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: Parks
Support the Healy Field Community Garden!
Help the Healy Field Community Garden reach its $25,000 matching grant goal!
We talk a lot about how smarter, well-designed, and dense mixed-use development will advance our vision of making Roslindale the most walkable neighborhood in all of Boston, but it’s important to remember that high quality and accessible open space is also a critical ingredient for a Walkable Urban Place. Indeed, density and open space are two sides of the same coin. As urban designer and walkability advocate Julie Campoli states in her book Made for Walking:
The structural elements illustrated throughout Made for Walking – streets, blocks, sidewalks, and connected open spaces together with the intricate mixing of uses – make walking and biking convenient and enable mobility with a vastly reduced carbon impact. These qualities, combined with a comfortable streetscape, create the type of pedestrian-oriented environment that lures people out of their cars. A few other physical qualities may not contribute directly to lowering a place’s carbon footprint but are also essential ingredients in a successful urban neighborhood. These elements, which can be designed in a place to add value, include the things all of us need in varying degrees – greenery, privacy, variety, and a sense of spaciousness.
To this end, we are happy to support the Healy Field Community Garden effort. After several years of outreach and dozens of meetings, the Friends of Healy Field are poised to create a garden space for children and adults, including a gathering space for community-wide events. The friends have gotten support from Healy Field abutters and neighbors, over 500 Roslindale petitioners, 60+ participants in the community design process, Boston’s Parks Department and Boston’s Mayor Walsh. Now MassDevelopment is offering to match the $25,000 FOHF plans to raise through this campaign. Please consider contributing whatever you can toward this major $25,000 matching grant, and 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!
Your WalkUP Roslindale May 2017 Look-ahead — BUSY!
Yes. That’s Keytar Bear from the Roslindale Craft Beer Cellar opening earlier this year!!
Friends, it’s going to be a busy few weeks upcoming. So, as we close out April and start into May, here are 5 eminently worthwhile events to put on your calendar. We hope to see you at all or at least some of them:
ITEM 1 – Sunday – May 7 at 1 pm – Jane’s Walk – We’ll meet in the southeastern corner of the Arboretum, just down the short slope from the Mendum Street gate and then wind our way northward along the contemplated route of the Roslindale Gateway Path and the Blackwell Path extension, stop and consider ways to work with our neighbors on cleaning up the area around the Arboretum Road underpass, and get a tutorial on the upcoming end-state for walking and cycling connections in the Arborway-Casey area.
ITEM 2 – Monday – May 8 at 6:30 pm – Roslindale Gateway Path Conceptual Design Study Presentation – This will take place at the Arboretum’s Weld Hill building. More information at the link. Pushing the concept to the point of seeing how it might lay out on the ground is an important milestone, and those of us who have been steering this grassroots effort so far are eager to continue the community conversation we started last spring.
ITEM 3 – Tuesday – May 16 at 9:30 am – Mayor Walsh’s Neighborhood Coffee Hour and Fallon Field Playground Ribbon-Cutting – This will be a great opportunity to connect with the mayor and his staff (including our own Dan Murphy from ONS) to thank them for their work on the new playground and discuss other ways we can work together to make our neighborhood a better place.
ITEM 4 – Thursday – May 18 at 7:00 pm – Fun-Size Target Meeting – It’s now official: Staples is closing and Target is proposing to bring their smaller-size store model into our neighborhood. Lots of upside and downside to discuss. To be held at the RCC, this one promises to be interesting.
ITEM 5 – Friday – May 19 at 7:10 am – Bike to Work Day – With Councilor Tim McCarthy! – May 19 is bike to work day throughout the city and the country, and if you work downtown, you can have an extra special treat on this day because our own district city councilor has accepted Rozzie Bikes’ invitation to ride into town from Roslindale Square. The West Roxbury/Roslindale convoy starts at Adi’s Bike World on Centre Street at 7:00 am and then departs Roslindale Square at 7:10 am. The ride ends at an early-morning festival on City Hall Plaza. Be there with your 2-wheeler and join in the fun!
Roslindale Gateway Path 10% Conceptual Plan Public Meeting – Monday, May 8, 2017 6:30pm at Weld Hill Building in Arboretum
WalkUP Roslindale is excited to announce another milestone toward making the Roslindale Gateway Path a reality. After completing a vision report (two-page summary) with students from the Tufts Urban and Environmental Policy and Planning program just about a year ago, we raised donations to fund a “10% conceptual plan” for the path by an engineering firm, the Horsley Witten Group (“Sustainable Environmental Solutions”). This study has just wrapped up and we are holding a public event on Monday, May 8, 2017 at 6:30pm at the Weld Hill Research Building in the Arnold Arboretum, 1300 Centre Street, to present the final product and invite more community feedback and support.
