By Cary Shuman
Picture the current Sullivan Square rotary as a newly designed space with a much-enhanced traffic pattern with additional traffic lights. Now imagine Rutherford Avenue as a multimodal boulevard with a linear park and an exclusive lane for buses in the middle of the roadway or buses side-loading adjacent to the sidewalks.
Those are the plans that Boston transportation and planning officials presented to the Charlestown Neighborhood Council at its meeting Tuesday night at the Knights of Columbus.
The project has been 18 years in the making. In 2008, the Mayor Thomas Menino Administration launched a community process to convert Rutherford Avenue into an urban boulevard. The Mayor Martin Walsh Administration restarted the design process in 2016.
But today in 2026, after an outstanding presentation led by Interim Chief of Streets Nick Gove and Deputy Chief of Planning Devin Quirk, who are both Charlestown residents, and Capital Project Design Director Lydia Hausle, there is confidence that Mayor Michele Wu will finally bring the project to the starting line and finish line. Wu sent a large contingent of officials to the CNC meeting for the presentation, and CNC members were impressed, publicly thanking the group for their update on the Rutherford Avenue/Sullivan Square design project while expressing their wish for continuing discussions.
According to the City of Boston Streets Cabinet’s information packet provided at the meeting, the project is a $200 million Boston Region Metropolitan Organization (MPO) Transportation Improvement Program (TIP) project. It is the largest fully funded, municipally led roadway project in the state. The expected start of construction for the project is 2031, so there is still much planning, permitting, and discussions to be conducted. Officials noted at the meeting that the $200 million for the project is currently available, but the funds must be used now.
The process begins as the Kraft Group plans to build a new 25,000-seat professional soccer stadium next door in Everett.
Tuesday’s meeting flowed very well as CNC Chair Tom Cunha announced at the outset that only one question per person would be allowed to the Boston transportation, planning, and neighborhood services officials (who answered each question with clarity) and there would be “no debate” following the responses.
Gove, Quirk, and Hausle spoke about the project history and timeline (2008-2026), the community meeting schedule, and an overview of the entire project.
Hausle stated that the project will eliminate flood-prone, space-intensive, and costly underpasses.
Hausle also said one of the benefits of the new project will be an expansion of crossing opportunities (crosswalks) and sidewalks for pedestrians on Rutherford Avenue.
“Today there are four crossing opportunities between City Square and Sullivan Square. In the future, there will be seven [on Rutherford Avenue],” noted Hausle.
Hausle added that another advantage to the new project will be “possibly, most excitedly, the space that we are able to claw back from the underpass structures allows us to create a really important new amenity for Charlestown – the creation of an over five-acre park linear park that will provide a substance amount of open space.”
Hausle said the project will also dramatically improve the traffic pattern and vehicular traffic in Sullivan Square Circle (Rotary) for cars, trucks, buses, and bicyclists.
Quirk, who as a Charlestown resident has experienced first-hand the traffic tie-ups in Sullivan Square and on Rutherford Avenue, felt the meeting was productive.
“I think it was a great meeting,” said Quirk. “It’s a great start. We have three more community meetings to go, and we’ll be excited to have more dialogue there. They [Charlestown residents] want to see us take action, and we’re here to take action. There’s been decades of planning on Rutherford Avenue and Sullivan Square. It’s been unrealized to-date. Now it’s time to get some action done, and we’re starting today.”
Gove also called the meeting, “productive,” adding that “we hope to get good attendance at our public meeting on Feb. 11.”
Missouri, leader of Mayor Wu’s Office of Neighborhood Services, addressed residents’ concerns about quality-of-life issues during the design and construction processes.
“What we’ve heard for many years is that the status-quo is not satisfactory for people who are unhappy with the current traffic pattern and the underpass being in poor condition and flooding – so, we want to fix that,” said Missouri. “And the reason we want to fix that is because we want to improve quality of life, but as with every large-scale project, it’s going to be tough in the construction phase, but the end result is going to be something really awarding for people and the quality of life is going to increase over many decades.”
CNC Vice Chair Mary Boucher, who drives to work each day through Sullivan Square and on Rutherford Avenue, is hopeful about the project being done, but “I would first like to see the sequence of traffic lights fixed on Cambridge Street,” among other improvements.
Boucher, who brought a 2017 Rutherford Avenue/Sullivan Square project update to the meeting, jested, “It’s like the Groundhog Day [movie], but I have my fingers crossed and I’m hopeful that this project will finally get done. I hope officials will come to Sullivan Square and get a good look at the traffic and what’s going on there each day.”
The next community meeting on the design project will be held on February 11 at the Warren-Prescott School in Charlestown. Diane Valle said she would like to see a broader discussion about other topics and projects (such as the new soccer stadium) at future community meetings.
“I don’t know how you do any planning in Charlestown without taking into consideration the flood zones that we live with on all four sides, the Encore casino, the Everett soccer stadium, and the Davis Company Docklands, because they all will impact our traffic and you can’t just build a road and not take into account all the vehicles that will be coming through our community.”