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Urban Ring Facts

The Urban Ring project is a phased set of transit improvements in a corridor around the downtown core of Boston. The project corridor forms a loop that passes through Boston, Brookline, Cambridge, Chelsea, Everett, Medford and Somerville. The corridor encompasses some of the Boston area’s fastest growing districts, including the Longwood Medical Area (LMA), the South Boston Waterfront, and the Kendall Square area in Cambridge.

The neighborhoods in the corridor are facing significant challenges:

  • Existing transit accessibility and mobility are inadequate.
  • Transit congestion in the Boston core is a growing a problem.
  • The environment and quality of life in the neighborhoods of the corridor are being degraded by auto congestion and air pollution.
  • Economic development in the region is being constrained by traffic congestion and poor transit access.
  • Public demand for more transit choices is growing rapidly due to rising fuel costs and greater awareness of the effects of auto emissions on climate change.

The Urban Ring project is designed to address these issues by providing new transit services that would connect to existing radial transit lines (subway, commuter rail, and bus) to create shorter transit trips and few transfers in the corridor. It would also connect with numerous bicycle and pedestrian facilities.

The current planning effort for Phase 2 Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) service has refined concepts from earlier planning stages and combined them with new and ideas and public comments to produce four preliminary Build Alternatives that are now under consideration:

Alternative 1 - Surface BRT routes similar to the 2004 Draft Environmental Impact Report
Alternative 2 - Surface BRT routes with increased busway/buslane separations
Alternative 3 - Short tunnel segments in highly congested areas
Alternative 4 - Longer tunnel segments

For more detailed information about these preliminary alternatives, you may download copies of the May 30, 2007, presentation to the Citizens Advisory Committee. A an updated general project fact sheet is now available, as well as a Spanish language version of the project overview.

In July 2007, the Massachusetts Secretary of Energy and Environmental Affairs approved a six-month extension of the project schedule so that new, more accurate demographic information can be incorporated into the alternatives analysis.