Massachusetts Depa111nedt Of 7tar\spot&MiM. Highway Division. PUBLIC INFORMATION MEETING TUESDAY, OCTOBER 11, :30 to 8 PM AT

Transcription

1 Massachusetts Depanedt Of tar\spot&mim Highway Division PUBLIC INFORMATION MEETING TUESDAY, OCTOBER, 0 :0 to PM AT SHRINERS HOSPITALS FOR CHILDREN BLOSSOM STREET BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS FOR THE PROPOSED Charles River Basin Connectivity Study IN THE CITY OF BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS COMMONWEALTH OF MASSACHUSETTS MASSACHUSETTS DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION HIGHWAY DIVISION FRANCIS A. DEPAOLA, P.E. HIGHWAY ADMINISTRATOR THOMAS F. BRODERICK, P.E. ACTING CHIEF ENGINEER c

2 PRESENTERS Amy Getchell, Moderator, Project Manager, Accelerated Bridge Program MassDOT Rick Corsi, OCR Dan Driscoll, OCR Karl Haglund, OCR Cynthia Smith, Halvorson Design Partnership Jerry Friedman, HDR Phil Goff, Alta Planning and Design Shannon Simms, Alta Planning and Design Joe Sakelos, Arlington Typing & Mailing Name SPEAKER INDEX Amy Getchell,,,,,,0,-,,,0,,,,,,,,,,,,,, Phil Goff,,0-,,, Cynthia Smith Representative Walz -,,,- Renata von Tscharner,0 Dan Driscoll 0-,,,,,,,,-,,,0- Joe McDonald 0- Louise Thomas Mark Kaepplein -,,,,, Jerry Friedman Bill Kuttner -0 Steve Kaiser 0, Karl Haglund Tony Schreiver, Gesa Kirsch,,, Carice Pingenot,0

3 SPEAKER INDEX Continued) Name Page Kate Hoagland Exhibits Description Sign-In Sheet -0 Public Conunents

4 PROCEEDINGS AMY GETCHELL, MODERATOR: Excuse me, everybody. I think we are going to get started. So, thank you for corning tonight, everybody. I see some new faces in the crowd. So, for those of you who don t know me, my name is Amy Getchell. I am a Project Manager with the Accelerated Bridge Program at MassDOT. I am here tonight with members of DCR, the Department of Conservation and Recreation. Corsi and Dan Driscoll and Karl Haglund are here. Rick 0 We are doing a joint effort. It is called the Connectivity Study for pedestrians and bicyclists in the Charles River Basin. Tonight is the first of three public meetings. We are going to have another meeting on Thursday evening. That is this Thursday, 0 October th, at Community Rowing Boathouse on Nonantum Road in Brighton, and then we are going to have another meeting on Tuesday, October th, at the Morse School Auditorium on 0 Granite Street in Cambridge. Both meetings start at :0. The reason why we are having three public meetings is, because the Basin is so large, we are trying to break it up a little. Tonight, we want to try to focus on downstream of Eliot Bridge on the Boston side. Thursday s meeting is going to focus

5 c more on upstream of Eliot, on both sides of the River, and next Tuesday, we want to focus on the Cambridge side, downstream of Eliot, but tonight we are going to talk about anywhere. comments on any of the Basin, we talk about it. If you have any will be happy to So, the purpose of our meeting is going to be to provide an overview of the Basin Connectivity Study, and to gather comments from the public. Our 0 c design consultant is the Halvorson Design Team over here in the corner, Cynthia Smith from Halvorson, Jerry Friedman from HDR, and Phil Goff and Shannon Simms from Alta Planning. Phil is going to be giving our presentation tonight in just a couple of minutes. They are a wonderful team, who is going to be pulling together all your comments and preparing a connectivity study for us. So, they are going to present the existing conditions analysis that was completed about a year ago, I would say. That is up 0 on our web site. We will have the web address posted on our presentation for you, and they are going to describe in detail how the study will identify the various gaps that preclude a seamless connection across the ten Charles River Basin bridges, their

6 adjacent intersections, and along the path system throughout the reservation. Following our presentation, we want to just lead a discussion period, to get all your comments. I can't guarantee you we will have answers tonight, but that is what our study is for, is to look at those gaps, to look at your concerns, and to provide some recommendations in our final study. Those recommendations will allow OCR and MassDOT to sort of 0 prioritize where improvements could be made within the Basin as funds become available. So, I just want you all to be aware, this is just as a study but, as we move along during the next two years, as funds become available, we will be able to identify areas where we really need to create better accommodations for our bicyclists and pedestrians. So, we have a stenographer here tonight, over in the corner. He is going to be capturing all our comments. We will have stenographers at the 0 other two public meetings, as well. We want to make sure we don't miss anything, we capture it all. We also have comment sheets in case something comes up in the next day or two, you didn't think to mention. Those are at the sign-in table up front. They will

7 be there after the meeting, as well, if you want to grab one. Feel free to write something, send it in to us, and now I am going to turn it over to Phil. So, we will have a little presentation, and then we will open the floor for comments. Thank you. PHIL GOFF: over to Cynthia. And I will immediately turn it AMY GETCHELL, MODERATOR: Oh, I'm sorry. PHIL GOFF: That's all right, who will talk 0 about the first couple of things. CYNTHIA SMITH: So - PHIL GOFF: Oh, and you know the code for the lights. CYNTHIA SMITH: Oh, can we turn down these lights a bit. AMY GETCHELL, MODERATOR: Oh, yes. 0 CYNTHIA SMITH: Sorry, we are new. Thank you. I see a lot of friends in the audience. We are just getting started, in a way, on the connectivity piece of the project. We have been involved in various capacities for the last couple of years, working with DCR and MassDOT on various aspects of the pedestrian bicycle network along the Charles River Basin.

