Can Our Underperforming Asphalt Become Bustling Boulevards? Northland’s Newton Project Offers Path Forward for Tired Real Estate By Amy Dain | Special to Banker Tradesman | May 9, 2021 | Reprints | Print Amy Dain Burlington Mall Road might be the quintessential car-oriented commercial corridor of Massachusetts. It hugs Route 128, like the child of the highway that it is, in Burlington, a suburb that never had a train station and grew faster in the 1950s and ’60s than any other town in the state. Burlington officials have called the corridor of low-rise shops and dated office buildings “underperforming asphalt.” Now they are launching an effort to redesign it.