We recently sent an official comment letter to Boston Mayor Marty Walsh, expressing our strong support for recent pedestrian safety and traffic calming improvements around Roslindale Square. These improvements represent an important step forward in realizing our vision of a truly walkable neighborhood where everyone who prefers to get around without a car can do so easily, and those who need to drive share the space fairly and safely with everyone else. Much remains to be done. Toward that end, below we express our support for the changes made so far, and offer ideas for next steps.
Our go-getter friends at Roslindale Village Main Street have gone public with their emerging plans to make streetscape improvements to the block of Poplar Street that abuts Adams Park in the heart of Roslindale Square. They have teamed up with our other friends at Patronicity to seek $25,000 in crowdfunding to match $25,000 in funds from MassDevelopment and a further $5,000 from the Boston Main Streets Foundation. Take a few minutes to visit the Revitalizing Poplar Street page on Patronicity, and if you like the concept and the direction they’re headed in, make whatever investment you can in a better public realm for our neighborhood!
REMINDER: After a super turnout for “The Human Scale” that netted $80 in proceeds to our friends at RVMS, we would LOVE to see you for the third installment of our monthly film series at the Rozzie Square Theater on Basile Street two weeks from tomorrow, November 1, 2018, at 7 pm. As a last echo of Halloween, we’ll be showing the cult classic “Night of the Living Dead.” This George Romero offering, shot in black and white almost three decades after the arrival of technicolor, is the zombie movie by which all zombie movies are measured. As always, please come by the multiple bus lines that run through the square every day, come by Blue Bike (we have that now!), come by the Needham Line, walk, bike, or, if you must, go ahead and drive, and note that the suggested donation is $5 per person. We hope you’re coming for us, Barbara! We can’t wait!!!
We recently sent an official comment letter to Boston’s Chief of Streets Chris Osgood, expressing our strong gratitude and support for the city’s implementation of a morning inbound bus lane on Washington Street between Roslindale Village and Forest Hills. This improvement has greatly improved the commuter experience for transit-riders and cyclists alike, at extremely low cost. We’d like to see much more of this in and around the City of Boston!
We also took this opportunity to raise a couple of concerns: first, compliance with the morning bus lane has been inconsistent, and a few parked cars blocking buses and bikes ruins the experience for everyone. We need to see better enforcement to insure the lane doesn’t become a half-solution at best. We also want to get the ball rolling on an afternoon/outbound dedicated bus lane, as studies show that the evening outbound rush hour commute encounters more traffic and is slower for bus riders than the morning route was before the bus lane.
REMINDER: We would LOVE to see you for the second installment of our monthly film series at the Rozzie Square Theater on Basile Street a week from this Thursday, October 4, 2018, at 7 pm. This time it’s “The Human Scale” – the urban life-focused documentary about Jan Gehl and his firm’s work around the globe. Come by the multiple bus lines that run through the square every day, come by Blue Bike (we have that now!), come by commuter rail on the Needham Line, walk, bike, or, if you must, go ahead and drive. We can’t wait!!!
Though some safety improvements still remain to roll out in Roslindale Square, especially regarding the relocation of certain bus stops, the final condition has come into clear focus recently with the installation of flexposts to help delineate and reinforce the paint that was put down by our friends at BTD in the late spring/summer. Now that the dust is partially settling, this seems like a good time to explain what has been installed and why.
The “tl;dr” version is that these improvements reduce the likelihood of serious injuries or fatalities caused by cars driving through the square. They also make it more pleasant and fun to walk around, which is key to WalkUP’s mission! The longer version below:
This is traffic calming, because speed kills. To protect everyone using our streets, the most effective thing we can do is to slow the speed of the motor vehicles using them, so that everyone can be and feel safer. For everyone not in a vehicle, the speed we really want to get the motor vehicles to is about 20 mph. Because once you get motor vehicles going over 20 mph, things get ugly real fast. This chart illustrates why:
This is why slowing vehicle speeds is such an important part of the city’s Vision Zero program that aims to eliminate fatal and serious traffic crashes on Boston’s streets by 2030.
2. The fundamental basis of traffic calming. The way to slow vehicle speeds is two-fold: First, set the speed limit to the speed you want motor vehicles to go. While a citywide 25 mph default speed limit isn’t perfect, it is clearly better than the 30 mph limit we previously had for decades. Second, redesign every street to provide the physical and visual cues needed for drivers of motor vehicles to slow down and meet that speed limit. Note that we didn’t mention enforcement here. That’s because we can’t really rely on close enforcement long-term in any location (BPD has a lot on its hands) and enforcement carries with it its own concerns about equity. An analogy that is often made in this context is to the incredible strides in airline safety that have occurred over the last couple of decades, to the point where you can count on one hand the number of fatalities on U.S. commercial airlines in that period. This success has come largely from treating every single crash as worthy of investigation and analysis and then making systemic changes based on the conclusions drawn every time. We know slower vehicle speeds will lead to fewer fatal and serious crashes. Everything we do to slow vehicles makes us all safer.
