As you may have read in an elegantly written op-ed column in yesterday’s TAB, there’s a Complete Streets meeting tonight (7-9, City Hall basement) to gather community input on some upcoming street repaving projects*:
- Crafts St
- Hammond St between Ward and Commonwealth
- Lowell Ave between Washington and Walnut
- Braeland Ave
The first three are scheduled for repaving in 2016. Braeland is currently scheduled for repaving in 2017. (Not noted in the elegantly written op-ed: any of the four may be indefinitely postponed as the DPW project schedule changes and firms up.)
The point of the meeting is to give neighbors and other street users an opportunity to comment on how the streets are used: by pedestrians, by bicyclists, and, of course, by motor vehicle drivers. What are the problems? What are the opportunities? How could the street be made better for all users?
As most loyal V14 readers (and those who read the elegantly written op-ed) know, Complete Streets is a increasingly popular design philosophy for how we consider the public right-of-way. Complete Streets aspires to design that considers all users’ needs and promotes all modes.
Hand-in-bicycle-glove with the design philosophy is a process philosophy: truly complete streets are achieved only when community input is part of the design process.
The point of tonight’s meeting is to pilot a meeting* to solicit neighborhood feedback for upcoming projects, specifically those road projects that are often limited to a simple repaving. (Actually, the city has done a great job recently of incorporating sidewalk repair.) These projects are sometimes missed opportunities to do more to improve the streets to make them better for all users, like creating curb extensions, restriping to slow traffic, providing new or better located crosswalks, &c. We don’t want to simply repave the status quo.
City staff will take the input from tonight’s meeting and incorporate it into design for these roads and present the designs in a meeting a few month’s hence. Also not noted in the elegantly written op-ed, these projects are budget constrained. Whatever design changes are made for the upcoming paving season(s) are are likely to be modest … but more ambitious suggestions will be banked for later.
Community input provides insight into what’s needed and desired. Combined with the professional expertise of city staff, this should lead to better streets for all.
* Why just the four streets, when the repaving list is much longer? This is a pilot. If things go well, the city may expand to do this more generally for repaving target streets.
This was one of the most constructive participatory public meetings I’ve been to in a long time. It’s the kind of process we need to move the dial on complete streets. Thanks to Sean, Andreae Downs, Alicia Bowman, Adam Peller, Miles Smith, Bill Paille, Greg Swan, Gloria Son, Alders Ted Hess Mahan, Ruthanne Fuller, and Councilor-elect Jake Auchincloss, and the other several participants.
Including Lucia Dolan.
If we’re going to focus attention on repaving streets, how about we focus some attention on getting it right – you know, making sure that nobody cuts the street for 6 years after repaving, or that anyone who cuts street repaves curb-t0-curb (every street cut takes a year off the life of the pavement). Right now, our worst offender seems to be the city’s own water department.
Miles, that is a very good comment – one that was actually emphasized last night by TAG chair Andreae Downs. Like most cities, Newton has not yet mastered coordinated infrastructure maintenance. That includes leaking gas pipelines, which, for example, leak today under brand new pavement near my home in Auburndale (at Woodland and Central St intersection), and along Washington St. x Galen St. You can see fresh drill holes and patches in the new pavement. Same w Rt. 9. And it will happen on Needham St. (site of exploding manholes) if we aren’t proactive.
The promising news is that a bill in the state (link below) would mandate that municipalities coordinate with gas utilities every time a road is dug up for another purpose (water, sewer, road repaving, electrical). https://malegislature.gov/Bills/189/House/H2871
This was a terrific interactive presentation on Complete Streets. Many thanks to the dedicated public servants and citizens named above who put a lot of thoughtful work into this. And thanks to the members of the public who showed up. My hope is that there will be more forums like this and that it will draw a larger audience each time.
Nathan and Ted: Was there any discussion of undergrounding utility lines? Thanks.
and was there consideration for minority road users such as motorcycles, motorbikes, mopeds, nopeds, and motor scooters? Are they not environmentally friendly, energy efficient, and saving of parking space? If not, I suggest the ‘Complete Streets’ monogram is more appropriately a misnomer.
For Harry:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JGhoLcsr8GA
Note: may not be to everyone’s taste. Your mileage may vary.
Sean, so I am understanding that minority road-users remain unmentioned in the incomplete ‘complete streets’ program? It’s interesting that the culture of affluent Newton preaches youth to think independently, make the correct choices (esp life & limb), go on to college, don’t text while driving, don’t drink & drive, don’t use handheld tech while operating vehicles, always fasten your seat belt, conceptualize mainstream stand in line wait your turn, protect the environment, always fasten your seat belt, cross only in a crosswalk, ride in bicycle lanes, etc.
But where does the community teach the basic survival skills on how to think.
I had this conversation with Jen Price when my son was the only Newton North student to have a motorcycle on campus. I asked her if she would go along with a motorcycle dedicated parking spot somewhere on campus. She laughed ‘forget about it – no way, no how’ This is Newton, people drive like they walk, they walk like they think, they think like they are told to think by the Women of the Golden Circle..
Harry,
You can understand that, at a community meeting open to all, city staff took input from the folks who attended. I don’t believe anyone at the meeting raised concerns related to motorized two-wheelers, but I was only at one table at a time.
This was just the first step in the process. I will share with relevant folks your general concern that the needs of motorized two-wheelers be considered. And, I can pass along any specific issues you think staff ought to be aware of regarding motorized two-wheelers on the four thoroughfares listed above.
Early days, my friend. Early days.
I read the Tab article with interest. Was not able to attend the meeting and am delighted to have a voice via this website (thanks Sean!). Important considerations as a resident, parent, biker, and driver would be these: 1) buried utilities. I cannot understand why the city does not mandate this from our utilities. Yes, I understand the upfront expense, but it would be heavenly to not be subject to downed lines, downed trees, one cable company cutting another off, etc. 2) Granite curbing. Aesthetics without curbs are horrible. 3) Flat, stable/sturdy sidewalks. Not sure if this fits within the “complete streets” theme, but I think that it does. So many streets do not have sidewalks, or sidewalks that have become bumpy, narrowed, or overgrown with bushes.
Thanks for posting the summary of the meeting!
@Nathan, good news about that State bill (if it passes). God knows, the City will never do a better job on its own (we pushed for better coordination back when I was on the Mayor’s telecom advisory board – when there was a Mayor’s telecom advisory board – as related to cable-related street cuts). Never got off the ground. Seems like we need to be forced.
The city is trying to coordinate utility work with paving — you’ll see water/sewer work in the CIP along with the paving schedule — but as much as we’d like to think the utilities will all answer to the city government, it doesn’t seem to work that way. Existing ordinances and the fees connected with them are often ignored, pavement patches are of poor quality, and coordination is extremely difficult. Nathan, it sounds like the state bill may be written backwards. Given that the gas company has to replace every. single. gas line in the city, patching is the wrong answer when the city has to repave the street. The gas company needs to notify the city of its plans, not the other way around.
Adam, what’s needed is true CO-ordination rather than a serial process, and so I agree the legislation is not optimal, but it is definitely an improvement over the current state of affairs.
But Nathan, isn’t it true that every gas line in the city must be replaced and that the gas company has decided it is going to dig a trench down every street and install PVC? Isn’t that serial process happening regardless?
Adam, only the leak prone prone pipe is slated for ultimate replacement, and that’s on a 25 year timeline, providing extreme flexibility in which pipes get addressed in what order. H2870 allows municipalities to influence what might otherwise be thought of as utilities operating on autopilot. Its not a perfect bill but it is progress in the right direction.