Federal money to help pay for Mass Pike road realignment

The Healey administration has landed $335 million in federal funds for the proposed realignment of the Massachusetts Turnpike in Allston, an essential piece of financing for the massive project. The state still is expected to pay for the bulk of the project’s nearly $2 billion price tag, with contributions from the city of Boston, Harvard University, and Boston University. What’s officially called the “Allston Multimodal Project” would bring the eight elevated lanes of Interstate 90 down to ground level next to the four-lane Soldiers Field Road along the Charles River, while building a new commuter rail and bus hub known as West Station along the Framingham/Worcester Commuter Rail line and improving pedestrian and bike access to the river. The project would also open up dozens of Harvard-owned acres in a former rail yard hemmed in between the highway viaduct and the train tracks. The project has long been billed as a way to stitch together a stretch of Allston that was divided by the construction of the Pike in the 1960s, though much of that stitching hinges on how Harvard develops the land in and around Beacon Park Yard, including projects built over the tracks and highway. Senator Edward Markey, who sits on the Senate’s transportation committee, announced the award from the Department of Transportation’s Reconnecting Communities and Neighborhoods program via a tweet on Monday. Markey, in an interview, said he personally lobbied US transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg for the project. He likened the Allston project to the Big Dig, which buried the elevated Interstate 93 under downtown Boston. “In the same way that they tore down the Central Artery so our community could reconnect to Boston Harbor and it has transformed Boston, this grant is transformative for Allston and Brighton because it, too, reconnects communities to [their] original identity,” Markey said. Not everyone is sold on this vision, though. The Charles River Watershed Association issued a statement saying that while it appreciates the construction of West Station and improved pedestrian and cycling paths, it continues to urge the Massachusetts Department of Transportation to consider ways to reduce the number of highway lanes and remains concerned about the potential for future flooding in the area.