8 C. Let's see. So, as Amy mentioned, we have been working on an existing conditions report, which was issued about a year ago. There is a lot of really good information on that, and the Connectivity Study is basically going to building on that base information. The study area is basically from the Craigie Bridge up to the Watertown Square area, the bridge at Watertown Square. It includes the eleven 0 0 bridges which are in orange, and the Pedestrian Weeks Footbridge, and about twenty-two segments of the paths along the Charles River, in terms of our existing conditions analysis that was performed. c We issued a report, and there is a lot of '- information that has to do with where the paths are located, both along the river and at the bridges, what the nature of the buffers are, whether they are -- what the dimensions of the right-of-ways are, what the conditions of the paths are, etc., etc., and you can see along here, north and south, that is which side of the river, and so, those are the segments. So, for instance, between Anderson Bridge and Weeks Bridge, there are two different pieces of linear park, and pedestrian and bicycle path networks, and so, we collected a lot of good initial

9 information in this work. We have issued a report back in June of 00. It is available on the MassDOT site, and that is the URL report. of you are interested in downloading the One of the other efforts that we have been working on since actually 00, is a series of pedestrian and bicycle user counts. We did fall counts in 00, spring and fall 00, and then again 0 spring and fall in 0, and these have coincided with some national counts, which is a good thing, so we can compare and contrast ourselves in terms of peds and bicyclists along the river at various places, and also see how things have increased over time and, in general, things have increased in terms of the volume of bicycles and pedestrians. There was 0 a little bit of a blip where we had some bad weather, and so, the counts -- this is spring, spring of 0, where we did have lower volumes, but I think is was primarily because of bad weather. And there is a lot of really good information in the report. This is just a graphic representation of some mid-week counts back in 00, I believe, but basically you can see, and this is _

10 0 just dealing with the counts on the bridges, but the Anderson Bridge and the Harvard Bridge are the heaviest volume of pedestrian and bicyclists, followed closely by Craigie Dam, Longfellow and BU, during the mid-week, and Craigie and Longfellow drop off a little bit on Saturday, so that's interesting, which I think is because of the amount of commuter traffic. And we also have done a lot of count 0 differentiation between different modes, bicyclists, pedestrians, whether they are going up river or down river, joggers and rollerbladers, etc. So -- and we have also charted those by gender. So -- and this information is also available on the Mass DOT site. We have made this information available to the Accelerated Bridge project teams, and they are using it and, in some cases, we have tried to add some spots to make counts so that, if the design teams wanted specific information, we would be able to give 0 that to them. And lastly, I am not going to go into a lot of detail about this, but we have worked during the process with some of the design -- Accelerated Bridge design teams on various connectivity issues. For

11 instance, we worked with Western and River Street design teams on some of the difficult connections, ped and bike, on both sides of the river and along and across the river; and so, we have been working with the teams to some extent. And now, Phil is really going to give you the bulk of the presentation related to connectivity, our initial analysis and some of the tool box. PHIL GOFF: Thanks. So, I am Phil Goff. I 0 am the Boston Field Office Manager for Alta Planning and Design. We are a Portland, Oregon based company, 0 and we are part of the design team, heading up the effort really to study the existing conditions, and provide some recommendations in conjunction with Cynthia's team at Halvorson and Jerry at HDR, improvements and enhancements for pedestrian connectivity, bike connectivity, ADA access, etc. So, in this effort, we did a number of those graphics and did a good chunk of the analysis that kind of came in different layers, and some of you probably took a look at some of the maps that were outside, and just, for us to really understand what is out there is pretty critical before we are able to make any recommendations, in order to enhance

12 that connectivity back to the neighborhoods and along the Basin itself. So, I won't go through all the details of 0 some of these, but this first map was, in essence, to look at what is the infrastructure out there that, in fact, is available for pedestrians, bikes, joggers, ADA access, etc., and certainly the key element along the Basin itself obviously is the path system, which is seen in the green dashed lines that run all along the Basin on both sides, relatively continuous, but obviously we all know there's some gaps there. We mapped where there are existing traffic signals, where there are existing crosswalks, existing underpasses, overpasses across Memorial Drive and Storrow Drive, and the blue lines indicate c the bike facilities that, every year, seem to be growing more and more. In fact, we have updated this map a couple of times since we have started it, as 0 Boston has expanded its bike lane network and Cambridge is doing the same, as well. In looking at those, we then kind of mapped it relative to what are the generators of pedestrian and bike activity and that, again, really helped us to understand where is that bike infrastructure now,

