Public Meeting 5 Days Right Ahead – Thursday, 9 March 2023 – Return of 4198 Washington Street

As those who follow this weblog know, WalkUP Roslindale followed this project closely through the public process that unfortunately resulted in an effective ZBA denial in the fall of 2021. (See 2 of our posts below). Now, the owners of the property are thankfully back with a renewed push on redevelopment of this 8,982 square foot site at 4198 – 4206 Washington Street in Roslindale Square. Physically, their proposal hasn’t changed: in place of the existing one-story retail structure, it still calls for construction of a new five (5)-story, mixed-use building containing approximately thirty-one (31) residential units, approximately 6,800 square feet of retail/community theater space, and approximately thirty-eight (38) bicycle storage spaces. The sole change, and it is significant, is that the owners have increased the share of income-restricted residential units from 42% to 61%, such that 19 of the 31 units are committed to be affordable to households earning between 60% and 100% of area median income. Not only is this substantively good on its own and makes an already great project that much better, it is also puts the project into the category of affordable residential developments that the Mayor’s Affordable Housing Executive Order of last fall expressly wants to advance more quickly and efficiently in light of the long-standing housing crisis in our city. In other words, this is exactly the kind of project that the Wu Administration wants to see a lot more of. Its time has come.

You can visit the project’s page on the BPDA website for more information. Most importantly, you can find information on the upcoming public meeting over zoom that is scheduled for this coming Thursday, 9 March 2023, at 6:00 pm. We urge supporters of this worthy proposal to attend the meeting and make your voices heard in support. You can register here.

4198 Washington Street Mixed Use and Affordable Housing Project Rejected by Zoning Board of Appeal Due to Lack of Parking

 

WalkUP Roslindale comment letter on 4198 Washington Street

 

World Day of Remembrance for Victims of Traffic Crashes – 20 November 2022

With apologies for the late amplification here: Today is a particular day to remember all of those who have died or been seriously injured on streets and roads all across the world, including here in Massachusetts. The MA Vision Zero Coalition has a webpage up about events here in Boston and elsewhere around the commonwealth. Whatever we’re actually able to do today to help remember, let’s make sure we stay committed to doing everything we can to make our streets and roads safer and more welcoming for everyone who uses them.

Poplar Street Walk Audit – Draft report now available for general feedback

Following up on our early May Walk Audit on Poplar Street, conducted with our friends at WalkBoston, we are now able to share the draft report to solicit further feedback on how we might slow motor vehicle speeds and improve the safety of vulnerable street users, especially those on foot.

Please send any comments to <info@nullwalkuproslindale.org> by Monday, 15 August 2022. Many thanks!

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WalkUP Roslindale Snow Clearance Collaborative – Version 5.2

If the forecasters are even half right, tomorrow looks like a doozy around here, so we’re making the call now for all WalkUP Roslindale Snow Clearance Collaborative forces to be out, in force, shoveling bus stops and crosswalk curb ramps to help everyone get around more easily after the storm. As a refresher, we now have a fully distributed model where everyone in Roslindale is their own block captain with full power and authority vested in them by WalkUP Roslindale to clear their local crosswalk curb ramp and dig out their nearby bus stop, snapping pictures before and after and sending them to yours truly at matthew.j.lawlor@nullgmail.com, to claim $10 in Rozzie Bucks from our good friends at Roslindale Village Main Street. Stay safe, stay warm, and we’ll see you out shoveling after the storm. (Yes, that is our old friend the Boston Yeti, looking to make a comeback again this year!)

WalkUP Roslindale 2021 – Year in Review

And so, with 2021 now in the books, we here at WalkUP Roslindale wanted to take a moment and take stock of the year that was even as we look forward to the new year ahead. Accordingly, in what seems to us to be order of importance, here are the top 5 highlights on what we did, said, and were following in 2021:

