Welcome to Newton 2017. Our commitment to pedestrians and cyclists is reflected in a modern, progressive Complete Street policy. Our consensus desire for slower vehicular traffic is reflected in a lower default speed limit (25 MPH). And the (relatively) recent override has filled our coffers with money to spend on improving the condition and the safety of our streets.

So, can somebody explain what is happening with the repaving of Adams Street? The city has blown an epic opportunity to add some basic traffic calming measures to lower the design speed of the street and make it a safer and more pleasant place to walk and ride. (The design speed of a road refers to the speed at which drivers are comfortable driving, given the designed or natural features of the road. A long, straight highway with wide lanes has a high design speed. A curvy road with narrow travel lanes and speed humps has a slow design speed.)

With the current Adams St. repaving, the city has postponed for at least a decade the cheapest opportunity to update a 20th Century, car-centric street design to a 21st Century people-centric design. We are, quite literally, repaving the carpath.*

In this post, I’ll describe Adams St. (Please enhance my understanding in the comments, and I’ll either update this post or incorporate insights into later posts.) In follow-up posts I’ll outline what the city could have done, what seems to have happened, and how we can ensure that these opportunities don’t get missed in the future.

Adams St. is like the poster child for Complete Streets intervention. It’s part residential neighborhood, part village center, and part cut-through.

Given it’s adjacency to Nonantum shops and restaurants and its own commercial and residential density, Adams St. should be optimized for safe and comfortable walking. Turn right onto Washington St., and you’re right in the heart of the village center. Adams St. itself has a very interesting and vibrant mix of uses. There is a bunch of multi-family housing on Adams, both on the street and off, including a modest apartment building, set back from the street with parking in front. There are multiple commercial properties including restaurants, salons, and multiple fitness facilities. 

Typically, you’d expect a fair amount of foot traffic with this kind of residential and commercial density. A recent visit to take some measurements and the videos above did not disappoint. There were all sorts of folks walking along Adams and two tweeners taking turns riding a bike around the neighborhood.

At the same time, Adams St. is a major motor vehicle cut-through. Between Washington St. and Watertown St., Adams St. is dead straight and 32′ 8″ wide. From a driver’s perspective, it’s the best route between Washington and Watertown Streets east of Galen St. Only Crafts and Walnut west of Adams provide a similarly direct route. It’s a good route for people traveling to and from the nearby Washington St. commercial area. And, it’s a good route to and from the Pike. It may not be possible to eliminate — or even reduce — cut-through volume, but cut-through traffic can and should be slowed.

On the flip side, the connectivity between Washington St. and Watertown St. makes Adams St. a good route for cycling, which should be promoted.

A few descriptive odds-and-ends. There is on-street parking on both sides of Adams St., which is apparently used regularly. There is a lot of off-street parking, which results in a lot of driveway curb cuts (not to be confused with ramps at crosswalks and crossings).

There are a few side streets that start/end at Adams in this stretch, including some private ways and a one-way street. There are no true cross streets across Adams between Washington and Watertown.

Because of very large curb radii, the crossings of the side streets are considerably longer than the side street widths. For instance, to cross Wiltshire St at the curb ramps, a pedestrian has to travel 37′ 11″. In a few feet from the curb, the street narrows to 23′ 8″. The crossing is 50% wider than the street width! To accommodate turning cars on a tiny side street. And, all the curb ramps are Ted-Mann style**: a single ramp at the corner pointed at an angle into the main street, rather than a ramp oriented to cross the side street and, if warranted, a ramp oriented to cross Adams.

Next up: what the city could have done, a menu of options.

* The phrase “repaving the cowpath” is used to describe the warren of narrow streets in downtown Boston where, legend has it, rather than design streets to accommodate then modern people movement, the city fathers simply paved over existing routes designed for meandering cows. I claim “repaving the carpath,” a coinage for which I am — understandably — quite pleased with myself.

** It may be apocryphal, but the late Mayor Mann is credited with the many single-ramp corners around Newton. In municipal lore, he reportedly instructed city engineers to build only a single ramp to save construction money. Given the single-ramp-at-the-corner design in many other cities, it’s unlikely his design. But, it makes for a good story!