13 and where are pedestrians and bikes likely to want to go, and where are they coming from? Obviously, there 0 won't be a huge number of pedestrians and bikes kind of coming across where you have large barriers like rail yards and the Mass Pike, and other things, but in this analysis, we looked at, those red areas are - they are active retail areas, which obviously draw a lot of people on foot, and on bike to some degree. The institutions and schools are mapped here. The T stations, the Hubway stations. Again, we had to update this continually, as well. We have the Hubway stations on there. Obviously, that is going to be, in its own small way, an attractor for pedestrians and bikes to be able to use the Bike Share Facility in Boston and, by next year, certainly in Cambridge, Somerville and Brookline. So, by looking at those elements, and spending a lot of time out on the Basin, we did a couple of bike tours with some of the staffers from 0 DOT and DCR. We certainly looked at the GIS analysis and other elements. We looked at kind of where are the key areas of access, where are the gaps, and where are the key areas that we really need to look at as part of the study for connectivity

14 enhancements, and there are a number of them throughout, obviously, the Basin, as you see there and, as Amy mentioned before, the real focus here is the down river half of the Basin. So, what I will do 0 0 is just kind of quickly walk you through some of the issue areas starting at the Eliot Memorial Bridge, kind of going down river from there. You know, we did look at all these other ones, too, and we can certainly talk about them, and we are happy to take your comments on those, but just for the issue of time, we are going to kind of start at the Eliot and go down river at this meeting tonight and Thursday night, where we have a meeting out at the Boathouse in Brighton, we will focus more on the up river elements. Starting at, again, the Eliot Bridge, which you see in the foreground there. I think it is pretty obvious to anyone that has been out there, you have a real kind of spaghetti of highway and roadway, parkway infrastructure that makes it pretty difficult to get to the school on the other side, of the parkway. Access along the riverfront works reasonably well with the underpass below the Eliot Bridge, but it is very clear that there are some real c.

15 issues here. There are some signals and some crosswalks, but it is certainly not the most comfortable environment, and this was one of the key locations in the 00 master plan, that was looked at and studied in order to make improvements for peds and bikes and a real opportunity for potential expansion of the parklands, I at this location, as well. think exist certainly 0 And heading down river, just again some of the key elements we looked at, the existing crosswalk at Hawthorne Street, across Memorial Drive. That is a pretty difficult crossing, especially during peak 0 periods, with the speed and volume of traffic coming through there. It is an unprotected crosswalk. Obviously, a median island in the center, a bump-out, things like that would help, it is certainly a tricky one to get across, and we will certainly be studying this as a key connector to Mount Auburn Hospital, to the west end of Harvard Square, and obviously all the neighborhoods back in that section of Cambridge. Moving down river a little bit, the paths between both River and Western bridges certainly have their connectivity problems at each end, but I think certainly the granddaddy of them all is the problem

16 of connecting to the River Street Bridge from Allston and trying to get over around, and through this area that is sort of dominated by the on and off ramps of the Mass Pike, and all that highway infrastructure and, as Cynthia had mentioned, we have been in coordination with the design team for the River and Western project on this, but this is certainly one we are going to continue to study and have some recommendations for, as well, moving forward. 0 BU Bridge, and the path system that runs below it, and the connection that works reasonably well on the north bank in Cambridge, but certainly on the Boston side there really is no connection and, if anywhere you are going to get as much demand, latent demand as one can ever imagine, it is with the forty, fifty thousand students over at BU, all the people that live in the Fenway area, and Brookline, just a huge, latent demand for some kind of connectivity, which we are going to explore. This is a real tricky 0 one, given the grade differential between the top of the bridge and the path system but, again, this is one of the key areas we will look at. The Charlesgate connection, another key one. This part of Omstead' s original master plan

17 connecting the Charles River, Eliot's Charles River Basin plan with the Emerald Necklace. We all know the story of the highway infrastructure built in the sixties and seventies. There certainly are some possibilities and opportunities to make some improved connections through here, both as a short term, and c 0 0 certainly as a long term endeavor as DOT and the State really look at the Bowker Overpass and some future possible reconfigurations of that location. I think anything that is going to happen at Charlesgate really offers the opportunity to look a little more holistically at sort of all the activity issues in this immediate area. So, we are kind of going to be looking at this connection through here, the possibility of somehow opening up maybe the park land that is kind of stranded in the center, and then the lack of connection to the west sidewalk of the Harvard Bridge is something to look at, as well. The Longfellow Bridge, certainly primarily on the Cambridge side, also on the Boston side, not the ideal connection down from the bridge deck itself down to the Basin and the reservation system; and, again, this is an ongoing process with the Longfellow team, and we have been part of some of those _

18 meetings, and will continue working with them. So, the whole oh, and one last thing that is less related to the bridges, but part of what we really want to look at, too, are just some general improvements along the linear path system, and there are obviously some problems of broken up pavement, and the goat paths created by joggers, primarily, and those on foot; maintenance issues, overgrown paths. There are some key things there that we will be 0 looking at, as well. So, that is the first half of the presentation, -- this is a brief overview of some of our analysis and what we found, and our existing ~.. conditions, and our gap analysis. What we want to do, in terms of working with the folks here, and the communities in the future is, so that we all kind of have a common understanding of what are some of those elements that we are talking about, that could, in fact, help improve pedestrian and bicycle, ADA, 0 runners connectivity back and forth from the neighborhoods to the bridges, to the path system, so I just wanted to go through really a tool box, kind of the menu items of the tool box that we will employ and certainly think about and look at as we move

