Yesterday, we sent an official comment letter to the City in support of a long overdue bicycle corral installation in Roslindale Square, specifically at the corner of Cohasset Street and Corinth Street in front of Fornax Bakery. We encourage anyone who also supports real bicycle infrastructure in our neighborhood to also voice their support via email to Boston’s Active Transportation Director, Stefanie Seskin.
The content of our letter is reproduced below.
Our good friends and allies at Roslindale Wants to Play have partnered with the Charles Sumner School’s Parent Council to redesign the school’s rear walkway, which provides access to the school from Cummins Highway. This area has the potential to be a vibrant, fun, and educational space that better connects the Sumner School (between Basile Street and Cummins Highway) to the Roslindale community. To this end, they are hosting a design charrette[1]
on March 13, 2016 from 2:00 – 3:30 PM at Roslindale House, 120 Poplar Street. At the meeting, designers will look for ideas for the best play elements for this space and lead the group through fun design exercises aimed at all ages. Children are encouraged to attend! Facebook users can RSVP here.
WalkUP Roslindale encourages everyone to attend this event to provide ideas and feedback and also demonstrate support for community efforts to improve walkable spaces.
Here’s WalkBoston’s brief announcement at the EventBrite page:
In 2016, WalkBoston is rolling out free, beginner advocacy trainings called “Ped 101” – and we’d love you to come! Our office is located at 45 School Street, Boston, MA 02108 in Old City Hall. Sessions are small group conversation over lunch or drinks and are hosted in our conference room – so please make sure to sign up in advance!
This session is helpful if you’re interested in learning about:
Our friends at the Roslindale Bulletin have done an excellent job of keeping the spotlight on WalkUP initiatives in East Roslindale. The New Year’s eve edition of the paper included an article on ideas for traffic calming on American Legion Highway Greenway, one of the streets in our neighborhood that most warrants a comprehensive redesign for safety and walkability. The article features statements from WalkUP Roslindale members Rick Yoder and Lisa Beatman, and is reproduced below (PDF version also available):
MHMC discussing traffic calming strategies for American Legion Hwy.
Jeff Sullivan, Staff ReporterThe Mount Hope/Mount Canterbury Neighborhood Association (MHMC) announced recently that State Rep. Russel Holmes has submitted legislation to change the American Legion Highway back to a parkway designation, a designation MHMC members have been looking to get for a while.
Neighborhood residents have been working over the past few years to get American Legion back to a parkway status, as that designation offers more protections for the greenery and landscape around the area, which residents say they want to keep because of its pastoral nature.
“I mean, it’s a highway now, but the speed limit is 35 (miles per hour),” said MHMC member Lisa Beatman. “That’s not a highway speed.”
Beatman and MHMC member Rick Yoder said they are now currently looking at ways to calm the traffic in the neighborhood of American Legion with funds they hope to secure through the Parkway designation, as well as by lobbying city officials.
Beatmen and Yoder said the American Legion Parkway has come under neglect over the years as it is on the outskirts of several different neighborhoods, including Mattapan, Hyde Park and Roslindale. One of the improvements they say they want to implement at some point would be on the Five Way, the intersection of American Legion and Cummins Highway.
Beatman said the group has done a walk audit of the area, and found that many residents use the Five Way in many different ways.
“It shows people that it’s not just for cars,” she said. “Just imagine the Five Way, which is all cement right now, with raised crosswalks, very visible curb extensions on each corner so that a pedestrian only has to walk 11 feet.”
Many MHMC residents expressed they felt it was dangerous to cross the Five Way as a pedestrian because, without extensions to the curb making the turns more of a right angle, many vehicles fly thorugh at high speeds.
“We want curb extensions so that vehicles would have to maneuver a little first, not just go shooting through it,” Beatman said.
Beatman and Yoder said a raised crosswalk and curb extensions would work very well for the Five Way, and also looked at other areas of the neighborhood to implement these improvements to keep traffic on American Legion and off of the surrounding neighborhoods, as right now they say people speed through all the time to avoid the traffic. The MHMC discussed raised crosswalks, speed humps (elongated speed bumps), and better signage throughout the neighborhood.
“The city is allocating millions of dollars on this for other neighborhoods right now, so if we don’t get on this, it’s gone,” she said.
OK. That’s a bit more than this really is. I’ll point out the 3 things that seemed most significant to me this year and others can give their views in the comments if they see fit:
Going in reverse order from when these things came over the transom:
POINT THE FIRST
“25 keeps us all alive!” — To be clear, I do not believe this is really the slogan, but I was in New York over the past weekend and snapped this picture:
You’re reading the sign right. New York has had a city-wide 25 mph speed limit for more than a year now. The world has not ended and their economy has not crashed, but traffic fatalities of all kinds of down year over year: 241 this year against 269 last year. The new Boston Vision Zero Action Plan is finally pointing us in this direction. But let’s be honest: it is long, long past time for our city to take the same kind of step — let’s make 2016 the year it happens.
