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Greetings!
Click here to view this ebulletin as a printable PDF.
Contact Jeff Rosenblum 617-939-3824,
jeff@livablestreets.info, for more
information.
LivableStreets E-bulletin reaches 1000
subscribers! Got a lead for a good story? Have
something about your organization to publicize? Email
us!
Click here for a comprehensive
calendar of events.
LivableStreets Alliance is a non-profit
organization that believes urban transportation has
the power to make Boston a more connected, livable
city. We challenge people to think differently
and to demand a system that balances transit,
walking, and biking with automobiles. We promote
safe, convenient, and affordable transportation for all
users in urban Boston. Streets that are
enjoyable to use will better support neighborhoods
and small business districts. LivableStreets
believes that to remain a competitive, world-class
city, Boston needs a world-class transportation
network – one that makes our city a better place to
live, work, and play. The
Boston Bicycle Planning Initiative is now a project of
LivableStreets.
 Success! The
four Citizens' Forums co-sponsored by LivableStreets
and the Museum of Science reached over 150
participants! Click here for more
information and resource guides.
LivableStreets is a not-for-profit 501(c)3.
Consider making a tax-deductable contribution
to help us in our work.
| 1. THU APR 20: WORLD-RENOWNED JAN GEHL TALKS ABOUT LIVABLE STREETS |
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"The Human Dimension in Architecture and City
Planning"
Thursday April 20
6:00 pm
Piper Auditorium, Harvard University Graduate School
of Design
48 Quincy St., Harvard Square, Cambridge
Click here for a map.
This lecture is co-sponsored by the
Loeb Fellowship and the Urban Planning
Program
Jan Gehl is a practicing Urban Design Consultant and
Professor of Urban Design at the School of
Architecture in Copenhagen, Denmark. He has
extensively researched the form and use of public
spaces and put his findings to practice in a variety of
locations around the world.
His company, Gehl Architects – Urban Quality
Consultants, focus strongly on the facilitation of
public life in public spaces, often pushing the
boundaries beyond common uses of the public realm.
To Gehl, design always begins with an analysis of the
spaces between buildings. Only after a vision
has been established of what type of public life one
wants to see flourishing, is attention given
to the surrounding buildings and how they can work
together to support public spaces.
"The patterns of pedestrian life he has observed and
the recommendations he has made are highly
applicable to American cities... [Life between
Buildings] is a splendid piece of work." -- William
H. Whyte.
"In 1971... Jan Gehl was one of those lone
protagonists for the humane values that he so
excellently studies, formulates, and illustrates...more
than a decade later we can discern an increased
interest among architects and others in these values
he so eminently defends. Further, over the years Jan
Gehl's message has been developed with increased
concentration and [achieved] the characteristic of
timeless truth." -- Ralph Erskine, 1986, Foreword to
Life between Buildings.
Click here to
learn more about Jan Gehl from Project for Public
Spaces.
ATTENTION STUDENTS AND PRACTICIONERS:
On Friday April 21 from noon - 2:00 pm, GSD is
hosting a student brownbag with Jan titled, "Creating
a Livable Street." Email Etty at
expadmod@comcast.net for more
information.
 LivableStreets breakfast work session
with Jan Gehl-- April 19, 2006
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| 2. BUS MARATHON HIGHLIGHTS NEED FOR IMPROVED BUS SERVICE |
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The fastest runners in the world take a little over
2 hours to finish the 26-mile Boston
Marathon. How far can you get on your bus in that
amount of time?
On April 18, Alternative For Community and
Environment (ACE) and the T-Riders Union sent out
teams
of everyday MBTA riders in Roxbury/Dorchester (the
Blue Team) and in Chelsea (the Red Team) will
ride “marathon routes" on the day after Boston’s
famous road race.
"It takes more time to commute six miles round trip
from Dorchester’s Four Corners to downtown on
an MBTA bus than it takes a marathoner to run 26
miles,” said Khalida Smalls. 12th grader
Christopher Valencia, a student at South Boston High
School, commutes to school from Jackson Square
on the Orange Line, to Broadway on the Red Line,
and then to City Point in South Boston on the #9
bus-- he leaves his home in Jamaica Plain every
morning at 6:30, but finds the bus portion of the
trip makes him so late to school that the doors are
often locked when he arrives at 8 am.
