Vision Zero World Day of Remembrance this Sunday Nov. 19, 2017 at 12pm Copley Square/1:30pm Boston Common/2pm State House

WalkUP Roslindale is a proud member of the Massachusetts Vision Zero Coalition, which seeks to eliminate all deaths and serious injuries from car crashes in the Commonwealth. We encourage everyone to join us for World Day of Remembrance this Sunday, November 19, 2017. This will be a day of actions to remember those who have been injured or lost to traffic violence, and to demand safe streets for everyone in our communities.

World Day of Remembrance is an annual event taking place in cities around the world. In Massachusetts, we gather each year on the steps of the state house in Boston, to show our legislators that traffic fatalities are still unacceptably high, and we need more cities and towns to commit to ending traffic violence now.

We know that crashes are not accidents – they’re the tragic, preventable results of inadequate planning, policy, and unsafe behavior. While people make mistakes; our streets must be designed so those mistakes are not fatal. Please join us to ensure that these lives are not forgotten and to demand safe streets for all.

In the wake of the fatal crash that took the life of 19-year old Antawani Wright Davis, who was hit and killed by a dump truck while riding his bike, and the two people killed while biking in Cambridge last year while biking — all involving large trucks — we are asking our state legislators why they have not yet passed a bill in the State House that would mandate additional truck safety measures.

Please join us for any or all of the following memorial actions:

  • 12pm – Join us and dozens of others for the Ride for Remembrance, gathering at 12:00 pm in Copley Square. The group will depart at 12:15 pm for a one-hour ride, passing the sites where people have been killed walking and biking over the past year, remembering them and committing to action so their deaths were not in vain. The ride will end at Beacon and Charles in time to join the walk to the State House.
  • 1:30pm – Join the Memorial Walk and Vigil, gathering at 1:30 pm on the Boston Common at the corner of Beacon Street and Charles Street for a walk to the steps of the State House.
  • 2pm – Gather on the steps of the State House for the Memorial Vigil. We’ll be joined by city and state officials, family and friends of people who have been killed or injured in traffic crashes, and other residents and advocates, to call on our elected leaders to do more to put an end to these preventable crashes.
  • 3pm – Warm up with refreshments at a post-vigil gathering at CIC Boston, just a few blocks away at 50 Milk Street.

Event details:
World Day of Remembrance
Sunday, November 19, 2017
Several activities taking place between 12:00 and 5:00 pm
@ Copley Square, Boston Common, Massachusetts State House, and CIC Boston

Please wear yellow in remembrance of those we’ve lost due to traffic violence.

Help us spread the word via social media by using the following hashtags before and during the event: #WDR2017 #CrashNotAccident #SafetyOverSpeed
#VisionZero and RSVP and spread the word on Facebook.

Massachusetts Vision Zero Coalition Candidate Survey Results Published

Vision Zero BostonWalkUP Roslindale is an enthusiastic member of the Massachusetts Vision Zero Coalition. The Coalition is largely comprised of tax-exempt non-profit organizations or informal associations like WalkUP Roslindale, and does not endorse candidates. We do, however, want to find out where candidates stand on key walking, biking, and transit issues, and to that end distributed a survey to all official candidates in Boston, Cambridge, Somerville, Springfield, and Lynn to give them a chance to weigh in. The results were made public today.

Rozzie residents should be particularly interested to see the survey results for the Boston Mayoral Candidates, the City Council At Large Candidates, as well as for District 4District 5, and District 6, all of which at least touch on our neighborhood. If you like your candidates’ responses, let them know–and if they didn’t respond, or you see room for improvement, let them know that as well. With elections coming up soon on Tuesday, November 7, 2017, it’s time to start paying attention!

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

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.

Vision Zero Coalition Letter to Mayor Walsh

On May 16th, 2017, City of Boston Mayor Marty Walsh was interviewed on WGBH radio. In the wake of the recent fatal hit-and-run crash that killed Rick Archer on Comm Ave and an uptick in pedestrian fatalities in Boston and nationwide, Mayor Walsh urged people who walk and bike in the city to take more personal responsibility. Mayor Walsh said that residents were placing too much blame on his administration to solve the problem.

The following is the Vision Zero Coalition’s letter to the Mayor in response to his comments. WalkUP Roslindale is a Coalition member.

