Southwest Corridor Park
IUCN Category V - Protected Landscape / Seascape
The Southwest Corridor Park seen from the Ruggles Street from southbound
The Southwest Corridor Park is a state park in Boston's Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts in the United States. The park is managed by the Department of Conservation and Recreation (DCR ) and is part of the Metropolitan Park System of Greater Boston. The area extends for a total length of nearly 5 mi (8 km) from Boston's South End on the back Bay to Forest Hills. The current park was built in a corridor that was originally intended as a new route for Interstate 95 in the city center of Boston. The area follows closely the routes of Amtrak trains and by the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority ( MBTA ) operated underground Orange Line of the Back Bay station to the terminal station at the Forest Hills. The park has several tennis courts, basketball courts, sports fields and opportunities for hiking, jogging and cycling.
History
In the 1960s, houses were bulldozed in an area of some 100 acres in the Boston neighborhoods South End, Roxbury, and Jamaica Plain, to make room for a newly planned, 7.4 km section of Interstate 95 named Southwest Expressway. However, the extensive demolition work provoked large protests in the population, and then the Interstate 95 merged with the Massachusetts Route 128 and the existing route was converted into a park.
The protests forced the then Governor Francis W. Sargent to set the Highway project in 1969. He sat down then especially at the federal level to ensure that laws be changed so that more funds for projects of public transport (such as subways and light rail routes ) can be made available. Sargent was successful with his request: In 1973, the United States Congress passed the so-called Interstate Transfer option that allowed a state that actually for highways provided federal funds to public transport projects to rededicate.
The construction of the park was merged on the basis of these new opportunities with the project to lay the Orange Line. Since bought land before the demise of the highway project along the planned route and buildings had been demolished, the route for nearly ten years was a scar in the cityscape. Residents began to invest in open space community gardens. When it gave them more and more and the path was evergreen, this led in 1978 to the start of construction of the park. The first sections of the present park was opened in 1987. Three years later, the whole park on 5 May 1990, handed over to the public during a grand opening ceremony.
Description
The Southwest Corridor Park extends over a length of nearly 5 mi (8 km) and occupies an area of 52 acres ( about 21 ha). It runs along the railway line of the Orange Line and the Northeast Corridor Amtrak station from the Back Bay to Forest Hills Station. The park through the Boston neighborhoods intersects the South End, Back Bay, Roxbury and Jamaica Plain. The park has several tennis courts, playgrounds and basketball courts as well as walking and jogging. Bike trails connect the park with the Emerald Necklace and the Arborway in Forest Hills.