Shared Spaces Tremont Street Site Visit April 2025
We are ‘Shared Spaces’, a coalition of advocates from the community, Boston Center for Independent Living (BCIL), Riders’ Transportation Access Group (RTAG), Transportation for Massachusetts (T4MA), WalkMass, Boston Cyclists Union (BCU), and MassBike.
Our mission is to promote collaboration and understanding of the challenges associated with shared spaces – such as bike lanes, sidewalks, crosswalks, and bus stops statewide. We are committed to advocating for safety and accessibility in the design of these shared spaces, with a focus on the unique experiences of individuals with disabilities. Through education, outreach, and active engagement, we will advocate for and support inclusive policies that enhance the safety and accessibility of shared spaces for all people with disabilities, pedestrians, bicyclists, drivers, and transit riders.
We organized this site visit to bring together individuals from the city and provide them with a firsthand understanding of these shared spaces, their limitations, and potential conflicts—this initiative aimed to promote more informed decision-making. Additionally, the visit facilitated relationship-building between our communities, allowing for a more authentic and accurate experience of these shared spaces.
We want to express our gratitude to the participants of this site visit, which included representatives from the MBTA’s System-Wide Accessibility Department, the City of Boston’s Commission for Persons with Disabilities, the City of Boston’s Street Cabinet, the Boston Transportation Department, and the Institute for Human-Centered Design. Thank you for your time, consideration, and efforts to make our streets safer for vulnerable users.
Please find at the link below a summary of the key observations from our group’s site visit of Tremont Street on April 14, 2025. We have included photos and can provide more examples if that is helpful. We recognize that some of our recommendations outline ideal scenarios. However, any improvement to roadway safety benefits all users. If achieving the ideal is not possible, we should still take action. Slowing down all users minimizes harm in case of conflicts.