Our past events for this project have had a big turnout, and we hope this one will as well. As a preview of the report, a couple of images below show in more detail the proposed route for “section 1” of the path, starting at the Roslindale Village Commuter Rail stop, as well as a visual rendering of a section of the path.
Please RSVP so we can prepare for the right size group! Spread the word, and don’t forget to join for a Jane’s Walk in the area of the path the day before (May 7).
- RSVP link for May 8, 2017 event
- Directions to Weld Hill Research Building
- Last year’s Tufts UEP Vision Plan Report (two-page summary)
- Details of Sunday May 7, 2017 Jane’s Walk at 1pm
Jane’s Walk Planned – Sunday, May 7, 2017 at 1 pm – Start at the southeast corner of the Arboretum
As part of the international movement of holding citizen-led walking tours promoting community-based city building during the month of May in honor of pioneer urbanist Jane Jacobs (that’s her in the graphic next to the Jane’s Walk logo) and in collaboration with our friends at WalkBoston, WalkUP Roslindale will be hosting its first-ever Jane’s Walk on Sunday, May 7, 2017 starting at 1 pm at the southeast corner of the Arboretum. We will wind our way along the proposed route of the Roslindale Gateway Path and the proposed Blackwell Path Extension, hopefully connect with a couple of key stakeholders at the Arboretum Road arch, and then hear from WalkUP Roslindale/Rozzie Bikes‘ own Mark Tedrow about walking and cycling connections to the Southwest Corridor and Franklin Park that will result from completion of the ongoing Casey Arborway project at Forest Hills. Hope to see you there!!!
The Community Preservation Act: Yes! on 5
Most public and media attention to the questions that will appear on our ballots next Tuesday has focused on questions 1 through 4. But for WalkUP Rozzie and many allied organizations, Question 5 has the greatest impact potential. We need your help in spreading the word (both via social media and in the real world)!
On November 8th, Boston voters have the opportunity to secure a lasting investment for local parks and open space, historic preservation, and affordable housing. The Community Preservation Act (CPA), which will appear as Question #5 on the ballot, is your opportunity to improve quality of life in Boston by helping the city:
- Build and improve parks, playgrounds, trails, and gardens – including greenways that make up the Emerald Network
- Acquire land to protect water quality and reduce climate change impacts
- Restore and preserve historic buildings, and rehabilitate underutilized resources
- Create thousands of new, affordable homes for seniors, families, and veterans
Currently, too many people in Boston lack adequate access to parklands and open space. WalkUP Roslindale strongly believes that safe, enjoyable streets, parks, and neighborhoods should not be a privilege afforded to some, but a right guaranteed to all. It’s time to invest in a better, more equitable Boston.
Through CPA, the City of Boston has an opportunity to generate over $20 million every year in dedicated funding to create and improve parks, restore historic sites, and build new affordable homes throughout Boston’s neighborhoods.
Thanks to our friends at Livable Streets Alliance for help with this copy. See also the Yes on 5 website and this well-written column from Adrian Walker at the Boston Globe in support of the measure.
4 Minutes for Walkability — What is it, how is it achieved, and what’s it good for?
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!
Late-addition to the Roundup List: Arboretum Gateway Path
I have fielded more than one note that I left the Arboretum Gateway Path off the top-of-mind list for WUR’s 2015 roundup. This is an accurate critique and so: mea culpa. The AGP was a major initiative in 2015 and, I strongly suspect, will be a major initiative this year and going forward until it’s done. In brief: We love this idea of a new Arboretum gateway and path at the Roslindale commuter rail station that would provide an alternate ped/bike path to the South/Archdale bridge area, where it would link to an extension of the existing Blackwell/Bussey Brook path (and on to Forest Hills and the Southwest Corridor path) and allow for a new, more welcoming entrance to the Arboretum at Archdale as well. We are furthermore delighted at the receptive potential partners we’ve found in our own City and State government, the Arnold Arboretum, the Arboretum Park Conservancy, RVMS, Livable Streets, and our friends at Tufts University’s environmental program who are currently conducting an initial feasibility analysis for the path. It’s also been a great way to connect early with our friends at Rozzie Bikes.
So — as we head into 2016, expect the Arboretum Gateway Path to be something we continue to talk about and organize around, a lot.
East Roslindale Greenbelt Issues in the News
We enthusiastically support the Rozzie Urban Wild protection campaign, an effort spearheaded by WalkUP members and East Roslindale/Mt. Hope-Canterbury neighborhood residents Lisa Beatman and Rick Yoder. Back in November, the West Roxbury/Roslindale Bulletin highlighted the systemic disregard for Greenbelt protection along American Legion Highway. More recently, the Bulletin ran another piece, detailing the potential for the area to be turned into a vibrant greenspace. Check out both stories, and kudos to Lisa and Rick for keeping the spotlight on this important initiative!