The Franklin School sits on Derby Street, just a short hop from the Waltham line. Derby Street itself isn’t a big, busy street like Beacon Street, nor is it a one-way loop like Dolphin Road. Instead it’s a narrow, 2-way street that, when empty, just about fits the two cars that can pass. But add a parked car on one side, then about 1.5 cars can fit past.
This isn’t a once-in-a-while occurance, it happens each day. Parents and busses park in the legal spots along the street, causing those cars trying to fit past to just about make it. But the bigger problem, in my opinion, is the stretch of Derby Street between Waltham Street and Cherry Street.
Not only is this road a narrow, 2-way pass-through, but the sidewalks themselves are narrow and lack a tree-line. Worse, the picture above is what happens on Mondays (garbage day). People can’t put their trashcans on the street, there just isn’t room, so they sit on the sidewalk. Kids are forced to squeeze past. That’s when I took the photo to the right.
My kids actually like to bike to school instead of walk. We live on the very edge of the area zoned for this particular school, so the walk is a little more than a half-mile. Biking becomes the preferred method of transit (I prefer not to drive if I can avoid it). For us, this means crossing Waltham Street at the light where Waltham meets Crafts, but without a cross-walk, as this corner is the only without one. It’a also means crossing at the crosswalk where Waltham bends toward West Newton Square, a spot where cars rarely stop, let alone slow down. But once my kids are on the side streets things go along just great.
Right up until Derby Street. Here we run into crowded sidewalks and a narrow street.
It would be great to encourage more biking and walking to our neighborhood schools, but until the city can do something about traffic problems like this, people will still choose to drive. Frankly, some will assume it’s just safer.
One possible solution: essentially shut Derby to towards-school car traffic between Sheridan and Cherry. Make Pershing, Sheridan, and Cherry no-right-turn onto Derby during drop-off and pickup. Make Edward and Parmenter no-left-turn onto Derby during drop-off and pickup.
That would create some diversion onto Pershing, Adams, Grant, &c. But, for a short period and somewhat dispersed.
The result would be a car-free zone from Cherry to Pershing, and one-way traffic only (away from the school) from Pershing to Sheridan.
Picking up on one detail: does the city actually instruct residents to put garbage containers on the street rather than sidewalks? I have never heard this, nor have I actually seen people do it (except to discourage all-day commuter parkers, but that’s another story altogether).
I can see how that makes sense, but as you point out, that depends on the street. If putting containers on the street rather than sidewalk is an official recommendation or guideline, the city needs to communicate that better (or at all). If it’s not, well, welcome to Trash Day.
Burr recently went before Traffic Council to talk about something similar to what Sean is suggesting for Pine Street (another long, narrow, residential street with an elementary school) and the idea was not well-received. Pine St. is different in that it is about 1/2 mile long with the school basically at one end; all but one of the side streets off Pine are dead ends, so there’s no where to go except from one end to the other. We asked about a “do not enter” at the intersection of Pine and Washburn (the intersection closest to the school) during drop-off and pick-up times, which would basically create a one-way traffic flow from the the intersection of Pine and River St. toward the school, and the general feedback was that because there was no way to get onto Pine from side streets it was too long a stretch of road to restrict access to one end. (To be honest, I wasn’t sold on the idea either – I think it might create some rather nasty unintended consequences, potentially making traffic worse, but it’s something that parents have asked about many times over the years so we wanted to raise it.)
…. and remove the newly created financial incentive that encourages every one to drive to school. Eliminate the newly instituted bus fees for students 1-2 miles away from school.
Everyone agrees that they don’t want or expect K-5 kids to walk 4 mile round trips to school, so why are parents paying transportation costs to a public school. Getting to school is not an optional, extra-curricula activity. At $300 per student, I’m sure this has caused many parents to switch from the bus to their cars.
The geometry of old streets in West Newton is certainly challenging. Sheridan is perhaps one of the narrowest 2-way through streets. It would be great to find engineering solutions for all of these streets, but it’s also important to look at alternatives to plan “safe routes”. What’s an arterial for cars may not be the best for students walking or biking, and in the case of Franklin, there are some back entrances that are ideal for getting to school. Encouraging use of those routes or alternate drop off points could help ease the congestion on Franklin Street.
None of this will help you get across Waltham Street (and there’s probably insufficient demand for a crossing at Annapolis) but perhaps you could take Pleasant instead of Derby?
The Safe Routes program publishes maps of each district showing the student population. Studying this map, planning safe routes, and coordinating with the city for snow plowing routes are just some of the things your safe routes committee can do to help.
Jerry, it’s also worth pointing out that many of the bused elementary (and middle) school kids live in areas which once had their own walkable school. The city profited from closing them, now residents are asked to pay for buses.
Walking up Pleasant Street is our usual route for a walk, but when it comes to biking that can be tricky, as it puts us back out on Cherry Street.
There is a back entrance to the school fields, but it is a long way from our house and much closer to the Waltham border. The position of the school in the city means that most of the students come from the other direction.
Sure, we can look for alternatives, but frankly if Derby Street were turned into a one-way street between Waltham and Parmenter, that would probably fix most of the issues. Parents would still be able to drive their kids to school and the street would be wide enough to allow for a little reconstruction (including a wider sidewalk). That’s my opinion, anyway.
In the case of the Zervas School, Beethoven (or at least part of it near the school) was made one way during school drop off and pick up back at the start of the current school year. Seems a reasonable compromise. I am not sure why we want to encourage walking and biking per se. Seems we should be working to ensure a safe and relatively efficient environment for all forms of transportation.
Eric wonders:
Let’s flip the question, Eric. Are you happy with the amount of car traffic around our schools?