DCR presented plans Thursday to put Hammond Pond Parkway on a “road diet” to make it a more complete street with recreational access. There was so much interest in the 25% public meeting, the 100 zoom slots were quickly filled. Many could not enter the meeting, and those who could were unable to get all their questions answered. A recording of the presentation is now available and feedback may be submitted online for the record.
The existing road, built in 1934, is a speedway which operates under capacity and caters exclusively to the automobile. The improvements, talked about for years, would reduce traffic lanes only on the section of Hammond Pond Parkway between the mall and Beacon Street and create a mixed-use path along the west side of the road all the way from Route 9 to Beacon. Phase two would create a continuation of the path south to West Roxbury through DCR lands without reducing traffic lanes. This has the potential to transform the area and attract more people to the adjacent park lands and trails. The project is the first of many complete streets projects DCR has lined up, and it is on the fast track for construction, to be completed in August 2023.
What a great use of public lands! Thanks to DCR, Rep. Balser, city staff and councilors and everyone else who helped make this happen. Response was overwhelmingly positive, but I was dismayed to hear BC raise objections. I think public use of this land should take priority over their desire to use it as a parking lot 6 or 7 times a year. In fact, more recreation and park space near campus should be a tremendous asset to BC.
I’d like to see DCR provide better protection for on-road cyclists as part of this plan, particularly along the heavily used Beacon Street bike lane. Ped signals should also be provided at the new crossing(s). They’ll also have to work a lot harder to undo the work MassDOT did a few years ago in order to get safe bike facilities under the route 9 crossing.
This is a spectacularly terrific proposal. I’ve had chances to bike along Greenough Blvd., Nonantum Road, and Truman Parkway, where they’ve done similar projects, and the results were excellent.
The current design of Hammond Pond Parkway is an anachronism. If you are a biker, it is scary and dangerous. The speed with which people zoom along in their cars, especially in the curvy section just north of route 9, creates really dangerous conditions. (I still mourn the death of BSO principal bassoonist Sherman Walt in 1989, when he was struck by a motorist along that section.)
This is absurd. We have severe traffic problems. There’s ample room for a paved path on either side of the road now. The current “paths”are not even maintained, who says they will in the future? Plus, it’s a long wooded stretch between the mall and Beacon, it really isn’t safe at night Imo. I vote no.
I love it. It’s a wonderful plan.
Honestly, this is a great idea. The Hammond Pond Parkway is essentially a mini highway built in a largely sububran area. Converting it into a park and pedestran walkway similar to the Rose Kennedy Greenway would go a long way towards making Newton a greener city. As an added bonus, it would even be a good candidate for a future MBTA Green Line station between Newton Centre and Chestnut Hill, though that is probably a longer term (post Covid) vision.
The only discouraging thing about the proposal is that “fast tracking” takes until August 2023. Really, that long for a road project?
James says:
> This is absurd. We have severe traffic problems.
Where specifically are these problems? There are sometimes backups on Hammond Pond Parkway due to the intersections, never due to lane capacity. This wide, overbuilt road encourages speeds 20mph over the speed limit. That isn’t safe or environmentally sound for a parkway.
> There’s ample room for a paved path on either side of the road now.
The DCR disagrees, in part because of the safety issues of high speed motor vehicle travel.
> The current “paths”are not even maintained, who says they will in the future?
The DCR river paths are actually pretty well maintained and heavily used, particularly the newer ones.
> Plus, it’s a long wooded stretch between the mall and Beacon, it really isn’t safe at night Imo.
Alternatively, there’s four lane high-speed limited access highway with no pedestrian or bicyclist accommodations between the mall and Beacon. It isn’t really safe, ever.
There are DCR paths through a wide range of the Boston metro area and beyond, in all kinds of conditions from urban natural to densely wooded. While many are technically closed after dark, they almost without exception function safely. The argument that a path couldn’t be built in Newton, a city with one of the lowest crime rates in the nation, because of safety concerns is based on no evidence.
What, no million dollar condos or 4k/month apartments? How are we going to tackle the housing crisis without more housing for the wealthy?!?! 🙂
Well said, Mike Halle!
This may sound callous and a bit arrogant, but I’ve stopped caring about what BC thinks of anything we do for the recreational needs of our people, and as Adam noted, for the recreational needs of their own students as well. Congratulations to Representative Balser and to all our City Councilors and staff for making this possible.
I was in the meeting and BC has certainly lived up to the foul reputation it has established during the Webster Woods debate. To them the whole world revolves around their football games. Fortunately, I don’t think DCR is buying into that.
