Massachusetts Turnpike Allston project gets $335 million in federal funding
BOSTON - A huge project to rebuild part of the Massachusetts Turnpike in Boston is getting $335 million from the federal government.
MassDOT has been working on a plan for years to straighten out the Mass Pike in Allston where it borders the Charles River.
The "Allston Multimodal Project" would also bring a new MBTA station on the Worcester-Framingham commuter rail line to the neighborhood, get rid of several old bridges and open up new land for development.
"The $335 million we've secured for Allston will be transformational to the city and make the kind of changes to peoples' lives that they can see and feel," Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren said in a statement. "Families in Boston, especially those who are disadvantaged, deserve this funding to connect their communities with public transit and new bike lanes, to open more public spaces for our kids to play outside, and to create thousands of good, new jobs."
The state says the project is still in the "Federal environmental permitting process." Construction is expected to take 6 to 10 years once it starts. It's expected to cost about $2 billion, according to the State House News Service.
Once it's finished, the project would squeeze eight lanes of the Pike, four lanes of Soldiers Field Road, four rail tracks and a pedestrian walkway all onto a stretch of land, provided by Boston University, between BU and the Charles River.