The owners of Suffolk Downs announced last week that they will be spending $40-$50 million on traffic improvements as part of their Suffolk Downs casino effort.
This is a big chunk of change to be spending on traffic mitigation, which will be highlighted by the construction of a Boardman Street fly-over to remove congestion on one of the most important routes used by local residents commuting to work and returning home.
Other changes will be made to allow traffic to flow in a more orderly fashion and some of those changes will extend along the length of the McClellan Highway into Revere and at some point, even Bell Circle will be in for a few changes.
Last Saturday, about 10,000 people attended Suffolk Downs for an afternoon at the races.
Suffolk Downs officials are predicting about 15,000 cars arriving there on Friday’s, Saturday’s and Sunday’s when the casino is up and running – if it comes to that.
Saturday’s large crowd didn’t require a single police officer directing traffic on the Revere and East Boston entrances.
To an extent, this proves the basic viability of Suffolk Downs as a casino location that is not going to drown the neighborhood in traffic.
And as an aside, with no casino at Suffolk Downs, the state can be expected to do nothing about traffic on the McClellan Highway which has been a problem for more than 50 years.