Join us in two weeks, Sunday, May 20, 2018 for an easy bicycle tour of the American Legion Parkway green areas. The tour will run from 8am-10:30am and start at the Walgreen’s end of the Stop-n-Shop Plaza on American Legion Highway, near Hyde Park Ave. RSVP to Laura Smeaton (shoplaura@nullmac.com) or Lisa Beatman (lisabeatman@nullyahoo.com, 617-306-1283). More details below or download the PDF flyer.
Category: Bikes
New Hubway (“Blue Bike”) Locations Announced in Roslindale
The Boston area’s bike share program (which will soon be known as Blue Bike) just published its proposed locations for its upcoming expansion. We are delighted to see several spots in and around Roslindale Village. Importantly, this infrastructure investment will allow people who live nearby to get to and from the shopping district, the commuter rail, and bus stops, with a 5 minute bike ride who might previously have driven. It should also increase access to and from the neighbor from nearby areas, especially Forest Hills which will soon have thousands of new residents. When paired with the Gateway Path, the new bike share locations will greatly improve our connections with our neighbors.
Be sure to take the survey (once it becomes available–at the time of this posting Survey F is marked as “coming soon”) to provide your feedback, and leave comments on the post. The Roslindale locations are shown below — an “a” and “b” spot number reflect alternatives, click through for a larger version:
And here’s the whole map of proposed locations:
Next “Blue Bikes” (f/k/a Hubway) Roslindale Meeting set for April 12, 2018 6pm-8pm at RCC
In case you missed it, Boston’s trusty Hubway bike share program is getting a new name, a makeover, and (hopefully) a substantial expansion. The City of Boston has partnered with Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Massachusetts for the rebranding (and sponsorship). Of particular interest to WalkUP Roslindale folks should be the upcoming “open house” to discuss the planned bike share location(s) in Roslindale, set for Thursday, April 12, 2018, 6pm-8pm at the Roslindale Community Center, 6 Cummins Highway. Hope to see you there!
The Right to Walk
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?
The Roslindale Pedestrian/Cycling/Transit Infrastructure Report – Inaugural Edition
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:
- Flashing Beacon Crosswalks – 3 (complete: Washington/Blue Ledge, Washington/Basile, Washington/South of Ukraine); 3 (partially complete: Centre Street adjacent to the Arboretum)
- Buffered Bike Lanes – 1.3 miles (N/S on American Legion from Cummins to HP Avenue; N on Washington from WR Parkway to Beech)
- Protected Bike Lanes – 3.0 miles (E/W on Blackwell Shared Use Path; Arborway from Arboretum Gate to South Street; Arborway from Orchardhill to Forest Hills Cemetery)
- Speed humps – 0
- Raised crosswalks – 0
- Daylighted Crosswalks – 3 (Washington/Blue Ledge, Belgrade/South, Washington/Basile)
- Bus Priority Facilities – 1 (operational bus/bike lane pilot in December on Washington from Cummins to Ukraine – multi-week pilot expected this spring)
- Hubway Stations – 0 (hopefully some to come later this year)
We welcome any additions/subtractions to this list. Thanks!!
Dedicated Bus Lane Test Run Stunningly Successful
We were thrilled to see the City of Boston and MBTA test out a trial run of a dedicated bus lane on Washington Street inbound this morning. WalkUP has strongly advocated for the City to implement this bus lane concept along the very congested Roslindale Village-to-Forest Hills corridor. Reports were universally positive — to get some flavor of the community reaction, check out our Twitter feed for dozens of retweets of reactions and photos. We’ve also include a gallery of photos below.
Members of the WalkUP Steering Committee were out and about along the route to inform riders of this lane and explain the process behind it. The City plans to test this dedicated lane again next Tuesday, December 19, during the morning commute. Dedicated bus lanes are proven methods for significantly improving bus commute times and encouraging more people to take public transportation. During the morning and evening rush hour, almost 60% of all travelers on Washington St are riding a bus –these riders need a faster way to reach their destinations and go to-and-from the main subway line at Forest Hills. And if the bus lane operates as successfully as it appeared to do, many more are likely to switch to the bus to save time, thus even further increasing the percentage of travelers on mass transit.
