Tag: MassDOT Shared Streets and Spaces Program

Check Out Medford’s New Wayfinding Signs!

Check Out Medford’s New Wayfinding Signs!

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Last month WalkBoston went on a “field trip” to visit the wayfinding signs we helped the City of Medford design and install this past August. Implemented with funding from a MassDOT Shared Streets and Spaces grant, the signs represent an easy, low-cost measure that makes Medford more accessible and navigable to pedestrians. As Aateka Shashank writes, 

“As part of the many ways in which cities can encourage travel by foot or bike, wayfinding signage allows pedestrians to make mental maps and visualize their city by connecting sidewalks and footpaths that lead them to their destinations, rather than by the automobile-oriented street signs.”

Following a team lunch, all members of the WalkBoston staff plus Board Member Nina Garfinkle, who designed the signs, followed a route that began in Medford Square.
    
We then walked to the Footbridge over the Mystic River, crossing it and taking the River Path. This part of the walk was beautifully scenic and peaceful.
    

We passed the Condon Shell Bandstand with its beautiful mural depicting the Mystic River. (The Mystic River is a modified form of the Algonquin name “MissiTuk,” meaning “great tidal river” in reference to the Mystic’s tidal waters.)

We also encountered this rain garden and sidewalk bump out at the corner of Winthrop and South Street. Rain gardens help mitigate flooding and pollution from stormwater runoff by providing a permeable surface for precipitation to be absorbed and filtered. This one has the additional benefit as a piece of traffic calming infrastructure, as it shortens the crossing distance for pedestrians and forces drivers to slow down while turning the corner. This is the type of improvement you’ll soon see in the City of Boston with the new Environmental Standards for Green Infrastructure!


WalkBoston eventually reached a Medford landmark on South Street: “Grandfather’s House,” the one depicted in the famous poem “Over the River and Through the Woods” by Lydia Maria Child.

We saw lovely gardens and wildflowers along the way.
    
WalkBoston also took some time to visit and reflect on the Royall House and Slave Quarters Museum which preserves a 17th century mansion, slave quarters, and the remnants of a 500-acre estate that had been home to the Royall family, “the largest slaveholding family in Massachusetts, and to the more than 60 Africans they’d enslaved. It’s thought to be the only surviving freestanding slave quarters in the northern United States.” Read more about the site here.
    
WalkBoston ended our field trip at Medford City Hall, where we greeted the Office of Planning, Development, & Sustainability that had approached us in making the wayfinding signs a reality. If you come across the signs in Medford, be sure to scan the QR codes to learn more and submit feedback. WalkBoston was grateful for the opportunity to explore Medford on foot and experience its natural beauty, charming streets and rich history.

 

First snow storm of the season: January 2022

First snow storm of the season: January 2022

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Today, January  7th, marks one of the first significant snow storms of this season with some areas seeing close to a foot of snow. 

WalkBoston has been advocating for sidewalk snow removal for many years as part of our work to improve pedestrian safety and accessibility when it snows. Snow and ice present significant challenges to pedestrians. Cleared sidewalks are critical for people to access everyday goods and services, and are particularly vital to people with disabilities and to seniors. 

Though snow clearance is a challenging task for municipalities, regional transit authorities, and property owners due to the mix of responsible parties, and the unpredictable and episodic nature of the need – we know and have seen that it is not an impossible feat to clear snow for cars and there is an urgent need to be prioritizing the removal of snow from sidewalks all the same. 

We are excited and encouraged by the renewed energy to include sidewalks in snow removal plans by many more communities this winter. We’d love to hear what your community is doing, and highlight it in a future post. Get in touch with us.

Community Spotlight: Somerville 

The City of Somerville announced their sidewalk snow removal pilot program for the 2021-2022 winter season (fiscal year 2022). Somerville’s pilot includes the entirety of Broadway Ave. and School St. which represents about 8.5 miles of sidewalk, 200 crosswalks, 350 sidewalk ramps, and 70 bus stops, and the hope is that the pilot will shed light on the costs and the logistics of expanding this service in the future. The pilot will start with the next snow storm so that the City and its new administration can work through logistics of the first snow emergency of the year.

City Councilor Ben Ewen-Campen, who was involved in legislative advocacy efforts to ensure the City’s budget would include funding for a small sidewalk snow removal pilot, highlights that “the hope with this pilot would be to answer the empirical question of what works the best.” Somerville faces problems with the enforcement of sidewalk snow removal where absentee landlords or developers on vacant lots have likely decided that the cost of a ticket for non-compliance is not a big deal. Coupled with the fact that some property owners (or renters) may be physically unable to remove snow, a walk through Somerville during or after a snow storm can be treacherous for some or keep others confined to their home because it is unsafe. Ewen-Campen is hopeful and encouraged by the renewed focus on sidewalk snow removal by many communities across the state, citing that COVID-19 likely brought the issue to the forefront for many people who were staying home: “Cities learn from each other, this is not impossible and we can decide to do it.” 

