Category: Comment Letter

Comment Letter Re: Boston Common Master Plan

Comment Letter Re: Boston Common Master Plan

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Nathan Frazee
Project Manager
Boston Common Master Plan
Boston Parks Department
1010 Massachusetts Ave.
Boston, MA 02118
via email: nathan.frazee@boston.gov 

RE: WalkBoston Comments on 2022 Boston Common Master Plan

Dear Mr. Frazee:

WalkBoston has followed the progress for the Boston Common Master Plan over the last few years, and we appreciate the time and attention that has been placed on creating an inviting public realm and an enhanced sense of arrival and safer crosswalks at all entrances. We’ve highlighted some sections from the draft report below.

Park Entrances: 

  • We encourage the Parks Department to work with the Transportation Department to ensure the important mid-block crossing of Charles Street at Mayor’s Walk is a raised crosswalk; the draft language hedges in saying it is “A large crosswalk, possibly elevated.” Many people drive way too fast on Charles Street; a raised crosswalk will help calm traffic between two significant parks. 
  • The Shaw 54th Memorial was left out of an earlier draft since it is not accessible from the Boston Common (and due to restoration work by the National Park Service); we are pleased to see that an accessible entrance to the Common from the Shaw 54th Memorial is incorporated into the draft as an early action project.
  • We are pleased to see an early action project for Park Street Station’s plaza will further develop a proposed grading scheme to create an accessible path similar to how Government Center combines stairs and ramps. We had concerns with the previous draft that seemed to frame a direct route down the hill near Park Street onto the plaza at a location near the curbs of Tremont Street. 

Seating & Benches:

  • The report states there are approximately 238 benches in different states of repair today on the Common, down from 390 at the time of the 1996 Management Plan. We are very pleased to see a commitment to both increasing the number of benches available in the Common and providing a higher level of accessibility for existing and new locations, including prioritizing bench locations with new tree plantings for shade. 
  • It is noted that “Armrests should be considered as an accessibility measure; armrests help the elderly and all park users more easily stand up from a seated position. In this way, benches can be used to further the social agenda of the park, making the experience more equitable and accessible for all visitors.” During our Age-Friendly work in Boston with the Age-Strong Commission, participants have expressed that benches with arms help them both with sitting and standing back up from a bench. 
  • We encourage you to look at the improvements the City of Boston made to Cassidy Playground in Allston-Brighton. The redesign created many different seating options, including benches with and without arms, that give park users the opportunity to find seating that works best for their needs at the time. We hope that you can find a solution that meets the needs of older adults without creating hostile architecture. 

Safer bike facilities to reduce bike/ped conflict:

  • Thank you for the continuation of the current policy of excluding bicycle riding in the park. We appreciate the support for the Transportation Department’s work to create better bike facilities on the streets surrounding the Common. If those lanes are a safe option, more people biking will use them. This policy assures the safety and calm of the paths for pedestrians and avoids conflicts between walkers and cyclists. 

Thank you for the opportunity to comment.

Brendan Kearney
Deputy Director of Advocacy, WalkBoston

Comment Letter Re: 40 Roland Street

Comment Letter Re: 40 Roland Street

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August 25, 2022 

Sarah Black
BPDA

RE: WalkBoston Comments on 40 Roland Street Supplemental Filing

Dear Ms. Black:

WalkBoston has reviewed the revised 40 Roland Street project and attended the public meeting held on August 15th.

We believe that the project will improve the walking environment in this portion of Charlestown, which is currently neither attractive nor comfortable and safe for people walking. In order to successfully execute this very large development project, the development team has committed to investments in both the public realm and pedestrian safety. We are pleased to see these initial commitments.

We have several comments that we would like to see addressed in the next iteration of the design and permitting process.

Walking Safety and Connections

The connection between this portion of Charlestown, west of I-93, with the rest of the neighborhood requires walking along Cambridge Street, and underneath I-93. On the south side of the street, pedestrians must cross the exit ramp from northbound I-93. Whether walking between the development sites and Sullivan Square MBTA Station or the heart of the Charlestown neighborhood, people walking will be confronted with both significant streets and intersections and an unpleasant under-highway walking environment.

Walking along and crossing Cambridge Street in the project’s immediate vicinity is also in need of significant improvements. 

