Month: November 2017

Some thinking about walkable neighborhoods and why “affordable” neighborhoods are about more than just housing costs…

Matt Lawlor Leave a comment

 

Why walkability is not a luxury

This is a longish read from Rob Steuteville at Public Square and it glosses over some of the deeper issues on disinvestment in our cities in the second half of the 20th century and the hard set of issues that arise from displacement as demand and investment return. But I commend it to help frame the ongoing debate here in Boston and in Roslindale about growth, walkability, and what makes a neighborhood affordable.

If you concentrate on just housing costs, you’re missing half of the direct cost picture and much of the indirect environmental and public health costs. To know if a neighborhood is truly affordable, both housing and transportation costs need to be considered, and then environmental and health impacts have to be layered in on top of that. On this basis, one finds that neighborhoods that seem expensive really aren’t that expensive and neighborhoods that seem affordable really aren’t that affordable. Discuss.

UPDATE – TIME + LOCATION NOW CONFIRMED: Roslindale District Councilor Forum set for January 24, 2018

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City CouncilCity CouncilCity Council

UPDATE: We have a time and location for the Roslindale District Councilor Forum – we will convene for a conversation with our councilors – Councilors Campbell (soon to be Council President), McCarthy, and O’Malley – at 6:30 pm on January 24, 2018, at the Roslindale Community Center, 6 Cummins Highway (corner of Washington and Cummins in Roslindale Square). We encourage attendees to walk, bike, or take the T to the meeting at parking is limited.

Vision Zero World Day of Remembrance this Sunday Nov. 19, 2017 at 12pm Copley Square/1:30pm Boston Common/2pm State House

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WalkUP Roslindale is a proud member of the Massachusetts Vision Zero Coalition, which seeks to eliminate all deaths and serious injuries from car crashes in the Commonwealth. We encourage everyone to join us for World Day of Remembrance this Sunday, November 19, 2017. This will be a day of actions to remember those who have been injured or lost to traffic violence, and to demand safe streets for everyone in our communities.

World Day of Remembrance is an annual event taking place in cities around the world. In Massachusetts, we gather each year on the steps of the state house in Boston, to show our legislators that traffic fatalities are still unacceptably high, and we need more cities and towns to commit to ending traffic violence now.

We know that crashes are not accidents – they’re the tragic, preventable results of inadequate planning, policy, and unsafe behavior. While people make mistakes; our streets must be designed so those mistakes are not fatal. Please join us to ensure that these lives are not forgotten and to demand safe streets for all.

In the wake of the fatal crash that took the life of 19-year old Antawani Wright Davis, who was hit and killed by a dump truck while riding his bike, and the two people killed while biking in Cambridge last year while biking — all involving large trucks — we are asking our state legislators why they have not yet passed a bill in the State House that would mandate additional truck safety measures.

Please join us for any or all of the following memorial actions:

  • 12pm – Join us and dozens of others for the Ride for Remembrance, gathering at 12:00 pm in Copley Square. The group will depart at 12:15 pm for a one-hour ride, passing the sites where people have been killed walking and biking over the past year, remembering them and committing to action so their deaths were not in vain. The ride will end at Beacon and Charles in time to join the walk to the State House.
  • 1:30pm – Join the Memorial Walk and Vigil, gathering at 1:30 pm on the Boston Common at the corner of Beacon Street and Charles Street for a walk to the steps of the State House.
  • 2pm – Gather on the steps of the State House for the Memorial Vigil. We’ll be joined by city and state officials, family and friends of people who have been killed or injured in traffic crashes, and other residents and advocates, to call on our elected leaders to do more to put an end to these preventable crashes.
  • 3pm – Warm up with refreshments at a post-vigil gathering at CIC Boston, just a few blocks away at 50 Milk Street.

Event details:
World Day of Remembrance
Sunday, November 19, 2017
Several activities taking place between 12:00 and 5:00 pm
@ Copley Square, Boston Common, Massachusetts State House, and CIC Boston

Please wear yellow in remembrance of those we’ve lost due to traffic violence.

Help us spread the word via social media by using the following hashtags before and during the event: #WDR2017 #CrashNotAccident #SafetyOverSpeed
#VisionZero and RSVP and spread the word on Facebook.

Fall 2017 Pool Mini-Tourney with 21st-ranked All Time Urbanist Jeff Speck!! 11/9 @ 8:30 pm at Napper Tandy’s Roslindale

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We’ll gather at approximately 8:30 pm on Thursday, November 9, at Napper Tandy’s in Roslindale for some pool and discussion with our friend and fellow Boston region resident Jeff Speck. Jeff is the highly respected author of The Walkable City and other popular works on the urban condition, including Suburban Nation, which he co-wrote with new urbanist giants Andres Duany and Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk. Jeff was also recently ranked 21st on planetizen.com’s ranking of all-time great urbanists. Bring quarters and your thoughts about how we can make Roslindale a more walkable,  bikeable, and transit-friendly community.

WalkUP Roslindale Key Bus Stop Snow Clearance Collaborative – Version 1.0

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Will you join us?

WalkUP Roslindale is looking to organize a collaborative group of neighbors who will help us clear snow from a handful of our neighborhood’s key bus stops whenever we have more than 4″ of snow this winter.

As we all know, snow clearance is often an issue at bus stops throughout the region. That doesn’t mean we should ignore it and hope that our seniors, young people, and everyone in between miraculously manage to safely board their buses at stops rendered unsafe by snow and ice.

The key bus stops we’re proposing to focus on this winter are:

  1. Cummins Hwy @ Hyde Park Av/30 & 14 toward Mattapan/Hyde Park
  2. Cummins Hwy @ Hyde Park Av/30 toward Roslindale
  3. Hyde Park Av @ Cummins Hwy/34 toward Hyde Park
  4. Hyde Park Av @ Cummins Hwy/34 toward Forest Hills
  5. Belgrade Av @ Robert/Multiple outbound buses
  6. Washington St @ Cummins Hwy/Multiple inbound buses

That breaks down geographically into 2 collaborative teams – one in Roslindale Square and one at the intersection of Hyde Park Avenue and Cummins Highway. Rob Guptill (email: rguptill2000@nullyahoo.com) has volunteered to be the team coordinator for the Roslindale Square group and Matt Lawlor (your correspondent, email: matthew.j.lawlor@nullgmail.com) has volunteered to be the team coordinator for HP/Cummins. The plan is to blast a call to snowshoveling arms over our email list and social media accounts whenever we make the call for the collaborative teams to shovel the following morning. That said, both Rob and I would love to hear directly at the email addresses above from anyone who is interested in helping us provide this important service to our neighbors so we can be sure of a core group of ready and willing collaborators. We would love your support for this effort!!