Wonderful. Future oriented. Good for people. Please let the traffic engineers worry about traffic. Anecdotal information about congestion means nothing.
@Mike,
” There are sometimes backups on Hammond Pond Parkway due to the intersections”
Imagine now a line of cars waiting 3/4 lights to get through the Beacon Street lights. How much smog will this add to the woods?
It’s ok to have underused roads, just like underused schools in the 1980s before they sold them off.
“The DCR disagrees, in part because of the safety issues of high speed motor vehicle travel.”
Is there crash data available? I’ve never heard that a sidewalk in a specific location is unsafe there because cars could veer off the road? Why is there a sidewalk on 4-lane Washington Street in Newton Corner/Newtonville and West Newton, where it gets curvy?
“The DCR river paths are actually pretty well maintained and heavily used, particularly the newer ones.”
How about the DCR path between Auburndale and Riverside?
Neither mall in Chestnut Hill is even pedestrian friendly. This will truly be a path to nowhere. I think this is a viable idea if self-driving cars work cut down on traffic, but not until then.
Ruth Balser and Kay Khan should focus on improving the Commuter Rail stations, which they promised to do last century.
James,
I don’t believe we should plan for imaginary scenarios. Building roadway capacity to deal with the absolute extreme traffic imagined traffic conditions is the recipe for disaster, the same recipe that has ruined America’s cities. It also is a poor excuse to deprive our community of a resource. Did add-a-lane eliminate traffic jams on 128? Did the central artery project eliminate backups north and south of the city? Excess roadway capacity induces demand. Why on earth would we want to induce more commuters to come through Newton Centre and Chestnut Hill neighborhoods?
According to DCR, there is a real crash issue at the Beacon Street turn today with “side swipes” that they hope to eliminate with the new design. But it’s not just about safety. The fact is that nobody wants to walk along a four lane highway with cars going in excess of 40 miles per hour. It’s not pleasant today walking along Washington Street or Hammond Pond Parkway. They aren’t places people want to be because they simply aren’t designed for people, they’re designed for cars.
The Two Bridges trail? Seems pretty nice to me, with lots of potential for new connections. I hope the HPP work will lead to better connections as well, all the way to West Roxbury, perhaps to mall property, too, but even on its own it would bring better connections to Webster Woods and the rest of the reservation and provide a new space for people to walk, jog or bike outdoors instead of sitting in traffic going to the gym.
Rep Khan has, in fact, secured funding for the accessible commuter rail stations in the budget just last month. She and Rep Balser have been fighting against a state government which has for decades resisted making wise investments in public transit. You should give them a lot more credit.
@Adam, Thank you for taking the time to respond.
Unfortunately, I will have to disagree on Balser and Khan, especially after they voted to increase their own pay. But, I don’t want to change this conversation.
“Two Bridges trail”
No, the trail between Charles Street and Riverside; a great opportunity to connect Southern Auburndale with Riverside public transport, but I guess that concession was never thrown into the Riverside project. Then again, it’s been proven that light rail is actually worse for the environment than the average car trip: https://www.templetons.com/brad/transit-myth.html
I agree, walking next to Washington Street OR Hammond Pond Parkway is not much fun. But the solution is not to vilify those in cars (which is especially disrespectful to the disabled who rely on them): It’s to plan for our future needs.
I’m not going to respond again to this thread. I just wanted to make sure between all the fluffy motions of support and bravos that people are aware that not everyone is in favor: I might even wager that the majority of Newtonians would be against it.
James said:
> It’s ok to have underused roads, just like underused schools in the 1980s before they sold them off.
Hammond Pond Parkway was built in the 1930’s along with the rest of the old MDC parkway system so that rich people could take leisurely country drives and show off their newfangled cars. It has never been at capacity and it limited by its intersections, not its roadways. Unused traffic lanes encourage the speeds that the DCR’s own traffic engineer said reach 50mph. Without shoulders, the road’s speed differential represents a significant danger to bicyclists. Completely different from schools, which at least were filled to capacity at one point.
Moreover, this is a parkway with significant open space on both sides of the roadway. It is, or should be, a heavily used recreational area and a destination unto itself. At the public meeting several speakers discussed the dangers of crossing from one side of the road to the other. That danger simply should not exist. The difference between the risk posed to pedestrians by a four lane limited access road with vehicle speeds up to 50mph versus a two lane road with speeds of 25-30mph is enormous. Like “risk of injury vs. near certain death” enormous.
