Boston City TV, MA City of Boston Transportation Department, 23 Feb 2022

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From YouTube: Street Trees and Cummins Highway reconstruction - 2/23/2022

Description

We hosted a meeting on February 23, 2022 to share updates about the Cummins Highway redesign project and opportunities to incorporate street trees in the reconstruction of the street.

The meeting goals were:
-Learn how the City is thinking about the future of street trees
-Updates about Boston’s Urban Forest Plan
-The role of street trees in the Urban Forest
-How the City plants, supports, and protects street trees
-How you can help care for street trees

A

um Jen rowe, who who's just speaking, uh who is our active transportation planner um with the boston transportation department.

A

All right jumping into the meeting goals um for today, um we want to learn how the city is thinking about the future of street trees.

A

We want to provide updates about the boston urban forest plan, the role of street trees in the urban forest, how the city plant supports and protects the streets throughout the city and how you mean the residents can help care for street trees in your neighborhood, I mean we also want you to learn about the cummins highway reconstruction project, we'll highlight some project goals and opportunities.

A

What we've learned about the existing trees on commons highway? How will we how we intend to protect the existing trees on qumran's highway and also design for new trees and, of course, we'll provide the next steps for this project.

A

All right to jump in to give you guys a just a quick update on the cummins highway um reconstruction project. The trial ended um in october of 2021..

A

Until construction begins, the street will main will be maintained as it currently was before the pilot. um During the last year we collected traffic data where we looked at speeds travel times, and also you meet solicitor information about your experience of the one lane in each direction.

A

If you want more information on the pilot and the temporary redesign, please visit boston.gov backslash cummins dash highway um to review the data that we collected. um The data that we collected will inform. You uh um will inform how we design the new comments highway, um but also your input is still very crucial um of how we move forward.

A

As I mentioned, your crucial your input is very crucial to our design process. We cannot produce a design without your input.

A

Ultimately, what we decide what you decide will shape how comments how it will be for the next 70 years. um Currently, we are doing community outreach to inform on on the final design um which we have actually begun in regards to um the 25 design.

A

So why do we plan to reconstruct cummins highway? um I'm I'm sure if you're a part of an involved participant in this um project, I mean you know that cummins highway hasn't been updated since the spring of 1955., when streetcars ran along comets highway and they were removed in 1953 to make room for more cars.

A

Ultimately, what you're, seeing right now the street layout reflects the priorities of the 1950s, which essentially enabled non-residents to quickly drive through the mattapan neighborhood.

A

So, as part of this project, it's reconstruction of cummins highway. We plan on completely rebuilding the street that includes sidewalks curves. We plan on removing the lights out of the median and installing new lights, new traffic signals and also repaving the roadway um and updating um any um utilities as necessary. As you guys know, national grid is still out there, uh maybe not out there right now in regards to the winter, but they've been out there um relaying their gas main, which has which have had a number of issues.

A

In the past, um the city has budgeted approximately 12 million dollars for reconstruction of cummins highway um provide an update of that. It means it's now 24 million dollars. um So it's definitely a large investment um that we're bringing to the madpan neighborhood as part of this project.

A

So as part of this project, um we we're definitely looking at advancing the the goals of go boston, 2030, which looks at improving safety on our streets, reducing emissions and ultimately investing in communities to achieve equity and in access to opportunities.

B

A

Please uh so another way of advancing our goals and our collective plans um is. We want to inform residents of the work. That's happening around the city. um As you guys know, you may be there's a number of projects that are happening in the mattapan community, whether it be the blue hill lab the matterpin square um improvements. I mean um playing mata pen from the bpda has been involved um and reaching out to this community we're ultimately working to improve collaboration and our work and then ultimately achieve the neighborhood and citywide goals.

A

And, of course, as I mentioned, okay back of course, as I mentioned um it's about collaborating with residents um to advance your goals, um we want to create and provide awareness and participation and efforts um and things that you care about, um and of course I mean we want to confirm your vision um for the future projects that we have coming out um in this neighborhood, as well as what you want for your neighborhood.

A

With that, I will kick it over to um my colleague maggie to talk about the urban forest plan.

C

Thank you very much um yeah. I am. I work for the parks, department and um project manager for the urban forest plan, so I just want to note that the urban forest plan is led by the parks department, but it is a city-wide project, everyone's involved, and that's why I'm here tonight um so before I dive into the urban forest plan, I want to call attention to three planning projects that are happening at the same time.

C

They overlap in health and climate resilience and that's the heat, resilience study, the urban forest plan and the open space and recreation plan. We call this healthy places, planning for heat trees and open space. It's really a coordinated effort among these three plans to make sure that they learn from one another and put forward recommendations that really align, and I can share a link because I forgot to share it beforehand.

