Southwest Corridor Park, Linear state park in Suffolk County, United States
Southwest Corridor Park is a long, narrow park in Boston, Massachusetts, running from the Back Bay neighborhood to Forest Hills along the Orange Line subway route. Along the way, it offers playgrounds, basketball and tennis courts, hockey rinks, and walking paths spread across its full length.
In the 1960s, this land was planned for an urban highway that would have cut through several Boston neighborhoods. Community opposition brought the project to a halt in 1969, and the corridor was gradually turned into a public park over the following years.
The park connects several Boston neighborhoods along a single strip of green, and the people using it reflect how different those neighborhoods are from one another. In the sections near Roxbury and Jamaica Plain, you can see local life up close: pickup basketball games, children on playgrounds, and people gathering on benches.
The park can be entered at many points along its length, and the Orange Line stations make it easy to join or leave at different spots. The paths are flat and easy to follow, whether you are walking, jogging, or cycling.
Because the park was built directly over the Orange Line tunnel and alongside its above-ground tracks, trains pass just a few feet from joggers and basketball players throughout the day. This side-by-side arrangement of transit and recreation is rarely seen in American cities.
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