Tag: Roslindale Village

New Hubway (“Blue Bike”) Locations Announced in Roslindale

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The Boston area’s bike share program (which will soon be known as Blue Bike) just published its proposed locations for its upcoming expansion. We are delighted to see several spots in and around Roslindale Village. Importantly, this infrastructure investment will allow people who live nearby to get to and from the shopping district, the commuter rail, and bus stops, with a 5 minute bike ride who might previously have driven. It should also increase access to and from the neighbor from nearby areas, especially Forest Hills which will soon have thousands of new residents. When paired with the Gateway Path, the new bike share locations will greatly improve our connections with our neighbors.

Be sure to take the survey (once it becomes available–at the time of this posting Survey F is marked as “coming soon”) to provide your feedback, and leave comments on the post. The Roslindale locations are shown below — an “a” and “b” spot number reflect alternatives, click through for a larger version:

Proposed Roslindale Bikeshare Locations
Proposed Roslindale Bikeshare Locations

And here’s the whole map of proposed locations:

Southwest Corridor to Roslindale and Beyond

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Photo used under Creative Commons License from Rand Snyder
Southwest Corridor Park (photo republished under Creative Commons License from Rand Snyder)

The Parkland Management Advisory Committee, created in the 1970s to advise on the Southwest Corridor Park planning process, recently conducted a survey of corridor users. Lots of interesting results, including several relating to the sometimes challenging interactions between pedestrians and bicyclists, but perhaps most relevant here:

57% of survey respondents live or work in Jamaica Plain, 23% in the Back Bay or South End, 16% in Roxbury, 5% in the Fenway neighborhood and 14% in other neighborhoods or cities. Among the other neighborhoods and cities, Roslindale was the most frequently mentioned.

Emphasis added (note that Roslindale wasn’t offered as a “checklist” option).

Once the Casey Overpass project is complete, entering the Southwest Corridor at Forest Hills should be a pleasant experience. The path is already a heavily-used nonmotorized highway from Southwest Boston to downtown; it is possible, for example, to take bike paths and wide bike lanes all the way from the Southwest Corridor to the water’s edge in the Seaport via the Melnea Cass bike path, Silver Line shared bike lane on Washington Street, and the Fort Port channel path across from the central USPS facility. Lots remains to be done to improve this thoroughfare (perhaps a topic for a future blog entry) but it’s a decent start.

But thousands of users who start out beyond Forest Hills have few pleasant options to reach the start of the corridor. It’s possible to walk or bike through the Arboretum, but that route is around 2x-3x longer than the straight shot from Rozzie Village to Forest Hills. Let’s envision a dedicated straight-shot path (e.g. through the arboretum, or along one of the rail rights-of-way), Hubway stations at both ends, and the phenomenal community, health, social, traffic, and mobility benefits that would come to both JP and Roslindale from that connection. Much crazier ideas have been implemented–we can and will make this happen.