Update 4/16/16: the survey is now over; keep an eye on http://walkuproslindale.org/gateway for news.
In advance of the upcoming visioning session for the Arboretum Gateway Path, we and our partners in the Tufts Urban Environmental Policy Planning program are conducting a survey to better understand the needs of the community. Please complete the survey and spread the word to your neighbors!
Also hot off the presses, check out these posters for the upcoming event:
We’re now ready for the next installment in The Roslindale Village (Walkable) Film Series. Next up is The Friends of Eddie Coyle, a classic Boston gangster film starring Robert Mitchum and based on a novel by George V. Higgins. The movie was shot throughout the Boston area, including in Dedham, Cambridge, Milton, Quincy, Sharon, Somerville, Malden, and Weymouth.
Check out the poster, original art again courtesy of Andy Cross.
The free screening will be at a private residence (details provided upon RSVP) on Thursday, March 17, at 6:30pm. Runtime is about an hour forty minutes.
This is a very small screening facility; if all spaces fill up, check back for any cancellations. Questions or comments to film@nullwalkuproslindale.org.
Momentum is growing for the Arboretum Gateway Path, which would create a new entrance to the Arboretum near the Roslindale Square Commuter Rail station, creating access to the park right from the business district (and avoiding the steep incline for the existing entrances), and also providing a shorter “straight shot” multi-use path from Roslindale Square to Forest Hills. To learn more and contribute your own ideas, please join us for a community visioning workshop organized by our community partners at Tufts University, 6:30pm, Wednesday, March 30th at the Roslindale Community Center (6 Cummins Highway). RSVP and more details here.
Update 3/7/16 – hot off the presses, check out these posters for this event:
Kudos to the Mount Hope Mount Canterbury Neighborhood Association, Rick Yoder, Lisa Beatman, and the Roslindale Bulletin (especially Jeff Sullivan) for keeping the need for traffic calming in Eastern Roslindale, particularly along American Legion Highway, on the front burner. Check out the latest piece in the Bulletin, emphasizing the neighborhood group’s efforts to catalog pedestrian-safety issues and get “on the map” for Vision Zero.
The Roslindale Village (Walkable) Film Series has received an immediate enthusiastic response from the community and we are especially excited to kick it off with Holding Ground, the Rebirth of Dudley Street, a film by Leah Mahan and Mark Lipman. Check out this fantastic poster for the event, original art courtesy of Andy Cross.
Note (updated 2/25/16): we are unfortunately out of space for this event! You can still RSVP and if we get any cancellations, we will contact you by email to let you know about the additional availability. Looks like there is plenty of demand for a community film screening space in Roslindale village!
The free screening will be at a private residence (details provided on RSVP) on Thursday, March 3, at 6:30pm. Runtime is about an hour. Holding Ground is a cautionary tale of urban policies gone wrong in Roxbury, 1985 and a message of hope for all American cities.
There are only a handful of spaces left at this screening facility. Once we have completely run out of space, we’ll close down the RSVP page, but in the meantime get in your last RSVPs now!
WalkBoston recently sounded the alarm that serious (and fatal) pedestrian incidents are fast becoming a near-weekly occurrence in Boston. The latest such event occurred last night in Roxbury, where a mother and her baby were struck by a car at the intersection of Humboldt Ave and Humboldt Court. Our local CBS affiliate reports on two sisters coming to a quick rescue and performing CPR on the 5-month-old victim. We have scant information on details of the crash and the fate of the pedestrians remains unknown. We can only hope they both survive and make a full recovery. Update 6pm: we were devastated to learn via the Boston Globe that the baby has died.
That said, we would urge the media not just to cover the “human-interest” aspect of these tragic incidents, but also highlight potential root causes so that we don’t have to keep re-living the same sad story. Poor infrastructure and bad design decisions in particular are recurring themes–for far too long, Boston’s professional traffic engineers have prioritized fast and unimpeded traffic flow over other needs, including the very real risks to human lives of car-centric streets. Again, we don’t know the details of this incident, but a quick look at the intersection where the crash occurred shows (1) a long stretch of street with no crosswalks [despite a bus stop across the street]; (2) extremely wide travel lanes; (3) in a densely-settled area, a certain recipe for predictable harm to pedestrians. Once ago, it’s time to move into action on Vision Zero.