POINT THE SECOND
Why 9 or 10 is better than 12. I commend to everyone the following article from Rob Steuteville over at Better Cities & Towns about how the humble Williamsburg Bridge’s rehabilitation back during your correspondent’s youthful years in the big city led to some of the first research into why narrower vehicle travel lanes are safer than wider ones. Worth a read: The New Science of Traffic Engineering. Challenging a misguided orthodoxy only sticks when you gather the data to show why that orthodoxy is wrong.
As part of our effort to spread the word and gather more support for the Arboretum Gateway Path concept, I was excited to have the opportunity to do a 7 minute presentation at LivableStreets Alliance’s 10-in-1 Street Talk last Wednesday night at the Old South Meeting House downtown. This is the 10th anniversary for these talks, and they’re a great way to connect with folks who have similar interests and advocating for making our streets and public places better and safer for everyone. LivableStreets has posted some photos from the event on their facebook page. I’ll share the video of the whole thing as soon as I see it posted in a public forum, but I was most struck during the evening by the presentation from Mark Chase of Somerville Neighborways. You should check out the images on the website, especially the concept of stressing the importance and local ownership of key intersections with resident-organized and applied graphics painted directly on the pavement. Pretty impressive and something that we should look into doing here in Roslindale – I have my own thoughts on where, and I’m sure others in our neighborhood do as well.
The evening got off to a great start with the semi-surprise of the Mayor’s announcement of the city’s Vision Zero Action Plan in a short video, which was followed by reinforcing remarks from BTD Commissioner Gina Fiandaca. Chief of Streets Chris Osgood was also personally in attendance to emphasize the importance of the announcement. The whole action plan is worth looking at and taking part in as it moves forward. But I would say that among the most interesting and important early action items is the institution of neighborhood slow speed zones in the Talbot-Norfolk triangle near Codman Square in Dorchester and between Washington Street and Franklin Park in Jamaica Plain’s Stonybrook section. My own understanding is that this is mainly a matter of lowering the speed limit from 30 to 20 mph and highlighting that fact with signage and enhanced crosswalk treatments and related measures. Bottom line: The pilots are a great idea, long past due, yet fundamentally every residential area in the city should get the same treatment, as soon as the city can get the standard package set next spring and summer through the pilots and then roll them out. The data on vehicle speed vs. fatality rates for pedestrians are uniform on pointing to the shift from 30 to 20 pm as being absolutely essential. If we can get actual vehicle speeds to that lower level on our neighborhood streets, we will have accomplished something of real and lasting value.
We sent our third WalkUP comment letter today, providing feedback on the Department of Conservation and Recreation’s Centre Street Corridor Study, focusing specifically on the intersection of Centre and Walter Streets, quite likely the most crash-prone intersection in all of Roslindale. We hope DCR will consider our comments seriously and ensure improvements to this area benefit users of all modes of transportation. In addition, because the redesign and construction are likely years away, we emphasize the need to make common-sense easy improvements today, such as flexi-poles and lane-narrowing, which will save lives and prevent serious injuries while we are waiting for the longer process to complete.
The comment period is open until November 30, 2015. Please add your voice (select “Improved Multi-Modal Safety and Access to Emerald Necklace Parks in Jamaica Plain (Centre Street)” from the drop-down list)!
The content of our letter is reproduced below.
We recently learned that the city plans to rebuild the intersection of Walter and Bussey Street, a problematic spot for pedestrians and bicyclists at the edge of the Arnold Arboretum adjacent the Hebrew Rehabilitation Center and not far from the Sophia Snow House on Centre Street. Although the new design represents an improvement, it is a long way from achieving Complete Streets standards and moving us toward Vision Zero: that no one should die or be seriously injured from transportation on our public ways. We are also troubled by the apparent lack of public notice and comment on a project like this that has significant impacts on our quality of life and would benefit from community input.
Fortunately, our close allies from the Livable Streets Alliance have sent a detailed letter to the City’s new Chief of Streets, Chris Osgood, detailing problems with the new design. Rather than reinvent the wheel, we are reproducing LSA’s letter below, which we endorse wholeheartedly. If you want to help make this intersection better, please contact your City Councilors and neighborhood liaisons and demand that the Department of Public Works hold public meetings and hear from the neighborhood before plowing ahead with this project. Although the plans appear to be final, this should not be a done deal. The work hasn’t started yet, so let’s make it better.
Finally, to dispel any confusion, note this is not the same intersection nor the same process currently underway regarding the Walter-Centre Street intersection. That project is under DCR control; we’ll have an update on the recent community meeting in Rozzie about this shortly.
We hope many of you will agree with some if not all of the points made below. Either way, however, we’d love to hear your feedback in the comments.