Category: Uncategorized

Roslindale Square Transportation Action Plan Virtual Update – Wed May 13, 6:30-8:00 PM

Ben Bruno

Join Streets Cabinet planners for an important virtual public update on the Roslindale Square Transportation Action Plan on Wednesday, May 13 from 6:30 – 8:00 PM. Learn about what’s been accomplished so far, the roadmap for the rest of the year, and provide your feedback. Expect to hear about the possibilities and benefits of returning Washington St to 2-way along Adams Park and a safer rework of the Belgrade Ave/ Roberts St / Corinth St intersection.

This meeting will be held on Zoom. Click here register for the meeting.

Action Alert: Speak Up for Safety and Accountability at Budget Hearing 5/4 @ 10:00 AM

Ben Bruno

WalkUP Roslindale is joining with LivableStreets and other safe streets advocacy organizations to call on our community to speak up on Monday, May 4 at 10:00 AM, when the Boston City Council will hold a hearing on the upcoming fiscal year budget for the Streets Cabinet (which includes the Boston Transportation Department and Public Works Department). This budget covers July 2026 through June 2027.

Last week, many advocates and community members testified at a City Council transportation subcommittee hearing and expressed deep concern about the lack of progress over the past year. Coverage in local media and the hearing transcript reflect the urgency of this moment. This upcoming budget hearing is a critical opportunity for residents to demand real progress on street safety, transparency, and accountability.

LivableStreets staff and volunteers have reviewed the publicly available budget documents and submitted a letter to the Administration with a comprehensive detailed list of questions and priorities. You can find the City’s budget documents, along with a spreadsheet summary prepared by LivableStreets, on their website.

You can take action in two ways:

  1. Send an email to the City Council ASAP
  2. Attend the hearing in person at City Hall or online at 10:00 AM on Monday, May 4

 

Sample Email to Send

To: [Your District Councilor]
CC: ruthzee.louijeune@boston.gov, julia.mejia@boston.gov, erin.murphy@boston.gov, henry.santana@boston.gov, ccc.wm@boston.gov, info@livablestreets.info

Subject: I support a Streets Cabinet budget that prioritizes safety and livability in Boston

[Share your name, where you live, work, or spend time in Boston, and how you get around.]

I am reaching out today to ask that you ensure the below priorities are included in the City of Boston budget this fiscal year:

Accountability and Transparency: Please ask BTD to release the already completed Go Boston 2030 Revisioned documents and have a timeline for releasing an updated Vision Zero Action Plan. These guiding documents are critical in determining how and where to prioritize the City’s limited resources.

Meaningful on the ground progress: Please require that the City complete 7.5 miles of protected bike lanes; add cast-in-place concrete barriers on ALL corridors or at any intersection where flexposts have been removed; install 500 new speed humps in addition to replacing any removed during resurfacing; constructing safety improvements at 8 intersections; and update 50 traffic signals to meet the new 2023 traffic signal guidelines.

Planning with Impact: Please require BTD to create a plan for quick build bus priority implementation in collaboration with the MBTA’s Better Buses program for installation in FY28 and to restart planning and design processes for Columbia Road, Hyde Park Avenue, Roxbury Resilient Transportation Corridors, Commonwealth Avenue Phase 3, 3B, and 4, Boylston St. / Fenway, Downtown Crossing, Connect downtown public garden crossings, Roslindale Square, collaborating with advocates and other stakeholders.

[Add any project or priority that is personally meaningful to you.]

Each of these requests is feasible within the constraints of the existing budget and with the existing staff, and is informed by the City’s most recent transportation planning and policy documents.

Please ensure that these priorities are committed to and incorporated into the FY27 budget before voting yes.

Thank you for your partnership and leadership.

[Your name]

How to Address Your Email

At Large Councilors: ruthzee.louijeune@boston.gov julia.mejia@boston.gov erin.murphy@boston.gov henry.santana@boston.gov

District Councilors:
D1 gabriela.coletta@boston.gov
D2 ed.flynn@boston.gov
D3 john.fitzgerald@boston.gov
D4 brian.worrell@boston.gov
D5 enrique.pepen@boston.gov
D6 benjamin.weber@boston.gov
D7 miniard.culpepper@boston.gov
D8 sharon.durkan@boston.gov
D9 liz.breadon@boston.gov

All Councilors: City.Council@boston.gov

Hyde Park Ave Safety Walk and Talk TOMORROW Sat 4/25 at 12PM

Ben Bruno

Join TOMORROW Saturday April 25th with the Boston Better Streets Coalition and City Councilors Ben Weber and Enrique Pepen at Forest Hills Station to demand that the city fix the dangerous conditions on Hyde Park Ave. Boston Transportation Department planners will be there along with Cecily Graham, director of the Mayor’s Office of Neighborhood Services.

