It's the deadline for the latest round of public comment on the Allston Mass. Pike project. Long list of advocacy orgs, the cities of Boston and Cambridge, and @SenMarkey and @AyannaPressley, have written to MassDOT to urge Sec. Pollack to prioritize the at-grade design.

Charles River Watershed Association wrote, meanwhile, to say it cannot accept that option and is still pushing MassDOT to consider a to-this-point-unstudied version with fewer lanes, to minimize impact on river.

CRWA argues that between COVID's impact on traffic and the fact that construction will lead to years of lane closures anyway, the region could sustain fewer highway lanes -- and that it should do so to discourage driving and thus carbon emissions.

Conservation Law Foundation is a notable enviro group that has endorsed the at-grade option that the state is considering (which does not include any lane reductions). Boston officials have noted that if you build it that way now you could eliminate lanes easier in the future.

Most of these letters codify positions we already knew about. Most advocates want to go at-grade. CRWA doesn't, and has made it clear it will oppose such a push if it means building into the river...

...And the state has always been reluctant about this option, at least partially because of the permitting and other potential legal difficulties.

So at least for now, the calculus for the decision, coming at some unspecified point this fall, is whether the state's analysis + CRWA opposition outweighs the broader advocacy consensus and results in the state moving forward with a new viaduct.

Another possibility, as Sec. Pollack has lightly threatened: state decides everybody's at an impasse, opts to just patch the viaduct up, and punts on everything else - incl. highway straightening and West Station. That kind of decision wld probably play out on a longer timeline.

To clarify... @CharlesRiver Watershed Association likes the idea of putting everything at-grade, but not as currently proposed. Lane reductions to avoid the river are at the heart of the org's argument. https://twitter.com/PeoplesPike/status/1322292377562873858

Here are the last couple Globe stories on this project, both showing the growing consensus around the at-grade option...

BU: https://www.bostonglobe.com/2020/10/06/metro/bu-offers-more-land-break-logjam-over-mass-pike-project/?p1=StaffPage

Walsh admin: https://www.bostonglobe.com/2020/10/15/metro/allston-project-could-put-walsh-baker-administrations-odds/