  1. We’re now “Official” – In September, we formally incorporated as a Massachusetts non-profit, gathered a formal board of directors, and elected officers, and then held our first formal board meeting. This move was overdue, but took on new urgency following our own diversity, equity, and inclusion self-evaluation over the last 18 months. We saw this step as a fundamental building block for having a more transparent, accessible organization going forward, and it concurrently allowed us to bring on a board that is more racially and ethnically diverse than our informal steering group had been.
  2. We congratulated Mayor Michelle Wu on her victory – In November, we marked the general election victory of Michelle Wu, Roslindale resident and best friend of transit, walking, and biking anyone alive has seen in the mayor’s office in this city, by, what else, advocating for a series of actions that we would love to see her administration take early on. Topping our list was further expansion of bus lanes and transit priority on key bus transit routes across the city, but we also urged more pedestrian priority for traffic signals, converting the neighborhood slow streets program into a citywide, rapid-implementation street safety program, implementing more fare-free buses and finally fixing commuter rail fare inequity, improving motor vehicle parking practices and management, furthering the construction of new affordable housing, and expanding cycling infrastructure. We hope to have the chance to work with Mayor Wu and incoming Chief of Streets Jascha Franklin-Hodge on all of these issues in the year ahead.
  3. We released the Cummins Missing Middle Street Safety Audit report – We conducted the audit virtually in December of 2020 and January of 2021, but it took some time to pull together the audit reports from all participants and get the report into suitable shape. The principal focus of the report is on the “Octopus” intersection at Cummins/American Legion/Canterbury and its appallingly unsafe walking conditions, despite its location near some key neighborhood destinations. We intend to bring this report and the issues it raises more clearly to the attention of the new administration this year.
  4. We were actively engaged on the 4198 Washington Street Project – We’ve linked to only the last story right here, but we checked in multiple times over the course of the year, as we wrote in favor of the proposal, cheered District 5 City Councilor Ricardo Arroyo’s strong support and ensuing approval by the Boston Planning & Development Agency and then were deeply disappointed by the Board of Appeal’s failure to muster a sufficient majority to approve the project’s necessary zoning relief.
  5. Finally, we welcomed more bus improvements to the neighborhood – These included most importantly the institution of an afternoon bus/bike lane on Washington Street southbound between Forest Hills and Bexley Road (matching the morning northbound lane in this same stretch that was the first of its kind in the city) and significant bus stop improvements in Roslindale Square. We hope there will be more to come on these kinds of improvements in the new year.

– Composed by M. Lawlor

Lower South Street Wins Neighborhood Slow Streets Award

Speeding and other unsafe driver behavior on South Street is a major problem that the Lower South Street Neighborhood Association has been working on for years, including by twice applying to the City’s Neighborhood Slow Streets program. We were thus delighted to learn this area will be one of three communities to receive an award of traffic calming resources in the upcoming year. Check out the neighborhood association’s original 2017 application to the program for more background. We’ve also included a map below of the affected area (outlined in red).

Some of the possible traffic calming measures include speed humps, raised intersections, streamlined signage, better road markings, and ways to make the South Street and Archdale Road intersection safer for pedestrians. Until recently, the City has claimed that speed humps and bumps were not permissible on most city streets (including South Street, but BTD recently changed its policy and indicated that it is open to considering the construction of speed humps on this street.

We understand that BTD will be conducting community outreach over the next few weeks through postcards to every household in the area, Zoom meetings, and perhaps in-person socially distanced events.

Interested residents are invited to sign-up on the City Website for emails about “meetings and project milestones.”  We’ll also post updates here as we receive them.

Lower South Street Area
Lower South Street Slow Streets Area

ALERT LEVEL BACK DOWN TO CLEAR: Snowfall total is well under 4″ (10cm), so no calling out forces

WalkUP Roslindale Snow Clearance Collaborative 3.3 enthusiasts and devotees are still welcome and encouraged to help out their neighbors and please post any pictures of cleared areas to our facebook account or tweet them out and tag @walkuprozzie when you do, but we won’t have an official effort this time around. When you’re done shoveling, we encourage you to enjoy some French Toast or other hearty breakfast of your choice. It sure is pretty out there!

*** UPDATE *** LOCATION CHANGE *** WalkUP Roslindale 2020 Kickoff: BTD Transit Team, Round 2, plus goal-setting for 2020 – 14 January 2020 @ 6 pm @ ROZZIE SQUARE THEATRE

 

UPDATE/LOCATION CHANGE: THIS EVENT HAS BEEN MOVED FROM THE SQUARE ROOT TO THE ROZZIE SQUARE THEATRE – 5 BASILE STREET, ROSLINDALE. THANKS!

We’re pleased to announce that our friends from the Boston Transportation Department’s Transit Team, led by their director, Matt Moran, will be coming back on Tuesday evening, 14 January 2020, to talk more about their ongoing research and thinking about ways to improve bus service on Washington Street southbound between Forest Hills and the Square as well as their thoughts about the 32 bus on Hyde Park Avenue (and they may or may not hold forth in the magic bus). We’ll have them start us off, and then continue with an open meeting as WalkUP Roslindale starts a new year and a new decade of advocacy around our core issues of walkability, cyclability, transit access, and housing.

MEETING AGENDA:

6:00 to 6:45 pm – BTD Transit Presentation and Q&A.

6:50 pm – Welcome & brief introduction to WalkUP Roslindale.

6:55 pm – Update regarding Cummins Highway Walk Audit.

7:05 pm – WalkUP Roslindale Goal-setting for 2020.

We will wrap up by 7:30 pm.

Please RSVP and spread the word from our Facebook event page.