Fenway (parkway) - Route Description

Route Description

The Fenway begins at the intersection of Brookline Avenue and the Riverway, heading southeast with three one-way lanes past Emmanuel College to an intersection with Avenue Louis Pasteur. From there, the left and right lanes become turn-only and the middle lane continues straight. Traffic in the left-turn-only lane changes direction and joins the paralleling Park Drive along with the oncoming traffic traveling northeast on the Fenway. After the turn-lane drops, the road becomes two-way with one lane in each direction past Simmons College and the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. It then turns northeast at Louis Prang Street and becomes a one-way two-lane road which passes the Museum of Fine Arts and parts of Northeastern University. A short spur connects the parkway to Westland Avenue and from there it continues as a two-way road with two lanes in each direction past Berklee College of Music and the Boston Conservatory, ending at Boylston Street. At the Boylston Street intersection stands a monument of novelist and poet John Boyle O'Reilly which was constructed in 1897.

The Fenway runs alongside the Muddy River for its entire length and the river continues in a stone-paved channel surrounded by a narrow strip of parklands, toward its connection with the Charles River. In a series of stone bridges and tunnels, it passes under Boylston Street, the Massachusetts Turnpike, Commonwealth Avenue, Storrow Drive, and a series of elevated connecting ramps known as the Bowker Overpass before joining the Charles. Park Drive, which is located on the other side of the Back Bay Fens, allows for continuous travel in the opposite direction of the Fenway. It begins near where the Fenway ends at Boylston Street and enters the same intersection at Brookline Avenue where the Fenway begins.