Boston City TV, MA City of Boston Transportation Department, 7 Dec 2021

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From YouTube: Pleasant Street Virtual Meeting

Description

Virtual meeting held on December 7, 2021 at 6:30 P.M. by the Boston Transportation Department. We introduced the project team and the purpose of the project. We shared what we've heard from residents and stakeholders so far. We then reviewed the tools we use to create safer streets and the next steps for the project. Finally, we opened the meeting up for residents' stories and experiences.

For more information visit boston.gov/pleasant-street

A

All right well, so you found yourself uh at the um pleasant street um meeting. um So, uh let's see oh and yes, thank you. Dan is gonna, be watching the reading room, so I can give the presentation. Thank you dan, all right, so the agenda tonight we're gonna, do just a round of introductions, so you can meet the project team. Then we'll talk a little bit about the purpose of the project.

A

What we've heard so far the tools that we in the transportation department use to create safer streets, some next steps for the project and then there'll be an opportunity for your input.

A

A brief introduction. My name is jen rowe I go by she or they pronouns. I'm a planner with the transportation department on the active transportation team and uh being a planner can mean a lot of things, but for the purposes of this project, it's that I'm kind of managing the the process uh making sure that we we hear from you and that um we get this project built and so and I'll pass it to my colleague dan who's, the engineer with the project to introduce himself and share what he does.

B

Hi my name's dan marrow, I'm a professional engineer, and I work with the active transportation group for the city of boston on these projects. Generally, I am in charge of reviewing them and making sure they are up to city code as well as as safe, as can possibly be following city and federal guidelines.

A

Thanks dan and then we also have with us today a spanish interpreter susana and she is in the spanish channel right now, so she can't really introduce herself, but maybe she can. She can wave and also um tara. Who is with our engineering consultant team, uh kittleson uh tara. Would you want to introduce yourself as well?

A

Hey I'm grateful to be here, I'm with kittleson, and I'm excited to work on this project with you all thanks. Sarah awesome so I'll launch right into our uh presentation um during this portion of the meeting uh the chat is um purposefully off.

A

I mean you can message the project team, um but we we like to not have like two meetings going on at the same time, um because it makes it difficult for all people to be able to follow, um but we will open the chat up later on when we get to the discussion, so that folks, who prefer to ask questions that way, can do so all right, so speak a little bit to the project.

A

The goal here is to calm traffic speeds, to make the roadway safer for everyone, and we're also particularly interested in making crosswalks better for people biking and walking for kids, for older adults and for people with disabilities, and we call out those specific roadway users, because those are the most vulnerable people on the road and we want to make sure we are particularly designing for their needs.

A

The the scope of the project is pleasant street between east cottage street and sawyer avenue, and you can see that on the nice map we have here, um we can make changes to pleasant street um and it's the intersections of pleasant street that are non-signalized.

A

Unfortunately, we're not able at this time to make changes to the signalized intersection at stoughton street um and that that is for a number of reasons and dan can speak a little bit more to that a little later on, but at um at this point the the project is just um incorporates those uh non-signalized intersections and generally, when we go about designing projects with the transportation department.

A

We start off with some observations, so we've uh been on pleasant street. We've observed the the speeding that happens and some dangerous conditions uh for people walking.

A

uh We then look at data to make sure that what we're observing is uh is actually um like how it plays out over the course of the day, uh we'll share a little bit about that tonight, and then we also want to hear from you. We want to hear what you're experiencing on the street uh hear your stories.

A

We did a little bit of that already. We did a walk of the corridor, which um I recognize a few folks from that walk and then, when we'll hear that today as well and then we combine all those uh different inputs and that leads us to our design proposal, um which we will uh share with you. uh And so that's that's. This is the beginning of the process um right now, and um this is how we kind of start something off all right.

A

So with that I'm gonna pass it on to to dan to speak a little bit about the data side of this this project and what we've seen so far.

B

Thanks jen, uh so uh earlier uh in october, we went out, and we collected uh speed data at the locations where there's the red lines on pleasant street.

B

We have machines that will measure the speed of the the vehicles there. uh Additionally, we counted how many people were walking and biking through these intersections as well. So when we look at that data in amalgamation,.

