History

The Orange Line was constructed in the 1980s with completion and ridership starting in 1987. The present day orange line replaced the Washington Street Elevated. The original southerly part of the Washington Street Elevated or “The El” went from Jamaica Plain to North Station all along Washington Street. Past North Station The El went through Charlestown, Everett and Malden. The El was replaced when the state decided to construct an 8 lane highway, after impressive community involvement, this plan was scrapped and the Orange Line was constructed where the highway would have gone in addition to a Southwest Corridor park and bike path. Due to the relatively recent construction of the orange line compared to Boston’s other stations it is one of the newer stations in Boston. It is handicap accessible and meets ADA requirements.

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Orange Line Corridor and the Study Area

The orange line is an integral part of the transit network of the Greater Boston area and one of the busiest lines in the system. It has 20 stations divided into three corridor segments as follows:

• North Segment (6 Stations): Oak Grove, Malden Centre, Wellington, Assembly Square, Sullivan Square, and Community College.

• Central Segment (8 Stations): North Station, Haymarket, State, Downtown Crossing, Chinatown, Tufts Medical Center, Back Bay, and Massachusetts Ave.

• Southern Segment (6 Stations): Ruggles, Roxbury Crossing, Jackson Square, Stony Brook, Green Street, and Forest Hills.

The study area is the Southern segment. The two main characteristics of the land use within the 0.5-mile zone around the transit stations are:

1. Land use is predominantly 75-82% tax-exempt owned by entities like  city, state, and federal government and educational or medical institutions; and

2. There is very little vacant residential land (less than 10%) in the study area.

These characteristics place competing claims on the land in the study area. There is somewhat of a limitation on the physical capacity in the zones to locate affordable housing while at the same time providing an advantage in the form of the amenity of open space. The seeming limitation of tax exempt ownership can also be seen as a creative opportunity to make better, creative use of underutilized land. Four out of the six nodes have 75-82% land that does not contribute or pays little in the way of taxes in the areas nearest to public transportation.
Once tax exempt parcels are removed from consideration, the next highest share of land use is residential and in many areas in the study area density is low to medium density.

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