19 forward in the coming months as we prepare our draft recommendations that they get narrowed down, and at some time be brought back to the community in the spring. So, I will kind of start with some of the pedestrian connectivity enhancements, and those facilities and what those mean. I know this might be sort of obvious stuff for some of you, but I am hoping that this, again, the intent is so we all kind 0 of have a common understanding of the kinds of things that our team, working with the other teams here, will be looking at in the coming months. So, for those that kind of know this stuff, if you could bear with me, that would great, but maybe you will see some new and interesting things, as well. Charlotte knows all this stuff. That is why she has a tool box. Sorry to embarrass, Charlotte. Just perfect timing. So, anyway, the tool box of pedestrian 0 facilities, you know, the connectivity is obviously a key thing, and safety, ADA access, designing these facilities for all users. We want to look at some traffic calming potentially on some of these roadways, and other elements that lead to the bridges

20 0 C. and the path, and look at amenities, streetscape amenities, and other things that make them as attractive as possible for someone to come to the river, on foot or by bike. So, there is kind of easy and obvious stuff. There's the sidewalks and the paths. Obviously, these are things that are already out there, but there are certainly places where there are gaps in the sidewalk and in the pathway system. We 0 will be looking at those elements. We will have lots of recommendations for improved pedestrian crossings to the bridges, and in some of the interstitial areas of crosswalks, that C.. are unprotected, like at Ames Street in Cambridge, or Hawthorne Street in Cambridge, and some other places, and some of the elements that usually make for an enhanced pedestrian experience while crossing busy roadways, or reducing the curb radii, so cars and trucks have to go around a corner slower, build-outs 0 to create pinch points and minimize the crossing distance for pedestrians, curb cuts for ADA, etc., advanced stop bars. There's advanced yield lines. The high visibility crosswalk, certainly that is pretty critical, and I think generally the crosswalks _

21 that are out there, across Memorial Drive and other places, generally are pretty visible, but we are going to be looking at these and looking at places where improvements certainly will be needed. There are different kinds of sort of nonsignalized yet signalized intersection treatments that could be meaningful at some locations, pedestrian activated flashing beacons. There is something called a HAWK signal, which is a high 0 intensity flashing beacon. It is slightly different than your pedestrian activated, but slightly different than your typical traffic signal and has a pair, or two pairs in this case, of red lights at the top and flashing yellow below, something that is more of an innovative treatment, that some communities are experimenting with a little bit. There's median islands, which include pork chops, where there is the need for right turn lanes to kind of, in the bottom right, the sort of standard 0 median islands across streets of typically two or four lanes, and then raised crosswalks that really slow down traffic, in order to provide the benefit for pedestrians. I don't think we, or anyone else, is saying

22 c that that is something that might go on Storrow Drive or Memorial Drive. Don't forget, we are looking at the connectivity from the streets and all the communities adjacent to the Basin. So, you might get an element like that in some of the local or collector streets that lead to the Basin, but not necessarily on the parkways themselves, if anyone thought that that was what was implied there. There are countdown signals, push buttons. 0 I think we are all familiar with stuff like that, pedestrian scale lighting, and then there's the streetscape elements. You know, providing a narrow sidewalk where you are right adjacent to busy cars is not always the most comfortable environment for pedestrians. We want to make these connections, where we can, as gracious as possible for pedestrians especially, and for cyclists to some degree, to really enhance that livability portion of being able to access the park space along the river as 0 comfortably and aesthetically pleasing as possible. Then there's traffic calming elements, show that raised sidewalk speed table again, chokers and Chicanes, which actually encourage and force motorists to kind of divert a little bit at certain

23 pinch points to slow down their speeds. Again, these are all part of the tool box we are going to look for primarily pedestrians, and then just kind jump ahead to bicycle facilities, and there's a whole menu of bike facilities in itself, and there a lot of criteria that we and HDR, and Halvorson, and others 0 will look at in our recommendations, looking at the roadway type that is actually leading to those bridges and to the Basin, and the volumes and speeds that are on those streets, and the traffic mix, the kind of users that are expected on those streets, the conditions of the road, crash data. and certainly safety and There are particular streets that we see spikes in crashes involving pedestrians and bikes. We will certainly pay particular attention there, as well. 0 So for, again, kind of a bike lane planning, or a bike facility planning 0, bike lanes are certainly a standard element to improve bike access. Typically, what we are going to look for is three thousand trips per day on roadways in order to qualify for bike lanes and, with any new repaving project or reconstruction project like what is going

24 0 on on Western Avenue in Cambridge, and other plac~ certainly makes it easier at that point t> incorporate things like bike lanes and these at things at that time, rather than retrofitting th~ and I will talk about some of the -- show you some ~ the possible techniques of how to get some of thee bike lanes in on some of these roadways, and how can be done. Certainly what has been looked at in a fin places in the region is the removal of travel!an~ One nearby certainly is Comm Ave., through the IJ 0 Campus, which used to be three lanes outbound, whun somewhat recently was reduced to two lanes outbotmi and reconfigured with bike lanes and s idewal: improvements, and landscaped median. So, that il kind of method number one, not necessarily the rna prevalent, but one method to get bike lanes in particular streets. There's what is frequently called ram diets by planners and engineers, where we ae removing one travel lane, like the Comm Ave. examp~ but doing it in a more symmetrical condition on ie four-lane roadway, and having that center, the cenb median to provide left turn lanes -- left turning ~

