A Complicated Collaboration

Backers keep Boston’s South Bay Harbor Trail on track

By Jerry Guerra

Boston’s South Bay Harbor Trail (SBHT) is an ambitious, linear, recreation project that provides residents and visitors to the city with multiple quality-of-life benefits, including economic, transportation, health, social justice, and environmental. When complete, the 3.5-mile, shared-use path will connect five of the city’s diverse neighborhoods to the burgeoning Seaport District and revitalized Boston Harbor. It will also add a vital link to the “Emerald Necklace,” a 1,100-acre chain of green space connected by parkways and waterways designed in the 1860s by Frederick Law Olmsted.

Photo: Pressley Associates

Now, 20 years after then-Mayor Thomas Menino enthusiastically announced plans for the trail, construction continues. About 40 percent was available for use as of February 2021, another 25 percent is in or awaiting construction, and the remainder was folded into a larger roadway-reconstruction project, Melnea Cass Boulevard in the Roxbury neighborhood. Despite many obstacles, which span from right-of-way availability to logistical matters created by adjacent infrastructure, its backers persevere and the project advances.

For public officials and recreation advocates, the lasting lesson of SBHT is that no matter what it takes, a worthwhile project deserves to be built.

“Not much about this project is going to sound unfamiliar to anyone who has tried to build a linear, recreation project in an urban setting,” says Chris Mancini, Executive Director of Save the Harbor/Save the Bay (SH/SB), the non-profit group that set the wheels of the trail in motion. “It’s a classic case, where you’re dealing with dozens of stakeholders and a constantly changing landscape. On the face of it, it seems straightforward, but I’ve never seen a project like this take less than a decade to build.”

The SBHT is unique in many ways. The creative use of nautical themes for wayfinding, including decommissioned Coast Guard buoys, is a signature element. The trail also features a spectrum of vistas, including urban neighborhoods, imposing highway foundations, the city skyline, and the waterfront. Ultimately, the trail will play a role in making Boston more the place it aspires to be.

About The Trail

Save the Harbor/Save the Bay’s now-retired President Patricia Foley, working with architect and urban designer Michael Tyrrell, proposed the trail to Boston city officials in the early 2000s. Mayor Menino, who sadly did not live to see it completed, declared his support in an Earth Day ceremony in 2001, and praised the trail’s merits until his final days in office.

In addition to receiving some early pro bono design work from engineer Design Consultants, Inc.(DCI) and the late landscape architect William Pressley, SH/SB raised nearly $1 million to kickstart the design. This opened the door to an additional $3.9 million in federal and state funding for construction in the early stages.

Beginning at the Ruggles Street Massachusetts Bay Transit Authority (MBTA) Station in Roxbury, the proposed trail will be a protected bicycle path along Melnea Cass Boulevard for approximately one mile before joining the Massachusetts Avenue Connector adjacent to the Southeast Expressway (Interstate 93).

“Our firm has been involved with the South Bay Harbor Trail from the start, and it’s a source of pride,” says David Giangrande, president of civil engineering, transportation consulting, and land surveying firm DCI, which merged with Connecticut-based GM2, Inc., in December 2020. Giangrande has personally participated in the planning, design, public outreach, and construction oversight of the trail from its inception.

“We’ve had more than our share of challenges,” says Giangrande. “But support never wavered from various departments in the city of Boston, MassDOT (Massachusetts Department of Transportation), Save the Harbor/Save the Bay, and many others. No matter what we ran up against, no one ever said, ‘This isn’t worth it.’ It was always ‘How can we fix this and keep moving forward?’ Many times it would have been easier to just give up, but the trail is that important to the people of this city.”

Photo: The JAGG Group

As the proposed trail approaches and runs alongside I-93, it encounters a less hospitable, more urban alignment. This incomplete section is crucial to the success of the entire trail, says Giangrande. “We’ve spent a lot of time on the section from the Mass Ave Connector to Albany Street, and we’re still working at it. It’s one of the most difficult pieces, but without this segment, the trail can’t connect from the neighborhoods to the Harbor.”

Adjacent to this piece, right-of-way constraints at two Albany Street parcels, along with an ever-changing development landscape in the area, have set the trail’s progress back. The Boston Planning & Development Agency, formerly the Boston Redevelopment Authority, is addressing the issue, developing a mobility-management plan to ensure multimodal equity and regain momentum for the trail segment.

