Newton continues not to get the little things right with street reconstruction. Once again, there is an opportunity to improve pedestrian accommodations and we just put a new coat of asphalt on backward old ways, almost literally repaving the cowpath — or maybe repaving the car-path.
This is Beaconswood and Beacon Street, a block from Four Corners. Raviolis is the business in the upper-left corner of the photo. Cold Spring Park and the new Zervas are less than 1/2 a mile west (up in the picture).
You are looking at a 49-foot pedestrian crossing, which in any thoughtful design would be 20-30% shorter, which would mean 20-30% less time pedestrians have to travel in the roadway and risk being hit. The inhospitable crossing discourages walking, which is a shame given all the nearby destinations.
Here’s the intersection from above.
You can see how the 29′-wide street opens to 48′ at the crossing.
The southwest corner has what is technically a very large corner radius. 
Corner radii are the measurement of how tight a corner is. The corner radius is the radius of an imaginary circle with the same arc as the corner’s. In this case, the corner radius is enormous.
For reference, corners can be quite tight, with curb radii as small as two feet. The larger the curb radius, the faster the vehicle speeds that are accommodated and the longer the crossing for pedestrians. This particular corner has an enormous corner radius in part to account for the acute angle of the right turn onto Beaconswood from Beacon. But, there are multiple designs that could allow for a safe turn at safe speeds that don’t involve enormous curb radii and don’t create such a long crossing.
The city has a Comprehensive Plan and a drawerful of policies encouraging pedestrian safety and comfort and discouraging high motor vehicle speeds, yet given the opportunity to fix obvious problems, we just rebuild the old designs. This happens time and time again.
We voted for an override on the promise of better, safer streets. The quality of street and sidewalk surface is — finally — improving. But, outside of special projects like some village center redesigns, the street and intersection designs aren’t any safer.
It isn’t that difficult to get this kind of thing right. It’s easy to identify problems. And, the toolkit to fix them is pretty well understood. What it takes is a commitment by the city to get the little things right.
It will be another 30 years, probably, before we get a similar opportunity to fix this intersection in the course of regularly scheduled road maintenance and construction. What a shame.
There are many intersections in Newton, like this one, where the roads meet at irregular angles (i.e., the roads aren’t square to each other).
The result is a few undesirable things. Crosswalks end up being too long and vehicles can turn faster, both of which are bad for pedestrians.
But these intersections are also bad for drivers. Drivers need to look over their shoulders in one direction, which is difficult for older drivers and others with reduced flexibility. Also, the position of a vehicle exiting the side street is less predictable to an approaching driver on the main street. That makes the intersection inherently less safe than a normal “T” or “+” intersection.
The safest and most efficient intersections are “tight” with minimal extent, regular geometry, without extra pavement, and where the position of vehicles is constrained and predictable.
I don’t know about the exact geometry of this intersection, but looking at the pictures you could imagine the end of the Beaconswood being rebuilt and narrowed to introduce a tiny jog to the left, squaring off with Beacon St.
Same could be done at Auburndale/River and Elm/River in West Newton, among scores of other examples throughout the city. Many intersections have enough roadway width to allow such a change (though underground utilities and drainage must also be considered).
Nice thing is that you can start with traffic paint, then fix the curbs when it is cheaper and/or more convenient. It is a shame to lose this kind of opportunity.
And this is right next to the stretch of sidewalk I wrote about earlier here:
http://village14.com/2017/07/07/robbing-pedestrians-to-enlarge-a-parking-lot/#axzz4nzpY2K7B
where the sidewalk was narrowed from 80″ west of Jaylin Cleaners, to 59″ from there to Ravioli’s.
Shane Mark of DPW has confirmed that this was an intentional decision. Here is his explanation:
Barbara Darnell and I have both pointed out that what I call the “inner curb” could have and should have been installed along the line between public right-of-way and private property, rather than pushing pedestrians closer to the street so that cars parking in the lot would have more room to turn. And the inner curb alone is not going to be enough to keep vehicles from parking on the sidewalk — they’ll need to add poles, because Andreae Downs has a photo of a vehicle parked straddling the new inner curb!
I’ve asked (twice) who in DPW approved the plan before it was done, and whether the Law Department reviewed it to ensure there would be no future adverse possession issue, but have not heard back.
And if we were going to narrow the sidewalk, I would have preferred to narrow it from the street side to create a wide enough berm for tree planting, to create shade, and a buffer between pedestrians and Beacon St traffic.
Mike,
Typically thoughtful analysis. Thanks.
Yes, T-ing this intersection up probably makes the most sense.
We need to map these bad intersections.
So what does the better solution for this intersection look like exactly?
Most strange looking intersections are because of the “fire truck rule” meaning a fire truck has to be able to navigate the intersection from any approach. Heading east on Beacon a firetruck could make that corner but make it smaller and it’s liable to get stuck, particularly in winter when there are snow banks.
Over rides always have some fabricated excuse attached to them, which you’re a fool to believe we’re suppose to ignore 98% of the spending and focus on the chosen issue as the justification of 2% more. Like when Mayor Cohen tried to convince the City the over ride was for senior services, police and fire and NOT because Newton just built a $200M high school on a 30 year loan.
David M, you are right about the need for fire engine access, and there are standard templates used when laying out roads. In this case, though, that isn’t the main issue. Fire apparatus don’t have to respect lanes when they approach a street: they can use the entire width of the roadway (here, Beacon St.) to make the turn. Large apparatus like ladder trucks actually have a remarkably tight turn radius because of their hinge and rear steering.
Wide turn radii are typically included for truck access, which is not (at least no longer) important on Beaconwood. The angle of the street makes better design a little tricky, but Sean’s larger point is we should at least try before we spend money just redoing the old.
So many streets in Newton, even small side streets internal to neighborhoods, have these kinds of large sweeping turns that I feel it must have been part of the semi-suburban design aesthetic of the time. Now, with many more cars on our streets, this design hinders our ability to make our neighborhoods and village centers more walkable and bikeable.
@Mike, trucks drive down Beaconswood. They make deliveries to the stores mentioned in the article and also trash pickup. Also, streets are designed for fire trucks to drive on without using oncoming lanes.
complain, complain but offer no solutions? I don’t get it.
Hi David, yes, trucks drive on this street and almost every street in Newton. That’s different from this being, say, an industrial zone with major truck traffic.
I don’t want to get into laying out curb lines in the comment section here specifically because there *are* local needs that should be understood and addressed with citizens, businesses, and the city staff and contractors working together. This is again something Sean is suggesting by raising attention to this issue.
But this isn’t unconstructive complaining. I’ve been part of official municipal advisory groups for improving local streets and transportation for twenty years. Sean and I are both part of the transportation advisory process in Newton. If you are interested in contributing, please let me know and I will happily send along meeting information.
I think the more people are involved in working together to make streets and streetscapes better, the more progress we can make and the better the results will be.