Laudato Si’ – Pope Francis wades into the fray over climate change, and spends some time on walkability and placemaking

Matt Lawlor Leave a comment

It’s been almost three weeks since Pope Francis released Laudato Si’, the groundbreaking encyclical on the environment and the role that humanity plays in its ongoing degradation on a global scale. As the dust settles after the initial media blitz, it’s worth considering that a document that speaks broadly on the spiritual dimension of the interconnection of the crises in climate change, global poverty, and increasing inequality also sees the condition of our social interactions and the fabric of our urban places as critically worthy of examination and direction. An excerpt (emphasis added):

There is… a need to protect those common areas, visual landmarks and urban landscapes which increase our sense of belonging, of rootedness, of “feeling at home” within a city which includes us and brings us together. It is important that the different parts of a city be well integrated and that those who live there have a sense of the whole, rather than being confined to one neighbourhood and failing to see the larger city as space which they share with others. Interventions which affect the urban or rural landscape should take into account how various elements combine to form a whole which is perceived by its inhabitants as a coherent and meaningful framework for their lives. Others will then no longer be seen as strangers, but as part of a “we” which all of us are working to create…

Lynn Richards, who currently leads the Congress for the New Urbanism, has boiled it down in a piece entitled The Encyclical of the New Urbansim over at Better Cities & Towns. Lynn’s whole piece is worth reading, as is the encyclical itself, but Lynn seems to sum it up best here (emphasis, once again, added):

In his approach to urbanization and climate change, Pope Francis gave a global platform to the idea that the health of our natural environment is dictated by the shape and quality of our human communities—both our social connections and the physical places we inhabit.

Where and how we design, preserve, and build our streets, neighborhoods, towns, cities, and regions matter. Placemakers of all types, including New Urbanists, share with Pope Francis a conviction that our physical environment has a direct impact on our chances for happy, prosperous lives. Well-designed public places, neighborhoods, Main Streets, and rural villages help create community: healthy ways for people to live and socialize. These places also help reduce our impact on natural systems and can mitigate climate impacts.

The imperative at the local level is for walkable, well-designed development in neighborhoods connected by multiple, interlinked, and convenient networks (pedestrian, bicycle, transit, and auto) providing access to the broader city and region. Every neighborhood in Boston can achieve this vision. WalkUP Roslindale is dedicated to helping it happen right here in Roslindale.

UPCOMING: July 13, 2015 – Presentation to LANA on Proposed Project – 874-878 South Street, Roslindale

Matt Lawlor 1 Comment

The project developer’s presentation will be made as part of Longfellow Area Neighborhood Association’s July meeting, starting at 7:30 pm on Monday, July 13, 2015, at Longfellow House (885 South Street). Per LANA, the tentative proposal is for demolition of the 4 storefronts and the residential structure to the rear and construction of a new 4-story building with 15 residential units, this is a pre-filing presentation, and preliminary plans are not yet available to the public.

Like other recent developments near the square, if done properly, this presents an opportunity to increase density in a walkable area and further invigorate the community and business district. We’ll likely have more comments as the details come to light.

Friends of Healy Field Community Design Meeting Saturday 6/27/15 11am

walkup Leave a comment

Green is important to any Walkable Urban Place. Healy Field neighbors have been organizing to start a community garden. Please join them next Saturday, 6/27/15, at 11am at the Roslindale Community Center to help design the new garden.Friends of Healy Field Flyer

Design Help Wanted

walkup Leave a comment

Our WalkUP Roslindale team has a variety of skills, but graphic design isn’t one of them, yet! So far, we’ve relied 100% on public domain (copyright expired) and broadly-licensed Creative Commons images on our website, Twitter feed, and Facebook page. We’d love to have some more distinct and perhaps cutting edge icons and artwork. If anyone has the skills and enthusiasm to help in this area, please contact us at info@nullwalkuproslindale.org.

Longer term, we’d like to do more ambitious graphical projects, such as depicting various parts of the neighborhood with smarter pedestrian design (imagine Poplar Street as a woonerf!), similar to how the Boston Cyclists Union has worked with volunteers to generate drawings and doctored photographs to spark the imagination about what is possible. If you have the skills for this, we’d love to hear from you as well!

