituted the project's basic blueprint. The 15-year project is split into phases, starting with the addition of conventional bus routes, then the establishment of "bus rapid transit" in dedicated lanes, and finally light rail or heavy rail.

The Urban Ring is designed to give riders speedy and direct links between homes and jobs where there is no service now, between Chelsea and Logan Airport in East Boston, for example, or from Roxbury to the Longwood Medical Area. The ring would not only allow riders to "cut across the spokes" of existing lines, but enable commuters to go straight to their destination without coming all the way into the center of Boston and heading back out again.

But the MEPA papers make it clear the Urban Ring will not only improve the movement of people but will influence development patterns in the six cities. It will help revitalize existing urban areas and will be a vital component in projects eyed for vacant parcels dotting its meandering path, Wickersham said.

The Urban Ring could jump-start development of vacant lots and former industrial parcels close to Boston by assuring wary neighbors that new projects won't be entirely car-dependent, said David Dixon, an urban planner with the Boston firm Goody, Clancy & Associates.

Developers proposing housing and offices on the 48-acre North Point parcel in East Cambridge could limit car access on Monsig nor O'Brien Highway if they can count on the Urban Ring passing through their project, for example, Dixon said. "You can't talk about growing the core unless we make it a better place for the people already there, or those people simply won't permit the development," Dixon said.

Dixon said the Urban Ring could influence development in other ways. A less-congested Green Line could better serve new development projects over Massachusetts Turnpike air rights parcels in Boston, for example.

Planning for both transportation and development should continue to go hand in hand throughout the Urban Ring's lifetime, said Stephanie Pollack, vice president of the Conservation Law Foundation and a member of the planning team for the Urban Ring. "Even without the ring, there are more jobs and population growth in this corridor than in the region as a whole. If you build the ring, companies with location decisions, or deciding where to build housing - they will take that into account," Pollack said. That means more people using the system, she said, which could warrant changes or expansions in the future.

Dennis DiZoglio, director of planning for the MBTA, said development and the Urban Ring are closely tied, although he added, "We are a transportation agency and not a land-use agency."

The shape of development near the ring is up to the communities, he said, noting that Somerville, Everett, and Chelsea "are looking to improve transit and promote development, while Cambridge, Boston, and Brookline are looking mostly to mitigate development that is already occurring."

As a concept, the Urban Ring has been around for almost three decades, but the project is moving forward more steadily now as state planners shift at least some of their focus from the Big Dig to transit projects.

The MEPA process is an important step in making the Urban Ring a reality because "it will start to give the right-of-way a protected legal status," said Wickersham. "That's an irreplaceable public resource, in the same sense of a wetland or an historic building - once we lose it, we never get it back."

Anthony Flint can be reached by e-mail at flint@globe.com.