Tag: MBTA

WalkUP Roslindale Key Bus Stop Snow Clearance Collaborative – Version 1.0

Matt Lawlor Leave a comment

Will you join us?

WalkUP Roslindale is looking to organize a collaborative group of neighbors who will help us clear snow from a handful of our neighborhood’s key bus stops whenever we have more than 4″ of snow this winter.

As we all know, snow clearance is often an issue at bus stops throughout the region. That doesn’t mean we should ignore it and hope that our seniors, young people, and everyone in between miraculously manage to safely board their buses at stops rendered unsafe by snow and ice.

The key bus stops we’re proposing to focus on this winter are:

  1. Cummins Hwy @ Hyde Park Av/30 & 14 toward Mattapan/Hyde Park
  2. Cummins Hwy @ Hyde Park Av/30 toward Roslindale
  3. Hyde Park Av @ Cummins Hwy/34 toward Hyde Park
  4. Hyde Park Av @ Cummins Hwy/34 toward Forest Hills
  5. Belgrade Av @ Robert/Multiple outbound buses
  6. Washington St @ Cummins Hwy/Multiple inbound buses

That breaks down geographically into 2 collaborative teams – one in Roslindale Square and one at the intersection of Hyde Park Avenue and Cummins Highway. Rob Guptill (email: rguptill2000@nullyahoo.com) has volunteered to be the team coordinator for the Roslindale Square group and Matt Lawlor (your correspondent, email: matthew.j.lawlor@nullgmail.com) has volunteered to be the team coordinator for HP/Cummins. The plan is to blast a call to snowshoveling arms over our email list and social media accounts whenever we make the call for the collaborative teams to shovel the following morning. That said, both Rob and I would love to hear directly at the email addresses above from anyone who is interested in helping us provide this important service to our neighbors so we can be sure of a core group of ready and willing collaborators. We would love your support for this effort!! 

Of Millennials, Transit Accessibility, and our regional transit provider

Matt Lawlor 1 Comment

mbtaThis article from yesterday’s Globe – Access to MBTA influences where millennials work, live – is an eye-opener, even for someone who already recognizes the massive shift in habits and preferences that Millennials (in this case, 660 of our friends and neighbors between the ages of 20 and 37 from the greater Boston area) are exhibiting on auto use and transit access:

  • A combined 96% of respondents to the MassINC/ULI survey reportedly put transit access in the somewhat/very important category on where they want to live, and
  • A combined 93% of respondents to the survey reportedly put such access in the somewhat/very important category on where they want to work
  • Just 24% reported driving alone as their mode of travel to work

Big numbers, without question, that reflect that access to the MBTA, despite its shortcomings, is viewed as an indispensible amenity and driver of locational decisions among a very large cohort in our population (and, by extension, the companies that want to employ them and the developers who want to build their housing). As someone a bit older who would fall into the very important category on transit access myself, I hope this and similar information on the importance of the T to our region’s livability and economy will spur all of us to advocate for and support new initiatives, funding, and service in the days ahead. Among the other things we all need to do, it’s time to help the T work better.