A rendering by Bike Union volunteer Jessi Flynn of the Bike Union’s redesign of Route 9
A rendering by Boston Cyclists Union volunteer Jessi Flynn of a redesign of Route 9
A remaining challenge will be ensuring the cycletrack reaches all the way to the intersection with the BU Bridge, as depicted here. Illustration created by a Bike Union volunteer.
An illustration of a proposed Commonwealth Ave cycletrack created by a Boston Cyclists Union volunteer

Divas, Dagwoods, and Object Buildings

Matt Lawlor Leave a comment

Friends, Robert Campbell once again dispensed timely wisdom from the Globe a few days ago. If you care about Boston’s built environment and real potential pitfalls in the current boom, take a peek. Campbell observes:

Let’s think about that by looking at two basic types of urban high-rises. I’ll call them the Diva and the Dagwood.

The Diva, self-centered, is a tower that ignores everything around it. It stands, or rather poses, like an opera star on an empty stage. A Diva is usually set back from the street, behind empty space in the form of a lawn or plaza. Developers often praise such a space as a gift to the pedestrian, but that’s hogwash. A plaza isn’t there for the people, it’s there to show off the Diva, or at best to fulfill some bureaucrat’s square-foot calculation of required open space.

No matter how elegantly they may be paved or planted, urban plazas are boring, windy, and little used, especially in weather like ours. The Prudential, back before its Arctic plazas were filled in with shopping arcades, was a good example. The Federal Reserve Bank, next to South Station, is another. It’s a handsome, eloquent Diva tower behind a plaza that has the charm of a recently abandoned battlefield.

As far as the public is concerned, cities aren’t made of buildings and plazas, anyway. Cities are made of streets and parks. From the point of view of urban design, the buildings are there to shape those public spaces and feed them with energy.

The critique goes back to Louis Sullivan in the early days of skyscrapers and a time when the problem was too much stylistic dressing on tall buildings, as opposed to too little. Broadly considered, the lesson for those of us who support smart development is that we should be careful about what we support and demand sensitivity to context in all things. Robert calls buildings that don’t do this “divas” to make non-technical folks get the point, but the better and more accurate term is “object buildings” – buildings that are willfully unconcerned with their surroundings, meant to be seen only in isolation like a piece of sculpture. In cities, such buildings are toxic. If they don’t kill their locations,  they live off them parasitically. While we (hopefully!) are unlikely to see skyscrapers like those Campbell discusses here in Roslindale, the central thesis of his piece argues for careful infill that provides for step by step succession as to density and height as opposed to great leaps. We will have ill-served ourselves if we end up with a slew of “object” buildings in this wave. We would be better off sitting this out entirely.

We Need to Talk About Parking

walkup 3 Comments

Banned in BostonA critical piece of the walkability/livability discussion is the problem of parking. Some minor flare-ups around the proposal to replace (temporarily) even one car parking space with a corral that could accommodate at least ten bikes highlights the passion and sensitivity some feel around the issue. For those who don’t have time to pore over an 800-page bestselling book on the topic (“The High Cost of Free Parking”), we’ll try to lay out piece by piece over the next few weeks why parking–and especially free parking–can be toxic to the health of a community and especially a neighborhood shopping district.

In the meantime, though, last week’s Planet Money episode “Free Parking” provides an entertaining and engaging introduction to the topic, through the prism of a parking exchange startup that originated in Baltimore and was subsequently banned in Boston. Although the story is interesting from a number of perspectives, we urge everyone to listen closely to the interview with Donald Shoup, author of the aforementioned bestseller.

Stay tuned for more.

Rozzie Bikes “Hidden Parkway” Event This Sunday, June 14, 2015

walkup Leave a comment

RozzieBikesVia our friends at RozzieBikes, a ride this weekend to explore Roslindale’s “hidden” parkway. This kind of event is great both for regular urban cyclists as well as those who may not be entirely comfortable biking on public ways as the group can provide security and protection. The total ride should be around 5 miles with “no significant hills”, so easy enough even if you don’t have a fancy Lycra collection.

Exploration of Boston’s ‘hidden’ parkway by bicycle!

