Newton and Needham are thisclose to obtaining funding that would finally address traffic issues along Needham Street in Newton and Highland Ave. in Needham.
The Boston Region Metropolitan Planning Organization, the regional body that oversees how our some of our federal gas tax dollars are allocated, must decide whether or not to fund the Needham Street project or use the funds for a competing project.
The full Needham Street/Highland Ave redesign is estimated to cost $14 million. Newton and Needham recently received a $3.3 million state MassWorks grant for Needham to begin work between First and Second avenues and for Newton to reconfigure the intersection around Oak and Christina streets. This request would be to provide the remaining funds for the project.
Write or email the Boston Region Metropolitan Planning Organization and ask them to fund the Newton-Needham corridor project.. Letters should be sent to:
David Mohler, Chair, Boston Region Metropolitan Planning Organization
State Transportation Building
10 Park Plaza, Suite 2150
Boston, MA 02116-3968
Public comment can also be sent to [email protected]
Letters and emails are due by Thursday July 30.
Here’s the presentation from early this year outlining the proposed changes.
Greg. Thanks for the heads up on this. I will write and I hope everyone else will, too.
I will definitely send an email about this.
I’d also like to reiterate a point I’ve made before. It would be a shame to do major roadwork on Needham Street without taking that opportunity to bury the overhead utilities. I understand there is significant cost involved. But this is a once in a lifetime opportunity, so let’s do it right. If the State won’t pay to bury the utilities, I’d be in favor of a special assessment on abutting commercial properties to cover that cost.
@ Mike Strair,
I couldn’t agree more. I have been advocating for improvements here for years including a series of before and after sketches up and down the street submitted to Mayor Mann.
Without burying utilities the whole operation is fruitless. There really won’t be much of an improvement. It’s like trying to put a shine on a sneaker.
Sure you will be able to transit the distance a minute quicker ,.. But the ugly experience will only continue to discourage folks from going there.
What a waste!
Does the Boston Region MPO really decide which projects to fund based in part on the number of letters and emails it receives? That’s a pretty screwy system.
I’m all in favor of the reconstruction of Needham Street, which has been a hellhole for my 39 years on this Earth. But not if it comes at the expense of say, making safety improvements to the state’s most dangerous intersection (Bridge St. and VFW Highway in Lowell) or adding crosswalks on Mass Av. in Cambridge (where 50 pedestrians are seriously injured every year).
In some communities, residents’ command of the English language may be weak and they may have poor writing skills; or they may have to work two jobs every day and not have enough time to write emails to public agencies about poor transportation infrastructure. (writer gets off high horse)
So, it would be nice if the MPO were populated with transportation and policy experts who could make holistic decisions that would maximize the welfare of the region as a whole, instead of succumbing to political pressure from one community over the other.
And before instinctively supporting one project over the other based on its proximity to my house, I’d prefer to learn which ones were under consideration – I honestly wonder if that might be possible?
@Michael: My post may have been a little confusing, let me explain what this is about.
If you review the Boston MPO site you’ll see that it comprises of a pretty broad coalition of traffic and planning experts. I’ve sat in on their meetings enough to know that they deliberate thoughtfully (grass grows quicker). The Needham Street/Highland Ave project has been carefully studied and reviewed for a long time (too long in my view) and the design work, after long delays as well, was completed following public meetings at the start of this year. (see video above)
Earlier this spring, the Boston MPO voted to finally fund this project for 2018, not based on letters or emails but a needs analysis and consideration of the economic and social benefits. As with all these decisions, that vote for approval is followed by a public comment period, which is a chance for the community to show that it supports the project as well. That’s where we are: the public comment period. We’re looking for the community to confirm that we support the Boston MPO’s vote to move forward.
Is that what DOT said? As I recall, there will be little improvement to the overall traffic in Newton under the proposed plan. And with Route 9 a total mess, any improvement will only induce more demand during peak hours anyway.
Michael, enjoy:
2015–18 TIP
@Adam: Let’s not forget that the work on Needham Street/Highland Ave. includes sidewalk improvements (right now there are swaths that are just big, unsafe, curb cuts), safer ways to cross the street (also quite harrowing right now) and bike lanes. I work on Needham Street and have experienced the sidewalk and crossing challenges first hand. I’m an armature cyclist at best and won’t ride my bike to work under the current configuration but would do so if I felt safer.
V14 rocks – ask and you shall receive! Thanks Adam.
So, I’d like:
– one “DEDHAM- BRIDGE REPLACEMENT, D-05-003 (33K), NEEDHAM STREET OVER GREAT DITCH” supersized with two bike lanes,
– two “BOSTON- RECONSTRUCTION(s) OF MELNEA CASS BOULEVARD” with a side of a driveway into Tropical Foods on Washington Street,
– and one “RED LINE-BLUE LINE CONNECTOR DESIGN”
…for here. And can you charge it to the guy in front of me?
Sorry, Needham Street. To tell you the truth, I haven’t been fond of you since Good Vibrations shut up shop.
By the way, Appendix F summarizing the public comments is very revealing – the vast majority of letters came from extremely well-off communities in support of rail trails. A bunch of Medford homeowners seem to have gotten together to support the Green Line extension, but other than that, there wasn’t a lot of participation from working-class communities. If I had my druthers, I’d prefer to see a less passive framework for solicitation of community and stakeholder feedback that would ensure more uniform participation in the process.
