Cummings Foundation Archives - WalkMassachusetts

Beachmont Neighborhood – Endicott/Atlantic Intersection – Revere

The Beachmont Improvement Committee (BIC) and City of Revere Staff identified the Endicott Avenue/Atlantic Avenue intersection as a project in need of pedestrian safety improvements. The City would like to include this intersection as a priority project on their Complete Streets Prioritization Plan. Most of the roadways in the immediate area lack striping. Neither travel lanes nor parking spaces are marked, giving the roadways the illusion that they are wider than they actually are.

Atlantic Avenue is a two-way roadway north of the Atlantic/Endicott intersection and one-way (northbound) south of the intersection. Endicott Avenue is part of a two month-long pilot study testing a one-way traffic pattern on Endicott between Bellingham Avenue/Bradstreet Avenue and Atlantic Avenue.

Read the full report here:

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Beachmont Neighborhood, Revere – Cummings Square Walk Audit

The Beachmont Improvement Committee (BIC) and City of Revere Staff identified Cummings Square as an area in need of improved walking infrastructure given the number of pedestrians moving through the square, its proximity to Beachmont Veterans Memorial School, and the fast-moving traffic experienced by neighborhood residents. The City Department of Public Works (DPW) is in the process of repaving several of the roads surrounding the square (Crescent Avenue and Orchard Street), which will allow some of the short-term recommendations described in this memorandum to be put in place quickly. The long-term recommendations should be considered as priority projects to be named in the Revere Complete Streets Prioritization Plan or other infrastructure planning document.

To access the complete report, please click the link below.

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Walking in Beachmont

The Beachmont Improvement Commitee, City of Revere staff, and WalkBoston conducted the first of several walk audits in the Beachmont neighborhood. The walk audits are part of the Streets for Healthy and Connected Lives program funded by the Cummings Foundation. Participants walked along Winthrop Avenue and Crescent Avenue looking at ways to make walking safer and easier for residents and children walking home from school through Cummings Square. We picked the best weather day of the week, which is hard to do during this rainy Spring!

University Avenue: Where UMass Lowell and the Acre meet

WalkBoston participated in a MassDOT road safety audit on University Avenue in Lowell where city staff, MassDOT engineers, UMassLowell representative, Lowell police officers and others looked for ways to improve road safety along this main campus thoroughfare. The Pawtucket Street/University Avenue intersection is at the edge of Lowell’s Acre neighborhood. WalkBoston has been working in The Acre with a group of residents and the Coalition for a Better Acre as part of the Streets for People program funded by the Cummings Foundation.

The RSA was well attended, and solutions were proposed to decrease wait times for pedestrians at traffic signals, clarify travel lanes, and reduce the occurrence of “double threat” conditions — where one car waits for a pedestrian, while a second car in an adjacent travel lane continues without seeing the person crossing. We look forward to seeing these changes implemented to improve the safety of UMass Lowell students and Acre residents alike.

One Minute, One Slide: Safe Walking for Healthy and Connected Lives

Below is a “One Minute, One Slide” presentation shared by a member of the WalkBoston staff.
Text provided is as prepared at this year’s annual event on March 18, 2019.

Dorothea Hass

WalkBoston has partnered with the Coalition for a Better Acre in Lowell through a Cummings Foundation grant to train residents of the Acre to become walking advocates. Shown here are residents who are pressing the City to make temporary changes to a complicated five-way intersection with fast-moving traffic and very long crosswalks. At a recent meeting with City Councilor Nuon, residents presented their concerns and proposed solutions to which the Councilor shown here, second from right, was very receptive. A next step will be to persuade the city’s traffic engineer to take the temporary measures which if proved successful could be more permanently installed. The training is also promoting civic engagement. One of the trainees has taken the initiative to gain signatures to support the re-design of the five-way intersection and is also planning to run for city council.