Morrissey Boulevard is a six-lane divided coastal road in the Dorchester neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts, United States. It is owned and maintained by the Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation (DCR).
Route description
A parkway, Morrissey Boulevard leaves Neponset Circle at its northeast quadrant as the left two lanes of a three lane exit, with the rightmost lane splitting to the east as an entrance ramp to the Southeast Expressway (Interstate 93). Traveling under the expressway within a landscaped park area fronting the DCR-operated Devine Memorial ice rink, the road then travels north through the Neponset and Popes Hill sections of Dorchester with commercial establishments on both sides. The road splits as it passes under the tracks of the MBTA Red Line rapid transit route at what was previously Popes Hill Station of the Old Colony Railroad. A Dunkin' Donuts store now occupies the area between the two roadways. The entrance to Tenean Beach, part of the DCR's Dorchester Shores Reservation, is located off the right roadway in this section.
Morrissey Boulevard proceeds north past the Richard J. Murphy Elementary School and is flanked by heavy commercial development over the following to Freeport Street. At Freeport, the road again passes beneath the expressway and travels to the east of it from that point to the end of the boulevard. As a northbound exit ramp from the expressway enters on the right, the view east is dominated by a LNG storage tank which is painted with Rainbow Swash, an iconic work by Corita Kent that has made the gas tank a Boston landmark. The parkway passes over the inlet from Dorchester Bay to Savin Hill Bay carried by the John J. Beades Memorial Bridge, a drawbridge which opens to allow passage to Dorchester Yacht Club. Savin Hill Beach, Malibu Beach, Savin Hill Yacht Club and the Vietnam Veterans Memorial of Dorchester are located along Morrissey Boulevard in this area adjacent to Savin Hill and featured as part of Boston Harborwalk.
The University of Massachusetts Boston, Boston College High School, and the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum are among the institutions located on Morrissey Boulevard in its northernmost stretch beyond Savin Hill. The road ends as it intersects Columbia Road and Day Boulevard at Kosciuszko Circle, adjacent to the Columbia Point section of Dorchester and JFK/UMass subway and commuter rail station.
History
The road was designed as early as 1906 as an urban parkway to be constructed along the route of the Old Colony Railroad to give travelers to Quincy and Massachusetts South Shore locations a way to bypass city streets. In planning for nearly two decades, it was finally completed in 1924 and named Old Colony Parkway. The originally proposed route paralleling the railroad was changed and moved to the shore of Dorchester Bay on the Atlantic Ocean due in part to land reclamation efforts prior to completion of the road. Old Colony Parkway was renamed William T. Morrissey Boulevard in 1951 in honor of the former head of the Metropolitan District Commission (MDC), now the Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation (DCR). The older commission constructed many parkways within Greater Boston and the DCR continues to own and maintain Morrissey Boulevard.
Flooding
It is becoming known for high tide flooding. The thoroughfare was flooded during the January 2018 North American blizzard, the first March 2018 nor'easter, and during the January 2019 North American winter storm. In September 2020, the thoroughfare was flooded during the passage of Hurricane Teddy, while a king tide caused Morrissey Boulevard to become flooded in November 2020, and the thoroughfare was flooded during the second December 2020 nor'easter. The thoroughfare was flooded during the 2021 Groundhog Day nor'easter. In July 2021, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) released a report estimating that Boston would experience 11 to 18 days of high tide flooding in the following year. The thoroughfare was flooded during the January 2022 North American blizzard and the December 2022 North American winter storm. In January 2024, another king tide caused Morrissey Boulevard to become flooded.
In October 2018, Boston Mayor Marty Walsh announced a comprehensive climate change adaptation proposal to protect the Boston Harbor coastline from flooding that included a proposal to re-design Morrissey Boulevard, and in October 2020, the Walsh administration released a 174-page climate change adaptation report for the Boston Harbor coastline in Dorchester that included proposals to elevate Morrissey Boulevard to as high as 16 feet NAVD 88 and install tide gates and berms with cost estimates ranging from $55.6 million to $90.9 million. In December 2024, the DCR announced that it was planning to install a new pump station along the Neponset Greenway extension to reduce flooding along Morrissey that it estimated would cost $3 million.
