On gate, some back and forth

Not all like Logan's tightened backdoor

Starting April 15, this Logan Airport gate at the end of Maverick Street will be restricted to East Boston residents. (Wendy Maeda/Globe Staff)

Yes, April 15 is tax day, but for many in Jeffries Point, it will also mark the official beginning of a long-awaited addition to the neighborhood. It's scheduled to be the first day of operation for the new Maverick Street gate, built to limit access to and from Logan Airport at that location to Eastie residents only.

The $687,000 device, paid for by Massport, will be controlled by an access card available only to those who have a vehicle registered in East Boston and proof of residency in the form of a utility bill. It's stirring a controversy that seems neatly divided along generational lines. While longtime residents like Webster Street's Mary Ellen Welch are "amazed there are people who would object," many of those who moved to the neighborhood in the past few years welcome the gate as much as they would a visit from the IRS.

"That gate is absurd," said Mark Cordeiro, 40, a software engineer who lives in Eagle Hill but spends a lot of time in Jeffries Point. "It makes absolutely no sense. The only thing it's doing is keeping people out of the neighborhood, and why would you want to do that? We need people in here."

For years, some Jeffries Point residents lobbied for a gate at the eastern end of Maverick Street near Jeffries, a block from the Ted Williams Tunnel. "We asked to have restrictions put on that exit way back in 1981," said Welch, a neighborhood activist, because it was being used by commercial vehicles coming from the airport.

For many years, the hairpin turnout, which empties into a small parking lot leading to the side streets that run toward Maverick Square and, eventually, the Sumner and Callahan tunnels, was defined by haphazardly placed Jersey barriers and potholes. A rundown guard shack, rarely staffed, sat beside a sign proclaiming that the access was for residents only between 3 and 6 p.m. Today it is dapper, with landscaping, smooth paving, and shiny new paint on the curbs and pilings.

Form is nice, of course, but function is more important to advocates. "These cars coming down Maverick Street, there's a 20-mile-an-hour speed limit, and they're barreling down at 40 or 50 miles an hour," maintained Hugo Ascolillo, 79, a retired postal worker. "That is very dangerous. . . . We tried to get the gate closed, locked, shut off, and they wouldn't do it."

That may be small consolation to those in the neighborhood who are opposed to the new structure. "I respect that a lot of older residents have fought very hard to have a gate put there," said Andrew Gelling, a 38-year-old carpenter who lives on nearby Sumner Street. "But now times have changed. With the Big Dig, the Ted Williams Tunnel, and the reorganization of the airport, it doesn't make sense anymore for people to cut through the neighborhood, and they don't. The gate is, at this point, obsolete."

Albert Elia, 34, is a consultant who lives in the Porter Street lofts, a few blocks away. "Honestly, I am shocked by how little traffic there is in the neighborhood," he said.

At one point Hugo Ascolillo surveyed the traffic on Maverick Street, a one-way, for the Jeffries Point Neighborhood Association - 60 percent came from outside Eastie, he said - but he said he stopped the surveys "four or five years ago" before the Ted Williams was open to all and the airport's highway restructuring was done. Today, newer residents argue, the shortcut is actually through the faster Logan highways.

"It's way easier, if you're a cab driver trying to get to the Sumner Tunnel, to take the airport road," said Laura Rollins, 47, an Eastie realtor who lives in the South End. "It's like four lanes. There are no pedestrians, no stop signs, no school buses, no city speed limits, no really slow drivers or people who take up two lanes."

According to Mac Daniel, spokesman for the Mass. Turnpike Authority, fewer and fewer people are using the Sumner and Callahan tunnels. "Back in 1970," he said, "the average weekday traffic through those two tunnels was 65,000 vehicles. By 1990 it was 100,000. Then the Big Dig starts to come into play. In 2000, traffic . . . was down to 75,000 vehicles a day, and by 2005, the last count I have, it was 43,900, less than in 1970."

Whether they take the Ted or the Sumner/Callahan, people who work in East Boston but don't live there should be allowed to use the new gate, too, some locals say. "It adds another 15 minutes" to the commute of many workers, said Scott Richards, 28, of Webster Street. "It redirects traffic to other parts of town, so it doesn't solve the overall issue. It's a total waste of gas."

Others are concerned about the economic impact on a part of town that is starting to come into its own. "They should get rid of it," said Tom Clackett, 32, a co-owner of 303 Cafe. "As a business owner, I think it makes it more difficult for people to get to East Boston."

That is exactly Andrew Gelling's worry. "One of the weaknesses of East Boston for years was that it was so inaccessible," he said. "Now it's accessible, and all of the things the older residents have worked so hard to achieve - a stable community with homeowners and vibrant businesses - are starting to happen, and I think this is counterproductive to that and detrimental to the long-term health of the community."

Mark Cordeiro is less gentle. "This is not a gated community, for God's sake!"