25 motor vehicles at all the side streets. But probably the more prevalent way throughout Boston and Cambridge, and other places, is simply squeezing down the width of lanes in order to fit bike lanes. So, in a condition like this, which is not so unusual, where you have a big, wide lane closer to the curb, with parking, you can simply narrow the travel lanes, reduce your parking to eight feet, which is pretty standard in most places, in 0 order to fit a five foot bike lane. So, in certainly a lot of places, this is probably the most standard c way with bike lanes incorporated. Probably the narrowest roadway that we are going to be looking at to recommend bike lanes would be a roadway that's forty-four feet in width, that's, again, the minimum, and we will have to carefully look at volumes and speeds, and other things, but all those are pretty minimal dimensions in essence, ten foot travel lane, five foot bike lane, and seven foot 0 parking. It is relatively tight for everyone but, in the right conditions, that can work. As soon as you go below forty-four feet, you are at say forty-two or less, then striping in a bike lane really becomes difficult and doesn't really

26 meet DOT's standards and puts bike lanes too close to both parked cars and moving vehicles. There is what is called a Shared Lane marking. That is typically 0 set at eleven feet from the edge of the curb in order to indicate some sort of shared lane experience in a narrow condition, and multi-use paths. We know that OCR and others are interested in is maintaining roughly a ten foot paved path, and keeping it separated from the roadway, if we can by five feet and, more ideally, and where the volumes really necessitate going, in some cases, wider than ten. We really looked at where there could be the opportunity to have that separated ped and bike path, which you do see in many places, of course along the _ Esplanade, and that may mean taking some of those goat paths that we are all familiar with, and sort of institutionalizing them as kind of narrow or stone dust trails adjacent to the ten foot paved paths. Bridge transitions are pretty critical. 0 Obviously, having a bike lane or some sort of path facility over a bridge doesn't do too much good, if it doesn't really connected well with any facility on each side. Just to show you a couple of examples of sort of before and after images of how to improve a

27 couple of bridges, in Portland, Oregon, the bridge at top, which always had a bike lane that you see at the left, which connect to a sidewalk, that sidewalk was only five feet along that bridge, and it was extremely congested, and when that bridge was rebuilt, they actually cantilevered, and I know this might be a scary word for some people, two or three people maybe in the audience, but in this case they actually cantilevered out the sidewalk five 0 additional feet from the bridge itself to widen that sidewalk to ten feet, and you can see what they did to the transition from the bike lane coming from downtown to access that pathway, where really it was the cyclists who had, in essence, the priority. It is a little tough to see, but that's, you know, before obviously the cars just had a yield and probably accessed that bridge at thirty miles an hour, and we know there's lots of places where cars are doing the same on some of the bridges in the 0 Basin, especially up river, like at the North Beacon Bridge, and the Arsenal Street Bridge. You can see how, all of a sudden, the cars then had a stop sign, and it was the bicycles that were given, I don't know if priority is quite the word, quite the right word,

28 0 but certainly they were given a much safer condition to connect to the bridge than before. Similar kind of a thing in a different bridge down below, where there was a wide path sidewalk, historic bridge that, when it got to the neighborhood adjacent, cyclists needed to, in essence, stay on that sidewalk and come to this really nasty intersection with the right turning vehicles, and you could see some of the improvements that were instituted in that case were a bump-out, a little flare off of the curb, allowed a bike to get down, position themselves in between the through traffic and the right turning traffic. There's, you know, more and more cities out there are starting to experiment with more innovative facilities for cyclists that are not in all cases in a national guide, or MUTCD, and there is a new guide 0 called the NACTO Urban Bikeway Design Guide, which incorporates a lot more of these innovative facilities but, again, this is part of our tool box that we will be looking at. Just because something isn't absolutely in AASHTO doesn't mean that it can't be incorporated into a project. So, we will certainly be studying some of these things. I am not saying

29 all these elements are not in AASHTO, but some of the following things you will see are more kind of innovative type facilities and improve pedestrian bike, or bicycle connectivity across streets and to bridges, and other things. So, here you have intersections. Here's really an interesting design, where there is a raised median. Obviously, the crosswalk goes through and 0 then there's just a little piece sticking out for a bike to pass through and be able to take a left from this street, across the road and take a left onto the next street. Loop detectors, that's pretty standard. Bike signals is something, I think there's only two or three places maybe in the whole region that already have bike signals; in this case, a signal that allows bikes to go in all directions on a particular phase, that I think it is concurrent with 0 the pedestrian scramble phase in that intersection, as well. Bike box and colored markings, these are locations to two different color schemes and I know here, locally, Cambridge is doing blue, so we showed a blue example, and Boston is doing green. Not sure _

