Back in October, we submitted a short comment letter expressing conditional support for the expansion and reconfiguration of the Scrub-a-Dub Car Wash at 565-569 American Legion Highway. As noted below, there are several design changes that would make this project more friendly to pedestrians — this is especially important given the proximilty of the K-8 Haley Pilot School.
Our full comments are below, also available as a PDF.
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Back in October, we submitted a comment letter supporting legislation that has been proposed up on Beacon Hill to allow for automated enforcement of bus lanes and speeding. The relevant bills are S1545, H2426, and H2494. We generally support these efforts and hope our state legislators will move forward with these and other measures to help reduce the number of deaths and serious injuries caused by dangerous driving behavior. If we get any updates on any of these bills, we will publicize them here.
Our full letter is reproduced below. Please contact your own legislators and ask them to lend support as well!
Back in late August, we sent a comment letter on a proposed residential mixed-use development at 4011-4019 Washington Street. As we describe in detail below, we supported the project generally but encourage the developer (and the city) to do more to help advance affordability goals and energy efficiency.
Our full letter is below, also available as a PDF. More information is available on the BPDA project page.
More than six years have passed since WalkUP Roslindale was informally launched, growing out of some even more informally-organized community conversations. We recently decided it is time to make it official: we are proud to announce we are now incorporated as a Massachusetts nonprofit organization (technically “Walkable Urban Places Roslindale”, but you can still call us WalkUP Rozzie).
This newly-formed nonprofit is governed by a board of 23 Roslindale residents and business owners, most of whom were previously members of our “steering committee” before the incorporation. We are still working out our structures and processes, but we have elected an initial slate of officers and chartered two board subcommittees that should cover most of our mission. These are listed below:
We’ve also selected board members to be “liaisons” or representatives to our various partners and elected officials, including each of the district city councilors covering Roslindale (4, 5, and 6), the Mayor’s office/Neighborhood Services, Roslindale Village Main Street, Roslindale Leaders Meeting, Roslindale Business Group, and the Vision Zero Coalition taskforce.
Stay tuned for more announcements soon about our plans for the coming year.
Roslindale Arts Alliance is sponsoring Roslindale Porch Fest, this Saturday September 25, 2021 (rain date Sunday Sept. 26) from 1:30-5:30pm. Brochures are available at Square Root Coffee Shop. Rozzie Bikes is coordinating a group ride to a number of Porch Fest locations. If you’re interested, meet on the green at Adams Park at 1 PM (Helmet required). We hope everyone will get out and explore the porches of Roslindale by foot or by bike this weekend!
Many of you no doubt have noticed the extensive road/sidewalk construction in progress on Poplar Street by Adams Park. This project is one of several changes underway to improve bus service through Roslindale Square. If you’re interested in better understanding what’s going on, check out these two MBTA flyers:
The change with the most immediate impact is that the Route 30 outbound bus no longer needs to go all the way around Roslindale Square but instead will just go down Poplar Street before turning onto Washington Street briefly and then on to Cummins Highway. Prior to being moved up, the bus stop on Poplar Street was closer to Corinth Street (past the fork), making it impossible to turn left onto Washington Street. The new design will allow the bus to turn left at the fork and thus avoid an unnecessary trip around the entire square.
We’re a bit late to acknowledge these recent improvements for bus service in Roslindale:
We’re also happy to see the old Needham Line bridge over Robert Street has finally been replaced.
Thanks to all the folks at the MBTA and BTD (especially the transit team) for their hard work in seeing these projects through!
We have been working for many years with our elected leaders to make the Roslindale Gateway Path a reality and were delighted to learn that Sen. Mike Rush has successfully pushed through an amendment to this year’s state budget bill allocating $100,000 toward development of the path. Rep. Liz Malia and her staff are on board to help see this through on the House side. This is a significant step forward for the path, which we hope will be fully funded in the coming years.
We’ve previously publicized our support for the proposed mixed-use project at 4198 Washington Street — see our detailed comment letter here.
We recently learned that the BPDA has responded to some efforts to organize against this project by re-opening and extending the comment period for this proposal to May 3rd. We strongly encourage supporters of this project to submit comments through the BPDA portal or to aisling.kerr@nullboston.gov.
As a reminder, this project will provide a new six-story, mixed-use building with 39 residential units, 4,500 square feet of retail, a custom-built community theater space, as well as ample bicycle parking. We have heard the project may be down-sized by a story and shrunk to fewer units due to some opposition. We strongly urge the developer to not “down-size” the building and recommend supporters submit similar comments to the BPDA.
The developer Arx Urban is seeking to income-restrict at least 40% of the units in the new building. Only 12% of the total housing stock in Roslindale is income-restricted, compared to 27% of total homes citywide. While we are generally supportive of new housing in Roslindale Square, we are particularly supportive of this project for that reason. We also do not want to see a smaller project given the loss of income-restricted units that would entail.
The developer is hosting a drop-in session to answer any remaining questions this Monday, April 26 evening in Adams Park from 5:30pm-7:30 pm. Please wear a mask and maintain social distancing. Attendees can receive a free yogurt or ice cream from Delicious Yogurt for their trip home too!
We sent a letter and gave live testimony this week at a City Council committee hearing on sidewalk snow clearance (more background from Streetsblog Mass). Our full comment letter is below, you can also watch the entire 2+ hour video, or just jump to City Councillor Matt O’Malley’s shout-out to WalkUP Roslindale or WalkUP Roslindale member Matt Lawlor’s testimony toward the end of the hearing. In brief, sidewalk snow clearance is critical to better walkability in Boston and our current system is completely broken. Read on for more.