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A walkin' good time in Jamaica Plain
By adamg on Sun, 06/25/2023 - 4:49pm
Photo by Mike Toole.
For the second year in a row, the city shut Centre Street in Jamaica Plain to motor vehicles, letting pedestrians and bicyclists enjoy outdoor dining, games, music and just wandering the neighborhood.
Among them, Mike Toole, who enjoyed it:
Look at what we get when we take just one street back from car traffic for a few hours.
Several more Open Streets are planned across the city, in addition to the weekly Sunday car-ban on Newbury Street that runs through October.
Neighborhoods:
Free tagging:
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Comments
It was great! Some business owners are grumpy…
The manager at The Real Deal Deli complained to me they had to shut down app-based delivery for the duration. When I pointed out drivers could easily access the public lot behind Blanchard’s and just walk 200ft without traffic he shrugged. He did accept foot traffic was significantly higher and the sliders they were selling in the street seemed to be going at a steady clip.
Just a reminder that these apps cannot function unless the algorithmic-based drivers can block bike lanes and traffic immediately outside the restaurants you order from. The system is really messed up and rewards illegality for the sake of convenience.
Magoo sez
This. Amirite? Magoo.
Also
That foot traffic and those sliders don’t have the 30%+ haircut that the app deliveries take.
A couple of things
Real Deal has their own online ordering system and driver, so the money stays in the family, as it were. Which I appreciate.
Also, even if they could have adjusted to use the Blanchard's parking lot, they wouldn't have been able to deliver to folks who live on Centre St itself or easily cross Centre to serve both sides of Centre. It's just one day and I'm sure Real Deal did fine.
One complaint to you doesn't mean he was just really angry about the situation. He may have just been a little miffed and got over it just as quickly as the words left his mouth. And it sounds like you brought up the positives which helped reframe the event for him. Nicely done.
How would delivery drivers
How would delivery drivers know how to get to that lot? Or even that it existed? I don't believe there were signs at the blocked off ends of Centre and connecting streets directing people to it.
Open Streets JP
They should do this every Sunday on Centre Street from Memorial Day to Labor Day.
Having fun with disability?
I didn’t know this happened until I got a Twitter notification about it after the fact: it looked fun. I spoke a little bit to someone from Car-Free Boston on Twitter about what a person like me (mobility impaired, multiple sclerosis, can’t really get around on a hot day easily without air conditioning or some kind of body cooling system/s in place) does to enjoy an event like this, they agreed it was a problem and said that they spoke to someone from the Disability Commission about the same thing. I kind of wish that disabled people weren’t an afterthought, but it is what it is. Even a little tent with blocks of ice and fans to go cool off and have a popsicle with other miserable people would be lovely at something like this instead of being a shut-in at home all summer.
I take it you are not a
I take it you are not a person with a mobility disability living on Centre or the streets that connect to it.
Idling cop cars
Car free streets should also be free of cop cars idling at every intersection for no reason.
How did the 39 operate? With
How did the 39 operate? With the trains still being essentially non-functional that bus is a lifeline.