Meaningful Wayfinding

“In addition to the usual challenges of building anything substantial in an urban environment, the team was tasked with somehow connecting these disparate parts in very different settings into a single, contiguous trail,” says Giangrande. “It required some solid urban design and creative engineering, but imaginative wayfinding design really tied it together. It’s the perfect complement.”

Pressley Associates, working with Tyrell and branding firm Selbert Perkins, developed a series of signage and pavement markings that ensured the SBHT’s path would be identifiable throughout. In addition to the four 14-foot-tall, decommissioned Coast Guard buoys, one of which is in place, the wayfinding design includes maps and informational guideposts evoking images of masts and sails.

“We wrote a lot of grant applications for those buoys,” laughs Mancini. “That became an emphasis, but it made me reflect on what a trail is. It’s a pathway, and the wayfinding gives it an identity. Not all trails do this equally. It sets this South Bay Harbor Trail apart. It’s not just a transit corridor to a destination; it’s a journey all along the way.”

A Path For Diversity And Equity

After traveling under I-93, the trail eventually splits. Heading toward the harbor, the path crosses one-way over the Broadway Bridge. This new, well-lit structure offers inspiring views of downtown Boston. The return path continues south past the Broadway Bridge and traverses the adjacent Fourth Street Bridge before reconnecting under the highway. 

A nearly finished section travels alongside Fort Point Channel behind Gillette World Shaving Headquarters in South Boston, eventually joining the completed 18-foot-wide, pedestrian-friendly Harborwalk. Representative of the urban conditions, when the path reaches Summer Street—a heavily developed, four-lane arterial—bicyclists are confronted with a narrow set of stairs. The rest of the trail, which culminates where the channel empties to Boston Harbor, is primarily for walkers.

If this sounds complex, it is. Yet, the South Bay Harbor Trail’s many proponents continue to push it forward because the trail’s vision is highly consistent with many of Boston’s prime objectives, including diversity, equity, and inclusion.

“The trail itself always had its core in racial equity,” says Mancini. “The harbor is this amazing place with great public resources in South Boston, Fort Point Channel, and the Seaport. But it hasn’t always been truly accessible and inclusive to all of Boston. We think the trail can help change that.”

Illustrating Mancini’s point, Roxbury’s population of approximately 60,000 is 6.5 percent white, with blacks/African Americans (55.6 percent) and Hispanics/Latinos (29.8 percent) accounting for the overwhelming majority, according to Boston.gov.

Giangrande, a transportation engineer, highlights the way the trail will eventually leverage the city’s existing transportation infrastructure, including the MBTA. “It will be an invaluable link to the Green, Orange, Silver, and Red lines, and also to buses at Ruggles Street Station and Andrews Square,” he says.

Photo: The JAGG Group

Clean Harbor Is The Catalyst

When Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis was running for president against George H.W. Bush in 1988, the latter made a campaign issue out of the foul condition of Boston Harbor, calling it the “dirtiest harbor in America.” True or not, the label stuck.

Today, the “Harbor of Shame” is host to what SH/SB states are some of the cleanest urban beaches in America. The group completed a study in 2014 that found the three South Boston beaches were safer from contaminants than Waikiki Beach, South Beach, Virginia Beach, and Santa Monica Beach.

The harbor’s resurgence, combined with the depression of the previously elevated and intrusive Central Artery, spurred an economic boom in the Seaport District. An area once populated with non-descript warehouses, boxy brick structures and industrial-style housing was reborn, now hosting upscale hotels, convention centers, trendy restaurants, corporate headquarters, and high-end apartments and condominiums. 

The trail will offer a non-traditional transportation link for people from five neighborhoods—Roxbury, the South End, Chinatown, the Fort Point Channel, and South Boston—to the social, recreational, and economic resources provided by and adjacent to the Seaport. When the pandemic ends, this area will be even more evident as Boston’s thriving cultural scene re-emerges, and natural resources, such as the Boston Harbor Islands, become fully accessible to the public again.

“Yes, the trail connects five neighborhoods to the harbor, but what’s often overlooked is that it’s a two-way street,” says Mancini. “It connects those neighborhoods to each other, including creating a new transportation network that can help people get to work in the city and then back home, while reducing automobile traffic and vehicle emissions. For all these reasons, it’s important that we keep going. We knew from the start that it was going to be complicated, but we’re staying positive and continuing to work at it. It’s all going to be worth it.”

Jerry Guerra is a principal with The JAGG Group, a marketing, public relations, market research, and communications company founded in 2002 and based in Lynnfield, Mass. He also serves as the manager of strategic development for DCI, a GM2 Company. Reach him at jguerra@jagg-group.com.