Beacon Street Reconstruction Public Meeting 11/13 6pm

[samcoren.livejournal.com]

Some of you might remember that a meeting about the Beacon Street Reconstruction was cancelled due to the Hurricane; a new meeting has been scheduled by the city. Details below:

[x-posted from PSNA]

For those of you on the Somerville side of Porter and live along Beacon Street, a public meeting will be held on the Beacon Street Reconstruction project this Tuesday November 13th at 6pm in the Kennedy School Cafeteria on Cherry St. The Somerville Transportation Director and Ward 2 Alderman will be presenting the latest design proposal.
 

One of the issues that has sparked some controversy about this project is the removal of all parking on the even-side of the street from Oxford to Washington St. to accommodate the installation of 7' cycletracks. This will be 111 parking spaces that will be permanently removed and could cause serious issues for businesses and residents in the area. Part of the reason for removing this much park was on the basis of a parking study conducted on 3 days this year:  May 19th, May 23rd, and June 19th.

After some analysis, I have found that there are 3 serious data integrity issues that invalidate the study as justification for eliminating this much parking, which are covered in detail here: http://beaconstreetsomerville.org/reconstruction-project-resources/beacon-street-parking-study/

For those of you who were planning on attending this meeting or interested in the proposed cycletrack I strongly encourage you to read through the analysis - as a resident of Somerville, I am frustrated that the city spent money on a such a misleading and poorly conducted study that could negatively impact the residents in the neighborhood and hurt our local businesses if this proposed parking elimination goes through.

Comments

[readsalot.livejournal.com]

Can you remove the special coloring on the entry? On my friends page, it shows up as white-on-white, which means it's unreadable.

[samcoren.livejournal.com]

fixed

[gruene.livejournal.com]

I commute down Beacon Street every morning. I can't speak to other times of day, but at least between 8am and 10am on weekdays, parking on Beacon street is significantly underutilized. Therefore, I support the city's proposal and intend to say as much at the meeting. I hope other bike commuters will be there too.

[smoterh.livejournal.com]

How many parking spaces is a life worth? http://www.universalhub.com/2012/bicyclist-bad-shape-after-collision-bus-allston