Christian MilNeil | Streets Blog Mass | June 14, 2021
https://mass.streetsblog.org/2021/06/14/at-long-last-dcr-releases-master-plan-for-safer-parkways/
The Department of Conservation and Recreation (DCR) has finally released its “Parkways Master Plan,” one month after StreetsblogMASS exposed the agency’s long-running efforts to keep the study out of the public’s sight.
As we reported last month, in 2015, DCR signed a contract with Toole Design Group to assess a number of its urban parkways in the greater Boston area and recommend improvements to provide better accommodations for people walking and biking.
But aside from a single public meeting in October 2015, there had been no public updates about the study’s progress until Friday afternoon, when DCR published a 278-page master plan document stamped with an “August 2020” publication date.
In an accompanying press release, DCR also revealed Friday that the agency had created an “office of Green Transportation” to lead implementation of the Master Plan’s recommendations, and that the design principles of the Master Plan are being incorporated in ongoing agency projects, including the reconstruction of the Arborway in Boston, Hammond Pond Parkway in Newton, and Memorial Drive in Cambridge.
If implemented, the new Master Plan could provide a major boost to bike and pedestrian accessibility, particularly in and around suburban parklands like the Middlesex Fells, Blue Hills Reservation, and the parkways of West Roxbury.
The plan calls for miles of new bike lanes that would be implemented with paint in the short term as part of DCR paving projects, and new physically-separated bikeways or shared-use pathways in major reconstruction projects in the longer term.
The plan also recommends traffic-calming projects for hundreds of intersections and crosswalks across the region, and suggests road diets on streets like Quincy Shore Drive (to provide a safe connection between the Neponset Greenway and Wollaston Beach), Park Drive in Boston, and the Fellsway East roadway in Malden.
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