30 0 if both cities will always be doing the different colors. We will have to see, but both cities are intending to go with the green to indicate places where there are some real conflicts at the turning locations, and other things. Bike boxes are also 0 intended in places where there is some heavy demand for left turn motion from cyclists, that should get out in front of cars at red lights, have the ability to position themselves in front of that car and be able to take a left on the green. Contra-flow bike lane is where you take a street that says one way for cars, and allow bikes to go in two different directions. A couple of those c around, although not too, too prevalent. More and 0 more cities now are looking at doing something more than just providing sort of five feet of stripes out in the roadway, and a number of cities, New York is certainly one of them taking the lead on this, providing a buffer between moving traffic and bicycles and this is in places where certainly there is some space. This is something that is inaudible) again, as I talked about before in terms of providing that comfortable environment for pedestrian, same

31 goes for cyclists. If we want to get different kinds of cyclists out there, both out on our roadways and connecting to the Charles River Basin, we need to provide facilities for all types of people, whether that be families, or beginner cyclists, anyone, not just kind of the hard core daily cyclists. So, these 0 kind of facilities add to that comfort level, and where they are incorporated, usually the numbers go up very quickly, of cyclists using them. Cycle tracks is another example of where you have a facility that does offer some level of separation from moving traffic. The best one locally, probably, is the cycle track in Cambridge, on Vassar Street, but this -- New York has done this in a number of locations, as well, but just some other examples. Some may be a little goofy for us, in Paris, but again just kind of giving you the 0 overall look of what a cycle track element could look like, and I know I have mentioned Western Avenue in Cambridge before, connecting the Western Avenue Bridge, will have a cycle track incorporated in that design when it is done in a couple of years. Bike Boulevards, this is kind of finishing up here. Bike Boulevards are really looking at low

32 c volume streets and offering some enhanced connectivity for cyclists by bringing in traffic calming features, moving stop signs, potentially putting in some diverters, and other things, again to make a more comfortable experience and a more directly connected experience for cyclists in order to make that connection from the river -- from the bridges to some of the adjacent neighborhoods. These are just a few of the elements that 0 you might see in a Bike Boulevard treatment in a handful of cities around the country, that have done these kinds of things. Signage is certainly a key thing because often times the Bike Boulevards are not just running along a single street. They are kind of winding through neighborhoods a little bit, so there is really the need for pavement markings, for signage, for stencils. So, you have that way finding. You are able to guide yourself through the neighborhood in order to reach the destination and, 0 in some cases like on the bottom right, looking at an opportunity where cyclists and pedestrians obviously can get lost and go in all directions but, in that case, the vehicle is only able to come out of that neighborhood but not go into it.

33 So, that's the end of that presentation. The analysis, the tool box of elements that we are going to we will be considering over the next couple of months, and this is today, obviously, October th. Our next steps are is to have another 0 meeting at the Brighton Boathouse on Thursday, and then, next Tuesday at the Morse School in Cambridge, and moving forward beyond those, we do plan on having additional meeting with stakeholders and with the four cities that line the Basin, possibly others as well. We will continue our field work and move on to 0 our draft recommendations, and then come back to all of you at these locations, or maybe others, but certainly in the different communities both up river and down river, with some of the recommendations for part of the study next spring. So, I think what we would love to hear are just any general comments you have, any specific comments. We know that some of you are the experts, in some ways more than us, in many of these areas, and we know that some of you know some of the details of the street network, and other areas that connect to the bridges, to the Basin, that we are here to learn from you. We would love to hear your comments.

34 We have a stenographer, and we are going to mark up the maps for anyone who is making some comments that are location-specific, as well, so we can keep a record of these at all three meetings, in order to use -- thanks so much. AMY GETCHELL, MODERATOR: So, before we - before we open it up to everybody, I just -- Phil mentioned about the bike ride. I just want you all to know, I was one of the people who went. I am not 0 a biker. I come from the South Shore, not originally, but I live on the South Shore. I take the train every day. I only know what it is like to c bike around the middle of nowhere in Plymouth. So, I definitely learned first hand, there are some pains out there. I feel your pain in riding. I think we sat at one crossing over one of the bridges, I don't remember which one, I think we waited through three different cycles at the lights, and the pedestrian phase never came through. 0 So, we know there are concerns, there are problems out there, and that is what we want to hear from you tonight. Where are signals not working? Where are paths you know, where are the roots growing up under trees, that cause bad path networks, or where

35 are they lacking? Where are they not connecting? So, that's why we are here tonight. I want to remind everybody, we do have a stenographer. If, when you speak, you could state your name, please, clearly, so we have a record of who has been making the comments, and I just - I know we have a couple of Elected Officials in the room, so I just wanted to open it up to Representative Walz first, if you have some comments. 0 REPRESENTATIVE WALZ: I don't have any - I have one question and one comment. So, my question is, how far off each end of the bridge are you looking you talked about transitions off the bridge. How far into each community is this work going because that will help determine the scope of tonight the conversation tonight and on other nights. AMY GETCHELL, MODERATOR: Right. It is probably going to be, depending I think each 0 bridge, we are really going to have to look at differently, but probably one or two intersections into the community, as it connects to Storrow Drive or Memorial Drive. We will probably - we are not going to go really deep into the neighborhoods, but I

