public planning meeting on Massachusetts Avenue reconstruction

[jadelennox]

(via srl, Crossposted to menotomy)

The Town of Arlington is currently planning a major reconstruction of Mass Ave from the Cambridge-Arlington line (Route 16) to Arlington Center, and they're taking public comments now, before the plans are written up. If you ever use Mass Ave as a transit rider, cyclist, pedestrian, or driver, this project will affect your life, and now's your chance to say something about what they do.

The project website says:

The primary goal of the project is to create a healthy balance between automobiles, bikes, pedestrians, and transit users. The 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.

During this process the Town will consider a number of different kinds of improvements, including:
Shorter and more visible crosswalks.
Clearly marked and dedicated bikeways and travel lanes.
Changes in street width and sidewalk width that offer options for seating, cafés and landscaping.
Improved on-street parking to support a healthy retail environment in the East Arlington commercial district.
Improved and coordinated traffic signals.
Pedestrian scale lighting for safety at key locations
Street furnishings that make using Mass. Ave. more comfortable


There's a public planning workshop tonight, Thursday October 23, at 7pm at the Arlington Town Hall in Arlington Center. (Accessible by the 87 bus from Davis, the 77 bus that runs down Mass Ave, or the Minuteman Bikeway.) If you can't be there, see the website above for information on how to contact the town's project supervisor with your thoughts.

Comments

[ron_newman]

You should post this to bostoncycling too

[jadelennox]

I'm not in that community -- I'm just reposting for srl. Is this something you could pass on over there?

[ron_newman]

OK, I just did. But anyone can join that community.

[wallacestreet.livejournal.com]

It's the 87 bus which goes to Arlington Center. The 88 only makes it as far as the Arlington Line at Rte. 16 & Broadway. You can also take the T to Alewife and take the 67 or the 79.

[jadelennox]

thanks -- corrected. That's what I get for just posting without reading carefully.

[ifotismeni]

nice! as an arlington resident i will definitely be there. though i don't look forward to what this will do for morning commute traffic when this starts, yikes :(

[jamiesquared.livejournal.com]

Scary to think about. Traffic already so bad :(

[ifotismeni]

yeah :( though mass ave really does need some help. bike lanes would be awesome.

[ifotismeni]

i guess for reference the 87 goes down broadway but its terminus is arlington center (as mass ave and broadway converge)

[derekp.livejournal.com]

I'm not looking forward to the construction but Mass Ave in that area is well overdue for some TLC. Potholes and bad patch jobs are everywhere. It's wide enough for two lanes in both directions but isn't striped as such... yet some still drive it as a 4 lane road.

I hope the long term plan is take this reconstruction right up through Arlington Heights, because the road is even worse by that Stop and Shop.

[secretlyironic.livejournal.com]

I've always been confused by the lack of any kind of lane markers on that stretch of Mass Ave.

[wallacestreet.livejournal.com]

I suspect that it's not technically wide enough for four lanes but close enough that whoever designed it wasn't adverse to people using it that way. Since they weren't allowed to stripe it for four, the left it unstriped with a wink and a nudge. I have no real knowledge of this for Mass Ave., but that's what happened with a very similar roadway near where I work. For years it was a not-quite-four lane road and thus very very dangerous for cyclists and the cops out directing traffic. They recently restriped it to two lanes plus lots of left hand turn lanes plus a bike lane.

[boblothrope.livejournal.com]

Mass Ave is even wider than necessary for 2 lanes each way. For example, when someone is stopped to turn left, it's really easy to pass them on the right, even if there are parked *and double parked* cars.

Lane lines would make more efficient use of the space by organizing where people drive.

[ron_newman]

Hartwell Ave in Lexington, by any chance?

[anyee.livejournal.com]

Hrm, adding both bike lanes and more parking to an already congested street sounds like it will make things a lot worse in many ways. People jockeying for parking spots by waiting for people to leave will force bike riders into traffic (because the waiting car is now blocking the bike lane) and/or cause a standstill for the same reason. Tempers running shorter due to more traffic.

It is not the best of situations, though the intent is good.

[boblothrope.livejournal.com]

They can't exactly add more parking -- the whole stretch already has parallel parking. Unless they add angle parking, which is currently very disfavored by traffic engineers, so it's not going to happen.

Right now Mass Ave is really wide but has no lane lines, so it's a big waste of space. One clueless driver can stay in the middle and keep anyone else from passing them, even though there's 2+ lanes of width in each direction.

very interesting...

[somertricky.livejournal.com]

Seems more like 1-7/8 lanes in each direction at some points.

Would one traffic lane (plus bike lanes) each way with a dedicated center lane for left-turning traffic, maybe a dedicated right turn lane heading EB at Lake Street? Maybe not.

But could we get rid of the planting in the median at Alewife Brook? It's enough of a hassle trying to turn left onto 16 from Mass Ave without worrying Arte Johnson's going to come flying out of the shrubbery?

Re: very interesting...

[boblothrope.livejournal.com]

I agree that the plantings (and the wooden Arlington sign) are visual obstructions. But the real problem is that the medians aren't placed correctly for left turn lanes -- they should be offset to the left.

They did a cheap reconfiguration of the intersection at some point. Mass Ave has 2 lanes each way, and they just made the left lane a left-turn-only lane and turned the parking lane into another travel lane.

[intuition-ist.livejournal.com]

as someone who commutes out that way to Rt 2 every morning (and back home again in the evening), allow me to express what a Fantastically Awful Plan this is.

as if the bloody awful traffic jams along 16 and lake st due to the alewife construction weren't bad enough this summer....

:( :( :(