B

This is the first place that we looked at. You can see. The speeds are broken up into uh 1 to 24 miles an hour, so this is below uh the posted speed limit 25 to 29, which is 5 miles over 30 to 39 and 40 plus. um So you can see at this location, the majority of people are going. The speed limit, there's still a significant amount that are going uh zero to five miles over the posted speed limit and some that are going up to 15 over uh at this location.

B

So if we move to the next one uh you'll notice here at trescott street, uh we actually have a significant uptick in the amount of vehicles uh going zero to five miles, no mile zero to five miles an hour over as well as a slight uptick in the 30 to 39 mile an hour, and it's important to note that these speeds are seem small in a vehicle, but they become increasingly deadly to people on foot or by bike. So any any increase in these amounts are not.

C

B

And the last place we looked was at hinckley street, where you can see yet again, there has been an increase in some places. Almost half of all the vehicles are going over the speed limit some amount and again we have a significant amount going over even 30 miles an hour which is much more dangerous for people walking and biking in the area.

B

So uh actually I guess that's all. We really need to say about that. um We also go and we look at how many vehicles are using the street, so this kind of just gives you an idea of the patterns at east cottage street, where the main movements are so right. Now the majority of the vehicles are going through pleasant over towards columbia road, uh while we do still have a significant amount of vehicles, making uh rights and lefts onto pleasant uh and the southbound street, um and then this is the same place in the evening.

B

There's a significant amount of right turns onto pleasant street at this point, uh but the rest of the um the rest of the amounts are are lessened comparatively.

B

And uh this is just how many people are out there crossing the street um to get you know possibly to the park or uh in and around columbia road. uh As you can see, the majority of people are crossing are crossing pleasant street at this intersection.

A

All right, thank you dan. So now I'll speak a little bit to the other factor mentioned earlier, which is what we hear from you, and so we've heard from you so far through a few different ways. One emails and phone calls that we received after we mailed out postcards.

A

Hopefully some of you receive those postcards and that's part of the reason you're here today. We also had a walking tour on october 23rd.

A

These pictures on the slide are from that tour and we walked the length of street and back and uh heard from folks about what what you're seeing on the street and then we're also having conversations with some non-residential stakeholders like the edward edward everett school, um the principal there and as well as folks from bcr.

A

So a few of the things we have heard, um one crossings don't feel safe. We know that in many instances drivers aren't stopping or yielding at crosswalks. um We even heard this from the school principal about where even a crossing guard wasn't getting folks to stop. um We also heard that there's no curb ramp across from victoria street, um so that makes that uh crossing uh difficult for anyone who might be using a wheelchair or another assistant mobility device.

A

We also hear that drivers are making some fast turns, um particularly we heard this about drivers that are taking place. I.

B

Think, there's no there's no characters. I think for you, knowing you- and I think, for me too, is like there's no character.

A

um uh Yes, so um we heard- let's see so particularly the side streets, um that drivers are making sharp turns off of them um and that they're often looking for gaps in the traffic um uh and to try to find a gap in the traffic uh they you know maybe contributes to the speed at which they're taking this turn, um but that those turns uh might they might not be having the time um to look out for who else might be um in that area.

A

um We also heard a lot about east cottage street and that drivers are not fully stopping at the stop sign and sometimes feeding through the intersection.

A

We heard about visibility that uh in many cases, drivers are parking very close to the intersections of the the side streets and that that can lead to poor visibility um and the additionally, the curvature of the street between sawyer avenue and stoughton street can make for poor visibility at that crosswalk, and we certainly observe that, when we're out there with the principal during dismissal time and that often drivers don't notice the signs for the school and then some overall issues around speeding, which we saw in the data as well.

A

We heard particularly that cyclists sometimes feel that they pressured to either go faster or pull to the side and that can kind of lead to a dangerous situation where they have to weave in and weave out and that drivers are using the street as a cut through to avoid stop lights at columbia, road and dorchester avenue. I mean that some of those drivers are drivers of large trucks and duck boats and buses.

A

So those are the the overall issues we've heard and again we'll um provide. We know that that's probably not all-encompassing, you probably have more to say as well. um We hope that that covers a lot of um the themes that we heard, um but we will provide another opportunity at the end of this to to add, add in a bit more.

A

So, um oh and then a few other notes, um some other concerns that we heard weren't ones that we can necessarily directly address with this project. So we did want to highlight that 3-1-1.