Funding for Snow Removal Equipment Now Available Through MassDOT’s Shared Streets and Spaces Program

While the creation of a sidewalk snow removal plan is only one small step in actually removing snow from sidewalks in the winter, another obstacle many communities (especially smaller ones) face is that of purchasing equipment. Commercial grade equipment to remove snow from sidewalks can run anywhere between $5,000 to $25,000 or more and amidst a surge of COVID-19 cases due to the Omicron variant, many communities are already stretched thin. However, with the opening of the next grant round of the MassDOT Shared Streets and Spaces Grant Program, there is hope for communities for whom a capital purchase of equipment has been holding them back from creating a sidewalk snow removal program. 

MassDOT will be adding an ‘equipment’ category to the program — which will operate separately from the other categories and will not exclude a municipality from receiving another award — for up to $50,000 to allow for the purchase of equipment (such as sidewalk snow plows) that will assist municipalities in aligning their mobility efforts with the goals of the program. The next round of applications for the program opens on January 10th. 

Of course, Somerville is just one of 351 municipalities in the state and a handful of others have had sidewalks included in their snow removal plans for some time. In Newton, City Councilor Andreae Downs wrote about the steps it took to establish a snow clearing ordinance.  In Framingham, the City is responsible for plowing approximately 84.5 miles of sidewalk in and around key areas such as schools, city-owned buildings, the commuter rail, and business districts.  As WalkBoston continues our advocacy work around sidewalk snow removal and hopes to put together sidewalk snow clearance guidance and resources for communities, we’d love to hear more from communities across the Commonwealth that have seen success in their sidewalk snow removal plans and highlight it in a future post. Get in touch with us.

Comments on Re-Imagining Massachusetts’ Post-Pandemic Transportation System

Comments on Re-Imagining Massachusetts’ Post-Pandemic Transportation System

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Comments to Senate Committee on Re-Imagining Massachusetts Post-Pandemic Resiliency

Dear Senator Hinds and Committee Members:

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. The COVID-19 pandemic gave stark evidence that walkable neighborhoods and communities are critical to physical and mental health, to reducing isolation and to the resilience of all Massachusetts residents and their neighborhoods.

In light of the pandemic, we have learned that key components of the transportation system to support walking should include:

  • Speed management. We need measures to control, and often reduce, speeds on Commonwealth roadways so that they are safe for all roadway users. During the initial months of the pandemic, there was dangerous speeding on roadways across Massachusetts. MassDOT’s ongoing initiative to create tools and measures to set and manage safe speeds on all MassDOT roadways (other than limited access highways) needs the support and encouragement of the legislature to ensure its success, and then to bring those same measures to municipal roads as well.
  • Safe connections to transit. As we learned during the pandemic, essential workers are more dependent on transit than many others. We need fully accessible transit and bus stops throughout Massachusetts, including safe street crossings and sidewalk connections to adjacent neighborhoods. These are crucial to a transit system that works for everyone.
  • More local funding to repurpose public space. The overwhelmingly popular MassDOT Shared Streets and Spaces program that was introduced in response to the pandemic has demonstrated that municipalities are interested and ready to rethink how they use their streets to enable more and safer outdoor recreation,
    commerce, community activities, and mobility.
  • Chapter 90 and Complete Streets. Chapter 90 funds have been traditionally used to build and maintain municipal roads without requirements that sidewalks and crosswalks be included. We suggest that the Committee review this standard and consider including Complete Streets measures within Chapter 90, similar to those requirements set by the legislature for MassDOT roadways.
  • DCR Parkways. DCR’s recently released (and long delayed) Parkway Master Plan clearly demonstrates that immediate action is needed to vastly improve safety for people bicycling and walking. Parkways are cultural and historic landmarks and should remain fully integrated components of parks and open spaces, used and enjoyed by people for walking, rolling, and riding as originally intended. With a commitment to accelerated improvement in partnership with MassDOT, parkways should remain under DCR’s purview. We urge the legislature to set funding and regulatory standards for DCR as follows:
    • Adopt MassDOT’s Complete Streets guidelines as their default design standard for all parkways;
    • Utilize MassDOT crash portal data to implement quick-build improvements on the most dangerous parkway roads and intersections within the next 12 months;
    • Align its parkway speed limits with local speed limits, especially in municipalities where the default speed has been reduced to 25 miles/hour or less;
    • Provide DCR with the budget needed to complete the recommendations in the DCR Parkway Master Plan;
    • Require DCR to set measurable goals to reduce the number of serious and fatal crashes on DCR roadways and report publicly and annually on progress toward these goals; and
    • Require DCR to add analysis and recommendations for several key parkways currently missing from the plan.

Thank you for the opportunity to comment.

Stacey Beuttell
Executive Director, WalkBoston
405 Waltham Street, Suite 309
Lexington, MA 02421
617-367-9255

Poll: 64 percent consider making streets safer for walking “very important”

Poll: 64 percent consider making streets safer for walking “very important”

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Poll: Boston-area voters support changes to local streets, 64% consider making streets safer for walking “very important”

Good news! The MassINC polling group found that voters support changes to local streets, even if it means less space for cars. On top of that, 64% of people surveyed think it is VERY IMPORTANT to make streets safer for walking, while 39% of people surveyed said they will walk MORE than they did before the pandemic. Read more about it on Streetsblog MASS.

