Category: Vision

Roslindale Film Series – Fall 2017 Edition – October 19 and 30

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Third Rail may not be coming to the Substation, but the Roslindale Film Series most definitely is. RVMS just announced that there will be 2 classics on offer in the Substation in October — first, on Thursday, October 19 at 7 pm, they will be showing the technicolor pioneer The Wizard of Oz, and then, second, on Monday, October 30 at 7 pm, we will have Ghostbusters in all of its mid-1980s ironic absurdity.

WalkUP Roslindale has long supported showing feature-length movies in the square and we are excited about this most recent development. We urge everyone to attend and to walk, cycle, or take transit to get there as parking is limited! But bring your own seating and refreshments!

Roslindale Gateway Path & Blackwell Path Extension – Now combined and on the move!

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Rozzie Gateway Path Entrance (image courtesy Halvorson Design Partnership, Inc.)

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!

Stonybrook Neighborhood Slow Streets – Pre-Construction Open House – August 25 – 6 to 8 pm @ Curtis Hall (20 South St., JP)

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It’s been a long time that this particular set of changes has been in the works. But it sounds like Stonybrook’s Neighborhood Slow Streets improvements will go in next month. Pre-construction meeting to be hosted by BTD/PWD scheduled for Friday, August 25 at 6-8 pm at Curtis Hall in JP (20 South Street).

It will be really good to have slow street improvements actually put on the ground in this city so we can all go see what they’re like and share with our neighbors.

Hubway Expansion meeting for Roslindale scheduled – September 20 @ 6 pm – Menino BCYF (Archdale/Brookway)

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Hubwaylogo2014.pngGreat news–the Hubway citywide bike-sharing program is considering expanding to Roslindale! See the full schedule and how BTD will be rolling this out. A community meeting is scheduled for Wednesday, September 20, 2017, at 6 PM at the Boston Center for Youth and Families Menino Center, at 125 Brookway Road (just off Washington Street near the South Street intersection).

Bring your ideas about where Hubway should be located in our neighborhood come next spring.

What’s Tactical Urbanism, you say? Watch this 8-minute video…

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Original Vimeo link.

We’ve seen some of this in our own neighborhood, like the street mural at Conway and South. Where else in Roslindale should we consider this? Ideas welcome in the comments!

IMG 1269

Neighborhood Slow Streets Announcement Made! And Rozzie has a winner!!

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We last discussed the NSS program under Vision Zero back at the end of March, when 47 applications, 4 of them from our beloved patch of soil, were submitted. At that time, we thought only 2 areas in the city would be selected. In the interim, the city found additional money for 3 more areas, so yesterday…drum roll…BTD announced 5 selected areas, one of which is the Mount Hope/Canterbury area in the eastern section of Roslindale. Congratulations to the champions of that effort, including WalkUP Roslindale’s own Lisa Beatman and Rick Yoder! You can find the city’s official announcement here, and a Boston Globe article from today here. We are excited by this opportunity to improve street safety and slow traffic in our neighborhood and look forward to working with Lisa, Rick, their neighbors in MH/C, and BTD staff to get this done as soon as humanly possible.

As we have said many times at this blog and elsewhere, everyone in this city deserves to live on a safe street. Everyone on every street in every neighborhood.

Crossing at Washington & Basile gets some attention and we are thrilled and appreciative!

Matt Lawlor 1 Comment
Flexpost
Flexpost

We know WalkUP Roslindale’s walk audit in December 2015 wasn’t the first time members of our neighborhood identified the crosswalk at the intersection of Washington and Basile streets as being in need of safety improvements. Indeed, we recognized at at the time that we were joining a long line of activists who had already called for changes at this important crossing at the northern entrance to Roslindale Square that is the main access point from the west for students going to and from the Sumner School. It was accordingly great to see city contractors out at this intersection in the last few weeks and days reinforcing the recently signed no-parking/standing areas adjacent to the crosswalk, installing curb-ramps, fixing the flashing yellow light, and installing the pedestrian crossing bollard and flexposts in almost all the required areas (the area right on the southbound side is, we believe, awaiting the completion of utility work before flexposts will go in).

We all recognize that there is more work to be done throughout the square and the entire neighborhood to improve walking and cycling and overall safety for all users of our streets. But we will pause for this moment to thank everyone who had a hand this, starting with walkBoston, who took us through the walk audit, and including the Mayor’s Office for Neighborhood Services, Councilors McCarthy and Wu, the Boston Transportation and Public Works Departments, and Roslindale Village Main Street.

 

Roslindale’s First Street Mural Complete

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Roslindale’s first street mural (rumored to be Boston’s second) is now in the books! Thanks to all the community leaders and volunteers who made it happen, including the WalkUP Roslindale Mural Committee lead by Ann-Marie Lawlor, Mandana Moshtaghi, Rachele Rosi-Kessel, and Rebecca Phillips; as well as the Mayor’s Mural Crew (including fearless leader Heidi Schork), Roslindale Village Main Street, and Roslindale Artist-in-Residence Cornell Coley. Be sure to check it out just by the commuter rail station, in front of the modern language school. Creation below:

Also a bunch of photos from the day; thanks to Gradon Tripp, Rob Orthman, the Mayor’s Office of Neighborhood Services, Chris Kollett, and anyone we forgot for the photos!

 

A helpful graphic in thinking about which modes of mobility do vs. should get attention

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Picked up this graphic at a Jeff Speck session at CNU25. Abundantly true of a city like Boston, where it makes no sense that our mayor still isn’t fully behind appropriate funding for active mobility and Vision Zero, or applying, right now, political will to breaking down the institutional barriers that are holding us back.

Your WalkUP Roslindale May 2017 Look-ahead — BUSY!

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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!