Orange Street’s Reconnection Draws Near

Painted crosswalks, protected bike lanes, sculptural light fixtures, and pedestrian crossing signals now line a new almost-finished Orange Street intersection that — when it opens in a few weeks — will mark the culmination of the city’s latest efforts to stitch together downtown and the Hill.

That new intersection connects Orange Street and South Orange Street across the Rt. 34 corridor, which includes MLK Boulevard, South Frontage Road, and the Air Rights Garage Service Drive.

For the past few years, the city has been designing and building out the new signalized and landscaped pedestrian, bike, and vehicle connector as part of Phase 2 of Downtown Crossing. That’s the $50 million-plus, state and federally funded overhaul of the Rt. 34 mini-highway-to-nowhere.

Phase 1 saw the creation of the College Street bridge and the development of the Alexion building. Phase 3 will see the raising of South Frontage Road and the development of the 101 College St. bioscience tower. And Phase 4 will see the creation of a new Temple Street bridge crossing over the current service drives that separate downtown and the Hill.

On Wednesday morning, three members of the city Development Commission joined a half-dozen city economic development, engineering, and city planning staff for an up-close view and progress report on the new urban infrastructure buildout.

“The purpose of this project is really to enhance and enable the development of the Coliseum site,” City Plan Senior Project Planner Donna Hall said, gesturing north from the Orange-MLK construction zone towards the sea of surface parking where hundreds of new apartments are planned.

The intersection project is also designed to ​“allow free-flowing traffic of all modes — bikes, pedestrians and vehicles” between downtown, the train station, and the medical district area in the Hill.

It will be the first bike-protected intersection in the state, Hall said, with landscaped islands separating bike lanes from vehicle travel lanes and pedestrian crossings.

A new bike lane is also going in at sidewalk level on South Frontage Road to connect cyclists heading to and from the medical district.

Crossing an existing highway offramp that is still quite wide and busy, Hall said, pedestrians will need to make the trip through the Orange Street intersection in two ​“phases.”

After pressing a pedestrian crossing button and getting the signal, they’ll have to cross four lanes to an island in the middle of the intersection. Then they’ll have to press another button and wait for another signal before crossing the one-lane service drive and another four lanes to get all the way across the intersection.

“We’re putting down the last of the pavement markings and waiting on one more signal to come” before the Orange Street intersection is complete and opens fully to the public, she said. That should be some time in early or mid-November.

How will cars coming off of the highway know that they have to decrease their speeds from 60 miles per hour to 25 or 20 once they enter the intersection? asked Development Commissioner John Martin. Will there be any new speed limit signs installed in this so-called ​“transition zone” from the highway to the city street network?

Hall said that there will be pavement markings on the highway that say 25 miles per hour. Drivers will have that clear indication on the road itself that the speed limit has dropped.

There will also be transverse markings and flashing lights, all designed to let drivers know that they’re expected to decrease their speeds as they leave the highway and enter the city.

How can the city help suburban commuters adapt their ​“muscle memory” from the current highway condition to the new, urban intersection? City Development Commissioner David Valentino asked.

Hall pointed to a flashing red traffic light at the intersection today. Even though the construction work is not yet complete, cars coming off the highway can still make a right onto Orange Street in the direction of downtown. That flashing red over the next month should get drivers used to stopping as they exit the highway. That should ease the transition into the fully signalized intersection when it opens in November.

The group then walked east along a dirt path that will soon be a bike lane connecting the new intersection to Water Street, under the Union Avenue overpass where a new sidewalk is in place and a new lighting installation is almost complete …

… past the newly created extension of Columbus Avenue …

… and over to the 101 College St. construction site, where city staff and development commissioners took a beat to watch as a former highway-strewn stretch of the city slowly transformed into something new.