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Comm. Ave. revamp could mean a pedestrian-friendly intersection with Harvard Ave.
By adamg on Fri, 10/02/2015 - 9:32am
Rendering of possible pedestrian plaza on Comm. Ave. inbound at Harvard.
An upcoming $20-million revamp of Comm. Ave. from Packards Corner to Warren Street could include new plazas at Harvard Avenue aimed at turning the huge intersection into a place where people would actually want to hang out.
At a meeting of the Brighton Allston Improvement Association last night, Public Works project manager Zach Wassmouth showed a conceptual sketch of an intersection where parking spaces in front of the TD Bank and Inbound Pizza have been replaced with a tree-lined plaza.
Wassmouth said the new intersection - which could also include lane-narrowing bumpouts in front of where Marty's and Kelly's used to be and the McDonald's - would be the "wow" to cap the Comm. Ave. project, which will also include dedicated bike lines on both sides of the avenue from Packards Corner to Warren, as well as new trees along the avenue.
Wassmouth emphasized nothing has yet been set in stone; he acknowledged one issue with the Harvard Avenue idea is what to do about the parking that would be lost.
He said work could begin in 2018 and take two years to complete.
Wassmouth said there's a meeting for people who want more details: 6:30 p.m. on Oct. 27 at the Brighton Marine Health Center.
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Comments
Wow
Was that rendering made with a potato?
That being said, yay for pedestrian friendly improvements to my neighborhood!
7 years of art
school down the drain....
There are something like 6
There are something like 6 lanes of traffic on Comm Ave there if you count the interior parking lanes? Plus 3 rows of parking! And of course you have cars blocking the green line around there and sometimes even running into the trolleys. So yes, reducing car lanes and giving the many pedestrians around there more than a narrow little sidewalk sounds like a excellent idea.
A win for vegetation
that seems to be gaining the most in the photo. Will there be a mobile app to sign up for the one table?
[edit: the vegetation areas become a net collecting street litter and cigarette butts. The curbing surround is a trip hazard]
Translation
WHAT ABOUT THE CARS???? WON'T SOMEBODY PLEASE THINK OF THE POOR CARS!!??? THIS IS ANTI-CAR!! ANTI-CAR!!! WAAAAAAAHHH!!!
Waahhhhhh!! Pedestrian bumpouts!!
How will I go 60 mph on Communist Ave with those things??? I have a convertible! Low income housing, bike lanes!!!! BOOHOO
If for people, make more seating!
I wrote nothing about cars. If the goal was to make the area for people, don't waste it on vegetation and dog poop collection space - put more seating there instead.
And when exactly, did you
And when exactly, did you become a credentialed urban planner?
Whooooooosh
Right over your head there, Mark.
While Markk is not a very
While Markk is not a very popular person and not winning allies here. I will agree that on the list of priorities for Harvard Ave with space at a premium to accommodate all modes, I would put vegetation as dead last. Better more a bench or more sidewalk. And yes, better a parking spot than a bush.
NO BENCHES
Seriously, any place along there that encouraged sitting or loitering quickly became surrounded by litter, loitering, panhandling, shady drug dealing, etc., and filth. Easily 90% of the situations I encountered in Allston that ever made me uncomfortable happened within a 500 foot radius of the Harvard-Comm Ave intersection.
So you are against the space being for people
If people loitering are a problem, what would be the point of taking the space from being used for parking or other useful things?
Personally, I enjoy being
Personally, I enjoy being able to sit down here and there. Even though I can see the issue you raise. I still advocate plants as a lower priority over benches. At least benches is useful to someone. Plants looks nice, but I much rather have that place as more space to maneuver around people, a place for a car, a place to sit down, or basically anything else. The vegetation should only be there if other uses are not possible.
What the Commonwealth Ave
What the Commonwealth Ave Project really needs to focus on is the stretch of Comm Ave between the BU bridge and Packard's Corner. Because right now the traffic on it drives faster than on the Mass Pike. About 47 speed bumps and prioritizing the B line over crossing/turning street traffic should do the trick.
