Alewife (MBTA Station) - History

History

Boston transportation planners expected to build an Inner Belt Expressway within the Route 128 corridor in the 1970s. MA Route 2 was designed with eight lanes to carry large volumes of radial traffic, east from Alewife Brook Parkway, through Cambridge and Somerville to the Inner Belt at the border of eastern Somerville and eastern Cambridge. When the Inner Belt was canceled, Route 2 became an overbuilt highway that terminated at what was little more than major city streets. When the westward extension of the Red Line was being designed, building a station near the end of Route 2 with a large parking garage seemed like a way to capitalize on the original Route 2 investment.

There was little near the site of the Alewife station besides a largely abandoned industrial park, a chemical factory and a protected wetlands. Following principles that came to be known as transit-oriented development, the City of Cambridge zoned the area immediately near the station for high rise buildings. Over the next 20 years, a mini-city developed with office and research and development buildings, along with high rise housing.

A state law required planning the Red Line Extension so it could later be brought out to Route 128 to Bedford, via Arlington and Lexington, along the route of the former Lexington and West Cambridge Railroad. The Red line tracks extend past the station, under Route 2, and terminate in a small underground storage yard.

When the adjacent chemical plant eventually closed and was replaced by an office and hotel development, the rail spur to the plant (along a short remaining portion of the Fitchburg Cutoff) was no longer needed and its underpass was converted to an access ramp from the station to Route 2.