A

The app is a great way to report issues like street lighting that needs repair, drag racing sidewalks that are in poor condition or trash or sweet street sweeping issues.

A

So that's uh something we want to bring to your attention and then I'll pass it back to dan to speak about some of the potential tools that we have at our disposal before we open things up.

B

Thanks, jen, okay, so uh as we are putting together streets, we run into the same issues in a lot of places um and so a lot of those issues we have names for, and this is just a a piece of what we use in our toolbox to to combat these issues. um The first one we're going to show you is clear corners.

B

As you can see in this picture, there are drivers parked very close to a crosswalk. It can block light of sight and you can't see people who may or may not be in the crosswalk at this time. So we do. Is we do something called daylighting, where we block the first 20 feet up to a crosswalk off to greatly increase the visibility of people using the uh the crosswalk. uh This matches, uh our our state laws, anyways, where we should be having people parking within 20 feet of a crosswalk.

B

It just reinforces it with um some some bollards which are the or I guess, flex, posts which are the the things sticking up on the road and some paint to really really reinforce. This. Isn't an area to be parked in.

B

uh The other thing we go with is high visibility, crosswalks um some you may see in other cities um a little less paint on these boston goes for pretty much as much paint as we can go for in these crosswalks, and we try to make them all consistently sized and shaped so that people know what they look like and what to expect.

B

We use high visibility paint and we go with a very thick ladder like you can see here. uh Another thing we can do to combat speeding is raise crosswalks. um So if you notice here, um the pedestrians don't actually ramp down at the streets, the street will ramp up to the pedestrians level.

B

So this kind of identifies this area as a pedestrian space, making it a nice easy clear, walk across and it also forces drivers to slow as they use the area, because there is a change in elevation, so it it slows down vehicles that uh that use the area.

B

Another tool that we have is the curb extension, so you've probably seen this a few places around boston. It's what we have on the left here, we'll bump the curve out um about six feet and that does the uh dual uh purpose of one preventing vehicles from parking there and two providing pushing out the pedestrians and giving them a safe area farther out, so that it is easier for vehicles to see them from a farther distance.

B

And in some areas where we have very wide streets, um we may have room for uh crossing islands. um This again does dual duty of providing pedestrian protection, so you only really have to cross one leg of a two lane road at a time as well as deflecting cars, which can also cause them to slow, which is what we want around these areas. Anyways generally, this is reserved for things like mid block crossings, like you see here not for intersections.

B

And in the same vein of again slowing down people, we have a lot of wide intersections in boston where roads don't meet perfectly perpendicular and that allows vehicles to kind of speed through them. Maybe ignore the stop sign, and this leads to a lot of crashes. um One thing we can do for that is called teeing off the intersection, and this is taking those y intersections and adding some extra concrete to kind of straighten it out. This lets the cars approach, the intersection at a 90 degree angle.

B

It slows down their turns and it makes a shorter crossing distance for pedestrians that are using the space.

A

All right, thank you dan. So now I'll uh talk through what the next steps are for pleasant street. um So in the this coming winter, we're going to be reviewing um your concerns, so anything that you that you share today or that we hear in the next coming weeks.

A

In addition, we're going to do some engineering field work to evaluate some of the potential interventions, so basically matching up the types of tools that dan shared with the kind of context on plant pleasant street.

A

Seeing what will work where then in the spring, we'll come back to you with some concept designs, so a proposal of here's, what we'd like to what we could see working and in which location and uh we'll we will make some adjustments at that point, based on your feedback and then in the summer, in the fall of 2022, we will be working with other departments and agencies to kind of further fine-tune the design and share some updates with you, as that kind of process rolls along.

A

So with that, we want to hear from you um where I'll open up I'll open up the chat and um also uh we can call you feel free to raise your hand, and we can call on you um uh if you, you know, for whatever reason don't want to to share kind of in the public setting. You can also email your ideas um to pleasant street boston.gov.

A

That email address goes to dan and me, and so we'll be sure to see it, and you can also go to the project website and we encourage you to do that so and to sign up for project updates. um So if you add in your email, there you'll be sure to hear when there's another meeting or anything else of note.

A

So I think with that, I will go ahead and make the adjustment to open up the chat. Just a heads up about some nearby projects. um There's the mass ave, better bike project, um which has been fully designed and will be constructed in the spring, um to have a protected bike lanes going in both directions on mass ave uh between columbia, road and melnia. Cass.