36 think a couple of streets in. REPRESENTATIVE WALZ: That is helpful because that's, I suspect, going to lead to a far broader set of comments than it would just looking at the bridges in the linear path. So, that was my question. So, here's my comment. Ever since we have seen more bike lanes getting put, particularly on the Boston side of the river, the level of lawlessness by 0 cyclists has increased quite dramatically and I get a substantial number of complaints about the behavior of cyclists, most notably from pedestrians because we have got cyclists running lights. So, as you think about this, you can't solve the lawlessness problem. That's an enforcement issue and behavioral issue; but, as you think about the designs, I want you to think about how the cyclists and the pedestrians are going to interact at crossing points, whether you have got ped/bike 0 conflicts because right now it is an untenable situation for pedestrians, where you have got a substantial number of bike lanes. When I step off the curb in Boston, I am taking my life in my hands on a regular basis, with cyclists running lights; and

37 so, there s a very large problem here, but part of this is for you to think creatively, is there a way actually through design to try to reduce some of those conflicts. I have no idea if that is possible or not, but I want to put it on to you to think creatively. AMY GETCHELL, MODERATOR: That is why we have our experts. REPRESENTATIVE WALZ: Right. That is why 0 I wanted to sort of, not necessarily ask a specific question about this, but ask you to go back and, through design, really think hard about, through design, can we reduce some of the conflicts to make it safer for pedestrians because, right now, at an awful lot of the road crossings, it is unsafe for pedestrians. AMY GETCHELL, MODERATOR: That s a great comment. Thank you. I don t know if someone from OCR wants to come up, just so that we have a path, or 0 if you guys have anything you want to add. DAN DRISCOLL: Sure, okay. AMY GETCHELL, MODERATOR: So, we will open it up to comments. Renata. RENATA VON TSCHARNER: My name is Renata

38 von Tscharner. I am with the Charles River Conservancy, and I delighted you are doing this Connectivity Study. Connectivity is very important 0 and it is very important, also, as part of the Accelerated Bridge Program, and I sure wish we had done that three or four years ago, and you would have been there on your bike not this August but three years ago because I feel there is a great opportunity for connectivity as part of the Accelerate Bridge Program, and you say it is for the future in case funding becomes available. AMY GETCHELL, MODERATOR: When funding becomes available. RENATA VON TSCHARNER: When. AMY GETCHELL, MODERATOR: Think positive. 0 RENATA VON TSCHARNER: When, if, okay, but I think we should not give up on the opportunities that exist for the Accelerated Bridge Program because you mentioned connectivity and you also mentioned safety, and I feel safety is a very important component of this connectivity effort, and when you look at your tool box, in your tool box, underpasses was only mentioned kind of in the introduction. It is not a tool, but it should be a tool. Particularly

39 it is a tool that makes Eliot Street, Eliot Bridge and the pathway intersection much safer. I know the Eliot underpass could be much better and I am sure engineers can now do that in a much better way. So, I want you to add the underpasses as a tool, and also you mentioned that we should look at when and if funding becomes available later on, I 0 know that Secretary Mullan, when he was still head of your Department, said that everything, every step is taken to add underpasses at the Anderson, and I want you -- I would like you to address that maybe at the next connectivity meeting, or at the next MassDOT board meeting, to explain what the steps are, that are needed to add an underpass at the later stage because I feel this is actually, the way I understand the plans, this is not the case. So, I hope that your creativity can be used to make these intersections much, much safer, and look at underpasses as part of the effort. 0 AMY GETCHELL, MODERATOR: Absolutely. RENATA VON TSCHARNER: Thank you very much. AMY GETCHELL, MODERATOR: You're welcome. Yes. JOE MCDONALD: I am Joe McDonald from the

40 0 West End Civic Association. It's a very good plan, but it has one gap. You said you were taking into account the Mayor's bicycle program, but you really haven't. The very largest bike drop-off is at the North Station. In fact, there are two drop-offs near the North Station. They are the only ones that are actually on the river right now. PHIL GOFF: You mean the Hubway stations? JOE MCDONALD: Yes, the Hubway stations, 0 but you said you are only going to be planning from the Craigie Bridge down. That's about three blocks away from the main hub station. You should expand your study to stop not at the Craigie Bridge, but at the North Station where most of the bicyclists will be picking up their bicycles to get onto the Esplanade. So, will you change the boundaries of your study to extend down to the North Station bicycle hub stop. DAN DRISCOLL) : I could comment on that, 0 and even consider doing that. I am not sure if it is necessary in that the DCR is currently, from the Craigie to the Museum -- go ahead. JOE MCDONALD: No, it isn't because, if you look at the maps they have just put on, on the

41 c Esplanade, the OCR had said the Esplanade begins at the Spaulding Hospital. It doesn't begin at the Craigie Bridge. That is the official OCR position. DAN DRISCOLL: Right. What I was going to comment on, though, relative to that hub stop, was that OCR is currently implementing thirty million c 0 dollars worth of improvements in the area that you are specifically concerned with, including the possibility of the South Bank Bridge, which would be the counter to the North Bank Bridge, and it would resolve a lot of the concerns that you are talking about. JOE MCDONALD: Right, but right now they said they are only planning to -- for the bicyclists from the Craigie Bridge upstream. I want them to plan for the way the bicyclists get right now from the North Station to the Craigie Bridge intersection. PHIL GOFF: Well, and if you remember, too, 0 Amy responded to that, had mentioned -- you know, the boundaries are a little fuzzier here because, as was discussed before, we are looking one to two blocks, and improvements within that sort of fuzzy zone that is around it. We are not sort of ending right at the parkways and right at the Galen Street Bridge, and C...

