Downtown Crossing Reconsidered

Interesting piece in the Boston Globe magazine today on whether Downtown Crossing will finally achieve its promise. I agree with the premise that attracting pepole to live in the district

"may just be the best hope to revive Downtown Crossing and transform it from merely a place where shoppers shop and workers work into a place where shoppers linger over lunch with their day's purchases, workers meet for dinner, and residents call out greetings to one another as they make a morning coffee run. No longer a business district but a neighborhood."

However, I see a few additional issues along with adding residences, filling empty storefronts and adding signage and clearer pedestrian areas -- all of which are important.

* Serious attention needs to be paid to the pedestrian corridors into the Downtown Crossing district, in order to attract tourists and suburbanites in from nearby attractions like Boston Common. They walking routes need to be compelling, not just possible.

* What's the reason for someone who doesn't live and work there to come to Downtown Crossing as opposed to other neighborhoods? There has to be a good reason to choose to eat or shop there, as opposed to Back Bay, Beacon Hill, the South End and so on. Stores you can't find elsewhere? A special sense of place? It's got to offer something different/better that the city's other great neighborhoods.

* Why would someone want to linger there instead of go to one or two places and leave. What makes it a multiple destination neighborhood? I completely agree with the premise that the area does not need "more cellphone stores, fast-food places, or pawnshops." Filling storefronts is important, but not enough; the right kinds of businesses are important in creating a compelling destination.

Saxonville Riverview Plaza update

Sorry for the lengthy time between posts, but the demise of my home computer has put a lot of my blogging time into setting up my replacement computer! However, I would like to belatedly report on the first Planning Board public hearing on this project last month. All the audience members who spoke, said they were in favor. In fact, several urged the Board to approve the project quickly, since it's very much a benefit to the town to have that long-vacant town parcel finally developed.

I, too, am in favor, although asked for a couple of small plan modifications.

One issue raised by several people, including Planning Board Members, was to make sure the sidewalk continues into the parcel to the shops so there's an obvious walkway into the site and not just driveway for cars. Another is making sure the intersection by A Street is a safe crossing for pedestrians, considering how many area residents and high school students walk in the neighborhood.

The other issue I'm most concerned about is the driveway out of the parcel, which is three lanes wide -- one lane too wide for creating an appealing and safe-feeling walking environment. I urged there be some separation between the incoming and outgoing lanes to create a better walking environment. However, the last time I walked by the parcel, there were drawings on the pavement showing the three-lane-wide driveway. I suggest someone try walking on Rte. 30 across the cars pouring in and out between Target and Lowe's to get a sense of what a wide and busy driveway does to your walking environment.

The Framingham Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Committee is going to discuss the project at its meeting this Tuesday, December 9, in the Memorial Building (Town Hall) Conference Room 2 (that's on the agenda starting at 8:10, the overall meeting begins at 7:30). You can see the initial letter they sent to the Planning Board about the project here.

Livable communities in the Obama era

[caption id="attachment_759" align="alignleft" width="200" caption="Obama campaign's Boston phonebanking office, day before Election Day"][/caption]

This isn't a "political" blog, but now that the election is history -- congratulations to President-elect Obama, and to all of us who worked so hard to make it happen! -- it's time to take a look at what an Obama administration might mean for the goals of more walkable, livable communities.

President-elect Obama will have a full plate of crises when he takes office in January, what with the economic woes and two wars. So I'm under no illusions that community planning issues will be atop his agenda. However, he has strong opinions about transportation and community development, ones that see our urban centers not as "unreal America," but as centers of vibrancy and innovation. He has pledged to create a White House Office on Urban Policy and to financially support "innovation clusters" defined as "regional centers of innovation and next-generation industries."

Happily, he is also on record favoring "more livable and sustainable communities." Says his policy Web site: "Our communities will better serve all of their residents if we are able to leave our cars, to walk, bicycle and access other transportation alternatives. As president, Barack Obama will re-evaluate the transportation funding process to ensure that smart growth considerations are taken into account. . . .

How a community is designed – including the layout of its roads, buildings and parks – has a huge impact on the health of its residents. For instance, nearly one-third of Americans live in neighborhoods without sidewalks and less than half of our country's children have a playground within walking distance of their homes. Barack Obama introduced the Healthy Places Act to help local governments assess the health impact of new policies and projects, like highways or shopping centers.