What’s this mean?

Today’s MassINC poll shows that voters love these efforts, and want to see more. The poll results reflect what we’ve been hearing as we’ve with people across Massachusetts over the last year: people want to be able to walk in their neighborhoods, but need to be able to cross the street safely. 

What can you do today to help? Comment on the CIP 

Communities big and small across the Commonwealth have re-examined how their streets can be used over the last year thanks to the MassDOT Shared Streets and Spaces program, and we’ve got good news: there is funding in the 2022 Capital Investment Plan (CIP) for it to continue.

Send in a quick note of support for the Public Realm Improvements Grant Program. That is the 2022 CIP name for MassDOT’s Shared Streets and Spaces program that was launched as a pilot this past year and has been WILDLY successful. (Check out our list of all the projects that cities and towns committed to implementing through Shared Streets and Spaces so far.) MassDOT extended the deadline for public comments on its draft FY2022 CIP to next Monday June 14th.

Here’s how to comment:

  • View a StopyMap of the CIP here, click “Public Comment” from the Table of Contents to send a message through the comment form. Click the big blue “General Comment” button to write your message.
  • Prefer to comment another way? You can email MassCIP@state.ma.us, or send a letter to: Capital Investment Plan, 10 Park Plaza, Suite 4160, Boston, MA 02116

More about the Public Realm Improvements (aka Shared Streets and Spaces)* This program will continue a successful initiative launched in FY 21 to provide grants for cities and towns to launch or expand improvements to sidewalks, curbs, streets, on-street and off street parking in support of public health, safe mobility, and commerce in their communities. $20 million has been authorized in the transportation bond bill, with $4 million in 2022 capital funding. *The authorization for Public Realm is reflected in the 2022 CIP as a new Shared Streets and Spaces program. (Source: DRAFT 2022 Capital Investment Plan, page 22)

Thanks for your support of safe walking and safe streets!

Golden Shoe Award Winners For March 2021 Annual Meeting

Golden Shoe Award Winners For March 2021 Annual Meeting

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As presented at this year’s annual event on Zoom, March 24, 2021. 

Karen Cord Taylor for her long term service as a committed Board member and fierce advocate for better walkability in her Beacon Hill neighborhood and the greater Boston community. Karen has devoted thirteen years to WalkBoston and has been part of so many wins as a WalkBoston Board member. Her dedication to clearing sidewalks and curb ramps of snow is particularly top of mind this winter. In addition to her advocacy work, Karen, a former newspaper owner and publisher, often used her editing skills to ensure our written communications were top notch. Karen was also instrumental in attracting and nominating wonderful new Board members, including our former Board President Emma Yashar. Your impact continues far beyond your 13-year Board tenure!

The MassDOT Shared Streets and Spaces Program provided funds to municipalities that allowed them to quickly respond to the many mobility challenges highlighted during the COVID-19 pandemic, including the need for more sidewalk space to walk safely 6’ apart, to dine outdoors in unused parking lanes, and to reimagine streets as low speed, safe spaces for people walking and biking. The popularity of this program demonstrated the desire, need and capabilities of municipalities to implement quick build projects to make streets safer and more enjoyable for all. WalkBoston is a huge fan of this program and we would love to see the program continue beyond the pandemic! In fact, we have a call to action for all of you to help make this happen later in our program. Kate Fichter, MassDOT’s Assistant Secretary for Policy Coordination and Project Lead for the Shared Streets and Spaces Program will be accepting the Golden Shoe Award on behalf of the group. We also want to thank the Barr Foundation and the Solomon Foundation for not only funding technical assistance to municipalities, but also for truly leading program outreach to ensure that all municipalities had capacity to apply regardless of local resources or expertise. Help us say THANKS for Shared Streets and Spaces so these types of projects happen more often.

Finally, our last Golden Shoe Award goes to Frank Caro. Frank died unexpectedly in October of 2020. He was an extremely dedicated Brookline resident determined to make streets and spaces more hospitable to older adults. As the founder and co-chair of the BrookLINE Community Aging Network (CAN), Frank ensured that the needs of older adults were more integrated into the life of the town. His work earned BrookLINEan Age-Friendly town designation by the World Health Organization, the first town to do so in New England. In addition to Frank’s Age-Friendly work, he founded the BrookLINE Pedestrian Advisory Board, which continues to conduct research on pedestrian activities and needs. Some of the Board’s projects included sidewalks on Longwood Avenue, audible signals along Beacon Street, and an inventory of hedges interfering with pedestrian space on sidewalks. Carol Caro, Frank’s widow, will be accepting the Golden Shoe Award on Frank’s behalf. Read a post about Frank Caro by WalkBoston board member Anita Johnson.