We are happy to report that flex posts have gone in the ground at Washington & Blue Ledge. Our sincerest thanks to BTD and PWD for moving the Vision Zero crash response here to this milestone. All that remains is the installation of the pedestrian crossing beacon. A couple of photos taken early on Saturday morning.
Readers of this blog may recall that we offered written testimony to the Boston City Council at their hearing on Vision Zero in May of this year —
— and that a major part of our focus was on the Neighborhood Slow Streets program and the slow pace of its rollout in Stonybrook and Talbot-Norfolk Triangle. Back then, we put it this way:
And we also applaud the concept of Slow Speed Zones outlined in BTD’s December 2015 Vision Zero Boston Action Plan. These zones would combine a lower speed limit in defined areas with the physical interventions needed to really make a difference – curb extensions, refuge islands and medians, raised crosswalks, special crosswalk signals, vehicle speed monitors, narrower vehicle travel lanes, street diets, and separated bicycle lanes/tracks. We are eagerly awaiting the initial roll out of Slow Speed Zones in the Norfolk-Talbot Triangle in Dorchester and the Stonybrook Area in Jamaica Plain this year. That said, we are surprised that there has been so little information shared or made available broadly about the progress on those areas and we have heard nothing definitive to date about the expansion of the Slow Speed Zones to other neighborhoods once the first two have been implemented. This is desperately needed, it should happen as fast as possible once the essential combination of interventions has been decided, and BTD should be planning for this expansion right now – I can safely say that my own neighborhood of Peters Hill will be among those areas seeking designation as soon as the expansion process is made public. Slowing speeds in our neighborhoods will save lives. While we understand capacity constraints, there is no need to wait or take this part of the Vision Zero effort slow. Everyone in Boston deserves to live on a street on which vehicle speeds are safe.
This past Wednesday evening, the public finally saw the plan for Stonybrook at a community meeting held at English High:
I was there myself, along with 3 WUR compatriots, and can attest to the strong support this plan had with the people from that community, including the Stonybrook Neighborhood Association. The most critical features of the plan are a 20 mph speed limit, gateways and signs at the entrances to the area announcing it as such, daylighting of crosswalks, and strategically spaced speed humps (wider than speed bumps, much more effective, and much less taxing on vehicles). I should also mention that this is only phase 1 and that phase 2 is intended to include curb extensions and raised crosswalks at key locations. All in all, the recipe makes sense and BTD deserves thanks and praise for putting this together. We will thank and praise them even more if they get this and Talbot-Norfolk Triangle (their meeting comes later this month – we should all go to that one too in order to show our support) done before the year is out.
And, then, dear friends, we should push everyone we know in our city’s government to find more funding and more capacity to roll this set of changes out to every residential neighborhood in Boston as soon as possible. The stated goal is 2 areas per year. It should be 20. There is no reason to wait.
Everyone in every neighborhood deserves to live on a safe street.
UPDATE: Materials from the meeting have now been posted online here, including the full plan of which only a snapshot is provided above.
Somerville eyes zoning code to match its hip reputation
It’s turning out to be a long process, but what Somerville is proposing and will likely soon adopt is truly nothing less than a radical reform of the rules governing buildings and their uses. And our city should follow suit as soon as ImagineBoston 2030‘s work is done and we are ready to embark on the hard work that will be required to recast our zoning code in a way that fits the city we actually have and love already and the ways in which we want to make it better. I’ve personally blogged here about the fundamental mismatch between even our neighborhood’s relatively new zoning article and the real thing as it exists on the ground. But the graphic in the middle of the article that shows that there are exactly 22 out of Somerville’s almost 12,000 residential lots that are fully conforming to their current zoning code is mind-blowing.
Think about that for a minute — almost the entire urban fabric of Somerville’s existing residential neighborhoods is outlawed.
I very strongly suspect that the results would be almost identical in our neighborhood and you couldn’t build Roslindale or any neighborhood in Boston as it exists today by following the letter of the zoning that is currently in place. Speaking for myself, I love where I live and want the regulations that govern buildings and uses in my neighborhood to reflect a due respect for what we collectively have by making it the rule instead of the exception.
The crash — single driver crashing into a single pedestrian — happened this past Saturday night at the intersection of Morton Street and Canterbury Street, across from the VFW post, in the area where Roslindale, Mattapan, and Jamaica Plain all meet. Reporting has come in from Universal Hub, the Globe, and the Herald:
The victim has been identified as Johnette Sims, a resident of Dorchester. Our thoughts are with her family. Initial reports indicate that Ms. Sims was struck while in a crosswalk and that the driver, who initially fled the scene, has been arrested and will be charged with operating under the influence.
