The Boston Transportation Department (BTD) will be ready to deal with the traffic fallout from three major construction projects expected to be underway in the Forest Hills area by spring.
BTD Deputy Commissioner Jim Gillooly, who lives in Hyde Park and passes through the Forest Hills area daily, spoke with the Gazette last week. He said BTD have the situation well in hand.
“All those projects have to come through BTD for discussion” before getting approved, “not just for design and traffic pattern in the area, but also how they plan to do each phase of their work,” he said. “So that when we have a large project like the Casey [Arborway], we have a plan so that traffic will work reasonably well.”
That said, “It’s inevitable that people will have disruption, but the idea is to do work that will minimize” them, Gillooly explained.
The Casey Arborway project will demolish the aging overpass that carries Route 203 over South and Washington streets and replace it with a surface street network. Parcel U will create 124 units of housing on the former MBTA parcel just south of Ukraine Way. The Commons at Forest Hills, already underway, will create 283 residential units at the former Hughes Oil site at 3593 Washington St.
Gillooly said that BTD has looked at all three projects together to make sure all the projects’ traffic patterns and activity will be coordinated with the others.
Likewise, the teams of engineers assigned to each project will be cooperating. And traffic cameras in the area will also be used to monitor the situation from City Hall. And double-parking fines will be strictly enforced, he said.
“So drivers should be on their best behavior,” Gillooly said.