Davis Square Streetscape Improvements: New Meeting Date/Location

[sarahsomerville.livejournal.com]

Dear Davis Square Residents, Business Owners, Visitors, and Fans:

At our August 7^th meeting on Davis Square’s streetscape, the City’s project team gave some updates on potential schemes for improving the square based on public input.  We also discussed some of the options for the aesthetics of the square, including pavements and street furniture.  The slides from this meeting are now online, available through our new blog post:

http://somervilleresistat.blogspot.com/2012/08/discussion-continues-on-davis-square.html

We have also scheduled a fifth meeting to discuss these alternatives.  We will meet on September 11^th, at 6pm at the Ciampa Manor Community Room, 27 College Avenue.

We look forward to seeing you in September.

Comments

[sarahsomerville.livejournal.com]

Hi Teko,
Yes, absolutely, the left from Elm to Highland will still be allowed, but the proposal is for it to be signalized so that the crossing is safer for pedestrians.

[boblothrope.livejournal.com]

I think the best thing for pedestrians *and* drivers would be giving a walk light with the parallel green (which most pedestrians already do), and getting rid of the all-way walk phase.

A new crosswalk from the Mike's area to CVS would get a walk light when cars from Highland got a green. Using such a crosswalk would be *easier* if they kept the slip ramp. Cars from Highland not using the ramp could only go to College, Holland, or Dover, so no cars would be turning across the crosswalk.

The slip ramp has very little traffic, and it moves slowly, so crossing it using the existing unsignalized crosswalk is never a problem.

[sarahsomerville.livejournal.com]

Hi boblothrope - thanks for the comment; we are indeed looking at using this kind of concurrent signal phasing (parallel green and ped on) rather than the all-way pedestrian phase.