According the MBTA's schedules:
- The Silver Line (it’s a bus, not a train) travels
an average of 7.32 mi/hr during the
morning rush hour. Meanwhile, the Men's Champion
ran an average of 11.93 mi/hr during the 2005
Boston Marathon.
- The Fairmount Commuter Rail Line travels an
average of *23.76 mi/hr as compared to the #116
bus, which travels an average of 10.43 mi/hr.
Every day MBTA bus riders complete their own
marathon rides just to get to work, school, shopping
or recreation. ACE believes lower-income
communities and communities of color deserve faster,
more
reliable, and more frequent service. Lee Matsueda
told the Globe, "Our message goes not only to the
MBTA, but really to our next governor and
legislators."
 Click here for an April 13 article on
the Bus Marathon.
Click
here for ACE's April 18 press release.
Despite continued concerns with bus service,
LivableStreets Alliance commends the work of the
new
MBTA General Manager Dan Grabauskus for the many
improvements to the system under his watch. The
problems with transit in Boston go deeper than just
management. The governor and legislature must
provide the necessary resources for Grabauskus to
be able to do his job.
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| 3. ADAPTIVE ENVIRONMENTS CONCERNED ABOUT SOUTH STATION DEVELOPMENT PLANS REGARDING PEDESTRIANS AND TRANSIT RIDERS |
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Adaptive Environments (AE) has submitted a letter to
the Massachusetts Environment Policy Act
(MEPA) office with concerns that the proposed
development at South Station does not adequately
accomodate the needs of the thousands of
pedestrians who ply this area per day, getting to and
from
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AE believes that "any new development should do
more than the minimum. Compliance alone would not
make for places that are usable and welcoming for
everyone... Attention to wayfinding, to
maximizing access to daylight, thoughtful acoustics,
wide pedestrian crossings that feature flush
curbs, and healthy indoor air quality are examples of
enhancing the human experience
of place through design." Pedestrian conditions and
connectivity should be maintained throughout
and around the South Station area and to Fort Point
Channel.
Recommendations include:
- Station access improvements- The
narrow passageway between subway and train
station should
be widened. Train platform entrance from the street
should be converted from stairs and ramp to
sloped walkway.
- No rough brick- The planned rough brick
creates a surface that is a tripping hazard and
uncomfortable for wheelchair riders; should be
replaced with granite, wire cut pavers, or high
quality concrete.
- Increase walk signals- Traffic and
pedestrian signals should be made accessible for
people with vision impairments and walk times should
be increased to accomodate the elderly and
improve the flow of pedestrians.
- Wide and friendly sidewalks- Some
sidewalks in the design are too narrow. There are too
many "curb cuts" where vehicles entering and exiting
garages cross high-pedestrian areas. Sidewalks
crossing driveways should maintain a level surface for
pedestrians, requiring vehicles to ramp up
and down rather than pedestrians.
AE is a 28 year-old international non-profit
organization based in Boston and committed to
advancing the role of design in expanding opportunity
and enhancing experience for people of all
ages and abilities.
Click here for a complete copy of
the letter.
Click here for more information about
Adaptive Environments.
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| 4. APRIL 28: SOME CAMBRIDGE FAMILIES ABANDON CARS FOR A DAY |
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Families abandon cars for a
day
Cambridge Chronicle, April 13,
2006
Cambridge Green Streets Initiative's first Walk/Ride
Day on March 31 was a great success. Adults
and children from public and private schools and the
Museum of Science walked, biked, jogged,
scootered, strollered and/or rode the bus or train, to
school, work or errands without cars. Others
carpooled, or drove partway.
One Baldwin family took a bus to Harvard Square,
celebrated a child's birthday at breakfast, then
bused to school. Two fourth-graders surprised friends
for breakfast, then cycled together to
school. Amigos' eighth-graders distributed "passports"
and stamped hands.
Many West Cambridge students from King Open
walked to school. At Shady Hill School, where hands
were stamped, many were shocked at how easy and
quick train and bus trips were. The head of
Cambridge Montessori School walked 10 miles from
Lexington and has doubled the school's number of
bike racks.
