A Walk Audit Academy on the North Shore
Residents of at least eight communities joined WalkMassachusetts staff for a half-day Walk Audit Academy training seminar on the North Shore on January 25, organized with the Beverly Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Committee (BPAC).
Carl Kooyoomjian, chair of BPAC, brought together local advocates who had collaborated before on bike lane and resurfacing projects that crossed municipal boundaries. Participants learned about improving walkability and creating safer, more accessible communities.
Building on feedback from past Walk Audit Academies in Worcester and Springfield, the North Shore training included a demonstration walk audit in downtown Beverly, so all participants could get hands-on experience before preparing to lead their own walk audits.
BPAC intends to complete a series of ward based audits informed by incident data, routes to schools, and councilor input on residents’ concerns. The goal is to materially complete the audits by early May and have a formal City Council review in late May. The initial schedule has been planned to coincide with budget discussions for the remainder of the year.
A special thank-you to Gentile Brewing for hosting us! We look forward to seeing the results of BPAC’s efforts and to collaborate more in the future.
If you’d like to follow steps on how to lead your own walk audit, check out our Walk Audit Academy series and supporting materials at https://walkmass.org/waa.
Links we promised to share:
- The slides can be viewed here.
- The Boston Region MPO is working on their “Vision Zero Action Plan: A Roadmap to Safer Streets” and would love your input. They also have a survey, safety crash data, and a safety concerns map.
- The City of Boston created a Street Planning and Design Guide Glossary. “We use a lot of different terms when we talk about our work to plan and design streets. We define some common terms in this glossary.” They also have example photos where they made changes.
- MassDOT’s IMPACT Crash Portal compiles crash reports. There are dashboards and pre-built reports that pull from police crash data. You can also run your own query.