Please sign up here to let them know that you’re coming. Meet inside the Forest Hills train station at noon. At around 1pm, we will take letters to businesses on Hyde Park Ave and ask them to support safe streets.

Safe Streets Rally and Hearing this Wednesday 4/22

Ben Bruno

As the Globe has reported, safe streets projects across the city have been halted with no clear explanation, even losing existing funding. Please join WalkUP Roslindale along with other advocates, city councilors, and fellow residents for a rally and coordinated presence at the City Council hearing this Wednesday, April 22 at 2:00 pm. Boston’s street safety and transportation projects are stalled, and we need a strong public turnout.

Rally at 1:15 pm

@ City Hall Plaza at the Government Center entrance preceding the hearing

Our asks to the City are clear:

  • Provide real, time bound updates on all transportation projects and identify which ones are moving, paused, or at risk.
  • Restart the speed hump safety surge and commit to installation numbers and timing for this year.
  • Give advance notice of barrier removals and specify replacement materials, with durable options prioritized.
  • Reestablish regular engagement with residents and advocates.
  • Fill permanent leadership and staffing roles in the Streets Cabinet.

 

City Council Hearing at 2:00pm

Three ways to weigh in:

All enter the record, though in person is the most effective (but written or virtual is better than nothing).

1. In person: Arrive by 1:55 PM at Iannella Chamber, 5th Floor, Boston City Hall. Prepare a 2 mins testimony sharing your own personal experience and support for safe streets. Details matter.

2. Via Zoom: Email shane.pac@boston.gov in advance to sign up and get the link. You’ll get two minutes on a video call.

3. Written testimony: Email ccc.plandev@boston.gov and shane.pac@boston.gov. A few personal sentences about Hyde Park Ave or other corridors go a long way — please don’t just copy-paste generic text.

 

If you care about safe, walkable, neighborhoods, now is the time to show up and speak up. See you Wednesday.

Comment Letter on 4301 Washington Street

Ben Bruno

Today, we submitted a comment letter supporting the proposed development at 4301 Washington Street in Roslindale. The Proposed Project strongly aligns with the objectives of the Squares + Streets rezoning initiative. Replacing a vacant building with 16 new dwelling units, three of which will be IDP units, on a transit-served parcel within walking distance of a broad variety of retail and service uses in the immediate vicinity, as well as Roslindale Square represents an appropriate and beneficial use of land. This project will help address the city’s acute housing shortage while welcoming new neighbors who can support nearby small businesses and contribute to the vitality of the nearby square.

Read our full letter.

Comments from the public are due today (4/9), so please submit your comments right away!

WalkUP Roslindale’s Year in Review – 2025

Matt Lawlor

As adverse as the national level conditions have been generally for anyone concerned about the direction of this country and its respect for fundamental human rights as well as the causes we hold dear in particular, we here at WalkUP Roslindale can still look back at this year at the local level as one of significant accomplishment and enduring improvement for our pro-housing and pro-walk, -bike, -transit advocacy. It is always difficult to choose what seems most significant in a given period of time, but it seems to us that three things stand out most prominently for 2025:

First, the Boston Zoning Commission’s adoption in February of the Squares + Streets zoning text and map amendments for Roslindale Square and its key radiating corridors. This was a very big deal on several levels, but perhaps none more so than the elimination of off-street parking minimums coupled with increases in as-of-right housing density within the rezoned area. The following selected posts from this website give a sense of the process as we experienced it starting in 2024 and running into 2025 as well as the first proposed project within the heart of the square that makes full use of the flexibility allowed by the new zoning – a decidedly admirable and eminently supportable all-affordable, mixed-use, senior-focused development that requires no zoning relief whatsoever:

Squares + Streets – Small Area Planning Process – Roslindale Square Kickoff Open House

Three thoughts on Squares + Streets as we get underway in Roslindale Square

Guest Post – Nate Stell from AHMA: Rezone the residential streets too!

First in an occasional series – Elvira Mora of WUR and AHMA

Open Letter in Support of Squares + Streets

Squares + Streets – ADOPTED!

First Fruits for Squares + Streets…4259-4267 Washington Street come on down!

