The Parkland Management Advisory Committee, created in the 1970s to advise on the Southwest Corridor Park planning process, recently conducted a survey of corridor users. Lots of interesting results, including several relating to the sometimes challenging interactions between pedestrians and bicyclists, but perhaps most relevant here:
57% of survey respondents live or work in Jamaica Plain, 23% in the Back Bay or South End, 16% in Roxbury, 5% in the Fenway neighborhood and 14% in other neighborhoods or cities. Among the other neighborhoods and cities, Roslindale was the most frequently mentioned.
Emphasis added (note that Roslindale wasn’t offered as a “checklist” option).
Once the Casey Overpass project is complete, entering the Southwest Corridor at Forest Hills should be a pleasant experience. The path is already a heavily-used nonmotorized highway from Southwest Boston to downtown; it is possible, for example, to take bike paths and wide bike lanes all the way from the Southwest Corridor to the water’s edge in the Seaport via the Melnea Cass bike path, Silver Line shared bike lane on Washington Street, and the Fort Port channel path across from the central USPS facility. Lots remains to be done to improve this thoroughfare (perhaps a topic for a future blog entry) but it’s a decent start.
But thousands of users who start out beyond Forest Hills have few pleasant options to reach the start of the corridor. It’s possible to walk or bike through the Arboretum, but that route is around 2x-3x longer than the straight shot from Rozzie Village to Forest Hills. Let’s envision a dedicated straight-shot path (e.g. through the arboretum, or along one of the rail rights-of-way), Hubway stations at both ends, and the phenomenal community, health, social, traffic, and mobility benefits that would come to both JP and Roslindale from that connection. Much crazier ideas have been implemented–we can and will make this happen.
Having our closest transportation hub at the top of the bottleneck created by the Arnold Arboretum and Forest Hills Cemetery means that virtually all vehicular traffic from anywhere to the southwest must travel to Forest Hills station along just two roads. In Roslindale Square, there are ten different bus routes (14, 30, 34, 34E, 35, 36, 37, 40, 50, 51) that approach the square from five different directions. Eight of these bus routes continue to Forest Hills along Washington Street, which they share with just about every other vehicle (including bicycles) headed inbound from the square or anywhere beyond it. How can we expect a two lane road to carry nearly all of the traffic from such a large area? Anything we can do to move some of that traffic to other routes and (especially) modes of transportation seems like a no-brainer.