Issue #52 / November 2010

by Lorenz J. Finison

Tues, Nov 30, 7:00-9:00 pm
@ LivableStreets office, 100 Sidney St, Cambridge [map... ]

Open to the public. $5-$10 suggested donation. 

Boston was a hub of black bicyclists in the 1890s, including: The Riverside Cycling Club, an all-black club with membership largely from Boston and Cambridge; Kittie Knox, a seamstress winning prizes for her cycling costumes and challenging the League of American Wheelmen's "color bar"; Robert Teamoh state legislator who obtained a resolution denouncing the "color bar" in 1895. Learn how the "color bar" fight impacted the Good Roads campaign, the Massachusetts Volunteer Militia's bicycle corps, and the Cambridge races of Major Taylor, an international champion and member of the first integrated professional sports team in the U.S.

The talk will be followed by a discussion on what we can learn from history. This event will be a great lead up to the much anticipated 3rd Annual Boston Bikes Report with the Boston Bikes Director Nicole Freedman in January and hosted by LivableStreets.

Lorenz Finison currently teaches program and policy evaluation in the Doctor of Public Health program at Boston University, and is a founding board member of Cycling Through History: The Massachusetts African American Heritage Bike Route.
 

> Questions regarding the StreetTalk? event@livablestreets.info / 617-621-1746

> Event web page >>>

> RSVP and invite friends through Facebook

Mayor Menino says the trip is an opportunity to not only share but gather new ideas: "You have to open your eyes to see what is happening in other cities.'' (Boston Globe) 

Here are some ideas we hope the Mayor sees.

London just launched the first in a series of superhighway bicycle lanes that provide cyclists with safer, faster and more direct journeys into the city. Copenhagen has parking pricing and low emission zones. Most European cities have established an urban street user hierarchy that gives the highest priority to walking, biking, and public transit. Mobilien (photo above), the Parisian bus rapid transit system, cuts down on car traffic, eliminating a significant amount of on-street parking to create dedicated bus lanes that are shared with bicycles, taxis and emergency vehicles. Paris Mayor Delanoe converted a two-mile stretch of the Georges Pompidou expressway into a beach. Three million visitors used Paris Plage (photo below) in its first week alone, and it is widely praised for providing low-income families with access to quality recreation and open space.

Mayor Menino launched a bicycle program a few years ago (an initiative spearheaded by LivableStreets Alliance). One result: Blue Hill Avenue will soon get bike lanes between Warren Street in Roxbury and River Street in Mattapan -- a welcome addition, especially in conjunction with the MBTA's recent Route 28 bus improvements which include new longer buses and bus stop consolidation. Thanks to WalkBoston, Boston now has an excellent signal timing policy fit for the 21st century. And the city's new Complete Streets initiative goes a step further by making a commitment to holistic thinking about how streets are designed in the future. But too much of this agenda is still in the policy stage rather than getting turned into "facts on the ground."

While Boston is improving, we are still decades behind our European counterparts regarding street design and urban transportation policy.  We hope the Mayor comes back with renewed fervor to get the job done.

It seems that commuters are smarter than we often give them credit for. The Craigie closures could end up being a good lesson for us all about how traffic is not unchangeable. Perhaps the reverse of "if you build it, they will come" is "if you take it away, they go away." 

For more information:
 > Wicked Local Somerville Journal article >>>
 > Boston Globe article >>>
 > Similar story from pedestrianization of Broadway in NYC, read here >>>
 > Read 'Disappearing traffic' transportation study here >>>
 > Read about LivableStreets work on the Craigie Bridge here >>>

Ed Burrows

There is a significant gap between creating a better national retirement agenda and improving Boston traffic for pedestrians and cyclists, but Ed Burrows was able to bridge this gap with the passion he had for both of these endeavors. Now, thanks to Ed's family and friends, that passion will live on by supporting the Better Bridges Campaign through LivableStreets.

Ed never settled for less than the best. As a pension actuary, he spent hours on the phone, at meetings and traveling to D.C. to save Social Security and to achieve a National Retirement Income Policy.

