Friends,based on Boston Yeti’s latest observed movements, it looks like we will be called once more to rise up and clear snow for our neighbors come Thursday morning. Stay tuned here for more details as the storm event unfolds in the next 24+ hours. In the meantime, be safe and keep on keeping on, just like the Yeti.
Yours truly, The WUR Management.
Powerful video here on a well-attended march to protest traffic violence from Brooklyn, where 2 young children were killed last week while walking in a crosswalk with their mothers by a reckless driver with a long history of moving violations, including speeding in school zones, though this crash occurred at a regular crosswalk. Considering what has happened in our city and region recently, we need to consider, seriously and candidly, whether we are doing enough to stop traffic violence and protect everyone on our streets – every senior, every child, every person with mobility issues, and, really, every single one of us – who isn’t in a motor vehicle. I’m afraid that the answer is no. We must do more and we most do it more quickly. I’m with the commenter who says they don’t want safety changes to wait until the next tragedy. We need them everywhere now. Now. NOW.
Two personal notes: (1) Park Slope, where the most recent tragedy occurred, happens to be the neighborhood I grew up in; and (2) folks who have worked with LivableStreets Alliance over the last couple of years will recognize Nidhi Gulati, who recently relocated to NY, at about the 4:00 mark in the video.
We have already exceeded the 4″ (10.2 cm) benchmark for being called into action, so WURSCC v. 1. 4 is very much on for this evening and we will be looking to clear key bus stops at HP/Cummins and in/around Roslindale Square in anticipation of getting back to business and school tomorrow.
Accordingly: Meet either
(i) Rob Guptill TONIGHT, March 13 @ 7:30 pm, at the northeast corner of Washington Street and Cummins Highway (RCC); or
(ii) Matt Lawlor TONIGHT, March 13 @ 7:30 pm, at the northwest corner of Hyde Park Avenue and Cummins Highway (Atlas Liquors).
Please dress warmly and bring your own snow/ice clearance equipment and supplies (shovels, picks, icemelt, etc.) to the extent you can. Thanks and hope to see you there tomorrow morning to do some more community service this winter.
Snowfall from last night/this morning’s storm has exceeded our 4″ (10.2 cm) benchmark, so we are going to check on and, if necessary, clear our identified key bus stops:
Accordingly: Meet either
(i) Rob Guptill TONIGHT, March 8 @ 7:00 pm, at the northeast corner of Washington Street and Cummins Highway (RCC).
(ii) Matt Lawlor TOMORROW, March 9 @ 7:00 am, at the northwest corner of Hyde Park Avenue and Cummins Highway (Atlas Liquors); or
Please dress warmly and bring your own snow/ice clearance equipment and supplies (shovels, picks, icemelt, etc.) to the extent you can. Thanks and hope to see you there tomorrow morning to do some more community service this winter!
Our friends at Streetfilms offer The Right to Walk for your viewing pleasure. It’s 4:53 of to-the-point, quick-hit, smart thinking about why walking is so critical to every city’s health. And is also does make me wonder what percentage of the total transportation budget in our own city of Boston is devoted to walking, cycling, and transit?
Going forward, WalkUP Roslindale will try to keep a current inventory of improvements to our neighborhood’s pedestrian, cycling, and transit infrastructure. Accordingly, as of 26 February 2018, the below is what we’re aware of:
We welcome any additions/subtractions to this list. Thanks!!
With the new Boston City Council term officially underway as of Wednesday, At-Large Councilor, Transportation Committee chair, and Rossident Michelle Wu has made good on her statement late last year to start the discussion on collecting a user fee for something that is currently given away — on-street residential parking permits. Universal Hub has a short summary of Michelle’s council-approved request to hold a hearing on the concept soon: “Time to start charging for Boston parking permits, some councilors say.” Many issues will be in the mix, including how much to charge, whether to limit the number of permits, and how to deal with visitors and critical home care providers. As the discussion gets going and the hearing date nears, we’ll look to make this space a place for discussion of the intersecting policy and community issues at stake. While WalkUP Roslindale’s steering group hasn’t yet formulated an official policy on the issue, I can personally state for the record my complete support for implementing a user fee plan with details tbd this year. The time has come. – Matt Lawlor
LINK HERE: Take the T Pledge
There are reasons for elected officials at the local and state levels not to take this pledge and ride the T for 5 consecutive work days before May 31. It’s just that those reasons can all be dealt with or planned around and the pledge’s central notion — that you value, at a fundamental level, something more and know better its pluses and minuses when you actually experience it on a regular, sustained basis — cannot be denied. Check out the website, and if you agree, reach out to your own local and state elected officials and encourage them to take the pledge. We’ll all benefit.
And many thanks to Brendan Halpin, our neighbor over in Jamaica Plain, for coming up with the idea for the pledge.
…for our small, but dedicated army of snow clearers to be called into service tomorrow. Forecast is currently for 1 to 3 inches of wet snow. We will get the message out if that changes on the upside. That is all. Good evening!
Check out this article from a self-identified conservative professor of philosophy:
Philosopher embraces New Urbanism.
In brief, these concepts and the benefits that flow from them aren’t just for Dirty Hippies, Slackers, and Hipsters. And contemplate for a moment how closely the streetcar neighborhood in Grand Rapids resembles our own patch of this earth in terms of the richness of accessible amenities. I’ll just leave the opening preamble of the Charter of the New Urbanism, quoted in the article, here while noting that even as Boston’s population grows and the initial issue is not so much about private disinvestment, we still struggle with bringing our city’s politics, policies, and actions around to meet the challenges that remain:
The Congress for the New Urbanism views disinvestment in central cities, the spread of placeless sprawl, increasing separation by race and income, environmental deterioration, loss of agricultural lands and wilderness, and the erosion of society’s built heritage as one interrelated community-building challenge.