We should note that we are also very pleased to hear from cyclists who used this dedicated lane today of the ease of their commute and lack of any bus-bike conflict. There was some concern going into the test about this issue, but at least today’s data points suggest the cycling experience will be much improved rather than diminished. We will continue to monitor the cyclist experience in this dedicated lane and believe it can be a boon for bike riders in addition to bus riders.
WalkUP will continue its strong advocacy to the City of Boston to implement a full multi-week pilot of this dedicated bus lane in 2018 to fully gauge its effectiveness and effects. The full pilot should consist of a dedicated lane inbound to Forest Hills in the morning and a dedicated lane outbound to Roslindale Village in the evening. We’d really like to make this happen as soon as possible–tomorrow is not too soon!
Please contact Mayor Walsh, City Councilor Tim McCarthy, and our At-Large City Councilors (Annissa Essaibi-George, Michael Flaherty, Ayanna Pressley, Michelle Wu) to express your support for this dedicated bus lane and request a full multi-week pilot as soon as possible in 2018. You can also respond to this tweet from BTD or email them at btd@nullboston.gov. It is very important that our city officials hear from us on this. We appreciate their willingness to test this out and want them to know many Roslindale residents support this concept!
We look forward to seeing this dedicated bus lane in action again next Tuesday!
Reminder – Rozzie Hubway Expansion Meeting Wednesday, 9/20/17 6pm, at Archdale Community Center
We have long awaited the arrival of the Hubway bike sharing system in Roslindale–and it finally appears to be time! The City has scheduled two community meetings to provide information and solicit feedback on proposed station locations. It is important that our leaders and our community see a turnout of support for expanding access to the system.
The first Roslindale meeting will be this Wednesday, September 20, 2017 at 6pm at the BCYF Menino Center (the Archdale Community Center), 125 Brookway Road.
The second meeting is Thursday, October 26, 2017 at 6pm at the Roslindale Community Center, 6 Cummins Highway.
Spread the word!
Roslindale Gateway Path & Blackwell Path Extension – Now combined and on the move!
We last updated folks on the progress of the Roslindale Gateway Path when we, along with our partners LivableStreets Alliance, the Arnold Arboretum, and Roslindale Village Main Street, released the conceptual design study back in April of this year. Since then, we have discussed more seamlessly weaving together and unifying the RGP with the Blackwell Path Extension that the Arboretum Park Conservancy has been promoting on roughly the same timeframe. Those discussions resulted in a joint meeting with city officials in June 2017 to put the combined project squarely on their radar and just a few days ago the decision by the Solomon Foundation to provide $29,000 in funding to advance the combined project to 25% design. The Arnold Arboretum will be facilitating this work with Solomon and the design consultants at Horsley Witten Group and we look forward to releasing and publicly discussing this design when it is released later this year. So, special thanks to Solomon and the Arboretum for keeping the momentum up on this effort!
Hubway Expansion meeting for Roslindale scheduled – September 20 @ 6 pm – Menino BCYF (Archdale/Brookway)
Great news–the Hubway citywide bike-sharing program is considering expanding to Roslindale! See the full schedule and how BTD will be rolling this out. A community meeting is scheduled for Wednesday, September 20, 2017, at 6 PM at the Boston Center for Youth and Families Menino Center, at 125 Brookway Road (just off Washington Street near the South Street intersection).
Bring your ideas about where Hubway should be located in our neighborhood come next spring.
A helpful graphic in thinking about which modes of mobility do vs. should get attention
Picked up this graphic at a Jeff Speck session at CNU25. Abundantly true of a city like Boston, where it makes no sense that our mayor still isn’t fully behind appropriate funding for active mobility and Vision Zero, or applying, right now, political will to breaking down the institutional barriers that are holding us back.