His campaign's 4-page transportation plan includes funding for Amtrak, development of high-speed passenger and freight rail service, invest in public transportation and create more incentives for mass transit use (such as ending the tax code inequities that allow employers to provide more tax-free parking benefits to workers than for carpooling or mass transit).

As president, Barack Obama will re-evaluate the transportation funding process to ensure that smart growth considerations are taken into account. Obama will build upon his efforts in the Senate to ensure that more Metropolitan Planning Organizations create policies to incentivize greater bicycle and pedestrian usage of roads and sidewalks. As president, Obama will work to provide states and local governments with the resources they need to address sprawl and create more livable communities.

At the highest of levels, the election of our first African-American president running on a platform of change, inclusiveness and personal responsibility sends a powerful signal that we're all part of this great nation. We're all equal partners, and we're all partners -- no one is going to make positive change happen for us, not unless we're all willing to do the work to make it happen. And we're likely to see more citizen involvement in trying to bring about the change people seek.

I never quite understood the reasoning behind Republicans disparaging community organizing. Seriously, it's a bad thing for people to band together to try to improve their communities?

(Sorry for the long delay since the last post. My home computer gave up the ghost, it's taken awhile to get a new computer set up.)

Sprawl and quality of life

When post-World War II suburbs were designed, the idea was to improve quality of life -- give people more space to breathe at affordable prices, compared to cities (viewed as too congested and noisy), while still giving them reasonably easy access to things like shopping.

But half a century later, we discovering that suburban sprawl isn't all it was cracked up to be. Post-1970s development took the original idea and expanded on it, giving people so much "room" that development patterns often made it difficult to do anything without a car or even walk around the neighborhood and get to know your neighbors.

When there's no care given to shared public space, when what greets the streetscape is a huge garage door and not a home's windows and entryways, when front yards are never for living or being in but 100% of activity occurs in private spaces where no neighbor-to-neighbor interaction is possible, well, your sense of community changes. And when you can't do anything -- anything -- without getting in your car, when your kids can't even go visit a friend without being chauffered, well, even those who love automobiles can start growing weary of how many hours they need to spend in their vehicles.

Add an increase in traffic jams and ever longer commutes, and older patterns of development start looking more appealing. Imagine being able to walk to the store to pick up a few things for dinner on a nice early autumn afternoon. I grew up going out for milk and bread for my mom, and she still often walks to the grocery store, hair salon, or to pick up a morning paper.

It immeasurably adds to your community to have lots of your neighbors out and about. I saw it on primary day, when I walked to my polling place and ran into several neighbors who were doing the same; we stopped and chatted about this and that. Those are the kinds of interactions that help stitch together a community, that don't happen unless people are out in shared public space. But we can't be out and about that way unless such space exists; and we can't and won't be out walking unless there's an appealing streetscape to draw us out. Useful destinations we not only can walk to but want to because of an attractive pedestrian environment truly add to our quality of life.

Project aims to turn Mass Ave into 'great pedestrian-friendly street'

Arlington has received state and federal funding to help turn its portion of Massachusetts Avenue "from a transportation corridor to one of Arlington’s great pedestrian-friendly streets," according to the project Web site.

The idea is to better balance the needs of walkers, cyclists and users of mass transit with automobiles. As opposed to the all-too-usual suburban roadway "improvements," typically aimed at how best to move motor vehicle traffic (what some planners rightly refer to as "traffic sewers").

Several public hearings have been scheduled this month on the plan.

The Mass Ave. redesign "will strive to create a truly livable, pedestrian friendly street, where people feel safe and comfortable meeting, shopping, and strolling, while also creating a vehicular traffic system that is safe, efficient, and easy to navigate," planners say.

More specifically, Arlington officials are considering:

* "Changes in street width and sidewalk width that offer options for seating, cafés and landscaping."

* Shorter and more visible crosswalks.

* Bicycle lanes

* Better on-street parking in East Arlington

* "Street furnishings that make using Mass. Ave. more comfortable."

Doesn't sound much like the Rte. 9 or Rte. 30 we know in Framingham ... or even what many people in a position to actually implement plans talk about for Rte. 9 or Rte. 30. But perhaps with enough public support, we'll think about such things going forward?