At age 74, Ed turned his energies and attention to another vision. Ed loved Boston.
He lived, ran, biked, walked, loved, played, learned and explored in the city.  But he had a vision for making Boston an even better place. With the help of experts in the field and extensive research, Ed wrote up his plan for transforming the traffic system of Boston. The cost for the study would be one million dollars...another tough gap to bridge, but not a problem for Ed, he would find the money.

StreetTalk Nov 9

Unfortunately, he never got the chance.

To carry on his vision, Ed's family, friends and business associates donated funds to the Boston Foundation. And to our great satisfaction, LivableStreets unveiled the Better Bridges Project. This initiative mirrors many of Ed's hopes for the city. So it is with utmost pleasure to Ed's fans, family and groupies, that we give a grant to LivableStreets to help meet their goal in the Better Bridges Campaign.

Sincerely,
Ed Burrows Family

Calumet Sq Boston current

In 2004, I moved to the top of Mission Hill in Boston. Each day, as I walked through the intersection of Calumet Street and St. Alphonsus Street, I took a mental note of the area - who was using it, how it was being used, what the materials of the area were, how the sun cast shadows across buildings, how each building presented itself to the intersection. With vast amounts of asphalt and infrequent traffic, I saw an opportunity for change. A lack of landscaping, benches, signage, and poor lighting greet your arrival into the space. Pedestrians, bicyclist and automobiles approach the Square unsure of what to do when they enter the space. From these thoughts and observations emerged the underlying issue of Calumet Square - that here was a large neighborhood asset that was poorly used.

In 2006, after sketching for a few hours, the concept

for Calumet Square was born: place automobile traffic

into regular width lanes, provide pedestrian and cyclist

a proposal

friendly thoroughfare through the square, and turn the remaining asphalt into green space.

Now what? I thought. In summer 2009, I attended a LivableStreets StreetTalk, and later became a member and joined the Advocacy Committee. LivableStreets helped provide a way forward. Thanks to LivableStreets and City Councilor Mike Ross, there was a community meeting a year later. Now, with approval and some funding from the City of Boston, Calumet Square will soon become an asset to the neighborhood. 

- Steve N., LivableStreets Member

Get involved, become a member, share your stories >>>

Western Ave Boston before

Both Cambridge and Boston are redesigning their portions of Western Ave. In Cambridge, primary benefits of the new layout will be safer pedestrian crossings, and improved bus stops. And there will be a new bike lane separated moving traffic by parked cars, the curb, and a buffer space for opening car doors. The bike lane, though at sidewalk level, would be separated from pedestrians by a tree-lined buffer space. This design will significantly increase the number of cyclists by attracting traffic-intolerant adults and children.

Boston, too, is experimenting with a separated bike lane on one side of its portion of Western Ave., thanks to support from the Boston Cyclists Union. In Cambridge, it will be located between the

Western Ave Boston after

parking lane and the sidewalk -- although the Boston cycle track will be at street level ("inside the curb"). LivableStreets Alliance hopes the city quickly moves to make the approach permanent as a first step towards implementation of its forthcoming Complete Streets policy.

Now the focus shifts to MassDOT which is redesigning the Western Ave. and River Street bridges. LivableStreets' "Better Bridges" campaign will be pushing the state to rise to the challenge posed by the bold plans of the adjoining municipalities, not only on the bridge but also on the entire circulating area in this section of the river.

For more information:
> LivableStreets Better Bridges Campaign information
> Cambridge Western Ave project site and an news article
> Boston Western Ave project in the news
> MassDOT Western Ave bridge reconstruction site

Creating change requires inspiring vision, understandable rationales, effective strategies, hard work, persistence, and good luck.  Posts over the past month have discussed how the built environment needs to be changed to remove the major challenges that keep people from choosing active transportation (walking and cycling), the types of activity that successful advocacy needs to combine in order to win those changes, and a few ideas about what components need to be included in a full-spectrum promotion of active transportation.
 
> Going Mainstream: Overcoming Discouragements to Walking & Bicycling
> Livable Streets: From Theory to Practice
> Advocacy: Weaving Together Protest & Partnership