Category: Announcement

Upcoming webinars and talks

Upcoming webinars and talks

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Upcoming webinars and talks happening in the next week that you may be interested in!

  • WalkBoston’s WalkMassachusetts Network’s monthly talk 5/18, 1pm. This month, Chris Falcos will be joining us from MassDOT to present on their new safe speeds programs and efforts. Have questions about the program? Please join us if you can by registering here! If you can’t make it but want to see other topics covered at future meetings, you can fill out this feedback form at any time.  
  • : Moving Massachusetts – Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) in MA Session 2 “Framework.” 5/17 (Today) at noon! .
  • GBH – Next Stop – The Future of Mass Mobility – Event 4 – Mobility for All (Virtual). 5/23, 6pm–7pm. Accessibility is central to transportation. For people with disabilities and for our aging population, access is a deal-maker. While the Americans with Disability Act has been the law for decades, the MBTA and other transit agencies are making slow progress towards providing full accessibility. How is the MBTA prioritizing accessibility improvements, and what are the partnerships that are necessary to success? In addition, the advent of e-bikes have made cycling more accessible and convenient for many more people than conventional bikes. RSVP here.
  • Streetwise speaker series: “Where we’re going, we don’t need roads: Climate and transportation policy in Massachusetts” with Christian Milneil from StreetsblogMass. 5/18, 6pm. This is a hybrid event, in person at Aeronaut Brewery in Somerville with a Zoom option. A monthly speaker series with the goal of sharing wisdom on the path to complete streets. The renewed series is co-sponsored by the Somerville Bicycle Advisory Committee and the Somerville Alliance for Safe Streets. No RSVP required, Zoom link available here.
City of Boston aims to create an Age-Friendly Cummins Highway

City of Boston aims to create an Age-Friendly Cummins Highway

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The City of Boston is currently designing the complete reconstruction of Cummins Highway in Mattapan and they are calling out the project as Age-Friendly Cummins Highway! This is exactly the outcome WalkBoston hoped to see when we began our age-friendly walking work with the City in 2016. Many of the design elements are a direct reflection of what WalkBoston and the City learned during meetings and walk audits with Mattapan residents. 

The project will include a total rebuild of the street, including sidewalks, curbs, street lights, traffic signals, road pavement, and replacement or updating of utilities with a project budget of approximately $24 million.

Mattapan residents and WalkBoston staff walk down a sidewalk in Mattapan Square during the 2016 WalkBoston Mattapan Square walk audit; photos included in the 4/26/22 Cummins Highway BTD/PWD Presentation.

The proposed Cummins Highway design includes narrower street crossings with curb extensions, fully accessible sidewalks, longer WALK times and audible signals, high visibility crosswalks, raised crosswalks to slow drivers turning onto or from side streets, new trees and plants to reduce the heat effect, new street lights, bus shelters and benches.

Age-friendly intersection design shown in the 4/26/22 Cummins Highway BTD/PWD Presentation, showing plans to narrow crossing distances, add accessible ramps, raise crosswalks and increase crosswalk visibility.

As city staff said during a recent public meeting, the goal is to:

“Transform Cummins Highway into a tree-lined neighborhood street that is safer for families to walk, wait for the bus, ride bikes, or travel by vehicle. It will connect residents to the City’s network of open spaces and make it easier for elders to cross the street.”

WalkBoston is thrilled to see the City of Boston’s adoption of some many age-friendly walking elements in the project and to see age-friendly street design come of age in the city. 

Want to learn more?

Event – 2022 WalkBoston Bob Sloane Walk: Muddy River

Event – 2022 WalkBoston Bob Sloane Walk: Muddy River

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Please join us on Tuesday, June 7th at 5:30pm for our first organized walk in almost three years. Sign up today!

The walk is part of Olmsted Now: Greater Boston’s Olmsted Bicentennial  and is the first annual walk in honor of Bob Sloane. Bob was a co-founder of WalkBoston and passed away in May 2021. He was a true pioneer in walking advocacy and a pillar of our organization, and we look forward to honoring his legacy by hosting a walk each year in his name. 

Since this is a point-to-point walk, we encourage you to use public transportation, walk, or bike to the start so that it is easy for you to head out afterwards.

