Boston plans to speed up measures to slow drivers down

City officials this week unveiled a "safety surge" program aimed at making neighborhood streets, intersections and certain key thoroughfares safer for pedestrians, bicyclists - and motorists.

Under the program - for which Mayor Wu has proposed $12 million in additional road-safety funding for the coming fiscal year - more neighborhood streets would get car-slowing speed humps, intersections would get traffic signals designed to give pedestrians more time to get across the street and, in many cases, a ban on right turns on red. Several key roadways - Blue Hill Avenue, Tremont Street in the South End, Centre Street in West Roxbury and Cummins Highway - would get extensive redesigns aimed at increasing the odds pedestrians could get across the street in one piece by reducing the number of lanes, adding islands and taking other steps to try to curb speeding.

Residential streets

At a press conference on Monday at the Thetford Evans Playground in Mattapan, which is surrounded by streets with speed humps, Wu and Chief of Streets Jascha Franklin-Hodge said they plan to accelerate the number of streets that get speed humps and to use based on city traffic and crash data, rather than on relying on the previous "Slow Streets" program, in which residents on particular streets would compete in an annual competition to convince the city they lived on the worst street.

Also, instead of just doing one street at a time, the city will install speed humps in "zones" of several adjoining streets. Franklin-Hodge said experience with the earlier program showed that speed-hungry drivers learned to avoid slowing down by diverting to a neighboring street. He estimated that 394 of the total 800 miles of roads in Boston would eventually be eligible for speed humps, although the city will only have enough money to add the humps to 10 groups of streets at a time - but that will mean 500 new speed humps a year.

Intersections

The city plans to update 25 to 30 intersections a year to "allow for better sightlines, slower speeds, clearer crossings, and defined spaces for all road users." The most obvious and immediate change will be signs prohibiting right turns on red, in particular on congested streets downtown and in neighborhood business districts, as well as near schools, senior centers, parks, libraries, MBTA stations and hospitals. Signals will also be timed to give pedestrians a jump, of several seconds, in which to cross before motorists get a green light. The city will decide which intersections get the upgrades based on safety-history data and neighborhood demographics

Thoroughfares

The city is also starting projects on four major streets with this new plan: Blue Hill Avenue, Centre Street between West Roxbury Parkway and Spring Street in West Roxbury, Cummins Highway and Tremont Street in the South End. These projects all have a history of high speeds from drivers and major crashes that have led to death and injury. Franklin-Hodge described the Centre Street project as including converting the roadway from four total travel lanes to three - with the third, center lane being used for new left-turn lanes and as "flex" space for use by first responders in emergencies. Intersections would get re-timed lights that favor pedestrians. City officials will detail the Centre Street plans at a meeting at the Ohrenberger School, 175 West Boundary Rd. in West Roxbury, at 6 p.m. on May 31.