42 right at the Craigie Street Bridge, so we will be sort of moving a couple of blocks in each direction. So, I think it is a great point, and I think having, looking at some improvements in addition to obviously the bridges that are on line, it makes a lot of sense. AMY GETCHELL, MODERATOR: Yes, I think - PHIL GOFF: And there are a couple of new Hubway stations now on DCR property. DCR is one of 0 the sponsors now. JOE MCDONALD: Yes, Charles - PHIL GOFF: At Charles Circle, and now at the foot of the BU Bridge, so we have more. ) JOE MCDONALD: They actually - PHIL GOFF: That was actually put in about a week ago. so we have now a couple more Hubway stations. DAN DRISCOLL: Just a quick comment for a little historic context on this project. Some of you 0 may be finding it, it's a little strange that DOT is leading a project of this type on the entire Charles Basin, and it is really hugely to their credit that they are because, originally, this was actually a DCR project with the same consultant team, and actually

43 0 Amy was at DCR, as well, and when the Accelerated Bridge Program got transferred over with all of the road bridges, this project kind of went over there with it, and initially when they reviewed the scope fairly, they cut the Connectivity Study because, they said, well, none of this is on our land except the bridges, so we are going to cut this out, and really it is to their credit, a big credit to DOT, that they, after working on these bridges for so long, and learning the communities, have resurrected the Connectivity Study with the same consultant team. So, we are thrilled, at DCR, to participate in this with them, and I am sure they will consider to expand it, as well, like you are saying, Joe. AMY GETCHELL, MODERATOR: Yes. I think, if we can try to identify those small areas where we 0 haven't shown in the scope, like if there is actually a Hubway at North Station, and we need to present ideas of how to get from North Station to the Esplanade, which is such a heavy traffic area, certainly I think we can pull a little area out over there. Yes. LOUISE THOMAS: Amy, just to follow up with that, I had a meeting with -

44 STENOGRAPHER: What's your name? LOUISE THOMAS: Louise Thomas, West End Civic Association. I had a meeting this afternoon about bicyclists with Nicole, and actually the station, the Hubway station at North Station is the most used bicycle - UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Yes, I believe it. LOUISE THOMAS: Yes, so that should be in 0 the study, and I would like - AMY GETCHELL, MODERATOR: We can certainly include that. LOUISE THOMAS: And I would also like to reiterate what Marty said. There has been a lot of conflict between pedestrians and bicyclists, and it is getting to the point where it is dangerous. DAN DRISCOLL: One thing we are going to try to do more of, you folks that use the Esplanade and the Basin area know that sometimes the pathways have a center line stripe, and sometimes they don't. 0 I think the areas that have it, we do seem to see better control of the flow of people staying at least on their own side, and that seems to help. So, we are going to try to continue to add striping to some of those areas that we have recently paved in the

45 c last five years, that we just haven't gone out and put those center lines in. I think that will help some, but the other thing about new pavement is, bikes can go a lot faster, and that doesn't help, so AMY GETCHELL, MODERATOR: Yes. 0 MARK KAEPPLEIN: Mark Kaepplein. I am an Arlington resident. I live on Palmer Street. It is K-a-e-double p--e-i-n. In looking at -- I have a lot of questions, but I'll start out with your recent report on traffic volumes, though, and counts, and the dates seem to correspond with Bike to Work Week and Bike Week in the spring and Car-Free Week in the fall. I mean, doesn't that distort your data like rain would, you know, because it is Bike Week. AMY GETCHELL, MODERATOR: We tried very hard to pick reasonable dates because there are also a lot of events that go on in the Esplanade, if there is a Cancer Walk or a Hunger Walk, or something. It 0 is hard to get a date, so sometimes we are stuck with that window, or if it rains, we have to jump to our rain date. So, we tried very hard to work around some of those bigger events, like Car-Free Week, but sometimes we are backed into a corner and just have

46 c to do our counts, but we compare them to the other years, and they seem - PHIL GOFF: The last -- and the last two Mays, we were -- we have only done -- we have done three Septembers and two Mays, and both Mays we did either the week before or the week after because we are sensitive. We don't want to over inflate numbers for any of the modes. as possible, so We want as accurate an account 0 MARK KAEPPLEIN: And other data I was interested in is the traffic calming devices, like what's the safety factor improvement? Raised medians are well established as -- and refuge as improving safety, but the other ones aren't so much, and balance that against the greenhouse gas production, you know, from vehicles having to slow down and speed c up again, and everybody behind them, also. you worked that tradeoff out? So, have AMY GETCHELL, MODERATOR: No, we haven't. 0 We are in the early stages of the study. We are here tonight just to hear those kind of comments so that the team can go back and look at those things as they are presenting recommended improvements to everything. l..