In some classes, half the children and staff who
normally drive came by other means.
People came from opposite sides of Cambridge,
Medford, Somerville, Belmont, Lexington, Brookline,
Arlington, Boston. Many plan to do it every Friday;
some kids are requesting every day.
Join in the next Walk/Ride Day, Friday, April 28. Visit
http://greenstreets.blogspot.com for coordinators, bike store coupons and more.
Click here for the article source.
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| 7 OPINION: Hybrid cars; BAD NEWS: Elderly pedestrian fined |
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"Hybrid cars are the hippest automotive fashion
statement to come along in years-- And yet like
fat-free desserts, which sound healthy but can still
make you fat, the hybrid car can make people
feel as if they're doing something good, even when
they're doing nothing special at all."
"Just because a car has so-called hybrid technology
doesn't mean it's doing more to help the environment
or to reduce the country's dependence on imported
oil any more than a nonhybrid car. The truth is, it
depends on the hybrid and the nonhybrid cars you
are comparing, as well as on how you use the
vehicles," says Jamie Lincoln Kitman, New York
bureau chief for Automobile Magazine, in an April 16,
2006 opinion piece for the New York Times. Are the
miriad of pro-hybrid laws and incentives really going
to help? Click here to read the
entire piece.
Elderly Woman Ticketed For Walking Too Slowly.
April 10, 2006, LOS ANGELES -- An 82-year-old
woman has received a $114 ticket for taking too long
to cross a street in the San Fernando Valley,
Calif. Mayvis Coyle said she began shuffling with her
cane when the light was green, but was unable
to make it to the other side before it turned red. "It
turned red before I could get over. There he
was, waiting, the motorcycle cop," Coyle told the Los
Angeles Daily News. "He said, `You're
obstructing the flow of traffic."'... On Friday, the
light changed too quickly even for high school
students to make it across without running. It went
from green to red in 20 seconds...
Click here for the entire article.
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SHIFTING
GEARS, GROUP MERGES TRANSIT
MESSAGE
By Will Kilburn
March 19, 2006
Usually, when advocates for non-car-based
transportation try to get something done -- better
bike
paths, say, or improved mass transit -- they go it
alone. But now, a new advocacy group called the
LivableStreets Alliance is pledging to tie all of those
interests together.
''We feel strongly that one of the reasons that
advocacy hasn't been as successful as it could be
in Boston is that people have been very 'siloed' in
their modes, and it's hard to get traction,"
said Jeffrey Rosenblum, executive director and
cofounder of the alliance. ''Whereas when we power
in with the bike advocates, the pedestrian
advocates, [and] the advocates for transit, that's
going
to require them to take notice."
This month at the Sherman Cafe in Somerville,
Alliance board member Phil Goff, formerly a planner
for the city of Portland, Ore., presented a slide show
of changes made to the transportation grid
there, along with suggestions for applying Portland's
solutions to Boston, Cambridge, and
Somerville.
Afterward, board member Mark Chase, one of the
founders of Zipcar, said he believes that the
group's approach -- idealism balanced by professional
expertise -- will set it apart from others
with a more radical, less practical approach.
''It's not anti-car; it's really looking at the balance of
the system. The power that we have in
our group is a lot of professional transportation
planner-thinker people who are not just
reactionary," he said. ''We all like alternative or
sustainable transportation, but people drive
and use cars, and we're really looking for a balanced
system."
Click here for the full article.
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E-bulletin #12 Sponsor:
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LivableStreets Board Members' Ken Kruckemeyer and Christopher
Hart receive Golden Shoe Awards.
The 
Portland, Oregon celebrates
cyclists with "Breakfast On The Bridge" once a
month. 
Starting May 1, Winchester resident
David Watson will take over the reins of MassBike.
Current Director Dorie Clark will be staying on through
the end of May . Currently an attorney for
a high-tech startup company, David is a passionate
road and mountain biker. He previously served on
the Board of Directors for the Greater Boston chapter
of the New England Mountain Bike Association
(NEMBA) and as Director of Greater Boston NEMBA's
Mountain Bike Patrol. Meet him at MassBike's
April 20 Harpoon social 