With the project’s deep reliance on walking and transit (which of course also includes walking) as it’s primary transportation modes (75%+ of all trips per slide #57 from the presentation), we urge the developers to work with the City of Boston and MassDOT to create a detailed and specific investment plan to improve all of these elements of the walking environment. This should include walking along Cambridge Street, crossing Cambridge Street and crossing the base of the I-93 ramp. If improvements are made to these areas to prioritize people walking, then the residents and workers occupying the development’s buildings can truly become a part of the Charlestown community.

Multi-Modal Path Connection

We are very pleased that the development team has committed to including the path along the southern edge of the 40 Roland Street property which will be a part of the Mystic to Charles off-road multi-modal path network. The potential exists for the path to provide an important transportation connection for the project.

We request that the development benefits include a commitment to design and fund (at least some portion) extending the path through the small triangle of MBTA-owned land to meet and cross Cambridge Street.  This will entail working closely with the MBTA and the City. Given the extent of site work and excavation that the 40 Roland Street project will require, this opportunity to help complete this short portion of the multi-modal path will have a minimal impact on the project budget, but will provide essential connections for people walking and biking to the site.

Thank you for the opportunity to comment. 

Wendy Landman
Senior Policy Advisor, WalkBoston

WalkBoston Attends the NACTO Designing Cities 2022 Conference

WalkBoston Attends the NACTO Designing Cities 2022 Conference

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Last week three of our WalkBoston staff had the exciting opportunity to attend the NACTO (National Association of City Transportation Officials) Designing Cities 2022 conference! Our Executive Director Stacey, our Deputy Director Brendan, and our new Senior Program Manager Iolando spent the week exchanging ideas with over 1,000 officials, planners, and practitioners in NACTO’s first in-person conference since 2019. They participated in “Walkshops” (mobile workshops that allow attendees to visit, learn about, and reflect on local transportation projects) and attended talks whose topics ranged from best practices in public communications to universal basic mobility. WalkBoston attendees also got to hear from compelling speakers such as Mayor Michelle Wu and Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley. 

             

The conference was pervaded by a spirit of optimism for the future of cities which Iolando found contagious. He left feeling “upbeat and happy,” because NACTO was “such a great opportunity to build relationships with like-minded people who are working on the ground on these topics,” including how to make transportation more equitable. Iolando attributes this energy in part to the many transportation experiments conducted since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic; experiments whose failures and successes provided plenty for practitioners to come together and reflect over. “As a person who is new to this organization, it felt like ‘Wow, this is such an awesome time to get started!’”

               

Iolando believes this positive energy (even in the midst of Boston’s current struggles to adapt to the Orange Line closures) is a testament to the conference’s skillful highlighting of the strides Boston, Cambridge, and Somerville have made towards a more equitable, safe, and sustainable transit system. For example, Iolando attended a Walkshop in Cambridge entitled “Reimagining Shared Spaces in Cambridge’s Cultural District” that took participants to explore Central Square. It focused on how transforming parking for cars into places for people improves walkability, thereby expanding the community’s access to services, arts, and cultural items. Another Walkshop Iolando attended, “Making Tremont Street Safer: A Journey through Space and Time,” looked at Boston’s South End and featured an interesting discussion of what it looks like to improve pedestrian safety and accessibility while balancing historical preservation in a storied neighborhood. Participants even observed construction crews building safety features such as raised crosswalks, lane reallocations, and separated bike lanes. 

WalkBoston is immensely grateful for the opportunity to attend NACTO this year. Thanks to generous support from the Barr Foundation, NACTO was able to provide funds to support attendance to the conference for people from New England cities.

East Boston Ped101 Presentation with GreenRoots and Caminatas Verdes y Caminatas Seguras

East Boston Ped101 Presentation with GreenRoots and Caminatas Verdes y Caminatas Seguras

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Image: WalkBoston staff leading a Ped101 presentation to members of the Caminatas Verdes y Caminatas Seguras group.

On Thursday, August 4th, WalkBoston led an in-person Ped101 presentation for East Boston residents. The training was done in collaboration with GreenRoots, an environmental justice organization based out of Chelsea and East Boston, and the Caminatas Verdes y Caminatas Seguras walking group.

The program aims to improve safe walking access to East Boston’s parks and open spaces. The goal of the Ped101 training was to educate community members on the fundamentals of walkability and effective walking infrastructure, and give community members the vocabulary to advocate for infrastructure improvements. The presentation was conducted in both English and Spanish. WalkBoston offered an interpreter who translated the presentation in real-time using GreenRoots equipment. 

