Eyes On the Street: Bikes, Pedestrians, and Buses Get More Space In Sullivan Square
MassDOT is wrapping up a multi-year bridge replacement project near Sullivan Square that has given transit riders, pedestrians, and bike commuters some significant improvements through the highway interchange that divides East Somerville from Sullivan Square.
MassDOT’s Maffa Way/Mystic Avenue Bridge Superstructure Replacements project has been under construction since spring 2024, demolishing and rebuilding two bridges northeast of Sullivan Square.
For thousands of Orange Line riders who live or work in East Somerville, the walk to and from the Sullivan station used involve a relatively narrow, poorly-lit sidewalk that was in distressingly close proximity to four lanes of traffic pouring off of Interstate 93 (see the photo at right from early 2022, before construction began).
The new Maffa Way bridge (pictured at the top of this article) has a significantly wider sidewalk, and it’s buffered from highway traffic by a 10-foot-wide, curb-protected bike path.
A block away to the north, the new Mystic Avenue bridge, which carries westbound traffic away from Sullivan Square, also sports a widened sidewalk that’s intended to be shared by people walking and on bikes. At the northern end of the bridge, the new sidewalk ties into an existing shared-use pathway that runs alongside Grand Union Boulevard to the Assembly Orange Line station and Draw Seven Park.
There’s also a ramp down into the bike lane for people riding bikes and scooters:
On Lombardi Street, the improves connections between the Assembly district and the rest of East Somerville with new sidewalks and a protected two-way bike path under the Interstate 93 viaduct:
The two new bridges are also a busy connection for MBTA buses. Six bus routes – including the including the newly-redesigned 85 and the 101 to Medford, which would become a frequent-service route under the T’s bus network redesign plans – use Maffa Way on their way into Sullivan Square from East Somerville, then use the parallel Mystic Avenue bridge on their way back out.
The project’s contractors haven’t painted roadway markings yet, but MassDOT’s plans include dedicated bus lanes on both of the new bridges, and on Lombardi Street.
Next do Sullivan Square
The main drawback to all of these improvements is that they all connect to Sullivan Square, which remains one of the region’s most uniquely unpleasant places to travel, whether you’re in a car, on foot, or riding a bus.
For several years now, the City of Boston has been developing plans to reconfigure Sullivan Square in a new grid of streets with dedicated bus lanes and protected bike paths that connect to Charlestown and Everett.
But those plans have been under development for nearly two decades now. Because of that indecision, City Hall is at some risk of losing the federal funds that had been budgeted to build those improvements.
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