Second, the 3-part walk audit series sponsored by a micro-grant from the American Association of Retired Persons that looked at the Washington Street corridor between the square and Archdale Road, Roslindale Square’s key intersections, and Cummins Highway’s mid-section around the new Sarah Roberts School. We very much appreciated AARP’s support and were truly stunned at the speed with which the Washington Street audit’s focus on a half-dozen badly heaved sidewalks near street trees resulted in virtually immediate fixes, resulting in vastly improved walkability and rollability in this key neighborhood corridor. Post links:

Join the Walk Audit Series!

From Audit to Action: Washington St. Sidewalks Repaired!

Walk Audit Community Meeting

Third, and finally, we were tremendously gratified to see Phase 1 of the Roslindale Gateway Path open between the end of the Blackwell Path at South Street and Arboretum Road. Roslindale Gateway Path is and has been a foundational, long-term advocacy project for us, so this first phase is welcome and we are eager both to solidify the major improvement in Arnold Arboretum access it represents and to push even harder to get the rest of the path implemented so we can truly open this amazing public resource to much more of Roslindale. Post link: Soft Open Alert – Roslindale Gateway Path Phase 1!

And so, that’s what we think of when we think of this past year’s efforts. And now it’s on to 2026…

WalkUP Roslindale Snow Clearance Collaborative – Version 8.1 – Assemble & Clear!

Matt Lawlor

It’s a close call on whether we have hit the standard 4″ (10 cm) threshold, but we will err on the side of safety and assistance, so we are joining our old friend the Boston Yeti and calling our forces out onto the snowy streets this morning to clear bus stops and curb ramps for our neighbors. As has been the case, if you send us pix of the clearing you’ve done, we will send you back $10 as a reward (which we hope you will spend at one of our neighborhood’s many and varied merchants) and heartfelt thank you. Send pix to matthew.j.lawlor@gmail.com. Thanks!!!

Walk Audit Series Community Meeting Wed 11/19 6:30-8pm

Ben Bruno

Please join us for our community meeting to wrap up our walk audit series! We’ll report back, discuss our findings and improvements that have already been made, and talk about next steps.

BCYF Community Center
6 Cummins Hwy, Boston, MA 02131
📅 Wednesday, November 19
🕞 6:30 PM – 8:00 PM

Our 2025 walk audit series is made possible by the AARP Community Challenge, a grant program that funds quick-action projects to help communities become more livable for people of all ages. It’s part of AARP’s nationwide Livable Communities initiative. Learn more at AARP.org/Livable.

Show Support for Affordable Senior Housing Tonight!

Ben Bruno

rendering of 4259-4267 Washington St developmentTonight at 6 PM, there’s a public meeting about B’nai B’rith’s proposal for a 6-story, PassiveHouse-certifiable building with 41 affordable senior homes and new retail — including a new home for the Thrift Shop — on the former Bank of America parking lot on Washington St (between Chilacates and the recycling center).

This is exactly the kind of thoughtful, sustainable development that many Roslindale residents hoped would come out of the Squares + Streets rezoning. Let’s show up and show support!

Here are two quick ways to help Roslindale say YES to more affordable homes:

📅Join the Public Zoom Meeting — Tonight, Monday October 20th at 6:00 PM
Register here: bosplans.org/4259Washington-1015

✍️ Send a Written Comment of Support
Use this tool to write and submit a public letter in under 2 minutes.

Cummins Highway Walk Audit – Wed Oct 15, 3:30 – 5:00 PM

Ben Bruno

Join us on our third and final walk audit in this year’s series this coming Wednesday! We’ll meet in Adams Park and depart by 3:35 to observe and document how safe, accessible, and welcoming the street and sidewalks are for people of all ages and abilities.  We will not be entering the Sarah Roberts school grounds so as not to interfere with school dismissal and buses, but we will observe and document the issues and challenges on this busy corridor at rush hour / school dismissal time from the opposite site of Cummins Highway.

Cummins Highway (Adams Park to Sarah Roberts Elementary School)
📅 Wednesday, October 15th
🕞 3:30 PM – 5:00 PM

👉 RSVP here to let us know you plan to join. While RSVPs aren’t required, they’ll help us prepare enough materials for everyone.

Hope you can join us!

 

Our 2025 walk audit series is made possible by the AARP Community Challenge, a grant program that funds quick-action projects to help communities become more livable for people of all ages. It’s part of AARP’s nationwide Livable Communities initiative. Learn more at AARP.org/Livable.