Harborwalk-Neponset connection
In February 2022, Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker announced an $8.2 million project to construct a 0.7-mile shared-use path from Tenean Beach on the Neponset River Reservation to Morrissey Boulevard and that will connect the Lower Neponset River Trail with the Boston Harborwalk via Morrissey (including a 670-foot boardwalk in the salt marshes near the National Grid gas tank) would be included in the $9.5 billion in federal funds the state government received under the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. In November 2022, the Michaels Organization announced an agreement with state officials for maintenance of the Morrissey-Neponset walking trail connection at a virtual public meeting for a proposal to redevelop the Ramada hotel property at 800 Morrissey into housing. In May 2023, the route for the Morrissey-Neponset walking trail connection was in the process of being cleared by Massachusetts Department of Transportation (MassDOT) contractors. By July 2024, roughly two-thirds of the Morrissey-Neponset walking trail connection was complete.
Beades Bridge replacement
In February 2023, MassDOT officials announced that a project to replace the Beades Bridge had been greenlighted to proceed to a design phase (to be performed by the management and consulting firm WSP) and estimated that the project could cost as much as $122 million (and with its construction not expected to begin until at least 2028), after the Department sent a letter to Boston Chief of Streets Jascha Franklin-Hodge, Massachusetts State Senator Nick Collins, and Massachusetts State Representative Daniel J. Hunt the previous month stating that the project was now eligible for federal highway funding. While under the purview of the MDC, the state government spent $1.3 million from 1995 to 1999 and $9.1 million in 2001 for repairs to the Beades Bridge to keep it operational, rather than replace the bridge as the MDC recommended in a 1998 report since the bridge was designed to only be operational for 50 years and was constructed in 1928. In December 2023, the Beades Bridge was closed for overnight repair after it failed to close from its upright position.
Kosciuszko Circle redesign
In March 2021, the administrations of Charlie Baker and Marty Walsh announced a $1 million infrastructure study to improve the Morrissey Boulevard corridor and Kosciuszko Circle, which received its funding from the MassDOT and the Boston Planning & Development Agency (BPDA) in July 2021. In February 2023, Accordia Partners (managing the Dorchester Bay City redevelopment proposal for the former Bayside Expo Center and the 2 Morrissey property) proposed replacing the Kosciuszko Circle rotary with a four-way interchange at a public meeting hosted by the BPDA. In August 2024, MassDOT officials stated that a team of engineers was developing three alternative proposals to redesign Kosciuszko Circle separately from the Morrissey Boulevard redesign commission that would be publicly released in early 2025.
MassDOT redesign commission
In February 2016, the DCR announced public meetings for designing a restoration project for Morrissey Boulevard to the Neponset River Greenway Council. In July 2022, U.S. Representative Stephen Lynch from Massachusetts's 8th congressional district argued that infrastructure improvements to the Morrissey Boulevard corridor and Kosciuszko Circle should be included in the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act funding in an interview with the Dorchester Reporter. In August 2022, Governor Baker signed into law an $11 billion transportation infrastructure bond bill that included $250,000 for improvements to the tide gates at Patten's Cove and that established a commission scheduled to assemble later in the same year and issue a report with findings and recommendations to improve the Morrissey Boulevard corridor and Kosciuszko Circle by June 1, 2023 (and that would include multiple state agency executives, the Mayor of Boston, state and local legislators, or their designees). Due to the transition in gubernatorial administrations from departing Governor Charlie Baker to incoming Governor Maura Healey, the commission did not form by the end of 2022 and the release of its final report was subsequently delayed until 2024. In November 2023, the commission held its first meeting and moved the deadline for its final report to June 2024.
In January 2024, the commission held a public meeting on climate resiliency at the UMass Boston Integrated Sciences Complex and the Dorchester Reporter published an editorial criticizing the MassDOT's handling of the commission for not giving sufficient notice of its public meetings and for not making sufficient effort to solicit public input into the roadway redesign planning. In February 2024, the Columbia-Savin Hill Civic Association voted to create a committee to track developments related to the commission that would be chaired by the designee nominated by State Senator Collins to the commission. In May 2024, the commission held a public meeting at Boston College High School and voted to recommend extending the report deadline at a subsequent virtual meeting in the same month. In June 2024, the commission held a public meeting at Southline Boston that was moderated by Boston City Councilor John FitzGerald and where the commission voted to extend the deadline to the end of the year. In August 2024, the commission held a public meeting at Boston Collegiate Charter School that focused on reconfiguring traffic patterns around the UMass Boston entrance and east-west connectivity with Savin Hill. In September 2024, the commission held another public meeting at Boston Collegiate Charter School that discussed an overview of the roadway corridor layout, an initial alternative analysis for the roadway redesign proposal, and coordinating the proposal with a related city government proposal for enhancing accessibility to the JFK/UMass station.