3. The physical and visual cues needed are fairly straightforward. They are, in fact, now on the ground in the square. They include:
“street diets” to reduce the amount of undifferentiated asphalt that decades of auto-centric transportation management have left us, while simultaneously shortening the distance that pedestrians need to cross a street and tightening turns at intersections so that drivers have to slow down to take them. Reducing the number of lanes that crosswalks have to cross also reduces the “double-threat” of a car driver stopping for a crossing pedestrian in one lane, blocking the view of that pedestrian from the adjacent lane, and the car driver in the adjacent lane crashing into the pedestrian. The idea here is that we’re dealing with city streets, not interstate highways;
“crosswalk daylighting” to allow drivers to see pedestrians and pedestrians to see drivers. This is done by prohibiting parking within 10 to 15 feet of the crosswalk on the approaching side; and
flexposts to physically reinforce these improvements. Flexposts have been around a long time, but have recently become the go-to way to provide inexpensive yet fast, effective safety improvements. Note that they can be driven over by emergency vehicles if necessary.
Finally, an additional measure that the current plans do not do enough to implement is real, protected cycling infrastructure to further reduce the priority given to motor vehicles and provide meaningful alternatives to those wanting to travel by bicycle. In-street bicycle lanes are present on parts of Washington, South, and Corinth, but they quickly devolve to sharrows, which may (unfortunately) do more harm that good. Much more is needed.
The following photos illustrate the above points:
Crosswalk daylighting on South, at the connection between the municipal parking lot and the area leading to the Village Market.Flexposts on the curve at South/Poplar help shorten the crossing distance and clarify that this is a single lane approach that widens only after the crosswalk.Flexposts again delineate the single-lane approach on South, reinforcing the yield required of drivers coming from Washington and once again shortening the crossing distance.
REMINDER: We would LOVE to see you for the initial installment of our monthly film series at the Rozzie Square Theater on Basile Street this Thursday, September 6, 2018, at 7 pm. Come by the multiple bus lines that run through the square every day, come by Blue Bike (we have that now!), come by commuter rail on the Needham Line, walk, bike, or, if you must, go ahead and drive. We can’t wait!!!
This is a good start and we expect these bikes will be much-used, especially once a Forest Hills station goes in (delayed, likely subject to construction completion), making for better access to the Orange Line and the Southwest Corridor.
While we applaud the City and Blue Bikes for extending the network further out into neighborhoods like Roslindale, we’re a bit disappointed and surprised to see no station planned at the Commuter Rail which is would be a very logical inter-modal destination. While the other village stations are not far from the Commuter Rail, we suspect that bikeshare right at the station would encourage more people to avoid driving to the T. Another gap in the system is any stations in Eastern Roslindale — down Cummins Highway, Metropolitan Avenue, and Hyde Park Avenue/American Legion Highway. Bike share in this areas could enable many people who are currently poorly served by transit to reach the Orange Line, Commuter Rail, and major bus stops without driving.
And such is that nerve that first-term District 2 City Councilor Ed Flynn has quickly stepped up his game on safe streets to a level that I think every City Councilor will have to match if they aren’t already. Go read “Flynn Recommends 12 Point Safe Streets Plan” over at Caught in Southie and then consider whether the 12 point safe streets plan he is pushing for in that neighborhood deserves to be rolled out, as quickly as humanly possible, to every street in every neighborhood of this city. Below, I have converted the 12 points he raised to a generic list that could be applied anywhere:
A complete traffic study of ________________ and all high traffic roads. [NOTE: This works only if it’s done in the background while proven traffic calming measures are advanced right away, and isn’t ultimately used as a way to force more vehicular traffic through the neighborhoods at higher speeds.]
Reducing the speed limit to 20 MPH throughout all of ____________. [NOTE: Exactly. The recent shift to 25 mph was a compromise. We really should be at 20 mph.]
Speed humps (permanent or temporary to move for plows) and raised crosswalks along _________ and other high traffic roads, near parks and recreation centers where children and seniors gather. [NOTE: Speed humps should be permanent wherever they go. I continue not to see why plowing in Boston is different than the many other snow belt places in North America and really anywhere else that already have speed humps and raised crosswalks.]
4-way stop signs along _________ and relevant locations throughout ________.
Additional posting of Speed Board Signs on high traffic roads throughout _________ for feedback to reduce speeds.
Blinking Pedestrian Crossing signs at high traffic areas like we have on _____________.
Bumping out our sidewalks at crosswalks on ___________, school zones and elsewhere to shorten crosswalks, make stop signs more visible & narrow our streets to encourage slower speeds.
Road Diets on ___________, one lane from ____________, and speed humps in appropriate locations.
Increased police patrols in order to reduce speed. Increased fines for driving the wrong way on a one-way street and trucks on ____________. [NOTE: It would be good to have more enforcement, but this fight is ultimately about rectifying decades of bad, unsafe street design. Relying on enforcement also raises concerns about profiling of both people of color and immigrants.]
More delineators in high traffic areas reminding drivers to stop for pedestrians; paint in the roads advising drivers to slow, yield and stop.
A Study to determine if _______________ would become safer if they became one-way streets. [NOTE: I would not support this in my own neighborhood. Narrow two-way streets, also called “Yield Streets,” are perhaps the most effective method of low-tech traffic calming we have.]
Designated time and space for delivery trucks on ________________ to eliminate double parking. [NOTE: Better curb space management needs to be implemented on essentially every street in our city, but especially on major commercial streets.]
Everyone concerned about traffic violence in Boston, which touches every part of our city, every day, day-in, and day-out, felt incredible sadness