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New West Roxbury state rep vows to continue predecessor's work on road safety, senior issues
By Greta Gaffin on Fri, 06/23/2023 - 2:52pm
Newly elected State Rep. Bill MacGregor ( West Roxbury, Roslindale, South Brookline) said he will continue predecessor Ed Coppinger's work on several road-safety projects in the district.
Speaking this week at the West Roxbury Business and Professional Association, MacGregor specifically pointed to DCR projects to improve the intersection at Walter and Centre streets, by the Hebrew Rehabilitation Center, and the intersection of VFW Parkway and South Street.
DCR has, in recent years, been planning for Centre/Walter improvements that include more crosswalks, dedicated bike lanes and improved turn lanes. A form DCR filed with the Mass. Dept. of Environmental Protection in 2022 said their proposal will ‘narrow vehicular travel lanes on both Centre and Walter Street.’
DCR recently started work to add left-turn lanes, new lights and improved crosswalks at VFW Parkway and South Street, on a stretch of the parkway that saw 22 crashes between 2015 and 2017, with one fatality.
The district’s most contentious road-safety issue, though, is the city’s revived proposal to reduce the number of lanes on Centre Street between Holy Name Rotary and Lagrange Street, add pedestrian islands and take other steps to make the road less dangerous for pedestrians, bicyclists and even drivers.
MacGregor said he would sign a petition against the proposal.
Steve Morris, a local business owner, attended the meeting with signs printed up for business owners to put in their store windows against the proposal, which he and others say would ruin the business district. At one point, Brian Kenneally, another local business owner known to have strong opinions on the road diet, was yelling at the mayor’s neighborhood liaison, Dan Hudson, about the proposal, prompting one of the group’s leaders to tell Kenneally to stop doing that.
In addition to Coppinger’s road work, MacGregor said he also hoped to be able to use the $250,000 in state funding Coppinger got for West Roxbury senior programming to help find a site for a permanent senior center for the neighborhood.
MacGregor suggested one location: Near the intersection of Centre and Weld streets.One West Roxbury resident, however, said poor transit access and poor walkability make this a bad location for those who can’t drive.
Also attending the session: William King, who is running against incumbent City Councilor Kendra Lara in District 6 (West Roxbury, Jamaica Plain). King took no position on the Centre Street proposal, but said he thinks residents deserve more options.
He did express his support for the O’Bryant School of Mathematics and Science moving to the former West Roxbury Education Complex site, saying West Roxbury deserves a public high school.
He was also in favor of the idea of turning the site into Suffolk County Agricultural High School. Currently, Boston students who would like to attend an agricultural high school have to travel to Walpole, and only if there is enough available space for out-of-county students.
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Comments
Interesting that the sitting
Interesting that the sitting city councilor was not present
Neither was the sitting state senator
But both sent aides to the meeting.
That's a point in her favor
That's a point in her favor. Councilor Lara was present at the community meeting where she spoke to and heard from the public about the Centre Street project.
Holding NIMBYs-only meetings after a public meeting has shown a lot of support is usually an effective way to intimidate public officials and derail a project here. It definitely was an easy call for Marty "cars are going to hit you" Walsh. That's also why you have "Five-Car" Flaherty and Erin Murphy (who we didn't hear from at the community meeting) showing up at the other NIMBY meeting to stir the pot against Mayor Wu.
If the haters had any useful contributions they have had ample time and opportunity to provide them. It's no surprise that we've heard nothing but shouting and conspiracy theories.
Nimby meeting?
The meeting described is the WR Business Assn. meeting, isn't it? You know, one of the civic groups not the resident only meeting at the Elks.
Perhaps the Councilor had a conflict.
REPRENSATIVE MCGREGOR
He's opposed to Centre Street. McGregor is a panderer. If the noisy minority says no, so does he he.
We expect nothing less…
….in solid local reporting, from this chip-let off the old block.
Nice work Greta; we look forward to hearing a lot more from you!
Just another classic NIMBY
Glad I voted against this idiot. He apparently doesn't care about the people who actually live in the Centre Street area and is only listening to a few business owners who consider speeding through the neighborhood and double-parking to be their sacred privileges.
I hope Orthman runs again for
I hope Orthman runs again for something. He was the only candidate here saying anything worth listening to and taking actual positions. MacGregor seems like a nice enough guy but more of the same around here.
Same
Hope so too. He ran the best campaign and probably wins if Segal doesn’t stay in. He’s a good guy and was up against the Westie machine of Coppinger and O’Malley backing MacGregor.
He certainly ran the best
He certainly ran the best twitter campaign but if he ran the best door to door campaign then he would have won. Also take a look at the math. Orthman would have needed almost 90% of Segel’s votes to beat MacGregor. That’s a huge number. MacGregor would have gotten a significant portion of her votes from Brookline and Moss Hill. You can’t just oversimplify an election and award almost the totality of another candidates votes to Othman just because they align more politically. It isn’t as black and white as that. Not every person voted for segel did so bc she was more progressive. Certainly not over 80%.
Did you see Orthman's claims
Did you see Orthman's claims that the election was stolen from him?
Imo, that alone is disqualifying.
That sounds like a fever
That sounds like a fever dream cooked up in a West Roxbury Facebook group. You won’t find any instance of him or anyone saying that. The progressive vote got split. That’s a fact. No one said it was stolen, though. Very different things.
You're going to have to substantiate that
Nobody has seen those claims, because he hasn't made them. But you chose to put it out there, when in fact, Rob has been very gracious in conceding and offering his support to MacGregor. Prove it if you can, but I think we all know you probably won't even throw out that oft abused line about people needing to do their own research.
Westie-22
One West Roxbury resident, however, said poor transit access and poor walkability make this a bad location for those who can’t drive.
Which do you want, a safe and thriving city corridor where people can access businesses and senior centers, or six lanes of speeding traffic and parking that make crossing the street a life/death proposition? Shouldn’t be a hard choice.
Centre and Weld is a
Centre and Weld is a particularly wild place. There's the angled parking spots that make the pavement even wider, and the weird lane reduction on Centre coming westbound that many, many drivers just ignore. It feels like a piece of infrastructure from the midwest not an area of Boston.