Boston Transportation Planning Review (BTPR), published in 1972, was a transportation planning program for metropolitan Boston, Massachusetts, which was responsible for analyzing and redesigning the entire area-wide transit and highway system in the 1970s. The major contractors involved were Alan M. Voorhees Company (

Virginia Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States, between the Atlantic Coast and the Appalachian Mountains. The geography and climate of the Commonwealth are ...

), project manager;

Skidmore, Owings and Merrill Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM) is an American architectural, urban planning and engineering firm. It was founded in 1936 by Louis Skidmore and Nathaniel Owings in Chicago, Illinois. In 1939, they were joined by engineer John Merrill. The fir ...

(

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

), architect;

ESL Incorporated ESL Incorporated, or Electromagnetic Systems Laboratory, was a subsidiary of TRW, a high technology firm in the United States that was engaged in software design, systems analysis and hardware development for the strategic reconnaissance marketp ...

(

California California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...

air quality Air pollution is the contamination of air due to the presence of substances in the atmosphere that are harmful to the health of humans and other living beings, or cause damage to the climate or to materials. There are many different types ...

and

acoustics Acoustics is a branch of physics that deals with the study of mechanical waves in gases, liquids, and solids including topics such as vibration, sound, ultrasound and infrasound. A scientist who works in the field of acoustics is an acousticia ...

. The program had close guidance from the national

Transportation Research Board The Transportation Research Board (TRB) is a division of the National Academy of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, formerly the National Research Council of the United States, which serves as an independent adviser to the President of the Uni ...

(TRB), a division of the US

National Academy of Sciences The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the Nat ...

. The first director of the program reporting to the Governor was Alan Altshuler; the project manager was Walter Hansen. Comprehensive re-evaluation of areawide transportation plans was a major theme in the last quarter of the twentieth century for large US cities. The

US Department of Transportation The United States Department of Transportation (USDOT or DOT) is one of the executive departments of the U.S. federal government. It is headed by the secretary of transportation, who reports directly to the President of the United States a ...

has said "the prototype for these reevaluations was the Boston Transportation Planning Revie

Scope of the BTPR studies included evaluation and upgrading of all four

MBTA The Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (abbreviated MBTA and known colloquially as "the T") is the public agency responsible for operating most public transportation services in Greater Boston, Massachusetts. The MBTA transit network i ...

mass transit Public transport (also known as public transportation, public transit, mass transit, or simply transit) is a system of transport for passengers by group travel systems available for use by the general public unlike private transport, typical ...

rail Rail or rails may refer to: Rail transport *Rail transport and related matters *Rail (rail transport) or railway lines, the running surface of a railway Arts and media Film * ''Rails'' (film), a 1929 Italian film by Mario Camerini * ''Rail'' ( ...

lines and examination of every major highway and arterial project in the region.

Major elements

The following exemplify some of the principal study elements of the Boston Transportation Planning Review: * Conceptual design of the rerouted Orange Line

rail service to the southwest of Boston. * Expansion plans for the Red Line mass transit Braintree and Northwest Corridor extensions. * Moratorium on expressway construction inside of

Route 128 The following highways are numbered 128: Canada * New Brunswick Route 128 * Ontario Highway 128 (former) * Prince Edward Island Route 128 Costa Rica * National Route 128 India * National Highway 128 (India) Japan * Japan National Route 128 ...

for the decade. * First concept of depressing the

Central Artery The Central Artery (officially the John F. Fitzgerald Expressway) is a section of freeway in downtown Boston, Massachusetts; it is designated as Interstate 93, US 1 and Route 3. The original Artery, constructed in the 1950s, was named aft ...

, leading to the

Big Dig The Central Artery/Tunnel Project (CA/T Project), commonly known as the Big Dig, was a megaproject in Boston that rerouted the Central Artery of Interstate 93 (I-93), the chief highway through the heart of the city, into the 1.5-mile (2.4&n ...

. * Upgrading of Route 1A from

Boston Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...

to Salem.

Technologies applied

The following major technologies were utilized in the BTPR: * Critical path work element diagrams to assist project management (Voorhees) *Citywide

traffic Traffic comprises pedestrians, vehicles, ridden or herded animals, trains, and other conveyances that use public ways (roads) for travel and transportation. Traffic laws govern and regulate traffic, while rules of the road include traffic ...

flow analysis including intersection

level of service Level of service may refer to: * Levels of service in asset management * Level of service (transportation) in transportation and traffic * Something agreed on in a Service-level agreement A service-level agreement (SLA) is a commitment between a ...

(Voorhees) *

Urban design Urban design is an approach to the design of buildings and the spaces between them that focuses on specific design processes and outcomes. In addition to designing and shaping the physical features of towns, cities, and regional spaces, urban d ...

of all physical structures and

highway A highway is any public or private road or other public way on land. It is used for major roads, but also includes other public roads and public tracks. In some areas of the United States, it is used as an equivalent term to controlled-access ...

geometrics including neighborhood visual impacts (Skidmore, Owings and Merrill) *

Hydrology Hydrology () is the scientific study of the movement, distribution, and management of water on Earth and other planets, including the water cycle, water resources, and environmental watershed sustainability. A practitioner of hydrology is call ...

Impact Analysis to surface waters and

groundwater Groundwater is the water present beneath Earth's surface in rock and Pore space in soil, soil pore spaces and in the fractures of stratum, rock formations. About 30 percent of all readily available freshwater in the world is groundwater. A unit ...

affected by transit and

roadway A carriageway (British English) or roadway (North American English) consists of a width of road on which a vehicle is not restricted by any physical barriers or separation to move lateral movement, laterally. A carriageway generally consists of ...

construction. *

Air quality Air pollution is the contamination of air due to the presence of substances in the atmosphere that are harmful to the health of humans and other living beings, or cause damage to the climate or to materials. There are many different types ...

and

noise Noise is unwanted sound considered unpleasant, loud or disruptive to hearing. From a physics standpoint, there is no distinction between noise and desired sound, as both are vibrations through a medium, such as air or water. The difference aris ...

contour map A contour line (also isoline, isopleth, or isarithm) of a function of two variables is a curve along which the function has a constant value, so that the curve joins points of equal value. It is a plane section of the three-dimensional graph ...

s for all transportation alternatives (ESL) *

Wildlife Wildlife refers to undomesticated animal species, but has come to include all organisms that grow or live wild in an area without being introduced by humans. Wildlife was also synonymous to game: those birds and mammals that were hunted ...

and

vegetation Vegetation is an assemblage of plant species and the ground cover they provide. It is a general term, without specific reference to particular taxa, life forms, structure, spatial extent, or any other specific botanical or geographic charac ...

impact analysis for all alternatives. *

Public consultation Public consultation (Commonwealth countries and European Union), public comment (US), or simply consultation, is a regulatory process by which the public's input on matters affecting them is sought. Its main goals are in improving the efficiency, ...

Massachusetts Governor Francis W. Sargent involved concerned citizens in the development of transportation alternativesAllan K. Sloan, ''Citizen Participation in Transportation Planning: The Boston Experience'', Cambridge: Ballinger Publishing Company (1974)

References

External links

BTPR Mission Statement
Government of Boston Public transportation in Massachusetts Transportation in Boston

Major elements

Technologies applied

See also

References

Further reading

External links