Life Along the Green: How Placemaking Design Can Invigorate Public Transit Routes and their Destinations
/By Aidan Coleman
As I enter my second year as a Brookline resident navigating the Greater Boston area without a car, I’ve begun to reflect on how much of my life revolves around the MBTA, and more specifically, the Green Line D branch. Work, groceries, fitness, shopping, dining, and entertainment are all integrated into my routine along this branch of rail. With critiques and talks of improving the MBTA in the news recently, I’ve been contemplating as a designer about how to improve the user experience by incorporating more programming and placemaking ideas into locations. In my research, I found that there is a growing priority on transit-oriented developments (TOD) in the Boston area trying to boost activity around transit stops. As defined by the MBTA, TODs are “compact, walkable developments at or near transit stations, generally including a mix of uses,” (MBTA Realty). There are various TODs accessible from the D line that incorporate many established “good placemaking design” ideas, but these TODs will require that extra spark for human activity if they aim to prosper as transit-oriented destinations.
My main uses for the Green Line along the D branch (Fun, Home, Food, Work, Something New!)
(Diagram by Aidan Coleman, map underlay from Google)
Fenway/Kenmore
As I’ve observed through my years of college and currently as a young working professional, the Fenway/Kenmore area has seen remarkable change over the past few years. I would easily consider it the center of entertainment in the west portion of Boston based on its existing sporting and music venues alongside the night and restaurant scene that these venues greatly supplement. Its popularity has no doubt benefitted from its relative location to the many surrounding colleges, and its recently constructed high-end apartment buildings are surely helping as well. The area is supplied with ample entertainment and human activity, but only recently has welcomed a specifically designed social gathering space that takes advantage of qualities of designed parks or squares in urban areas.
Fortunately, the Time-Out Market project was able to embrace many aspects of placemaking and TOD design. It gave us a new food and gathering experience with a large food hall, a connected lawn and beer garden on top of a former surface parking lot, pushing the surface lots to a garage underground. On top of that, it is directly adjacent to the Fenway T stop for easy access. I’ve found myself wanting to spend time there, either by going to eat with friends or enjoying a coffee and donut by myself, but it seems to also be an attractive location for social media photography, where one can observe people playing games on the lawn or taking pictures with the funny fountain statues. At its core, I think the project is a great example of placemaking design because it invites people to casually stop for free and people watch, with the option to engage others socially with food or games, if they choose. Since a lot of the entertainment in Fenway comes at a cost, the Time-Out Market gives people the welcomed option to pause and spend time without commitments or obligations.
Gathering spaces (outlined) and their adjacent attractions (in red) at Time-Out Market
(Photos by Aidan Coleman)
Chestnut Hill
Chestnut Hill contains a few developments; with the Chestnut Hill Mall, Chestnut Hill Square, and The Street. I happen to enjoy The Street’s convenience as a stopping point for groceries after work and its connection to the bus line that runs near my house. Each development has done its best in creating convenient and attractive retail and dining locations, but The Street feels the most accessible by the MBTA. The Street has shown some thought in designing pedestrian scale outdoor spaces around its dining spots, but are the spaces worth the visit when someone is done being a consumer of goods, foods and services? The main gathering area seems to draw people for yoga and family events, but when those events aren’t happening, the gathering space is only occupied by retail and food consumers passing through from the adjacent locations.
While The Street offers a lot to visitors in terms of shopping, and does well to host as many events as they can at their green gathering space, but I think the argument for better placemaking lies within a location’s ability to maintain a human presence even when the events aren’t happening. It’s a predicament that a public space like Government Center Plaza has faced even though its surroundings are highly populated. When we compare The Street to Fenway’s Time-Out Market, the differences in activity can be attributed to the targeted demographics, and available gathering space. Time-Out Market can target the variety of college students and young professionals who want to come and hang out in neutral gathering spaces outdoors or indoors. The Street seems to primarily draw families and shoppers with vehicles. They visit for restaurants or enjoy shopping on the weekends or after work, but the only neutral gathering space is an outside green space. At night or in bad weather, people visiting The Street could be more likely to eat/shop and leave, as the attractions require more of a purpose and there are limited options for gathering and people watching in a space that doesn’t require purchasing goods.
Gathering spaces (outlined) and their adjacent attractions (in red) at The Street at Chestnut Hill (Photos by Aidan Coleman)
Riverside Station
One ambitious TOD proposal undergoing review at the end of the D line is Riverside Station. Currently, the station and its parking lot only serves as a transportation access point where the main use is to jump on the train and head back and forth to work. The state of the site is more of a place made for cars, and the vision in the redevelopment strives to add more uses to the site so it can more steadily be a place for people to live, work, shop, and gather. The project proposes to develop more than a million square feet of a mix of housing, offices, retail, public space, and parking (Boston Globe). This along with other changes and additions will bring about a monumental change to the area. Abutters believe the scale of the development is too large for the site and that the development will bring more congestion to the area’s infrastructure and schools (Newton LFIA.) Mediating ambitious goals of a TOD and addressing the concerns of the neighborhood residents is now a major focus.
In evaluating this project’s proposed placemaking qualities, it seems to check off many positives. It will mix uses, have transit, pedestrian, and biker accessibility, and will contain multiple gathering spaces in the form of greens, urban squares, and even a green amphitheater. The question from me is whether there will be enough programmed activities to host the workers, commuters, residents, and hotel visitors that plan to make use of the site. Besides living, working, shopping, and dining, this TOD must do its best to offer an experience that engages human interaction, or at least lets you watch it, if it is to become a successful placemaking example.
Gathering spaces (outlined) and their adjacent attractions (in red) at the proposed Riverside development
(Diagram by Aidan Coleman. Underlay Image from riversidenewton.com)
While designers and developers can do all they can to install and program spaces so that they can be comfortable and full of people, the key point in creating a steady human presence is giving people a platform for social engagement so they have the option to interact with people, or just sit back and watch interactions take place. The developments on the Green Line share common successes in placemaking such as ease of pedestrian access and mixed programmatic uses, which can draw different demographics and a steady flow of people throughout the day, but what adds that extra placemaking excitement comes from the neutral gathering spaces that invite the opportunity for people watching and social interaction, which can ultimately spark memorable experiences.
Citations
Chesto, John. “Developer’s Plan for Riverside Station Site Is Scaled Back, but the Opposition Isn’t Likely to End.” Boston Globe, 8 Sept. 2019, www.bostonglobe.com/business/2019/09/08/developer-plan-for-riverside-station-site-scaled-back-but-opposition-isn-likely-end/aHOLqDRegsgU6al5kFGQ3I/story.html.
“Our Positions.” Right Size Riverside, Newton Lower Falls Improvement Association, newtonlowerfalls.org/OUR-POSITIONS2.
“Riverside Newton.” Riverside Newton, 24 Sept. 2019, riversidenewton.com/.
“Transit Oriented Development.” Massachusetts Realty Group, www.mbtarealty.com/transit-oriented-development/.