I really like the look of this plan for the Harvard and Comm Ave intersection... But...
I worry that making the area more accommodating will just make the sketchy people who hang out there now more numerous.
If they improve the streetscape they need to also improve patrolling against loitering and panhandling and drug use/sales and even basic things like littering.
Multiple phases
The Comm Ave redesign is conveniently broken down into 4 phases so that no one phase is the "focus." This entire thoroughfare is in dire need of fixing.
I live at Allston Street and Commonwealth Ave (five years and counting) which is one of the most accident prone intersections in Allston/Brighton, if not the entire city (per BPD officers and my own observance). I've frequently seen MV crashes where cars are going at least 50 miles per hour. BU Bridge to Packard's rarely sees crashes, aside from morons driving onto/getting stuck on the T tracks.
Also, as an Allston resident, I would like to see gathering places and public seating in the neighborhood, particularly at that intersection. Patrol against loitering? That's the WHOLE POINT of placemaking. Loiter away so that Allston isn't just a neighborhood of transients, but people who actually enjoy being and staying there.
Honestly, they should get rid
Honestly, they should get rid of half of the places you can come out of Brookline and turn left between BU West and Packard's. It's just unnecessary.
you should search for comm
you should search for comm ave phase 2a... which begins construction Spring 2016...
Yes....and no.
I lived for one summer above Pizzeria Uno (that was formally Ken's Pub and more recently the bank seen in this rendering) so that's my street cred on this topic.
I like the way this looks and agree that pedestrians and bikes need better accommodations in this area. With that said, you can't get rid of all that parking along the service road. That's HUNDREDS of spaces where people can park for free. Maybe if you just lost 10 spots in front of the Bank and Inbound Pizza on that side of Harvard and another 10 by Great Scott, you'd have room for the plaza and still keep the service road and it's parking.
This is about human use of an area
Not about free storage for personal property.
We need that parking
It fills every night, so clearly, the residents demand it. Put up lights in Ringer Park and loiter there.
It's bad enough we handed a bunch of spots to Herb Chambers already.
the parking fills up with
the parking fills up with cars from brookline residents and out-of-state license plates
yeah we should keep allston shitty so that tax-dodging leeches can park for free
good thinking
not to be TOO obvious here, but
in that part of town, out of state plates = college kids, so they're not exactly "dodging taxes" by parking there
Out of state plates is dodging taxes
The RMV doesn't get its fees to hand over to the MBTA. So, you want to force those kids to get Mass plates, resident parking stickers, AND have their schools buy them MBTA passes all to try and keep up with T worker pay increases. Paying thousands of people to drive T vehicles has been so much more cost effective than people driving their own vehicles.
Uhuh
So you're thinking that, every September and January, the college kids should change their state of permanent residency, license, license plate, and registration on their car, and then every December and May, change it back when they go home for the break?
That is cost prohibitive and stupid.
Cost prohibitive and stupid
That sums up the money pit that is the MBTA and means of revenue needed to feed the beast.
What you've said about the
What you've said about the cars that park in the area isn't entirely true. Plenty of spots start opening up again around midnight when the people who came to the neighborhood for food/bars/shows go back to where they came from. There are businesses in the area that rely on people to come from other parts of town and not just foot traffic from people who live in and around the intersection.
I live in that area and
I live in that area and anytime between about 8/9pm and 6am, if you find a spot it's like winning the lottery. A lot of those cars park and then just stay there. You could see it a lot this past winter.
I have a 9 inch (expletive)
Look at me, I can say things on the Internet without proof too!
No kidding they're Brookline residents, Sherlock, that town doesn't permit overnight parking. God forbid anybody would want to, you know, have sex with a Brookline resident at 3 in the morning. So their residents near the Boston border are forced to use Comm Ave meters. That has nothing to do with tax dodging, it has to do with geography.
Same reason liquor stores 10 miles from New Hampshire got to open on Sundays for all those years. You gotta fight fire with fire. Put up tollbooths on Babcock, Harvard, Winchester, and Washington. If you have a Brookline resident sticker, you pay $5 to enter Boston. Don't like it? Take it up with your town who forced Boston's hand or go down St. Mary's. Our city gets to make city laws too.
it fills up because it's free
There are garages nearby - none of them ever get full.