If you would like to respond personally to the Mayor, please contact the Mayor’s office. Vision Zero is about designing streets that can account for human error, not blaming the most vulnerable road users. #VisionZero #StreetsAreForPeople #WeAllWalk

Letter from the Coalition to Mayor Walsh

May 17, 2017

Mayor Martin Walsh
City Hall
Boston, MA 02201

Re: Vision Zero

Dear Mayor Walsh:

When you announced the Vision Zero Action Plan in December 2015, we were proud to be your constituents. You demonstrated leadership when you stated:

“We know how to build safer streets. We know how to protect our most vulnerable road users, who are suffering disproportionately because of speeding traffic and distracted drivers. With this Action Plan, I am saying it’s time to act. It’s time to commit to eliminating fatal and serious traffic crashes from our daily experience.”

Which is why we were dismayed by your comments Wednesday afternoon on WGBH Radio.

On behalf of the Massachusetts Vision Zero Coalition we invite you to work with us to fully fund and implement Vision Zero in Boston. We ask that you join us on Friday morning at 8 AM for a moment of silence for victims of traffic violence on City Hall Plaza. On behalf of those victims, we also ask that you apologize for the comments you made on the air.

Our streets are in crisis.

In 2016, fifteen people died while walking on Boston’s streets; a record-breaking high for pedestrian fatalities. We are on track to see even higher numbers in 2017. Crashes overall are up. On average, at least two to three people walking are hit in a crash that results in an EMT call every day.

We need action from you and your administration, not victim-blaming. When you said on the air, “Pedestrians need to put their head up when they’re walking down the street, take your headphones off … you’ve got to understand, cars are going to hit you,” you were reiterating a narrative that doesn’t stand up to the crash data your administration collects.

Most of the people killed while walking were children or older adults. In 2016, of the 10 pedestrian victims whose ages we know, four were older than 60 and two were younger than 3 years old.

This Coalition and your constituents look to you for action.

A week ago, hundreds of people attended the City Council’s FY18 budget hearing for the Boston Transportation Department to call for increased resources to make streets safer for everyone. After the hours of questions from the council and public testimony, it’s clear from all sides – Boston is falling behind.

In your interview with WGBH, you said that the city is doing “everything we can,” but we know Boston is being eclipsed by peer cities in both resources and implementation. The City of New York spends about $20 per person on Vision Zero annually, and San Francisco spends $75 per person annually. Both cities have seen declines in overall traffic fatalities despite a troubling rise in fatal crashes nationwide. Boston is spending less than $5 per person, this is not enough.

Forty-seven neighborhood groups applied for Neighborhood Slow Streets, a signature program of Boston’s Vision Zero initiative. Your FY18 budget recommendation only provides resources to implement two to three in the coming year.

At the current rate of implementation it will take more than 20 years to respond to just the first round of applications. Safety should not be a privilege afforded to only some Boston neighborhoods.

We recognize that there are many competing budget priorities and that rapid change on our streets will cost money. This year we suggest drawing on the parking meter fund. In the long term, we are here to work with you to diversify and increase the revenue streams available for transportation, for example through increased parking revenues.

Simply put, the Massachusetts Vision Zero Coalition, and the thousands of people we represent, feel strongly that the 2018 transportation budget as currently proposed is insufficient to reduce the number of fatalities and serious crashes on our streets.

We hope you will take this opportunity to recommit to leading Boston as a Vision Zero city.

Thank You,

Vision Zero Coalition
Massachusetts Vision Zero Coalition members

CC: Boston City Council
Chief of Streets Chris Osgood
Transportation Commissioner Gina Fiandaca
Chief of Staff Dan Koh
Press
Public

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

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.

NSS – A pretty popular idea, it turns out…

…there were 47 applications for 2 to 3 selected winners. If you’re keeping score at home, that’s about the same ratio as the Hunger Games or the acceptance rate for getting into Stanford. The city’s announcement indicates that they will be announcing their decisions in May. We understand that all 4 of the Roslindale applications we were tracking were submitted. We’ll update as we have more information. Well done, neighbors!!!

It’s a wrap – 4th and final standout is in the books! Thanks all!!!

A cloudy but not too cold day. We had six stalwarts (see photo below, one of our number had to leave a couple minutes earlier) and note that the Dynamic Duo of Guptill and Tedrow kept their perfect record intact. Being out at this location, which was the subject of a Vision Zero Rapid Response installation after Silvia Acosta’s death last year, reminded us that we need to follow up, repair the broken/missing flexposts, and move toward making the installation permanent. And so on we go!