Boston Globe Archives - WalkMassachusetts

Boston Globe: “Dangerous intersections and roads in Boston and Springfield are about to get multimillion-dollar upgrades”

Brendan Kearney, deputy director of the advocacy group WalkBoston, said he was pleased to see federal dollars going toward road safety, not just traffic congestion. It’s an urgent issue, he said, and one that is literally life-or-death.
He recalls a particularly urgent conversation with a manager at the Boch Center’s Wang Theatre at Stuart and Tremont Streets, one of the intersections targeted for safety improvements.
“He’s incredibly nervous about the safety of their patrons,” Kearney said.
Kearney noted that the commitment to Springfield is meaningful, too.
His group, which advocates for walkability in communities statewide, released a report last spring that found Springfield, despite being about a quarter of the population of Boston, had the same number of fatal pedestrian crashes in 2021. In 2022, Springfield saw 12 fatal crashes and 94 serious injury crashes, according to state data, and Boston saw 23 fatal crashes and 31 serious injury crashes.

Posted February 1, 2023

Boston Globe: “We asked some of Boston’s leaders (who aren’t running for mayor) what the city’s next mayor should do. Here are their answers”

Stacey Beuttell, executive director of WalkBoston, said one of the lessons of the COVID-19 pandemic is that streets and sidewalks can have many uses, from dining to art to providing a place to gather. The Walsh administration expanded outdoor dining this summer and fall but she’d like to see the next mayor do more, to make those sort of street closures and sidewalk activations permanent and push more of them into the neighborhoods where most Bostonians live. “So many different walking spaces have been loved again, as places where people can simply be and exist, as opposed to parked cars,” she said.

Posted January 10, 2021

Boston Globe: Editorial – “A bike lane program to emulate”

That visionary streak dates back at least a generation, to the 1990s, when Cambridge switched from the push-button walk signals to a more pedestrian-friendly concept. Called the Leading Pedestrian Interval, it programs the walk signal to come on a few seconds ahead of the green light for the adjacent street, giving pedestrians a head start into the intersection before turning vehicles can block them. Among endorsers are WalkBoston, which cites a New York study showing 60 percent fewer accidents. Many other cities employ it, including Boston in recent years along Massachusetts Avenue in the Back Bay, though city officials say it isn’t appropriate for more complex intersections.

Posted April 14, 2019

Boston Globe: I took Brookline’s e-scooters for a road test. Here’s what happened

Boston Globe: “I took Brookline’s e-scooters for a road test. Here’s what happened”

Is it legal to ride these e-scooters on the sidewalk? Also a bit hazy, according to Brendan Kearney of the pedestrian advocacy group WalkBoston.

Posted April 12, 2019

Extra reading:

There are currently 8 bills before the Legislature’s Joint Committee on Transportation that deal with scooters & micro-mobility devices. We testified before the committee on March 28th: “At the most fundamental level, we believe that in areas of the Commonwealth where there is more than occasional sidewalk use by pedestrians, motorized scooters should be accommodated on-street or in separated bike/scooter lanes where they will not conflict with people who are walking on the sidewalk.” Read our full testimony.

Boston Globe – “Ceremonies remember BU grad student, other cyclists killed on the road”

Boston Globe: “Ceremonies remember BU grad student, other cyclists killed on the road”

From the State House, the mourners marched silently to Boston City Hall.
“Our silence is meant to remind decision-makers that we don’t need more words; we need more actions to make our streets safer for everybody,” said Wendy Landman, executive director of WalkBoston.

Posted November 19, 2018