Date: Sunday, June 14 (raindate Sunday June 28)
Time: 7:30am meeting time for 8am departure – return by 10am
Location: Stop-n-Shop plaza (Walgreen’s end)
American Legion Hwy near intersection with Hyde Park Ave.

This 2.5 mile corridor that borders Roslindale and Mattapan has opportunities for large and small green recreational projects, including bike & walking paths, parks, tot-lots, picnic areas, and protected urban wild. However, this area is extremely vulnerable to destruction from both pending and proposed development. Once these pockets of green are gone, they are gone forever. Did you know that the 4500′ open Canterbury Brook that winds on either side of American Legion Highway is one of only five open brooks in Boston?

A 2-hour, 5-mile exploration by bicycle will introduce this corridor of opportunity, and you will get to share in the vision of residents and neighbors who are passionately working to preserve and enhance a vibrant community and fragile greenscape. Periodic stops will provide ample opportunity for discussion and engagement. We will finish in time for you to enjoy brunch or Sunday services, and the rest of your weekend.

Bring your bicycle, helmet, water bottle and sunscreen, and your curiosity! The ride will be casual with multiple stops and no significant hills, and so is appropriate for riders of all abilities.

We look forward to riding and sharing with you.

Email Laura Smeaton with questions.

 

Adams Boy Killed by a Car

walkup Leave a comment

Just days after the death of an eight year old girl in Mattapan, an eight year old boy was killed by a car, crossing the street in Adams, Massachusetts. It’s time for us to say enough. No loss of life is acceptable.

East Road in Adams Ma
East Road in Adams MA (Image Courtesy Google Maps)

Based on the Google Maps imagery of the area of the death, there are no crosswalks, stop signs, or stop lights as far as the eye can see in either direction, nor is there even a sidewalk on both sides of the street.

Members of the mother’s high school class have set up a fund to help with expenses.

Rozzie Bike Corral Meeting Rescheduled to June 24

walkup 1 Comment

Just a quick note: the bike corral meeting that had been set for tomorrow (Wednesday 6/10) has been postponed to Wednesday, June 24, 2015, 6pm-7pm, at the Roslindale Community Center (6 Cummins Highway). We’ll post more details/thoughts regarding the proposal closer to the date.

Bike Corral Notice
Official Bike Corral Notice from the City

Another Pedestrian Tragedy in the City of Boston

walkup 2 Comments

Local news reports on a terrible tragedy this past weekend in Mattapan, where an eight-year-old girl was killed and a twelve-year-old boy seriously injured by a hit-and-run motorist who was later arrested and charged with vehicular homicide and leaving the scene of a motor vehicle accident. Recall we had a similarly serious incident in Rozzie just a couple of weeks back (that driver has since been identified and charged). We don’t know the families or more details than have been made publicly available, but it’s an awful occurrence. We offer our condolences to the one family and wishes for a speedy recovery to the other.

One point in the article bears emphasis here:

Neighbors said speeding is a constant problem on West Selden Street.

“Literally I’ve been in my house and cars have gone by so fast that my house shakes,” said Dee Phillips, who lives on the street.

It’s easy and natural to blame bad drivers — and some in the comments on the above-linked article callously assert irresponsible parenting — but fundamentally these tragedies are a statistically predictable result of the decisions we collectively make about our urban environment, starting with street design, but also including enforcement as well as culture and community norms. Put simply: speed kills.

My first post-college job back in the 1990s was at the Center for Neighborhood Technology, a think-tank in Chicago that researches and advocates for smarter transportation and land-use policies, as well as environmentally sustainable economic development. We were trained not to call car crashes “accidents” in public statements; rather they should just be called “crashes.” The reason: although any particular crash might seem accidental in its details, in the aggregate the phenomenon is the predictable and foreseeable result of policies involving our streets. And while any single crash may or may not have been avoided through better design decisions, there are well-known proven techniques that will greatly reduce the number of such crashes. All it takes is a determination that we won’t tolerate a certain baseline level of death and serious injury as the “cost of doing business.” This is exactly the point of the Vision Zero Initiative: No Loss of Life is Acceptable. We embrace this vision, and you should too.