10 years in and still at it!

Yes, you read that right. WalkUP Roslindale are now in our eleventh year of pro-housing and pro-walk, -bike, and -transit advocacy. We announced this venture, which started out as the brainchild of Adam Kessel and your correspondent, in the spring of 2015 with the following post:

Welcome to WalkUP Rosindale!

We were simply a group of neighbors who came together to try to make, as Adam indicated, Roslindale “the most walkable neighborhood in all of Boston.” We’ve come quite a way over the last decade, including formally incorporating as a non-profit in the fall of 2021 and availing ourselves of the generous fiscal sponsorship of Roslindale Village Main Street in the process. According to wordpress, we’ve also posted a total of 517 times in those years (this post will be #518). The principal through-lines have, at least from my perspective, been (1) comment letters on new projects in the neighborhood, whether focused on new development or supportive infrastructure for walking, cycling, and transit; (2) support for planning, seeking funding, and implementing the Roslindale Gateway Path with collaborative support from, among many others, the Arnold Arboretum, the Arboretum Park Conservancy, the Solomon Foundation, LivableStreets Alliance, and the City of Boston’s Parks and Transportation Departments; and (3) supporting the fundamental restructuring of the city’s regulatory system to get way from our decades-old, painfully slow development by variance approach to reform-based, pro-housing approaches such as Squares + Streets. Herewith the first or most emblematic post from this website in each of those areas:

Housing Needed!

Rozzie Bike Corral Meeting June 10

First Official WalkUP Roslindale Comment Letter – 100 Weld Street

Boston’s Vision Zero Action Plan and sharing the Arboretum Gateway Path with our friends at LivableStreets’ 10-in-1 Street Talk

WalkUP Comment Letter on Washington Street Bus Lane

Open Letter in Support of Squares + Streets

We’re grateful for all of the support we’ve seen along the way so far and look forward to the next decade of advocating for a better, safer, and more welcoming neighborhood!

 

WalkUP Roslindale’s Year in Review – 2025

As adverse as the national level conditions have been generally for anyone concerned about the direction of this country and its respect for fundamental human rights as well as the causes we hold dear in particular, we here at WalkUP Roslindale can still look back at this year at the local level as one of significant accomplishment and enduring improvement for our pro-housing and pro-walk, -bike, -transit advocacy. It is always difficult to choose what seems most significant in a given period of time, but it seems to us that three things stand out most prominently for 2025:

First, the Boston Zoning Commission’s adoption in February of the Squares + Streets zoning text and map amendments for Roslindale Square and its key radiating corridors. This was a very big deal on several levels, but perhaps none more so than the elimination of off-street parking minimums coupled with increases in as-of-right housing density within the rezoned area. The following selected posts from this website give a sense of the process as we experienced it starting in 2024 and running into 2025 as well as the first proposed project within the heart of the square that makes full use of the flexibility allowed by the new zoning – a decidedly admirable and eminently supportable all-affordable, mixed-use, senior-focused development that requires no zoning relief whatsoever:

Squares + Streets – Small Area Planning Process – Roslindale Square Kickoff Open House

Three thoughts on Squares + Streets as we get underway in Roslindale Square

Guest Post – Nate Stell from AHMA: Rezone the residential streets too!

First in an occasional series – Elvira Mora of WUR and AHMA

Open Letter in Support of Squares + Streets

Squares + Streets – ADOPTED!

First Fruits for Squares + Streets…4259-4267 Washington Street come on down!

Second, the 3-part walk audit series sponsored by a micro-grant from the American Association of Retired Persons that looked at the Washington Street corridor between the square and Archdale Road, Roslindale Square’s key intersections, and Cummins Highway’s mid-section around the new Sarah Roberts School. We very much appreciated AARP’s support and were truly stunned at the speed with which the Washington Street audit’s focus on a half-dozen badly heaved sidewalks near street trees resulted in virtually immediate fixes, resulting in vastly improved walkability and rollability in this key neighborhood corridor. Post links:

Join the Walk Audit Series!

From Audit to Action: Washington St. Sidewalks Repaired!

Walk Audit Community Meeting

Third, and finally, we were tremendously gratified to see Phase 1 of the Roslindale Gateway Path open between the end of the Blackwell Path at South Street and Arboretum Road. Roslindale Gateway Path is and has been a foundational, long-term advocacy project for us, so this first phase is welcome and we are eager both to solidify the major improvement in Arnold Arboretum access it represents and to push even harder to get the rest of the path implemented so we can truly open this amazing public resource to much more of Roslindale. Post link: Soft Open Alert – Roslindale Gateway Path Phase 1!

And so, that’s what we think of when we think of this past year’s efforts. And now it’s on to 2026…

WalkUP Roslindale Snow Clearance Collaborative – Version 8.1 – Assemble & Clear!

It’s a close call on whether we have hit the standard 4″ (10 cm) threshold, but we will err on the side of safety and assistance, so we are joining our old friend the Boston Yeti and calling our forces out onto the snowy streets this morning to clear bus stops and curb ramps for our neighbors. As has been the case, if you send us pix of the clearing you’ve done, we will send you back $10 as a reward (which we hope you will spend at one of our neighborhood’s many and varied merchants) and heartfelt thank you. Send pix to matthew.j.lawlor@gmail.com. Thanks!!!

4487 Washington St Public Meeting Wed 12/17 6pm

The Planning Department is hosting a Virtual Public Meeting tomorrow, Wednesday 12/17, 6:00-8:00pm for the proposed project at 4487 Washington Street, a new five-story 28-unit residential building with 12 off-street vehicle parking spaces. The site is on the southern tip of one of the new S2 zones established in Roslindale’s Squares and Streets process.