A public meeting is planned to discuss Needham Street this Thursday, June 6 at Countryside School from 7-9pm. The state has long been planning to reconstruct the roadway. This presents a good opportunity to implement “complete streets” and also consider what would be the optimal development of some large parcels in the area. MassDOT will present some of the latest plans for the roadway and the planning department will discuss a vision for businesses along the corridor.
A study by MIT graduate students in 2010 provides some interesting background, including history of the area, zoning opportunities, and environmental information on flood plains, streams and wetlands.
The planning department’s presentation looked pretty good — undergrounding utilities, combining driveways, reducing curb cuts, rezoning to encourage smarter development, reducing isolation from surrounding neighborhoods. The early design presented by MassDOT incorporated some of these ideas, but generally looked like previous proposals, according to many in the crowd.
Some feedback had been taken into account. There were partial bicycle lanes, though there’s really no safe way to get to them, and full sidewalks and green divider islands were also welcome improvements. The consultants explored a roundabout option for Winchester and Needham, but to make it work, they insisted, two lanes were necessary on one side, which made it a far less attractive option. Also, there was some reduction in capacity on Winchester Street, but still 4 lanes and chokepoints on the shoulder and no incorporation of the Upper Falls Greenway in the design.
At least there was acknowledgement of MassDOT policy to accommodate all roadway users: one business owner asked why the state was building bicycle lanes at the expense of roadway width, and the answer was clear. All users should have safe accommodations, and that taking a foot out of travel lanes at slow speeds is well within the guidelines. It sounds like everyone will be stuck in traffic anyway.
My takeaway was a comment from Thomas Currier of MassDOT (paraphrasing) that there were lots of pretty pictures in the MIT study, but that many of these ideals aren’t possible in practice. Even with some small property taking, there are still lots of constraints. Do they just need more imagination, or is this really as good as it gets? When you hear things like level of service going from “F” to “D”, you have to wonder, why bother?
25% designs are due this fall, when there is typically another public meeting. Mr. Currier suggested there would be other public meetings between now and then seeking feedback.
Anyone else at the meeting wish to comment?
My take was that the city planning staff’s presentation was a big picture wish list of how Needham St could be improved, independent of budget or other practicalities, akin to the MIT study.
Totally separate from that was the DOT presentation. Their project is far, far narrower in scope. They’re just looking at minor tweaks to make the traffic flow more smoothly. I think that within the scope of what they’re working with (today’s Needham St, with a few minor land takings), I’m not sure they can do much better than what they’ve already designed.
It’s clear though that the DOT project is not any kind of major redesign of the corridor. It’s just – clean up a few problem spots, get rid of some curb cuts, add curbs and sidewalks where there aren’t any and add bike lanes where they fit.
I agree with Jerry. The MassDOT proposal was minimal improvement. Especially disappointing was the plan for under the Route 9 bridge – used by Needham St. workers who get off at the Highland T. The sidewalk and bike lane narrow from 12 feet (outside of the bridge) to 7 feet total (under the bridge).
It’s unfortunate that the MassDOT could not have put forward a more dynamic, expansive and imaginative plan for the Needham Street Corridor. As Jerry suggests, they may be right because of budget constraints, but the entire length of Needham Street and the Center Street approach to Walnut Street under Route 9 is unquestionably the most barren, dysfunctional and depressing segment in Newton. This Plan does little to change that equation.I hope this is not a missed opportunity that Newton residents will come to regret in the years ahead.
And the beat goes on… I guess we should all be grateful they fixed the potholes.
As I said at the meeting, it seemed like GroundHog Day to me, a re-cycling of comments and suggestions made at dozens of previous meetings on the topic but with little or no knowledge of these past meetings or of recent developments that are relevant. The state consultants talked about meeting with individual property owners about consolidating curb cuts while maintaining access to their properties. It seems to me that McMahon Associates did exactly that during the Needham Street Advisory Committee appointed by Mayor Cohen. The consultants assured me after the meeting that they did in fact have access to the McMahon notes.
The key traffic suggestion that didn’t seem to be reflected in the new plans was from an 1984 study which recommended that as many connections as possible be made across property lines so that customers could visit many stores in one section of the Corridor without going back on the street. There are some such connections but not others that are obviously needed. For Instance, customers at the very popular Chipotle restaurant in the storage building are forbidden from making left hand turns and there is no visible connection to any of the adjacent lots or nearby streets that do allow such access. Sometimes the oldest ideas are the best ones.
The Master Plan to be developed for the corridor didn’t seem to take cognizance of the Charette organized by former Upper Falls resident Mark Sangiolo for the properties adjacent to the village or to the adverse reactions by Upper Falls residents to zoning plans developed by previous planning staff with developers. Those who don’t learn from the past are condemned to repeat it. To be fair, current planners assured me after the meeting that they were aware of these things.
Probably the most annoying thing about the presentations was that they omitted precise mentions of two recent community projects done in the corridor with city support. The Upper Falls Greenway should go a long way towards linking the businesses along the street with the residents of Upper Falls. . Engineer Frank Nichols and Chief Operating Officer Bob Rooney
have put a great deal of time and effort into this community based initiative, and it’s baffling that their colleagues seemed unaware of it. A great deal of Community Preservation Act money into the restoration of the South Burying Ground, and Mr. Nichols, the staff of Historic Newton and the Parks and Recreation Departments have carefully administered it. Historic Newton has even organized cleanups of the area. The only mention of this major amentity for the Corridor in the presentations was a traffic planner vowing to keep any traffic changes at the adjacent intersection from disturbing the “historic cemetery.” I’m sure that kept the Revolutionary War Veterans (including my ancestor Samuel Richardson) from spinning in their recently repaired graves.
Perhaps my discontent with the presentation is undue. Another veteran of many such meetings agreed with my criticisms, but took the more optimistic view that the evening reflected more state involvement and committment to real improvements than ever before.
I hope he’s right, but I can’t help remembering Senator Jack Backman expressing his distress at the slow pace of improvement at the 1984 meeting. That’s nearly thirty years and two State Senators ago.
Like Jerry, I came away with the impression that the MassDOT project scope was very narrow. For a mere $21M, fix up the roadway, underground utilities, modernize intersections, realign some curbs and add sidewalks — not unlike what’s being done by MassWorks projects throughout the city this summer (Hammond Pond Parkway, Parker Street, Eliot Street, Newton Centre, etc.) When it comes to consolidating curb cuts, what I heard was that MassDOT was going to leave that to the city to accomplish. All they attempted to do is reduce existing curb cuts to spec or define them where there were none.
I did ask one question to the consultant after the meeting which I was not able to ask during the meeting. What sort of projections are being used to coordinate this project with the upcoming “improvements” to 128? They’re basing their design on the same flawed CTPS study from 10 years ago that may lead to huge, unexpected increases in traffic volumes from the new Kendrick exit. That seems likely to interact with Winchester Street, probably not in a good way. Now might be a good time to think about that.