PS After Googling to see what became of it, I’d like to stress that Good Vibrations was a wholesome record shop next to Ostalkiewicz Jewelers, and to my knowledge was not affiliated with a more sinister establishment of the same name now doing business in Brookline 🙂
@Greg – armature cyclist? That’s a new one to me. Does that mean you wear protective covering on your bike? 🙂
@MGWA: Ha. Actually it means I type to too fast. But regular readers here already know that.
@Greg – thanks for the clarification. It’s encouraging to hear that MPO is contemplative and not capricious. So is it safe to say that that they’ve already decided to move ahead with the Needham St. project and the public comment period is only a formality?
@Greg and/or @Adam – Would it also be safe to say that the hundred or so projects listed in the Transportation Improvement Program document for FY15-18 will all move forward, or is there still some element of competition between them?
@Michael: I think of it not as a formality but an integral step in the process. They do vote again to confirm the decision following review of the comments. I suspect if they heard significant opposition or perhaps were greeted with indifference while another community lobbied for their project instead, they might reverse their decision. I’d rather we not risk finding out. We’ve been waiting decades for this.
I don’t know the answer to your second question.
I’m stunned, speechless, paralyzed, bereft of words and unable to articulate my feelings – I think I agree with Mike Striar about an issue. How could this happen? Anyway, I think he is dead on correct that if major work is going to be done on this corridor, the overhead utilities should be buried as part of the project. There are multiple benefits. I think this is called ‘undergrounding’ or some such, and I have been told that in enlightened parts of the world (europe?), it is done routinely. Certainly there are communities and developments where it is already standard practice here as well. But even if the cost is high, how much does it cost to replace and repair downed power lines over and over again, what is the cost of all those folks without power, etc.
@Greg, I agree that bike/ped improvements along Needham Street are badly needed — there are many stretches where there really are no well-defined sidewalks at all. Making Needham Street more friendly to pedestrians is clearly in the best interests of the business district. It’s just that after hearing the presentation for the $25M project, I was left feeling more than a bit disappointed that all we’re getting out of it is striped bike lanes, modernized signals, and sidewalks. And yes, a nice new bridge which will bring two lanes into Newton and one out so traffic can queue up on our side of the river (was originally the other way around, another example of Needham eating Newton’s lunch). Undergrounding? MassDOT has made it clear they want nothing to do with it. Reducing curb cuts and setbacks? That’s Newton’s responsibility, too, and the planning department is trying to make improvements one site at a time. When it comes to bicycle safety, the project is really doing the bare minimum (bike lanes, not cycle tracks) and is failing to provide safe connections to the rest of Newton — the corridor will remain bike- and pedestrian unfriendly from Winchester Street to Route 9 — so what really is the point? Not much to get excited about from my perspective.
@Michael, I don’t know exactly how the MPO works, but I think the TIP is more of a wishlist. Much of what is on there will get done eventually, but not all (I’m not holding my breath for the red-blue line connector) When each project gets done is some combination of budget, planning metrics and politics.
@adam – pretty pessimistic post there – do you have any opinion on how this thing could get onto a positive track? Somehow we (Newton) have to find some projects or plans we can get behind and build up a positive rather than negative consensus. The Charles River Greenway, for example, seems to have gotten to a point where most folks like it, support it, and agree it’s a Good Thing (nothing succeeds like success of course) but what do you think it will take to get Needham St up out of the tar pit?
As someone who bikes to Needham several times per week and goes out of his way to avoid cycling on Needham St., I’d be happy to surrender the Needham St. bike lanes in their totality if there were a commitment to provide a coherent Greenway infrastructure from Winchester St. to Webster St.
The only real obstacle, of course, is the obstinate Board of Selectmen in Needham (many of whom I unfortunately voted for). Their refusal to work with MassDOT in designing a replacement for the now-dismantled railroad bridge over 128 has been a display of pure arrogance.
Adam,
The TIP is not a wish list — it represents projects that have received federal and state transportation funding, and are scheduled to be programmed by the Boston MPO. By making it onto the TIP, the Needham Street/Highland Ave project now has the support of the MPO body (at the projected cost) to move forward. The support is based on a thorough evaluation process, where the project was rated and scored, along with all the other potential projects in the 101-community region. Projects that don’t make it onto the TIP are left on the “Universe of Projects” — which IS more of a wish list. Projects could, of course, be moved off the TIP and onto the Universe of Projects due to a variety of reasons (lack of support, lack of progress, huge cost increase…). If a project moves off the TIP, there are many competing projects that would love to take these precious fourteen million dollars!
@H L Dewey, wish I knew. Needham is doing much better because they’re doing exactly what MassDOT is good at — widening roads and increasing capacity. Creating a calmer road with a village feel seems to be much more difficult, and there are some major constraints on our side, like the graveyard and the existing Route 9 bridge. Still, both city hall and advocacy groups have pitched some new ideas, including a modern roundabout and shared use bike-ped space. City hall does need to step up and at least have an undergrounding plan to follow. We need more out-of-the-box thinking, not something MassDOT is known for.
Just sent in my e-letter in support of the project and for consideration of necessary undergrounding of wires! This may be Newton’s last chance to establish a large commercial, residential, educational corridor that drags the rest of the City into a well-planned venture that returns more to the City coffers than it sucks out! But those overhead wires have got to go and a real PLAN has got to appear…like for 32 acres that could get us commercial/retail/multi-level-income residential property development (including a 16th school), open space, a playground, and a Boulevard to connect the Charles River to Newton Centre. Maybe even a Roche Brothers or Sudbury Farms of our own! There’s no harm in dreaming…dreams sometimes come true!