A

um There's uh dan mentioned uh that there's a there's, the neighborhood slow streets projects and one one of which is very nearby hancock street, so please feel free to check out uh that that project. um uh We also mentioned the um there's.

A

A dot block, development um and kind of uh another um planning effort by the boston planning and development agency was playing glover's corner, and so there were some, um I actually don't know the exact status now I know that there were some at least draft findings released from that, um but we'll be sure to coordinate with the folks at um folks there as well um uh that just to kind of clarify the transportation department does um you know uh we will review any um anything that comes out of a boston planning, development agency, bpd project, um uh and we coordinate closely on that.

A

I think the plan glover's corner is at a stage where they don't have um uh exact kind of kind of uh plans yet um and then do unless you have. I haven't heard it otherwise, okay, great so anyway,.

B

A

The the the projects that we that we know of nearby um that you might want to check out as well and finally I'll um leave it on this slide here. um Please really do uh go to the website and sign up for that that email list, because we'd love to see you at our future events as this project progresses, and I see that we have a question from james james pitts and let me ask you to unmute.

C

So and again, thank you for having this. So where are we leaving this?

C

Is there going to be some kind of immediate, like action at east cottage and pleasant, or you know down the literally down the lane, but it I mean, or is this another thing I mean after years of calling before action?

C

Is this just going to take another year year and a half before something can get done? I mean we're talking about an intersection with the playground there, where we've already had.

C

You know instances of testimony tonight where stuff has happened there, that is life endangering, and so is there anything that could be put forward quickly to at least try and and stutter this to try and stop it a little bit.

C

Do you have any? uh I.

B

Can I can answer that question for you, james as.

C

Part of this project.

B

uh We won't be doing anything immediately. This is the design for the larger future uh project. um You can make your problems known in 311 and also to the like, as I had said earlier, um email to the this website or to the email gen on the previous slide. I believe um you're concerned that we should be doing something kind of a quick improvement sooner and we can get those to people who may be able to help with that. So I can't promise anything to you right now. It's not my place to promise that.

B

But if, if that happens, I will be part of the design and I'll do what I can to get things out.

C

And I believe you dan and that's great, but I mean we've been calling for at least a couple years, and you know- and it's nice that you guys doing this- it's really great because it's a long-term project but we've been calling about immediate situations, and you know the city just doesn't move on that and that's very frustrating to us who live in the neighborhood when you have to deal with. Can I cross this crosswalk without somebody running through this? Stop sign that they can't see.

B

Yeah uh I get it, I don't think I can tell you anything that you want to hear right now uh we have hundreds of crosswalks, like that in the city, um we're working very hard to deal with as many of them as we can right now.

B

Jen and I are actually part of an entirely new team that was hired a couple years ago to really dig into these issues, um and we've done a lot, but there's only so many of us and we're going to keep working hard and we're going to do as much as fast as we can.

B

But you know, like you said it is a city uh there's a lot of you know: government wheels grinding there that we got to go through, so the best you can do is tell us that you have problems here and we can take that and try and turn it into action. So again, thank you for telling us that the more things that you guys write in the more we can do, you know tell your counselors about it. Send the emails.

B

These things are all helpful. All.

C

Right thanks man, yeah.

A

One thing I'll add to what dan said too, is that our positions came about. You know to a great degree because of folks saying we need more people to be doing this type of work uh more quickly, so um uh things things do change and move forward. So that's all.

C

No, I mean- and I know it's hard work I I worked for government for a while and it and he's right.

C

The grinds of government are slow, but you know, god help us all if a child gets hit by a car at an intersection, and we could have done something about it. You know.

B

Thank you for uh speaking up james all.

C

B

Jen I'll hand it back to you.

A

Yeah, um so I think uh I don't see anyone else in having raised questions in the chat or uh raised hands, so I think uh it might be a good good point to um call this a night. um I uh again, um please feel free to go to the website and sign up for that list.

A

Email, us uh email, us anything that you think about later tonight and wished you said um that we'll make sure it all gets noted down and that um and we uh we read it over and also um pass it along to the engineers over at kittleson who we're working with as well. So um thank you so much for for joining us tonight. We look forward to hopefully seeing.

C

A

All again, when we have some concepts to share.