Boston City TV, MA City of Boston Parks Department, 26 Sep 2023

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From YouTube: Four Big Ideas: Connect and Activate

Description

A recording of discussion on the big idea of Connect and Activate in the Franklin Park Action Plan

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The original design of Franklin Park was meant to establish a distinct separation between the park and the city in order for the park to feel like a destination to an escape, as we've shared in earlier workshops and reports. Many of the Park's edges, whether they be fences, thick vegetation walls or lack of crop swaps, makes access difficult.

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The action plan will include broad recommendations for linking the park to its neighbors, which can inform adjacent plans like the Blue Hill Ave Transportation action plan and the Shattuck Hospital master plan, as they take shape around the park if successfully Incorporated. These cross street connections can help ensure that important neighborhood connections are established through clarified entries.

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The park Edge becomes an inviting active and comfortable space to be, and that connections with adjacent Community, Partners and stakeholders are strengthened when considering the park Edge, there are some strategic adjustments that can be made to enhance Connections in some places. The challenge is about access and entries where you need to manage vegetation, open views and simply provide a path in, in other places, it's about making the edge and inviting active and comfortable place to be by enhancing it with lighting signage, seating and shade adjacent to comfortable program areas near the edge.

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Speaking of inviting and active. There are multiple entries to Franklin Park that include neighborhood serving spaces like the Tiffany Moore Tot Lot, along Seaver Street. Here we can enhance what amenities are already provided, include new amenities to expand, Everyday Use and complement other neighborhood offerings that are in walking distance.

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Most importantly, we can create a unique identity for each place that caters to its neighbors and builds on your aspirations for what Franklin Park can offer to those who live closest to it.

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Over the course of the action plan, we have studied not only the Park's edges, but also neighborhoods, that they link to Urban Design recommendations, reach beyond the Park's edges to inform adjacent planning, efforts and improvements. Even if many of these recommendations fall outside the boundaries of the parkshire extension, we hope they will Aid in unifying a vision for future neighborhood and transportation. Plans to achieve these recommendations are centered on strategies that can be deployed at Key thresholds between the park and the neighborhoods.

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These four strategies include optimizing physical gateways to the park, embracing local businesses and neighbors to the adjacent Park, connecting Park identity and wayfinding to surrounding neighborhoods and prioritizing healthy multimodal access to the park. We want to share examples that four key moments around the parks that incorporate the broad strategies I just mentioned when we talk about embracing local businesses and neighbors adjacent to the park, we're not just talking about clearing an entry at the edge of the park.

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We see an opportunity at the intersection of Blue Hill, Ave and Charlotte Street to make sure that we are introducing a proper crosswalk to break up.

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What would otherwise be a three block DeTour for Neighbors to get across the street using Rumble, stripping and signage to slow down traffic, which will be especially important when the high-speed bus lane is built as part of the Blue Hill Ave Transportation action plan, ing trees and installing Furniture to soften the edges of the street and provide shade for people to hang out and encouraging a micro grant program for small business storefront improvements so that the Gateway is established in both directions.

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Possible strategies for prioritizing healthy, multimodal access to the park include safe pedestrian, Crossings bike, Lanes bus access and Car drop off and parking. There is currently a prominent entrance to the park at the North End of American Legion Highway, and that will become the Terminus of a new protected two-lane bike trail.

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This is an opportunity to introduce a bike share station for people living on the South and West sides of the park to be able to access frame the park landscape for visitors, while also providing a waiting, shelter for trip with Transportation information and reconfigure Street side parking along the residential edge of the street.

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Okay, optimizing physical gateways to the park will help to establish an active Franklin, Park and neighborhood Edge. Currently, Morton Street separates Franklin Park from the Forest Hill Cemetery, which is another key link to the emerald necklace.

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If we could establish a slow Zone at this key intersection to allow for pedestrian Crossings and a new bus, stop design a safe Street section for bicyclists and demarcate gateways into both Franklin Park and the cemetery with architecture, landscape and signage, then we'd be able to strengthen the Park's connection to the emerald necklace and improve access for Neighbors in Mattapan and Roslindale.

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Connecting Park identity to surrounding neighborhoods through signage design, language and visitation can help further soften the Park's edges. The intersection at Walnut, Ave and Peter parley road is an ideal connection. Point between white stadium in the businesses along Washington, Street and Jamaica Plain signage along the perimeter of the park can encourage visitor flows between Park and neighborhood scaling back walls and incorporating Pathways to formalize desire paths can establish more logical access into the park and smaller streets like Walnut Ave, can encourage lane sharing between cyclists, cars and pedestrians through signage and paper changes.