C

But if you visit the healthy places website, it's a one-stop shop, you can learn about all three projects and sign up for a newsletter that goes out occasionally and you'll get updates on each project next slide.

C

So the urban forest plan. What is an urban forest? This project considers the urban forest to be all the trees within boston that includes trees that grow on both private and public property, and this is boston's first ever plan. It's our first ever attempt to pull together all the information and understand what is happening with the urban forest.

C

Where do we want to be, and how do we get there?

C

How do we expand the forest, and this project is important, because trees are important to everyone for a variety of reasons, and it's important for environmental justice issues, climate resiliency and wearing facing increasing development pressure, and there are all sorts of projects happening in the city at any one time, including projects like cummins highway, and the urban forest plan will provide information and recommendations that will guide how trees are part of that work now to put forward a plan that uh about managing the forest, one that works, we're looking at all the trees once more.

C

We'll also have to take a look at all the caretakers of our trees.

C

There are so many community members, agencies, organizations and institutions involved with keeping trees in life, and that's why this project looks at so many different aspects like funding policy, staffing, design, existing community work and workforce development, workforce development, meaning how to bring more people into tree care jobs.

C

Essentially, if you're probably wondering about trees, something about trees, we're probably talking about it next slide.

C

Now. uh One thing that's important to the project is that once more trees grow in all sorts of different situations, and this isn't a comprehensive list of trees of places where trees grow. As you know, but streets parks yards campuses, they all are cared for in different ways. They are subject to different policies and regulations.

C

They have different growing conditions, and these are all things that we're trying to consider as we create this plan and one other thing that's important.

C

You might have trees that grow in single row lines like streets, you might have trees that grow in clusters like in a lot of our parks, or you might have large forested tracks.

C

The urban forest plan is looking at all this, but each kind of setting will require different considerations and today, we'll be mostly talking about street trees.

C

Thank you now when this project started. The first thing we did was establish a community advisory board of about 60 plus members and from across the city, and we started with three workshops and have continued to gather their perspectives. Priorities and feedback and they've been assisting and spreading word about the project and helping guide our outreach.

C

If you'd like to learn more about who is on the board, how it works and read, meeting notes those can all be found on the urban forest plan project page next.

C

I do want to note that uh we've been gathering a lot of background information, we've been doing interviews, community meetings and, after all, that we're finally ready to present draft goals and recommendations.

C

So I welcome you to join on march 14th at 5 30 pm, where we'll have an open house and plenty of time for question answer.

C

But if you know of a community meeting that is happening in the next few months and people would like to learn about the project, I would be happy to attend and you can call or email me anytime, not only about the community meeting, but also, if you have any questions.

C

I'd also recommend that you check out the project page, because it has a lot of data news and general project information. That could be helpful, including a frequently asked questions section um covering things from what is the urban forest to you know?

C

Are you considering different kinds of tree species next, so um how is how are street trees a part of the urban forest and how are they considered in the urban forest plan?

C

Now? Maybe some of this goes without saying, but trees are great in a lot of ways and uh they come with a lot of benefits not only um because they can cool the city and a cooler city tends to have better air quality.

C

But it also means a lot to us in ways that we can't quantify a lot of cultural value and it really differs from person to person, and that is super important to us in this project and trees capture water to and they are one component of reducing flooding.

C

They provide wildlife habitat and I do want to acknowledge that trees do have a complicated relationship with air quality in the city, and it is not as simple as saying. Trees are wonderful for air quality. We know that some folks struggle with asthma and you know pollen at the same time. Asthma rates increase with worsening air quality from pollution and worsening heat, so it's kind of a give and take, and the science is really still um being advanced as to how do trees affect air quality in cities.

C

So I do want to acknowledge that that kind of gray area.

C

Now I may mention a few words that you, you could be less familiar with, and so I want to go over that before I get any further.

C

Canopy is, if you look um at top down at a tree, the canopy is all that green is the green area, and we have measured that in an analysis. City-Wide then the public right-of-way is in this case when we're talking about street trees. Another way of saying sidewalks, the tree pit is the area where the tree um that's cut out for the tree, and the soil volume is the soil that is put in there for the tree to occupy.

C

Now we conducted a public street tree inventory at the start of this project and we found that we had over 38 000 street trees and about 3 800 empty tree pits or potential planting sites.

C

We've got a variety of species and ages and all in all, 10.6 of the total tree canopy in boston is made up of street trees and it is a complicated picture. We measured change from 2014 to 2019 to look at how did that canopy grow or shrink. How did it appear or disappear?

C

And while street trees did see a gain in canopy coverage, there were gains and losses in different areas of the city, and so it does require diving deep into that, and the urban forest plan will do that.

C

Now you can take a look at some of the statistics that came out of the street tree inventory, for instance the top 10 species that we found in your street trees, and uh you can also scroll through an interactive map. If you wanted to go point by point and take a look at what the trees near, you are.

C

Now I want to start about the life of street trees, and the first thing is: how do we get them to grow old?

C

We want to maintain life, but it is a tough environment living in the city and protecting existing trees is one of the most important things we can do. It's more important than even planting individual trees is making sure that when we plan they also have a chance to get old.

C

They face some challenges. um You know everything here: dog, waste, salt shadows, climate pests and disease. There's a lot of challenges to living in the city. Some of these things we can work on together. Some of the things like climate change is we'll just have to keep thinking of solutions and trying to do our best to plan for those challenges.

C

But in the meantime, uh how do we maintain trees? How do we keep them alive? Well, we are all maintainers. The parks department supplies most of the maintenance for tree street trees in boston. We plant the street trees. We do the removals and we also prune the trees, meaning cut the limbs so that the tree stays healthy and does not conflict with other utilities like electrical lines and we do water.

C

We do have a contract to water, the trees in the first two years of their life, but years three to five can be pretty tough for a tree because we don't have that watering contract and that's when it's also really uh helpful to have some support from the community.

C

The urban forest plan is looking at all these things and wondering is asking the question: where do we want to be? How might these things change and um anyone who can touch a tree can affect a tree?

C

So that's why we like to say everyone is a maintainer and uh anyone working in the public right-of-way, whether on construction projects with utilities, can affect a tree and it's important to respect their complexity there.

C

So, but when do we remove trees, we have a certified arborist, go out into the field and take a look at trees and evaluate their health and they determine if the tree is dead, dying or dangerous, and that's when we remove trees.

C

The only time a healthy public street tree will be removed is if someone takes it down illegally or if they've been approved for removal through a tree hearing and I'll talk about that a little bit more in a second.

C

Now, how do we cite trees, there's a lot of different uh considerations, so this is not a comprehensive list, but the big questions are: is there enough room to create a tree pet?

C

Is there enough room for the tree to grow? You know how tall or wide can it get and would the tree conflict with other infrastructure like electrical lines or buildings, and we have more information online about some of the other questions we have to ask.

C

Sometimes, if you have a tree removed by you and we don't replant it that can be because the site the tree was planted a long time ago and our guidelines have changed or something about the situation has changed where the tree won't be won't, be able to have a long life there.

C

Now we try to plant a wide range of species because that safeguards against things like the emerald ash, borer who's now in boston and goes after ash trees. We don't plant ash trees anymore, but they used to be planted in long stretches and now those long stretches are at risk of infestation.

C

We also choose, according to other things like how tall does it get? How wide does a tree get? Is it tough enough for us and uh culture? Is it culturally appropriate? You know? Are we okay with the leaves that it drops the nuts and fruits? What are we willing to live with? So those are some of the considerations.

C

Now uh planting, how does that happen? Well, you can request planting through three on one.

C

They happen during uh major projects such as this one, where we have an opportunity to provide more growing space, because much of boston has sidewalks that make it difficult to have to put in a tree or have the tree grow old and then sometimes trees are planted through development projects. But I know this is something of interest so I'll go into that a little bit more here development projects, sometimes they remove trees as well.

C

Anyone may apply to remove a healthy public street tree through a tree hearing process and, if approved, they do pay a fee for, um and they may recruit recover that money by planting new trees, anything that you see in the public right-of-way that isn't a plain dirt dirt pit. Maybe you see a tree grate or a fence?

C

Those probably have maintenance agreements by some other organization or entity. Besides the city parks department manages part in the north. The parks department manages the plane tree pits, and we do uh so that's a cue that there may be some other agreement in place.

C

Now there are a lot of ways that um we can all help treat street trees out, make their life a little stressful. That is, you can ask um for one of you planted three three one one or if you see something up with the tree and you're like that, doesn't look right. uh You can submit a case through maintenance uh for maintenance.

C

Also, this isn't um the whole list once more. We have more information online, but it would be great if you could keep dogs away from the pits. Their waste hurts the trees um and, of course, keep trash out of pits. um Do not lock your bikes to trees. Trees are more sensitive than they look like they.

C

Locks can rub away at the outer area of a tree and essentially expose its circulatory system, and, as you can imagine, that's not good for the tree opens it up to disease and infection and other risks.

C

If you could avoid stepping in pits when you see tree roots at the rail top of the pit and they're like they're crawling along the surface, that's often a sign that their pit, the soil is compacted and the roots can't breathe and they're they're desperate, um so avoid. Stepping in pits is a great way, an easy way to help our trees out and then, if you have the resources and ability, we welcome you to water young trees uh wherever possible, though we know, that's not always possible for everyone, so next slide.

C

The last thing is: what does this all mean? That's kind of the life of street trees as it stands now. Those are some of the challenges.

C

What's the urban forest plan uh how's the urban forest plan gonna affect these things. Well we're going to put forward goals on how to care for street trees how to act around shoe trees, we're going to come up with planting prioritization plan uh better way to say that is we're going to find ways to plan for planting of street trees. In a way, that's equitable we're going to look at design we're going to look at policy.

C

We need more staffing, we need more funding and we're going to be uh the urban force line will be looking at all that and making recommendations so that we get to where we want to be and that we don't have our hearts broken, um because maybe you know the city hasn't put enough in place to sustain the trees, so we we see it and we're working on it.

C

D

All right, thank you so much maggie. I had seen those slides before and I still learned a lot so that was really fantastic and set up the rest of our work very well. um So I'm again jen, I'm gonna, take it from here and share a bit about how we're planning for street trees on cummins highway.

D

Here we have the opportunity which is really exciting to uh contribute to uh the canopy um as maggie was talking about and also to improve the environment on cummins itself.

D

So uh there is a lot of potential uh for improvement in terms of having more street trees on cummins highway. There's where the project area itself is about a mile in length, and there are it's only around 21 trees. You can see on this map where those are located. You can also see that they're not evenly distributed among the quarter. There are very few trees on the further east side. Actually I have a point to it. I can do that um so yeah.

D

You can see that more trees towards the west, fewer towards the east, there's also seven empty tree pits which are represented here by the hollowed circles.

D

The there are a number of different types of trees, linden and oak trees are the most common in the project area today, and you can see how those compare to the types, the 10 most common species that maggie showed earlier.

D

So you can see there are some overlapping, but uh you can also see that the trees that are existing on comets today are contributing to the diversity of trees and cummins, because there are a lot of trees that aren't among the 10 most common.

D

This slide shows what those trees look like. Not these are not images from cummins itself, but are images of the trees in their when they are or older and I'll get back to age. In just a moment, I will note that I believe nathaniel is going to drop into the chat, the slides um from this presentation, and each of these is actually a link. So you can click and learn more about that tree.

D

The event trees on cummins tend to be smaller, and so this graph here shows is their diameter at breast height, uh which is how we measure tend to measure the uh the size of trees and their age and for about how old they are. um And so you can see, the ones on cummins are tend to be between one and nine inches, and you can see in comparison to the.

D

This is all of this uh street trees in the city. um How those stack up.

D

Additionally, there are a few trees on commons today that aren't very healthy. As maggie mentioned city-wide, we have an issue with ash trees, and maybe kyle could speak to this a little bit more about whether the three ash trees that are on cummins are affected by the ash borer, but they're, not in the in great health. uh There are also three linden trees that are in port a fair condition. On the plus side, the remainder of the trees are in excellent or good health, and we want to keep them that way.

D

The uh it's very important to us that the trees that are there today that are healthy, that we do everything we can do to protect them. When we reconstruct cummins we'll be sure that the trunks of the trees get protected with something like on this image to the.

B

D

Here some boards, we can also put fences around the trees, the tree pit to protect branches and roots.

D

This is important again as maggie mentioned, that stepping and compacting on the um the area right around the tree where their roots are, can cause damage uh and when we're constructing, we have a lot of heavy equipment and, in an instance where there is some unavoidable compaction, we can also use a device, like the one, this gentleman's holding here, to use high pressure air to address that compaction.

D

We also, as I mentioned earlier, have an opportunity to add new trees. uh This is really.

B

D

We have the ability to also make sure that these trees are more evenly spaced, particularly thinking about that that eastern side of the corridor, we are going to be shooting for larger tree pits and larger stature trees, and so we would ideally be trying to space them out around 30 feet apart from each other, so that they have the ability to get to their full canopy size.

D

There are some places that we don't want to put trees uh and we're learning more about the the environment uh over the next few months as we're advancing in the design. But there's some things. We're keeping an eye out.

E

There's underground.

D

Utilities there's also in this area of the city, uh some ledge, so it's a type of rock that's fairly high up in very close to the soil surface and in those sort of situations the trees might not have enough space to be healthy. So we don't want to set any new trees. We want.

B

D

To be set up for success, so we're going to be keeping an eye out for things that could get in the way. Additionally, we want to be careful not to be planting trees, too close to light poles or fire hydrants loading zones driveways, or we keep a eye out for sight lines as well. So we want to plant trees far enough from a corner.

B

D

That a car can or someone driving in a car can see around that corner and then we're also making sure that wherever we do plant a tree, there's enough space for it to thrive.

D

And one of the things we're doing right now is making sure that, throughout the quarter, we annie's that we set aside a zone for trees.

D

So this image shows a cross section of the roadway and you can see that we're planning for tree zones on either side, um usually that they'll be between the sidewalk and the bike lane and we're making sure that the pits are wide enough to really sustain a full large mature tree.

D

There are some places as as we spoke about where there are existing trees and, of course, as we mentioned, we really want to protect those and so we're making sure that the design accommodates those trees.

D

In some instances, that means that the sidewalks will be a tad narrower than other areas, so the sidewalk may stay the width it is today, rather than in other places we will be able to expand the sidewalk, but we think that the keeping these mature, healthy trees is is worth that and there in some places there may only be room for trees to be planted on one side of the roadway.

D

This is only this is a small portion of the roadway that this will be the case, and it's usually where there's a additional travel lane that is needed and takes up some space that we in other areas are able to allocate to the tree zone.

D

All right so the exciting part uh selecting these new trees. um We are looking for trees that will provide shade, because you know that's important for people walking biking along the roadway.

D

We are also choosing trees that lose their leaves in the winter, and these are deciduous trees, and the reason for that is that evergreen trees have more of a have more branches lower towards the ground and that can get in the way of sight lines, so we're looking for deciduous trees, where the first branches are higher up and again kind of reiterating this point about the the street being a challenging environment for most trees. So we are specifically looking for trees that can thrive here um and the urban street with some of the challenges.

D

Maggie spoke to assault of um pests, uh drought and we're also looking for trees that are gonna survive in our climate, both now and as the climate changes and worms over the coming years.

D

The other important point in terms of selecting trees is making sure that we have a diverse city of trees that we're planting and that's going to help us prevent instances like where the emerald ash borer is devastating large swaths of our canopy. So if we have a mix of trees, it's less likely that something like that will that one pest will damage a large portion of the trees and we're gonna keep be very careful to make sure we're picking the right tree for the right location. So on along the length of cummins.

D

There's differences on one side of the roadway, there's more light and one side there's less light. So we're going to make sure that we're selecting trees that do really well for where they are cited and once they're planted. We want to make sure that they stay healthy again. We're setting them up for success by making sure they have enough space and choosing the locations properly, making sure we're choosing robust species and then once they're planted we're going to make sure that we're maintaining them and watering them consistently.

D

For the first two years, which is very a critical period in their growth.

D

Yeah now I want to touch a little bit on this issue of compaction, so in if you're familiar with the quarter, you may notice that in in some places- and this is actually this picture to the right here- it's a picture of a street tree on on cummins and maybe a little hard to see. But there is some heaving of the sidewalk where the roots are very close to the to the surface.

D

uh This was is particularly prevalent further towards the east um of the roadway, and the reason this happens is that when tree roots, don't have enough uh spa enough space if they're not getting enough nutrients and water um they're, they're gonna try to expand, try to grow, and but when they hit um obstructions challenges, especially when there's the soil has been compacted they're gonna change direction.

D

They may stop growing and sometimes they're gonna adapt by being really close to the surface of the soil and when they're located there it they can take advantage of cracks in the sidewalk and the pavement that occur through the freeze boss cycles, and that can that's what causes the heaving that you may observe and makes it difficult for people to be walking on the sidewalks.

D

So, thankfully, this um we have tools for this and ways to make sure it doesn't happen. One of those besides for making sure we're giving enough space for the trees in their pits. We can also use something called structural soil under sidewalks, and so structural soil is soil that is resistant to being compacted, and that makes sure that tree roots have plenty of room to expand even outside of their pit and under the sidewalk, and that they also. It also keeps soils oxygenated and allows for water, drainage.

D

So that um I hope you're as excited as I am about the the trees that we're going to get to plant here, um we I we are still in the design process, and so we don't know exactly how many new trees there will be um and exactly where they're going to be located.

D

uh We will, however, host another meeting uh later uh in this process um to share some of those details.

D

All right, so that is um the content we have about about street trees. At this point, I'm going to open it up for questions.

D

We can be curious to hear any that I haven't been monitoring. The chat um I'd be curious to hear what people have to say, and I believe jeff is gonna- be kind of moderating uh the q a here um so I'll pass it over to jeff.

A

Yes, love everyone. um Once again, um I know there was a couple of questions that came through the chat um while we were presenting. um I believe um those questions might have been addressed, but.

E

Yeah, let me start yeah thanks nathaniel go forward.

F

um So I just wanted to elevate a question that came up from chad fletcher.

F

The question was: have you conducted any research on trees that are most beneficial to urban environments and those most likely to thrive in an urban environment?.

C

Yeah, that is an excellent question. um I'll start with that one, if you don't mind, um we are doing research about what trees seem to be doing well, uh what are the climate trends showing us and you know which species maybe should we begin to emphasize more planting of or add to our palette, um so we are researching, which ones will most likely survive, but dang warm days like today where they trick the trees, and you know having these a few of these in a row. They trick them into budding.

C

I don't really know how we we get around that that's a hard one, but well you can try to choose things that will uh fight through that. As for beneficial for for the urban uh setting, you know that's an interesting one. I think um you know when it comes to air quality. There is some science there um storm water management. You know how much canopy does a tree have we are looking at those sorts of things about what services can they provide.

F

We got another question from susie, but it looks like uh susie has her hand raised. Also, would you like to unmute and say your question out loud, or would you like us to to read it for you.

E

Yeah hi um I'm a resident, and um so I walk cummins highway and I've been watching with great interest. All of the changes you've been experimenting with, and I also am quite aware of the condition of the trees around the roadway. It's very sad- um and I know planting trees is a beautiful thing, but um I'm wondering how a tree can survive on a road like cummins highway. um The amount of salt that's dumped on that road is unbelievable.

E

um The plows will pretty much destroy anything in their path that um and then I've seen maintenance people in other neighborhoods, for instance, on the arbor way um mowing, and then they just bump into trees and scar up the bottoms of them, and so I as much as I love trees. I wonder you know, are we perhaps being a little optimistic on our end to think that they're actually going to make it once they're in.

E

And and having them on, the road is fabulous. I think that would be great.

E

I'm also wondering what control, if any, your department has over the trees that are dying and dead and not being replaced in on, for instance, mount cavalry cemetery, which is a catholic cemetery, mount hope cemetery, which I also walk in every day, um I would say about 50 of the trees in both of those um very large areas are dead dying or have gone, um because I can see the pits where they used to be especially in mount hope, which is a city cemetery.

E

um It would be fabulous to see those trees being replaced, because I think those trees would really be able to survive, whereas the ones on commons.

E

um You know, I think, if everybody could get on the same page about them being important that'd be great. um Thank you.

A

C

Want to take this.

A

C

Sure I'll start, that is an excellent question um or point uh that you bring up susie. It does require a little bit of good faith, um given um our city's history with street trees, and I would say that that's why one of the things that gives me a little more hope with the cummins highway project is that the design guidelines will be different and also informed by the urban forest plan, not to mention the team's knowledge and advancing priorities on protecting trees.

C

So you know in some ways we can better protect trees against plows and other sorts of stressors like or mbta buses. Sometimes they take out a tree part of that is we have old roadways or old sidewalks and they haven't been updated, and so, if we make those updates, there's more hope for the trees and when it comes to you know, making sure all city departments are on the same page.

C

I understand that it is hard we're massive um and that's part of the reason why we included the city staff on the community advisory board as one of the bodies, the intergovernmental working group and that's partly to bring everyone together and in the same room, to talk about honestly what the issues are and for staff to hear firsthand um what it's like to live with, what their people are seeing with the lived experiences, and it will come down to really strong cultural adoption within the city, not only among departments, but then when people are actually in the field, making sure that we have the right oversight and controls and policy to make sure that we're really discouraging any sort of you know dangerous, behavior and encouraging.

C

You know care for those and then when it comes to planting and replacement of trees, and especially in our park system, you're right like much less stressful than a sidewalk and uh right now, for instance, though, the parks department doesn't have a planting budget for trees and parks, which is interesting. We only recently got a small pruning budget for trees and parks.

C

So the urban forest plan is doing like a financial analysis, looking at all these things and saying, if you really want to do better, this is kind of the money and staffing and policy you're going to need to do that because you're right, you know, we are essentially in a situation where we only plant new trees in rare occasions or when we have a renovation or redesign of a place.

E

G

uh Yeah, I first would like to just reiterate what susie said, because I agree with all that I I live on pleasant view, and so I'm particularly interested, I mean I'm interested in all the trees, but we have this section of commons. That's on the top of the hill, that's just beyond what I didn't realize that the this project ended at harvard wood intersection.

G

um I put in a tree request a little while back and they responded that this construction project would basically deal with that, and so now I'm learning that it has nothing to do with that section of the road which proportionately, has way way more empty pits and way fewer trees, uh some of which are dead and dying.

G

So I'm wondering why that section of road was not considered that they did the experimentation with the bike lane on this section as well and made a huge mess of the road, because people would just run over the partitions and the plows plow them all over.

G

So I'm wondering why I wonder why that section of road is not part of this plan.

A

I can jump into that one. um Thank you joseph. We appreciate you you're questioning your comment. um No, I I agree with you 100. um We did look at that section of cummins highway um from what I have to american legion highway and we are making efforts to include that um in an additional phase um for the destruction of coming to highway. Unfortunately, we couldn't include it in this section um on in this project because of funding um it's it's.