HOW TO GET TO THE START

The walk will start on the Muddy River walk at the rear of the Hilton Garden Inn at Boylston Street and Brookline Avenue in Brookline (700 Brookline Ave, Brookline, MA 02446), very close to the Brookline Village stop (D Line). If you are coming from downtown on the D line, once you get off the train, cross the tracks and follow Pearl Street out to Washington St (Rt 9). You should see the hotel to your left on the corner of Brookline Ave and Washington St; we are meeting out back. Transportation close to the start location:

  • Brookline Village MBTA Station (D Line)
  • Riverway MBTA Station (E Line)
  • 66 Bus – Huntington Ave / Riverway stop
  • 60/65 Buses – Brookline Ave / Pearl St stop 
  • BlueBikes – Brookline Village Station

ROUTE

The route will wind its way from Brookline along the Emerald Necklace’s Muddy River toward Boston’s Fenway neighborhood. (View the route on Google Maps here).

The walk route is fully accessible. We are diverting off the pathway along the Muddy River onto sidewalks on Aspinwall Ave to Netherlands Road for the section of the path between Brookline Ave & Netherlands Road to avoid a bridge with stairs. Not only does this make our walking route accessible, it will also allow us to add an additional speaker stop on Netherlands Road at the Dutch House.

We’ll be ending the walk at the Trillium Fenway Beer Garden & Time Out Market so attendees have the option to have a drink or eat outside and continue the conversation. Transportation close to the finish location:

  • Brookline Ave / Park Dr stop
  • 8, 19, 60, 65 Buses – Fenway MBTA Station (D Line)
  • 47, 57, CT2 Buses – Park Drive / Fenway Station stop
  • BlueBikes – Landmark Center / Brookline Ave at Park Dr Station

SPEAKERS

Representatives from Fairsted (the Frederick Law Olmsted National Historic Site) will share about Olmsted’s vision & describe the history and design of the Emerald Necklace. Additional speakers from Town of Brookline, City of Boston, and the Emerald Necklace Conservancy will join us along the way to share more about the Emerald Necklace and update us on the restoration & transportation projects located on this section.

Since we’ve had a strong RSVP response, we’ll likely be splitting attendees into two groups. We will get the first group started right after 5:30pm, and then send the next group a few minutes behind them.

We hope to see you on June 7th. Sign up today!

This walk is the first in a series of walks that WalkBoston is organizing for Olmsted Now:

Parks and public places are for everyone. Frederick Law Olmsted — reformer, writer, Boston transplant and America’s first landscape architect — is about to turn 200. Olmsted Now, Greater Boston’s Olmsted Bicentennial, is an invitation to actively shape a more equitable, verdant and vibrant city. Show up. Be seen. Share your story.

Event: WalkBoston’s Talk The Walk Session: “Jane Jacobs,” 5/5 12pm On Zoom

Event: WalkBoston’s Talk The Walk Session: “Jane Jacobs,” 5/5 12pm On Zoom

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WalkBoston’s Talk the Walk Session
“Jane Jacobs”
May 5, 12-1pm
Register for this event

Lunch hour discussion session on Zoom. Open to all. Eating is encouraged. Video is optional. 

This is our second topic-driven discussion session (not just books!). These discussion sessions may include articles, podcasts, videos, and yes, maybe even a book or two. This session will cover Jane Jacobs (brief bio on Wikipedia). The event coincides with the Jane’s Walk Festival Weekend (May 6-7-8), which features citizen-led free walks around the globe.

This Talk the Walk Session will feature a presentation by author Anthony Flint, who wrote “Wrestling with Moses: How Jane Jacobs Took on New York’s Master Builder and Transformed the American City.”

Sixty years after the publication of “The Death and Life of American Cities,” the legacy of Jane Jacobs endures. She would be cheered by the pandemic-driven transformation of urban environments to accommodate outdoor dining, biking, scooting, and walking; the support of local businesses and grassroots local climate action; and the resilience of transit systems enabling the “15-minute city,” a 21st-century version of how she lived her life in Greenwich Village. But what wouldn’t she be happy with? Quite probably the scourge of “Not in My Backyard” responses to multifamily housing, amid dizzying increases in housing costs.

We’ve included a few relevant links about Jane Jacobs below. If you have read something related that others might find interesting or a question you’d like to include, send it our way—we can include it in our event reminder email and add to this post.

Discussion questions to consider:

  • For whom does Jane Jacobs’ concepts work? For whom don’t they work?
  • What makes Jane Jacobs’ arguments exciting to planners?
  • How do Jane Jacobs’ theories/ideas hold up today, particularly with the latest challenges cities are facing in 2022 (ongoing pandemic, remote/hybrid work, online shopping, rising housing costs, gentrification, etc?)
  • What are some of the critiques of Jane Jacobs’ concepts?

Register for this meeting:

https://www.givesignup.org/TicketEvent/TalkTheWalk
You will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.

Articles to get you started: