Boston sends Sullivan Square plan to MassDOT, again
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Sullivan Square in 2018. Photo: Mark Garfinkel/Boston Herald/MediaNews Group via Getty Images
The Sullivan Square of the 21st century is turning into a playground for young families and professionals, between the new pickleball club, Hood Park's new gym and plans for a grocery store.
- All that's missing is a facelift of the square's infamous rotary.
Why it matters: The traffic circle is, at best, an eyesore and, at worst, a treacherous obstacle course for pedestrians and cyclists — except when it turns into a parking lot during peak traffic.
- Plans to redevelop it have started and stopped for two decades.
Driving the news: The city submitted design plans for a $211 million overhaul to the Massachusetts Department of Transportation on May 21.
1 stunning stat: There were 282 crashes in the Rutherford Avenue project area between 2021 and 2023 — or one crash every four days, per a city presentation.
- The rotary accounted for 28% of those crashes.
Flashback: Mayor Thomas Menino first conceived of his plan for Rutherford Avenue as an urban boulevard with no highway underpasses in the late 1990s.
- He launched a community process for the project a decade later, after the Big Dig ended, only for his successor to scrap his proposal.
- Under Mayor Marty Walsh, the city redesigned the proposal to account for the traffic impacts of the Everett casino and recently completed Assembly Square and Cambridge Crossing developments, bringing back the underpasses.
- When Michelle Wu became mayor in 2023, she paused it so planners could redraft it with a dedicated busway and without the underpasses.
State of play: City officials reemerged in February proposing a "multimodal boulevard" and park, per Streetsblog Mass.
- Planning officials say it's the largest fully funded roadway project led by a municipality in Massachusetts.
How it works: MassDOT reviews the 25% design plan the city submitted to make sure it meets current design standards, withstands safety impacts and addresses other concerns.
Follow the money: Wu added $874,000 to the project's budget in her fiscal 2027 spending proposal, per transit advocate Christopher Friend.
- That brings the total to $211 million at a time when Wu proposed eliminating over a dozen other capital projects, per Streetsblog.
What's next: A slew of environmental permitting applications and other requests have to happen to finalize the design by 2030.
- Construction is set to begin in 2031, barring any more speed bumps.