A

We looked at the sidewalk work. um It's it's they're in definitely in in need of some attention. um We want to also install some um um new lighting along that section of cummins highway as well, um but yeah. Unfortunately, due to budgeting, we couldn't we couldn't. We couldn't include it in in this this project I mean, I think, a high order of magnitude estimate came up, came out to around three million dollars.

A

um I mean I, if you saw early in this presentation- and we were looking at coming to highway this this, this section, um being 12 million, went up to 24., um so we we are looking at it. We are looking to address it. um It just wouldn't be. It won't be included in this project; it will be included in the next one. um So we are looking at that section of of um comments highway and hoping to close that um close up close that loop, that we have um for this roadway.

A

um uh I I think maggie might be able to speak to um maybe the tree requests um for the the pits that are existing on on that section. um I I definitely mean I think in the presentation that she mentioned, that you mean retailer 311.. um I know they have extensive backlog of requests um for trees. um She may be kind of speaking more to that.

C

Well, uh yeah, I think you did the right thing by submitting the request for tree planting and it sounds like you know: the system has just got a little confused or you know maybe there's some sorting out to do about you know like. Can we plant a tree and can we revisit that idea?

C

So um if maybe you could email me with the information of the area and I can pass it on to the tree warden and see if there's any clarity or if that still stands as let's hold off, but I'd be happy to get into that because sometimes yeah, there's mix-ups. But I appreciate you going through that and trying.

D

Looks like chad, fletcher submitted a question in the chat says I wanted to ask about any research done that informs a city about the condition of existing trees on cummins highway, wondering in particular, when they were originally planted.

D

And I wonder if um that's a question I don't know if maybe maggie or maybe kyle who's the landscape architect um on the project team might have information about the the trees on cummins itself.

C

Yeah, I can I'll give you the first step I'll.

B

H

C

No you, uh you can start.

H

Well, um determining the age of trees is difficult and the best we can do is use the diameter as a basis for that judgment and the statistics that jen showed in terms of the diameter most of the trees were less than like nine inches, and there were a couple outliers that were bigger, um so you could see that we've got five trees that are two inches. You know three inches and then four that are two two, um but most of them are under nine inches and then it's one at 17 and 124.

H

My guess is, you know, the ones that are 17 and 24 are probably from could be from the 1970s or 80s um and all the ones smaller than 9 inches are less than 10 years old. Although in an urban environment tree pit, some trees can stop growing and stay at a certain size for a long time. So, um unfortunately, the only way to really know is to either cut down the tree or you can take a boring, but neither one of those is good for the tree.

H

So um generally I mean what this is telling us. We have a lot of young trees that were probably planted in the past 20 years um and most of those in the last five to ten years.

B

D

All right, I'm not seeing any additional questions, um but if you do have one, please feel free to put it in the chat or you can raise your hand.

A

It was such a great presentation. We answered everyone's questions.

D

All right, um I guess I'll, uh maybe move on to the oh uh kenya- has a question.

E

Can you hear me.

B

I

Okay, I don't have a question. I just want to um just make a comment um just as a resident. I don't live that far from cummins highway, but I just wanted to share that. I am excited that we're having this conversation about street trees along communist highway when I go to other major cities like dc maryland and even parts of atlanta. I love to see like in the metro area. There are these trees that really just enhance the neighborhood.

I

um So I'm excited to see that we're having this conversation and excited to see what's to come in in several years on, you know some of the improvements and the changes for cummins highway. That is very, very, very needed. I was on cummins highways today, just kind of you know taking my time going down the street just keeping the scene. If you will- and um you know it- a lot of work is necessary on campus highway and so trees is definitely one of them to add to the list.

I

So I just want to say thanks for having this conversation.

A

Thanks, can you appreciate it.

B

Yeah, thank you.

D

Awesome well, I will advance quickly uh back to where we were and share a bit about what's coming next for the cummins highway project.

D

So if you've been joining us during these conversations, you know that we're working towards creating a commons highway, that's safer and more accessible, we're hoping to transform it into a tree-lined neighborhood street uh proposed to the topic today, and we want it to be safer for families to walk, to wait for the bus to ride bikes or travel by vehicle. We also want to connect residents to the city's network of open spaces and make it easier for elders to cross the street.

D

So we've been at this since spring of 2019 and at the moment we are well into the design now um and, as we've been moving, this design forward. We've been having very frequent touch points where we have been hosting events like this to talk about different aspects of the design and how they are informing the what we're working on so I'll walk through a very brief summary high-level summary of what we've where we've been and what we've talked about and then share.

D

What's coming up next in these conversations, so we kicked off the conversations uh back in well.