Where is there a garage where
Where is there a garage where anyone can show up and pay to park?
What garages?
I've lived in A/B for 11 years. Where, pray tell, is there a private paid parking garage anywhere near the intersection of Harvard and Comm?
There's a muni lot next to Blanchard's. Otherwise, you grab a meter.
1. Put up resident sticker
1. Put up resident sticker only parking signs and some strictly enforced 2hr meters that run until 10pm.
2. Watch Brookline throw a hissy fit.
3. Profit
That's my concern too
I live directly on Comm Ave in the area proposed for development. I don't own a car, and I only rent occasionally. But those few occasions have shown me that parking is at a premium on Comm Ave --all other streets in the area require resident permits-- and there are hundreds of commuters, if not families, who depend on the parking spots allowed by the service lanes (and it might not be feasible for them to move to a different neighborhood). And the service lanes themselves are essential to commercial vehicles, especially around Sept. 1st. The renovation of the Comm Ave/Harvard Ave intersection sounds like an excellent idea, but the concept art doesn't seem to preserve the service lanes, and that worries me.
I think it's just a few
I think it's just a few spaces at the intersection. Not the whole carriage road.
That's my block!
I literally live right there. I am all for improvements to this area. I worry a little about the vagrants and druggies hanging out by McDonalds migrating over to any park-like area, but hopefully there will be enough patrols and normal activity they won't feel comfortable. Right now the whole intersection is a clusterf@ck with a large number of people dodging cars trains and bicycles on a daily basis, myself included. With the number of people living in the area, and the number of new and existing businesses investing in the neighborhood there (Bee's knees, Bfresh, possibly 5 Guys, etc) the area is due for some infrastructure improvements. Just please don't price me out of my neighborhood! I love it here!!
Beautification = higher rents
Spending tax dollars on landscaping projects unfortunately does translate into higher rents for you and more money for your landlord. Winners include landscape architects, civil engineers, construction companies, land owners, city planning office lead, and politicians doing the ribbon cuttings.
yes. let's block gentrification by keeping our streets dangerous
how about we also drive a few cars into buildings and mow down some children on sidewalks? that'll keep prices low.
seriously - fighting against bike and ped infrastructure is the new redlining.
If Downtown Crossing is any indication...
" I worry a little about the vagrants and druggies hanging out by McDonalds migrating over to any park-like area, but hopefully there will be enough patrols and normal activity they won't feel comfortable."
That's what they said about Downtown crossing. We all know how that turned out.
We will all be dead...
...before it is finished. Anyone remember how long it took to put those red metal overhangs in place at the Harvard and Comm t-stop? Overhangs and new brick laid....what? 2? 3 years? Maybe more?
What a joke...
It's a deal-breaker for me if
It's a deal-breaker for me if this project doesn't improve things for the Green Line and 66 bus.
Yes x100
We've not gotten to the point where projects like this are built for cars and pedestrians and cyclists. The next big push is to make sure that it is built well for transit users as well. If transit is faster and easier to use, more people will use it, and we won't need as many parking spaces as we have now.
Here's how Comm Ave looks right now:
8' for a sidewalk
34' for side road and ±20 parking spaces
7' for Harvard Ave platform which serves ±4000 people a day and is one of the busiest Green Line stations in the system.
25' for the Green Line
56' for four lanes of Comm Ave traffic
62'for side road and ±40 parking spaces
10' for a sidewalk
So that's:
18' for pedestrians (9%)
32' for transit (16%)
152' for cars (75%)
Does that make any sense? There are more Green Line riders in this area than there are cars.
Not sure what the plans are, but a little less parking, and wider pedestrian areas, and a wider, more amenable train station (with full transit signal priority!), and narrower lanes, won't be a negative for the neighborhood.
The way you described, I don
The way you described, I don't think percentages of space is the right metric to describe service. You can assign 152' of space for the Green Line and all you accomplish is making driving suck more.