Recognizing the likely multiple contributing causes — which appear to include drunken driving as well as a street system that, here and just about everywhere, continues to encourage vehicular speeding and an expectation that, despite the presence of crosswalks, pedestrians aren’t supposed to be getting in the way — we will try to stay on top of the state and city’s response — both law enforcement and MassDOT/BTD/DPW — to this latest tragedy. If anyone learns more information beyond what has been reported so far, please let us know in the comments section. We will do the same.
One of the more enjoyable aspects of being a part of WalkUP Roslindale has been in making connections to people who live and work in our neighborhood who are amazingly talented and incredibly generous. This has also been rewardingly true across this great city of ours. Case in point: This morning, I had the good fortune to have a little time to spend downtown at the temporary installation of an expanded sidewalk/pedestrian area on Franklin Street near Arch Street that will reportedly become permanent in the very near future. This will be a great improvement and provide a ready and (most importantly) local example for taking key locations of shockingly excess pavement and repurposing them for the enhanced street life that is begging only for a little encouragement to grow and blossom. (My loyal RTUF followers (all 3 of them!) will recall that I blogged over there about this very topic and location in early 2014.) The event also allowed me to connect with Erica Mattison, Dorchester resident and bike/walk advocate of the first order, and the Globe’s Dante Ramos. Dante’s piece is spot-on as usual: Pop-up plaza is a harbinger of streets to come (I hope).
And he even took the picture that Erica posted to her twitter account (your correspondent if on the far right of the photo). And, finally, my own photo taken near the start of the 3-hour installation period:
I would love suggestions in the comments on places in our own neighborhood where we think the city could productively repurpose excess pavement to better uses. Thanks!
Not Random. The reconfiguration at Washington & Blue Ledge is part of the City of Boston’s ongoing effort to implement the Vision Zero Policy adopted about 18 months ago. Under this policy, which several cities have adopted around the US, our city has set a goal of reaching zero deaths among all users of our streets – drivers and passengers in motor vehicles, pedestrians, bicyclists, and others in alternative forms of wheeled/motorized transportation – by the year 2030. A major focus of the policy’s implementation is to respond to each crash involving serious injury or death by examining their location and making changes to improve safety. Washington@Blue Ledge is where Roslindale resident Silvia Acosta was killed by a speeding hit-and-run driver while in a crosswalk in mid-January of this year. The reconfiguration that is now under way seeks to reduce motor vehicle speeds and the so-called “double-threat” in the part of the crosswalk that crosses the northbound direction of Washington Street. Reducing vehicle speeds has a huge impact on whether pedestrians survive a motor vehicle crash — your chances of dying increase from
under 10% at 20 mph, to over 50% at 30 mph, to over 80% at 40 mph. The double-threat is something I’m sure we’ve all experienced, where a crosswalk crosses two lanes in the same direction, the car in one lane stops, while the car in the second lane can’t see the pedestrian for whom the stop is being made, posits that they are stopping for no reason, and goes around them, hitting the pedestrian in the process. This is a big step forward for this intersection.
We last reported on this important location a couple of weeks ago, when construction notices went up and we were eager to see the thoughtful plan that BTD had prepared become a reality. Now, as we hit 210 days and counting, we are still at the stage where nothing has happened within the street to physically address the crash that killed one of our neighbors. As you can see from the photo, the last two weeks brought wheelchair-accessible ramps at 2 corners where a new crosswalk is to go, and bases for the poles that will hold the crosswalk flashing beacon equipment. All of the construction signs and cones/barrels have been moved out and we are again wondering exactly how much longer this will have to wait. I asked this question of PWD on Friday via Twitter, and informed that their contractor “is scheduling remaining work” and they will “update when the schedule is available.” I think we can all agree that we hope the work is done very, very soon – in other words, in a matter of days. We are now well over six months since this tragedy occurred, and this response has been painfully slow in arriving.
If you have time to click on this link at grist:
The key to fighting climate change and mortality? Walkable cities.
read the intro, and then watch the short video — I believe that’s a 4 minute time commitment in total — you’ll find it worth your while. An excellent summary of what makes a place walkable, how it’s achieved, and what it’s good for. Enjoy and then get out there and get to it!
I understand from a conversation I had late yesterday with Charlotte Fleetwood, BTD’s Vision Zero Coordinator, that the expectation is that the full set of safety improvements for Washington @ Blue Ledge will be installed by the middle of July. To be completely clear, Charlotte did not guarantee installation by July 15, but I’m going to use that date as the target.
So, 30 days and counting down, or 155 days and counting up.
We posted here last week about our continued frustration over the lack of action at the intersection of Washington and Blue Ledge where Roslindale resident Silvia Acosta was killed by a hit-and-run driver while crossing the street in a crosswalk this past January. We’re now at Day 154 since the fatal crash occurred. And to date, the city’s Vision Zero rapid response has still provided nothing other than a speed board…