Those of us who live near Waltham and Crafts Streets know that this is a bit of a conundrum. During the morning and evening rush, the road is a clogged mess with cars, pedestrians, and bikes fighting for position. This is especially true when students are headed to Day Middle School and Horace Mann.
The rest of the day (and night) it’s an open speedway.
The street is currently undergoing a desperately needed repaving, but not a full reconstruction. So the city traffic department took this as an opportunity to use paint and try something new (for Newton). In this case, it’s a parking chicane, in which parking alternates as you move up the street. The idea is that the driving lanes move side to side just enough to reduce speeding. Also included in this striping are bike lanes in both directions. The road is already a pretty well-used bike route for people commuting into Boston, as it offers access to the Charles River path. So the bike lanes are a welcome addition.
Today Waltham and Crafts are, at times, wide open swaths of asphalt with nothing more than a double yellow line in the middle. People make their own lanes, speed, and ignore pedestrians. Even crossing guards struggle to be seen.
The traffic department presented the new painting idea to local residents on Thursday night for feedback and discussion, as this would require some changes to parking regulations on the road.
In general, residents were supportive and encouraged the slowing of traffic. There were some calls for a larger traffic study (which, it was agreed, would be overkill for this particular project, but worth considering) and some additional review once the painting is down so we can assess its effectiveness, but overall feedback was positive. What was most interesting to me was that people tended to want a more pedestrian friendly roadway and asked for things that aren’t in this scope, such as bump-outs or additional traffic lights.
As the meeting ended one resident pointed out that we should also try to bring in better lighting, as that is key to road safety. But then he said something that made me smile: since this is the first attempt at this in the city, he wanted it to be successful so it can act as an example for when the traffic department tries to deploy it elsewhere.
It’s good to see the city thinking outside the box, so to speak. Traffic has gotten steadily worse such that speeding/weaving/passing is a not a problem during rush hour, but it is at most other times. When I was a kid, I never biked along that route if I could avoid it. Even walking to Day was nerve wracking because it was so wide open and dangerous for even conscientious folks. With no real guidance or lines, anything goes, and pedestrians/bicyclists are often on the wrong end of it. But it was much worse before the city put the signal at the Waltham/Crafts merge.
It will take some getting used to, but for now I think this plan may help make the corridor saner. I do hope the city reaches out and allay the potential concerns of the homeowners/property owners who may have expectations about turning, parking, or the ability to park depending on how the lines are painted.
Next steps for that area: the city needs to find a way to synchronize the entire Albemarle/North/California/Walnut mega-intersection, which is the real cause of congestion. Not to mention reminding drivers on Waltham and Lodge that the red light actually means stop!
I would be *thrilled* to have bike lanes and parking chicanes, especially so close to my home.
Are there *any* bike lanes on roads in the city of Newton? We need them!
That’s a great comment, Ben. The City and the DPW and in particular the Transportation Division – or whoever determines funding for bike lanes – should take notice because, in fact, there ARE bike lanes but there are so few of them relative to the miles and miles of roads in Newton that they are barely noticeable unless you live right on top of them. The existing bike lanes also do an insufficient job of getting cyclists safely and predictably through crowded city centers, when other neighborhing towns are well versed in using green and other methods to help the cyclists exist with motor vehicles yet be safely separate from them.
It’s a good sign that the proposed chicanes and bike lanes are well received by residents in the Waltham/Crafts neighborhood.
The proposed roadway markings — including the side-to-side lane shifts and bike lanes in both directions — were finally implemented last night on the section of Waltham St. between Crafts St. and the Waltham town line (the section that was re-paved this summer). Repaving of Crafts St. itself, and presumably the rest of this plan, have been deferred until the spring.