Alternate Alignment. While elimination of the Path would result in the greatest savings, the MBTA, the affected community, and other stakeholders expressed significant concern over the potential of no path at all. Therefore, the IPMT sought to identify what a very low-cost redesigned Community Path might look like. The IPMT used the “no path” corridor redesign as the base (i.e., greatly reduced walls and no viaduct). By looking at the alignment in sections, the IPMT designers identified the potential to include a path along the railroad cut from the existing terminus at Xxxxxx Street to Washington Street Stations From there, users headed to the Xxxxxxx River parks would need to follow the existing street system. The Alternate Alignment has been located to minimize the need for additional walls between Xxxxxx Street and Washington Street, by (1) moving it laterally away from the railroad cut where possible, for example between Xxxxxx Street and Central Street through an existing city park; (2) switching from the west side to the east side and back again between Central Street and School Street, and, (3) revising the grade to lower it to track level beyond School Street. This is further illustrated in Figure 3.4 and Figure 3.5 at end of this section. Beyond Washington Street, the path ends and people would need to use existing streets (including XxXxxxx Highway) to reach the Xxxxxxx River parks, in lieu of the previous design’s viaduct structure. The IPMT estimate for the additional cost necessary to include this Alternate Path is approximately $20 million and this budget for the Community Path is included in the overall projected GLX cost estimate. The IPMT presented this Alternate Alignment at a community meeting on April 13, 2016. Based on the feedback from the public at that and other stakeholder meetings, there were two major comments. First, the 90-degree turns to get from the east side of the cut to the west side of the cut need to be engineered to optimize the ability of path traffic to cross those streets. Second, to get beyond Washington Street, people were concerned about the need to use existing streets, including XxXxxxx Highway. While these issues may not be solved to everyone’s satisfaction, the IPMT believes the next phase of implementation can, for minimal additional cost, make improvements to the current Alternate Path design.