D

As I mentioned, we had some previous community meetings, but this this specific kind of venue of virtual conversations began in june 2021, we hosted a special edition of a t-talk with charles t brown, a discussion about the ways mobility of black americans is limited in the us, through police policies and polity.

D

Charles, if you were there, you know it was a fantastic conversation.

D

Charles is twitter. I think nathaniel just put into the chat so go ahead and follow him or visit his website in july. Then we followed up with two meetings with the city's environment department. We talked about the city's heat, resilience, study and the redesign of cummins, and we also talked about air quality and how transportation policies and design influence our quality and that input informed. An exciting development where we have air quality sensors now installed on cummins highway.

D

This is a partnership between the city's environment department, public works department and the mayor's office of new urban mechanics. There's now eight air quality sensors along or near cummins highway. You may have seen them they're signs, I'm told just went up and these sensors are measuring particulate matter as well as nitrogen dioxide.

D

The we're hoping to learn more about the effect that this project has on local air quality and how to we can use that data that we're collecting.

E

D

How to make that type of data accessible to everyone, and so on that last point there will be an online dashboard that we'll be able to share later this year. So look forward to that, and so after air quality we moved on to talk about the intersection of land use and transportation.

D

We had invited folks from plan matapan uh in the boston, planning and development.

B

D

To talk about their work and then in september we shifted the focus to street lighting and opportunities to improve that in the reconstruction- and I know nathaniel is busy dropping in links where you can learn a bit more. I know I'm going very high level here, but each of these conversations was as.

B

D

As this one, so please do kind of check those out.

D

In october we talked to the boston, public health commission about the connection between street design, health and well-being, and then, just last month we hosted a meeting to talk about bus stops on cummins highway.

D

And that leads us to um next month will be on march 19th. Oh sorry, march 29th uh we'll be talking about roundabouts and intersections in the cummins highway redesign.

D

So you can already register at the link that is on this page and that nathaniel is dropping in the chat. We hope to see you there and, as always, we're gonna end with some additional resources about other exciting happenings in matapan and the broader uh area, so we're in dorchester.

D

um So we have the well first a reminder about the what maggie already advertised the urban forest master plan, virtual, open house.

D

I think daniel's dropped that in the chat monday march 14th at 5, 30.

D

and all right, another exciting news. um Last time we showed this, it was the route 28. Now it's route, 23, 28 and 29 are all free um for two years, and you can learn more about that at the link on this page and how to how to access that. um Then there is a youth-focused tea talk this saturday, it's focusing on blue hill avenue as a place. It's strictly for matapan youth, age, 10 to 19., there's a chance to win a gift card.

D

So definitely please share this with younger folks in your life.

D

There's a winter walk at the boston nature center hosted by spark boston, which is the mayor's council for younger adults.

D

There's going to be a documentary film at the matapan branch library, with activist educator and philosopher angela davis and a cooking class. This was hosted by bond of color and the matapan food and fitness coalition, actually sorry, not just a class. It's a series of classes uh and the registration for that you can find at matapanfoodnfit.org.

D

I mentioned we were talking about dorchester too, so there's going to be, um there's plans in the works for a new community center, a bcyf center um and there's a meeting about that on february 28th and then tonight uh since looks like we may be ending a little bit early. You could probably still jump on to a virtual meeting about community choice: electricity, uh it's hosted by mothers out front west roxbury, keep hyde park, beautiful and the city's environment department.

D

You can learn more about how to save money through the city's collective purchasing of electricity, and then we couldn't have a transportation event without promoting blue bikes. We do have discounted passes for blue bikes, which is our public bike share system.

D

People who participate in public assistance programs or otherwise having have a qualifying income can receive a discount so check out that link there and the city of boston is dedicating federal funds to help boston residents who have been economically impacted by the pandemic and are having difficulty paying rent. So you can for more information about eligibility and resources and to apply you can visit the link that daniel has just put in the chat now all right and finally um we'd love it.

D

If you would stay in touch- and I say that for both the folks on the commentary project and the folks and maggie and and the.

E

D

At the environment department so do check out the urban force plan website and attend that open house and on this page are ways to the link to the cummins highway project website. Where you can sign up for emails, you can also sign up to chat with us and you can reach out to jeff woozy email is uh on this page and who introduced this meeting.

D

Let's see, I think that that takes us to the end, so I guess I'll before signing off just wanted to provide one more opportunity. If anyone had any questions before we.

B

E

D

All right, thank you, nathaniel for dropping in um they don't just put in all of the meetings slide. The slides, both in english, spanish and haitian creole, um so uh definitely welcome to revisit those and thank you so much for for joining us tonight. It was a real pleasure, uh we're so glad you're here and we hope to see you in a month.

B

A

Thank you, everyone. You have a good night.

E

And stop recording hannah.