East Boston community members are passionate about improving their neighborhood’s walking infrastructure, especially around parks and schools. Over 20 community members attended the Ped101 presentation. At the end of the training, community members discussed how walkability solutions from the presentation could be used in their own community. They largely focused on fading sidewalks, lack of daylighting and curb extensions, poor snow removal, insufficient walking signals, and the failure of new developments to replace walking infrastructure damaged during construction. 

After the discussion, residents participated in a mapping activity in which they marked areas of East Boston that they felt were particularly dangerous for pedestrians. WalkBoston and GreenRoots will also communicate resident concerns directly to the City of Boston, both through a current conditions report and a meeting with city representatives.

WalkBoston Comments on Memorial Drive Phase III – 25% Design

WalkBoston Comments on Memorial Drive Phase III – 25% Design

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July 21, 2022

Commissioner Doug Rice
Department of Conservation and Recreation
251 Causeway Street
Boston, MA 02114
 Attn: Jeff Parenti, Deputy Chief Engineer; Dan Driscoll, Director of Green Transportation

RE: Memorial Drive Phase III – 25% Design  

Dear Commissioner Rice:

WalkBoston is Massachusetts’ primary pedestrian advocacy organization, working across the Commonwealth to make it safer and easier for people to walk for all activities of daily living such as access to transit, school and jobs. We are writing with comments about the 25% design for the 0.8-mile section of Memorial Drive from Eliot Bridge east to the intersection of Memorial Drive and John F. Kennedy Street near Harvard Square. We are happy to see this project continuing to move forward.

We are very pleased that DCR is committed to implementing a road diet for this portion of Memorial Drive and to several key elements of the project including:

  • Paying close attention to providing a walking path that is separated from the paved shared use path. Converting the existing 6.5-foot-wide path to a 10-foot shared use path paired with a 5-foot wide stabilized gravel path for people walking and running will help reduce conflicts. 
  • Adding mid-block crossings in two locations (although further attention is needed to make these crossings safe under the current roadway design, such as adding speed tables and mini bump-outs).
  • Taking special care of the Plane trees and carefully designing refurbished planting and landscaping of the Reservation. 

Our comments and concerns are centered on the design speed that underlies the specific roadway design and thus will not yield the very significant safety benefits that slower speeds would make possible. There is definitive evidence that in order to slow traffic, roads must be designed with that purpose. We strongly urge DCR to work internally and with the City of Cambridge to revise the design speed of 35 mph and to reduce that speed to 25 mph. The nearby and heavily traveled Alewife Brook Parkway is posted for 25 mph, as are many other DCR parkways. 

DCR should be designing a road for what is needed, and not repeating roadway designs of the past that allow people to drive fast, especially at off peak times. MassDOT Safe Speeds Guidance specifically addresses this issue, and certainly DCR as a parks and recreation agency, should be leading the way for slower speeds and safer conditions for people walking and biking.

Memorial Drive should be posted and designed for 25 mph.

The slower design speed would reflect the roadway’s setting within a park, would  match the speed limit of Cambridge, and would significantly enhance the safety of the tens of thousands of pedestrians and bicyclists who are drawn to the Reservation and its pathways. In addition to the direct safety benefits of a reduced design speed (and thus reduced actual driving speed) additional benefits of a lower design speed include:

Allowing the reduction of the pavement width from 26’ – comprising two ten-foot lanes and two three-foot shoulders. Narrowing the shoulders to 12-18” would provide a number of important benefits:

  • Adding more park space and creating more distance between the roadway and the allee of Plane trees
  • Reducing impervious surface and runoff from the roadway, which would improve the health of the Reservations’s trees and other plants
  • Shortening crossing distances for pedestrians, thus possibly limiting the need for substantial traffic calming at the mid-block crossings

We also request that DCR remove the right turn slip lane to Hawthorn Street that seems unnecessary from an operating standpoint, would increase the speed of right-turning vehicles and this section of roadway adds unnecessary paving within the Reservation.

Thank you for the opportunity to comment on the 25% design, and we look forward to continuing to work with you on this important and exciting project. 

Stacey Beuttell, AICP

Executive Director, WalkBoston