Centre/South Street Transportation and Streetscape Action Plan
Citizens’ Advisory Group
Meeting, January 28, 2010

The process of redesigning Centre and South Streets in JP is becoming more interesting, and we need more and more bicyclists to show up! The next meeting date is not yet set, but should be in the end of February or beginning of March. I will post it on the JP Bikes Google group when I know. If you are interested in attending and/or helping with gathering support for bike lanes (maybe in the form of a petition and/or letters), please email me at lockene@mac.com.

At last night’s meeting the main questions were where and how (and if) bike lanes can exist between Forest Hills and Jackson Square, and which “nodes” along the Centre/ South corridor will get major redesigns.

The consultant group (MacMahon) and Vineet Gupta, chief planner for the BTD, are ready to put in bike lanes from Monument Square all the way to South Huntington, on both sides of the road. This is the stretch of Centre Street, fortunately long and central, where the road width is enough to accommodate the minimum standard of 10.5 feet for cars driving, 5 feet for bike lanes, and 7 feet for cars parked. There was some discussion of actually taking out one lane of parking so that we could have bike lanes as well as wider sidewalks. The question of taking out parking will be a big one for the ends of the corridor (the Monument to Forest Hills, and South Huntington to Jackson Square), where the road width is generally not enough for bike lanes given the current parking. The planners are going to show us proposals for these possibilities at the next meeting.

In general  bicyclists who have come to the meetings have supported bike lanes. Last night there was one bicyclist voicing dissent.

The question of giving up car parking in order to have bike lanes in these two areas, and possibly to have bike lanes and wider sidewalks in JP Center, is going to become heated. Many merchants are very concerned that less parking will mean less business (though there are studies showing otherwise in some areas), and they are concerned for their livelihoods. Similarly, many consumers and residents will come out to the meetings when they feel that their convenient parking is threatened. Therefore we will need as many advocates of non-automobile transit as possible to show up at the meetings this winter and spring!

The designers also laid out several possible plans for the two “nodes” that we approved last time, Hyde Square (the rotary) and Monument Square. In both cases they laid out drawings that shrink the asphalt acreage considerably, giving far more public space and trees, and shorter pedestrian crossings. The BRA will soon post the designs for comment at http://www.bostonredevelopmentauthority.org/Planning/PlanningInits.asp  (go to number 38).

The other two “nodes” they proposed were the Jackson Square Stop and Shop area up to Mozart Park, and JP Center. Several people suggested that instead of JP Center they should look at the vast asphalt space of Canary Square (by 7 – Eleven/South Huntington) and there was also discussion of South Street as a node to focus on for redesign. It sounds like they will show us plans for at least one of those areas, or possibly both, next time.

Expect to see article on this meeting in the JP Gazette and the Boston Bulletin, in their next editions.

Lauren Ockene