Boston PIC Approves Chelsea Terminal Signal Project Over AutoPort Operator's Objections

BOSTON -- September 26, 2024, Boston's Public Improvement Commission approved four street-improvement petitions unanimously at its September 26 meeting, including a contested traffic-signal project at Chelsea and Terminal streets near the Moran container terminal. John O'Donnell of Boston AutoPort objected that new curbing and signal phasing would impede 80-foot car carriers and cost his operation productivity, and he noted that property owner Mike Rossio had received project plans only the night before and could not attend due to a medical condition. A city official replied that the signal was programmed to hold green on the Moran Access Road leg indefinitely unless another detector fired, saying "there is no option here where we do not provide for a signalized intersection, that is an absolute." The commission also cleared a 1,453-square-foot pedestrian easement and Amory Street repairs for a Youth Enrichment Services youth-sports campus in Jamaica Plain, despite unresolved Boston Water and Sewer review over the project's proximity to the Stony Brook culvert, and approved Northeastern University streetscape mitigation on Benton Street in Roxbury tied to a 34,000-square-foot building renovation. A petition to rename Bussey Street after a formerly enslaved woman named Flora, backed by 277 neighborhood survey respondents and two city council offices, was set for a public hearing October 10.