Further update: The Boston Globe article also suggests speed was a factor, again this is not surprising given the wide lanes:
Residents on Friday said the car that allegedly hit the woman and her child was speeding: one woman who declined to give her name said she heard it whipping down the street before she heard the crash.
We are excited to announce a new WalkUP Rozzie initiative: the Roslindale Village (Walkable) Film Series! Because we fervently believe everyone should be able to experience great movies in a community setting accessible by foot or bicycle. Sadly, the historic Rialto Theatre disappeared decades ago, leaving only the adjacent Rialto Barbership behind, but we are committed to revival. We’ve got six films lined up to start, to be projected for free screenings in a variety of private and public locations. Ultimately, we aim to identify a permanent comfortable space for high quality community film watching and discussion, but there’s no time like the present to get the ball (or film) rolling. We’ll always have the latest updates at http://walkuproslindale.org/film.
Our private-residence film screening locations have limited seating, so we ask that you RSVP in advance to get the street address. We’ll update the posting for each event if it fills up. RSVPs for the public locations are also appreciated.
Without further ado, here is the initial lineup — click on the entry for more details and to RSVP (links will be updated over time):
A cautionary tale of urban policies gone wrong in Roxbury, 1985 and a message of hope for all American cities. (Film Website / IMDB)
After his last crime has him looking at a long prison sentence for repeat offenses, a low level Boston gangster decides to snitch on his friends to avoid jail time.
The personal and political stories of how guns – and the billions of dollars made off of them – affect the lives of everyday Americans.
A locally-made documentary following arson-for-profit conspiracies in 1970’s Boston – a forgotten, true story of heroism, activism, and corruption.
A film by Greg Barker that documents the role of social media in the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing.
An epic attempt to re-imagine the vast challenge of climate change and capitalism.
Sponsor and Partners: Sponsored by WalkUP Roslindale in partnership with GreeningRozzie, RozzieBikes, Roslindale Village Main Street, Friends of the Roslindale Library, Roslindale Pub Night and Longfellow Area Neighborhood Association.
We are fortunate to have neighborhood-level professional journalists at the Roslindale Bulletin covering important local issues; even more so now that the entire paper is available online. In late January, the Bulletin reported several stories that should be of interest to the WalkUP community. Highlights below: Read More
We’re pleased to publish the report documenting the Walk Audit of Roslindale Square that we did with WalkBoston back in December. There are lots of issues to be addressed, but also exciting opportunities to improve the pedestrian environment in and around the central business district. Our next steps will be to set up meetings with the appropriate city officials and elected leaders to begin to address the highest priority items. If you have any thoughts about the report or what our top priorities should be, please leave them in the comments below.
We were yet again saddened to hear of another car hitting a pedestrian in Roslindale; this is the third such incident in about two weeks (Blue Ledge Drive / Hyde Park Ave). The latest occurred at the intersection of Firth Road and Washington Street. Thus far the only reporting we’ve found was this brief description on Twitter:
pedestrian hit by a car in intersection of Firth & Washington in Roslindale- she was on the ground but alert- tons of traffic.
While the City has a formal action response plan for any pedestrian incident involving a fatality, non-fatal incidents don’t necessarily result in anything more than a statistic. Yet these non-fatal incidents are often equally indicative of poor road design creating dangerous conditions.
The important thing to remember is most of these incidents are preventable and not merely the result of poor judgment by a driver (or pedestrian). Cities that take Vision Zero seriously have seen dramatic results–in Sweden, pedestrian fatalities have dropped 50% in the past five years; we’ve also seen a 43% reduction in traffic fatalities in Minnesota, a 48% reduction in Utah, and a 40% decrease in Washington State (source: Vision Zero: Learning from Sweden’s Successes). Thus far, the City of Boston’s Vision Zero aspirational plan hits all the right notes, but we’ve yet to see real changes “on the ground.” These recent incidents in Roslindale are powerful reminders that immediate action is urgently needed.
We wish the victim of the latest incident a quick recovery. If anyone has more details, please leave them in the comments here.