Newsletter – Page 8 – WalkMassachusetts

Rural Walking in Massachusetts

By WalkMassachusetts | October 26, 2017

By Stacey Beuttell/Deputy Executive Director, WalkBoston

WalkBoston began its work in rural communities with the publication of “Rural Walking in Massachusetts.” Historically walking was the primary mode of travel in rural areas, so town boundaries were drawn an acceptable three-mile walking distance around the town center. Today, the car has taken over as the primary mode of transportation for rural residents. As a result many roadways are now dangerous for people walking to town and development patterns add challenges.

Challenge 1: People must walk along narrow roads with no sidewalks to reach everyday destinations. The topography, drainage, and land ownership make widening roads complicated and sometimes impossible. Even if a road were wide enough, community resources may not be prioritized for walking.

To accommodate all users safely on narrow rights-of-way two design recommendations may apply:
• Pedestrian lane: pavement striping to create space for walkers on the roadway itself
• Shared roadway or yield street: an unmarked road (no lines) designed to serve people walking, biking, and driving within the roadway.

These strategies are typically used on residential streets with low traffic volumes. The Urban, Rural and Suburban Complete Streets Design Manual for the City of Northampton and Communities in Hampshire County has specific design information and graphic examples.

Challenge 2: State-owned roads are the main streets of many rural communities. Since many rural towns do not own these roads, the local government has limited control over design, maintenance, or speed limits on their main streets. This makes it difficult to implement infrastructure changes that slow traffic and improve pedestrian safety, goals that many of the communities we’ve worked with are hoping to achieve.

MassDOT’s Complete Streets Funding Program provides money to make short-term, low cost road improvements, but this funding cannot be used on state-owned roads. This is because all MassDOT-owned roads are already required to adopt a complete streets design approach. Municipalities are dependent on the state’s interpretation of a complete streets design for these main streets – and more significantly, improvements happen on the state’s timeline.

Despite these limitations, WalkBoston encourages communities to pass Complete Streets policies. A Complete Streets policy is an effective tool to improve pedestrian safety and community walkability. With a policy in place, cities and towns demonstrate their commitment to the approach.

As we learn of barriers to walking that are specific to rural communities, WalkBoston will continue to advocate for solutions that address these issues and allow rural communities to take advantage of the funding initiatives and legislative changes that suburban and urban communities already enjoy.

This article was featured in WalkBoston’s October 2017 newsletter.
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Town of Lenox on the move

By WalkMassachusetts | October 26, 2017

By Gwen Miller/Land Use Director & Town Planner, Lenox

Lenox, in the Berkshires, has just over 5,000 residents. It is largely rural with a small downtown, parks, public art, great restaurants, Tanglewood, The Mount/Edith Wharton’s Home. In Lenox, you get the small-town vibe but big-city culture.

Residents want to stay in Lenox as they age. Millennials across the country are opting to live in traditionally dense, accessible neighborhoods. So in the past year, Lenox has embraced walkability and adopted a Complete Streets policy. The process started by conducting two walk audits with WalkBoston and working with local partners to install “pop-up” Complete Street interventions. Working with Age Friendly Berkshires, the town installed two temporary curb extensions on Main Street and ordered “WalkYourCity” signs directing residents and visitors to destinations such as Tanglewood, Shakespeare and Co., restaurants, and playgrounds.

Getting decision makers and stakeholders into the neighborhood has been a big “win.” Seeing is believing. The “pop-up” curb extensions were a low-cost and very effective tool to demonstrate how to slow down car traffic and give walkers better visibility and more ability to be seen.

During one Walk Audit, a Board of Selectmen member joined us. Noting an inaccessible curb ramp, the group stopped to took stock. The Selectmen asked the Department of Public Works Superintendent and Town Planner to fix the ramp before the current repaving project ended. It got fixed that week.

Partnerships, walk audits, temporary, low-cost installations all make what often seem like lofty or challenging goals and solutions, seem doable. You leverage resources and expertise, and get feedback immediately.

We plan to submit our curb extension project as part of our Complete Streets Tier III funding request. This project makes the street safer for all users and we know we have support after testing and educating people about the benefits.

This effort has been positive due to the many partnerships including WalkBoston, Mass in Motion, Be Well Berkshires, MassDOT Complete Streets Program, Berkshire Regional Planning Commission, Age Friendly Berkshires, the Department of Public Works, and members of the Board of Selectmen.

The key to BRT success? Walking.

By WalkMassachusetts | April 13, 2017

By Joseph Cutrufo

Joseph Cutrufo is a former member of the WalkBoston staff and
current Director of Communications and Connecticut Policy at Tri-State
Transportation Campaign.

In March 2015, Connecticut cut the ribbon on CTfastrak, New England’s first
bus rapid transit system. CTfastrak features a 9.4-mile bus-only guideway
which runs from downtown New Britain through Newington and West
Hartford to its terminus in downtown Hartford.

CTfastrak has outpaced ridership projections so far. But the real test for
CTfastrak will be whether it can transform the way people travel in greater
Hartford, where 81 percent of commuters drive to work alone — even higher
than the national average of 76 percent.

Not long after the system launched, prospective riders bemoaned the
lack of parking near stations. Predictably, the Connecticut Department of
Transportation responded by building more parking.

But when people won’t use the system due to a lack of parking, we shouldn’t
ask, “Where can we build more parking.” We should ask, “Why can’t people
get here without a car?” In greater Hartford, the answer is simple: the
neighborhoods surrounding CTfastrak stations aren’t dense enough, and the
streets in station areas don’t safely accommodate walking.

Some in the CTfastrak corridor recognize these challenges. The
City of New Britain hired a consultant to run a series of public workshops
to identify what kind of developments would be most appropriate for the
city’s three CTfastrak stations. And in West Hartford, town officials amended
local zoning regulations to allow mixed-used development around CTfastrak
stations, where much of the land is currently zoned for industrial uses.

But in suburban Newington, the town’s zoning board passed a moratorium
on “high density development” shortly after CTfastrak service launched.

Connecticut Governor Dannel Malloy has set aside funds to help speed along
transit-oriented development projects, but ultimately the region needs a
more holistic approach to making greater Hartford a more walkable region.
The state had a chance to start the process through legislation in 2015, but
a bill proposing a “Transit Corridor Development Authority” was viewed
unfavorably by towns that saw it as a threat to home rule.

That won’t be the end of the movement to unchain the greater Hartford area
from car-dominant planning. One place to look for inspiration is the city of
Hartford, where a major zoning overhaul seeks to undo a half-century in
which the city’s parking inventory increased by 30,000 as the population
declined by 40,000 people.

This article was featured in WalkBoston’s Winter 2017 newsletter.

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