We’ll be more specific about details for the street safety audit, including information for the pre-audit presentation, in the next few days, but wanted to get the date and time out for folks who are interested and can attend. Thanks!
Category: Uncategorized
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.
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.
UPDATE: WalkUP Roslindale Snow Clearance Collaborative Version 3.2 – NOT INVOKED for 17-18 Dec 2019
The snow/freezing rainfall totals did not hit our minimum – 4″ or 10 cm – so we will not be calling out our forces. That said, everyone should still do their part and help their neighbors to clear snow and ice from sidewalks, crosswalk ramps, and bus stops. Thanks!
UPDATE: WalkUP Roslindale Snow Clearance Collaborative 3.0 – 2019-2020 – WE’RE A GO FOR WRSCC 3.1 – 3/4 DECEMBER 2019
SEE UPDATES BELOW REGARDING LOCATIONS/DATES/TIMES
With the first flakes now falling, we here at WalkUP Roslindale are standing ready to launch the WalkUP Roslindale Snow Clearance Collaborative 3.0 once again for the upcoming winter of 2019-2020. By way of reminder, the WRSCC focuses on clearing snow and ice from bus stops on key routes in and around Roslindale. This year, we will once again look to clear bus stops in key locations and incentivize participation by partnering with our very own Roslindale Village Main Street (using funds provided last year by District 5 City Councilor Tim McCarthy and the Roslindale Business Group) as follows:
- Anytime there’s a snow event greater than 4” (just over 10 cm), we will pick a suitable morning or evening time as soon as possible after the snow stops flying to meet up at the locations identified below and then descend on and shovel out the identified stops.
- The incentive we’re offering will once again be $10 Rozzie Bucks coupons for everyone who shows up and lends a hand.
- BTW, Rozzie Bucks are a great deal — good at many stores and restos in the square and the farmers market to boot!
Scheduled locations/captains are as follows:
- Washington/Cummins – Steve Gag and Greg Tobin [DONE ALREADY]
- Washington/Archdale – Ben Bruno [DONE ALREADY]
- Washington/Cornell – Sarah Kurpiel Lee – Tuesday, December 3, at 4:45 pm
- South/Walter – Matt Lawlor – Wednesday, December 4, at 7:00 am
- Corinth/Cohasset – Alan Wright – Tuesday, December 3, at 3:00 pm (look for Alan anywhere on Corinth from Washington to Belgrade)
- Washington/Brahms-Blue Ledge – Rob Orthman – Tuesday, December 3, at 8:00 pm
We will firm up these locations, captains, and timing as we see just how much snow we get. Thanks all!
Are we ready to think differently about the Roslindale Municipal Lot?
MEETING DATE/TIME/PLACE: Thursday, September 26, 2019, 6:30 pm @ Roslindale Community Center, 6 Cummins Highway, Roslindale (accessible by foot, bike, MBTA Needham Line, several bus routes, Bluebikes, and by car).
As part of the city’s Housing with Public Assets initiative, our city’s Housing Innovation Lab, along with the Office of New Urban Mechanics and the Department of Neighborhood Development, are hosting the initial public meeting on the potential redevelopment of the municipal lot behind the row of stores on South Street between Taft Hill Terrace and the Needham Line tracks. The Housing with Public Assets initiative began in 2018 with an open request for information on how the city could improve its core assets citywide quickly and efficiently. This included an inventory of libraries, fire stations, community centers, and vehicle storage lots such as the Roslindale Municipal Lot. At the same time, the city also indicated that it specifically cared about housing at these locations, meaning that they were about “integrating deeply and moderately affordable units with market-rate units.” To be candid, we think this idea has legs here in Roslindale, even to the point where we submitted a comment letter about this very location as part of the process back in April 2018. We now look forward eagerly to learning more about how the city is thinking about moving forward with generating new housing opportunities by leveraging a significant, underutilized public asset in the heart of our neighborhood, and how community input can help steer their efforts.
It’s our understanding that the project seeks to preserve much if not all of the existing public parking. In anticipation of discussions about the parking impact of this development, WalkUP Roslindale volunteers recently collected snapshots of data on several different times and days. The data show the following:
- There are 84 general spaces, four handicap spaces and two ZipCar spaces.
- At every visit there were always general spaces available for more cars to park.
- On average over 28 spaces were available; the fewest number of spaces ever available for general parking was three (twice), the maximum during weekday business hours was 64 (once).
- Only six times (~ 7%) were there fewer than 10 general spaces available.
- Not infrequently (23 out of 83 times, or ~28%) all handicapped spaces were filled, suggesting that the lot would benefit from more spaces being reserved for handicap plates.
- We did not yet measure turn-over of the spaces, but anecdotally we frequently observed some spaces filled all or most of the day by the same vehicles. We are certain that if the two-hour parking limit was actively enforced and if parking was metered (so that it was accurately not priced as a free resource), the number of available spaces for patrons of local businesses would increase.
While of course our study is not fully comprehensive, we think it’s a good start to have some data as we go into this process.
Where does District 6 City Councilor Matt O’Malley stand on safe and equitable travel on our city’s streets?
