Why do we need to build the Quincy Center Concourse?

We heard it at almost every coffee hour during our 2007 campaign, and we still hear it on a regular basis at public meetings and from visitors to the office. Of all the issues surrounding the redevelopment of downtown over the years, it is easily the most frequent question.

The questions – and the “Road to Nowhere” jokes — are understandable, if for no other reason than the length of time the project has been on the drawing board.  But make no mistake, this connection between Burgin Parkway and Southern Artery is absolutely vital.   The reasons are two-fold:

First and foremost, we need an east-west connection through Quincy Center for traffic purposes, regardless of any potential development opportunities.  Throughout the City, our north-to-south roads are fairly adequate, but the same cannot be said for roads running east-to-west.  Today’s current traffic in and around Quincy Center is proof positive of this fact.

With a new road essentially connecting the Expressway to Route 3A, it  will eliminate a substantial amount of the bottlneck in the heart of Quincy Center and make it much, much easier for folks from the Neck or Merrymount, or Quincy Point to get through the Center on their way to and from work.  It will essentially eliminate the confusing cluster of Washington, Temple, Granite and Hancock Streets because drivers will no longer need to navigate that area to get through the Center.

Secondly, the road is very much an economic engine. As Richard Heapes, one of the founders of our partners with Street-Works, said during one of the recent public meetings: The Concourse is not the road to nowhere, it is the road to everywhere.  

The kind of private investment we are working to attract to Quincy needs exactly this kind of infrastructure work to become reality.  It provides the template for just about all the development we hope to see in the area over the next several years. Without it, Quincy Center simply cannot reach its maximum value.