Salvucci solution: Cross bridge problem when you come to it

Crumbling bridges and overpasses. Problems, right?

Not to Fred Salvucci. The transportation researcher at MIT, and secretary of transportation in both Dukakis administrations, sees the urgent infrastructure problems facing many of Allston-Brighton's links to the outside world as opportunities.

For example, he said, Harvard University's acquisition of the underused freight rail yards around the Mass. Pike's Allston/Cambridge exit ramps - which, incidentally, are dropping concrete chunks on the tracks - presents an opportunity to increase commuter rail access to Boston, fix the clogged interchange, and expand park space and the bikeway along the Charles River.

Salvucci is consulting with Harvard on possible uses of the yards, and both Harvard and Boston University are talking about new transportation hubs that would better serve their campuses.

Neighbors have repeatedly suggested to Harvard's planners that a commuter rail stop farther into the neighborhood would be useful for the university and residents.

The likelihood that all of the bridges between Boston and Cambridge will need to be rebuilt in the next few years provides, Salvucci believes, a chance to explore whether it's time for an additional bridge - or perhaps a commuter ferry like the one from Hingham - to connect Allston-Brighton and Cambridge to Boston by water.

Salvucci made his comments at the recent Allston Brighton Community Development Corporation's annual meeting, which explored how transportation had shaped the neighborhood and how it might be shaped in the coming 50 years.

"Open space and high-density development are our friends," he told the audience of about 50. "If we had half the density, we would have no open space. If we are closer, it allows public transit to work."

ANDREAE DOWNS