It's not about allocating space based on number of people, it's about allocation space based on who is needed to make things work. The percentages of space is the wrong metric. The Green Line only needs 25' for the trains to run down, adding more doesn't do anything. The station though, I might argue the current 7' is sufficient -as it it haven't made it unusable- but yes, more space to the station is arguably a good. Same goes for sidewalks.
The real thing to improve Green Line is not amount of space. It is giving it signal priority that have been asked for decades. And changing how we do boarding practices is a good too. I have long read various parts of the internet about Proof of Payment that would be a good thing. The alternative is if the station is that heavily used, then just keep an attendant (though wages and contracts have kept it prohibitive) to take payment.
Will the excessive bumpouts planned kill yet more cyclists?
Like Victor Yang struck by a MBTA bus at Harvard and Brighton Aves in late 2012, squeezed by the bumpout?
http://www.bu.edu/today/2012/victim-of-fatal-bike-accident-was-enrolled-...
BTW, just where is the final report from his traffic death investigation?
Bumpouts don't kill cyclists
Stop crying your crocodile tears, MarKKK, you're fooling exactly no one.
So blame the victim instead?
for riding in front of the MBTA bus, rather than getting squeezed into it by the bump out?
Or
Or blame the person operating the bus that tried to "squeeze by" the person riding a bike when there clearly wasn't enough space to do so safely.
You know Mark, all vehicles have at least one pedal to the left of the gas, applying pressure to said pedal will decelerate the vehicle even to the point of a complete stop. Combine this magic break pedal with a little bit of patience on the part of the person driving the bus and this collision wouldn't have happened.
Bikes have TWO levers seldom used
called brakes. Yang was taking a right turn in front of (or into) the bus, so I'm not sure whose brakes weren't working.
* Fixie riders should have two brakes plus their legs to stop. Coaster brakes also offer legs as an additional way to stop. Three means in both cases.
While everyone doubts Markk's
While everyone doubts Markk's real concern. I am willing to pose the question about bumpouts with bikes. Plenty of times riding a bike with the bumpouts means making that part narrow part of navigate. Any bumpout should leave the street wide enough to still accommodate the bike lane in full size.
Sharrows Of Doom
Well the problem there is that Brighton Ave has no bike lane. Instead they have sharrows on the right lanes.
https://goo.gl/maps/GNtpZxTPrcK2
Sharing is hard though, especially for 57 Bus drivers.
Your link missed the intersection
The killer bumpouts were at Harvard Ave., a couple blocks east of where your link shows. Try:
https://www.google.com/maps/@42.3529491,-71.1319186,119m/data=!3m1!1e3?hl=en
I believe the collision scenario was that Yang was cycling north on Harvard Ave. and took a right on to Brighton Ave. around the ginormous bulb out as the bus left the stop on the west side of the intersection and headed east colliding with him. I had not heard who had the right of way. Even if Yang was running a red light, the oversized bulb-out left no room for human foibles.
It's done elsewhere
Bumpouts/chicanes I just recently encountered in Denmark leave 1.5 - 2 meters between the curb and the structure, allowing people riding bikes to continue between chicane and curb. Properly segregated cycling infrastructure accounts for this.
Bump outs are designed to not
Bump outs are designed to not extend past the width of a parked car. That's true on Brighton Ave as well. Based on what I've read about the Brighton Ave bicyclist death, it sounds like the bus didn't leave enough room between the bus and the bicycle; but also that the bicyclist probably should have been riding further away from the parked cars -- "taking the lane" as the sharrows today suggest.
Bump outs should max 6' but made bigger
in too many places given how cars are about 6 feet wide and parking spaces a minimum of 7.5'.
If you look at the road, a wide vehicle like a bus isn't given enough width between its narrow lane and the bump out to even fit a bicycle. Combine too narrow lanes with too wide bump outs and the end result was the bicyclist got squeezed. The crime is its by design.
Can anyone open the presentation file?
from the project page? Its a .ppx file that powerpoint claims is getting blocked by my antivirus (MS Security Essentials), yet it scanned clean.