One of the commenters on the DCR call said that they’d lived near the parkway for decades and hadn’t seen any bicyclists or pedestrians. That’s points to the problem, doesn’t it? A main bicycling route from a large section of Newton into the western section of Boston, passing through one of Newton’s largest open spaces on both sides of the street, with easy access to BC campus, and there appear to be no pedestrians or bicyclists? First, they are there, they are just low visibility and thus at risk when using or crossing the parkway.
Second, and more importantly, *why aren’t many more of them there*? If the pandemic has taught us anything, it is that parks and open spaces are highly valued and heavily used by broad sections of the population when they are safe, accessible, and maintained.
> But the solution is not to vilify those in cars (which is especially disrespectful to the disabled who rely on them): It’s to plan for our future needs.
The DCR path includes a new parking lot and a new pedestrian crossing to allow visitors who drive to gain access to both sides of the parkway. This plan isn’t about “vilifying those in cars”, and neither are any of the comments I see here. It is about helping achieve the DCR vision of balanced recreational and transportation opportunities for parkways and open spaces.
> This will truly be a path to nowhere.
As I said, even Day 1 that isn’t true because of the DCR and Newton reservations to either side. The project is the first stage of better connections all the way to Skyline Park, West Roxbury, Allandale Farm, Larz Anderzon Park, Jamaica Pond, the Arborway, the Arnold Arboretum, and even the Southwest Corridor Park and Boston. I’d love a grand vision and commensurate funding to make that kind of vision happen all at once. But that doesn’t seem to happen. It’s always piecemeal. This is a useful piece, and honestly one of the easiest ones.
I trust that a good community process can take this preliminary plan and make it even better, and get it to construction and completion quickly.
I want to add my voice to those applauding this vision. I have always wondered why that stretch of HPP was built like a quasi-freeway.
I should also note that the posted speed limit on that stretch is 30 MPH. That is wishful thinking, as anyone who has driven that stretch can attest- 45 MPH is probably closer to the actual speeds of drivers there, which is ludicrous. Put this road on a diet and give the public a chance to get out and enjoy the green spaces.
I have to believe that the single person ranting in opposition to this excellent proposal has never set foot in Webster Woods, or walked along any part of the parkway. We regularly walk through the woods to Houghton Garden, and feel like we’re risking our lives crossing Hammond Pond Parkway. The combination of extremely high speeds (with absolutely no enforcement) and poor sight lines mean that anyone crossing at the trailhead has three to four seconds to react to an oncoming vehicle. The scattered car parts and broken guard rails along the parkway are ample evidence of crashes, as are the pieces of the overturned traffic signal box at the Beacon Street intersection – the remnant of a rollover crash a few weeks ago.
Contrary to his assertions, the trails in the conservation land are so heavily used that the city has had to take actions to mitigate erosion at key points. The proposed improvements are certain to further increase the use of the conservation land on both sides of the parkway.
The proposed plan is well thought out, and addresses all the major problems that make the parkway so hazardous. I just wish it could be accelerated even more.
As an interim measure, I suggested in a comment that the city and DCR install a protected crosswalk at the existing trail crossing, equipped with solar powered pedestrian signals, similar to those in Kendall Square. Speed enforcement, which is currently non-existent, would also help mitigate the hazards.
This is such an excellent proposal. As a cyclist who has had to traverse this area the workaround is to head up Parker and back down Brookline street to get to Jamaica Plain and the arboretum. This will open a fantastic new route. And as Paul Levy pointed out above, there are recent example where DCR has rethought the roadway design (or norumbega road) that did not lead to a traffic calamity.
I feel very badly for Boston College who has been a good neighbor to the City of Newton. First the land they bought because Newton didn’t want the land was taken by emminent domain. Do we know what the City of Newton paid them for this transaction? Now the City of Newton is breaking the agreement that Boston College made with the City of Newton for the 7 football games every September and October.
On a practical level, I tend to bike 20-30 miles when I go for a bike. How does this small stretch of land road fit into a bigger plan?
Good neighbor? PILOT numbers may tell a different story. But this is state land, not city land we’re talking about, and I do believe a complete parkway brings great benefits to BC. At the meeting, DCR mentioned something about offering more parking space available by the mall.
The shared path vision extends to Horace James Circle, West Roxbury, which isn’t far from other bike friendly roads and pathways in Brookline and Boston. It would no doubt take time to connect the dots, but this might make it possible someday to have a safer ride to Larz Anderson, the Arboretum, the Southwest Corridor, Neponset River Greenway or Blue Hills Reservation.