Councilor O’Malley is running unopposed, but he did take the time to fill out the questionnaire, as linked below. As for the first question, about how Matt gets around to/from/within his district, he had the following to say:
“I travel throughout my district and the city through a variety of
modes of transportation. Typically, I commute to work to City Hall
and throughout the district via my electric car. Other days, I hold
office hours with constituents on MBTA trains, buses, and/or
commuter rail. I also enjoy using BlueBikes and walking
throughout my community. One of the many benefits of living and
working in the country’s third most walkable city is having
numerous options beyond just a private vehicle, which allows me
to be more connected to my community while reducing my carbon footprint.”
The Councilor’s full responses can be found here.
Where do the District 5 City Council Candidates stand on safe and equitable travel on our streets?
With the preliminary election for the Boston City Council now just two weeks away — on Tuesday, September 24 — we here at WalkUP Roslindale thought it might be helpful to do what we could to more broadly circulate the responses of the various candidates to the Vision Zero Coalition’s Candidate Questionnaire, which provides the best available yardstick for figuring out how closely the candidates come to supporting safe and equitable travel on our streets. We’re starting today with the District 5 candidates and intend to move on to the At-Large candidates and then the candidates for districts 4 and 6 as well.
And so, we’re off – there are a total of eight candidates running for the District 5 City Council seat. In alphabetical order, they are Ricardo Arroyo, Maria Esdale Farrell, Cecily Graham, Justin Murad, Alkia Powell, Jean-Claude Sanon, Mimi Turchinetz, and Yves Mary Jean. Of these eight, the four candidates in italics submitted responses to the questionnaire. Below we provide their full answers, without modification, to the top-line question of “How do you move around your community and get where you need to go?” along with links to pdfs with responses to all of the questions:
Ricardo Arroyo
“Previously I owned a hybrid, now I do not have a car and rely on
the MBTA and ride sharing.”
Cecily Graham
“In order to move around my community, I use a variety of transit
modes. I am a driver, therefore this is my main mode of
transportation to get to the market and laundromat. I also bike
within a 2 mile radius for short trips, in addition to walking and the
use of public transportation when visiting neighboring towns. Last
but not least, I will utilize ride-share services if I have to be
somewhere in a timely matter, especially if parking is not readily
available at my destination. All of these modes are important
because it is hard to depend on one to get around efficiently.”
Justin Murad
“MBTA bus and Orange Line mostly.”
Mimi Turchinetz
“I take the 32 Bus and the Orange Line when ever possible, I also
have a car.”
CONCLUDING NOTE: WalkUP Roslindale has a policy of not specifically supporting or opposing any candidate for elected office. In the interest of full disclosure, please note that the author of this post, Matt Lawlor, personally supports candidate Arroyo.
StreetsblogMASS officially launched today!
And so the growing movement for safer, cleaner, healthier, and more equitable transportation in our neighborhood, city, region, and commonwealth has a new media outlet that will highlight and stick with the stories and issues we care the most about. Mark this date – July 11, 2019 – as the formal start of something that we can all hope will make us better. Take it away, StreetsblogMASS Editor in Chief Christian MilNeil:
The Streetsblog movement has arrived in Massachusetts!
When Streetsblog launched in New York City in 2006, policymakers took it for granted that streets were primarily for motor vehicles: the city had no on-street protected bike lanes and over 300 New Yorkers were dying every year in traffic collisions.
Today, New York is ranked among the nation’s best cities for cycling. Cars and trucks are no longer allowed on Broadway through Times Square, there’s a network of protected bikeways that extends over 100 miles throughout the five boroughs, and the number of people killed by cars has hit its lowest point in a century.
The cities and towns of Massachusetts are ready for a similar transformation.
Massachusetts is already home to dozens of great organizations working on these issues, and there’s been impressive progress in the past decade. The state’s biggest city recently adopted the visionary Go Boston 2030 plan, which sets a target for cutting motor vehicle commutes in half, expanding the regional greenway network, and boosting transit service over the next decade.
And yet, for all the great ideas out there, our region’s leaders are falling short in actually implementing the policies and infrastructure we need. Crashes cause over 4,000 injuries a year in Boston alone, and that number has been increasing in spite of the city’s “Vision Zero” commitment.
There’s compelling evidence that the region’s failure to invest in its transit system and build safer streets is hurting the regional economy and making traffic worse.
StreetsblogMASS will be a place to amplify the efforts of seasoned advocates who have been working on these issues for years, but it will also be a place that invites more people into the safer streets movement and give them the knowledge they need to make a difference, whether they’re a new-to-town college student or a retiree who’s contemplating giving up their car. Safer streets matter to everyone – even motorists – and StreetsblogMASS will strive to be as inclusive as it is engaging.
As your editor, I’ve spent the past six years working as a data reporter for the Portland Press Herald in Maine; I’ve also moonlighted as a transportation and affordable housing advocate for more than a decade. I’m a strong believer in the power local journalism has in holding leaders accountable to the public interest, but I also find that traditional journalism often falls short in addressing the public’s interests in making our cities more equitable and fighting climate change.
Our streets are public spaces: they belong to all of us, not just the few who operate the most life-threatening and polluting vehicles. Making the Commonwealth’s streets safer is a necessary condition for New England to reduce greenhouse gas pollution, and it’s also a way to make our cities healthier, safer, more affordable, and more egalitarian.
So – please subscribe to our email newsletter, follow us on Twitter, subscribe to our RSS feed, add us to your bookmarks, or lend us your financial support.
It’s time to build a safer, more connected, healthier Commonwealth – let’s get started.