DCR Issues One More Call for Feedback on Arborway Redesign
Christian MilNeil | Streets Blog Mass | February 14, 2022
https://mass.streetsblog.org/2022/02/14/dcr-issues-one-more-call-for-feedback-on-arborway-redesign/
The Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation (DCR) is hosting one more round of public input for a major renovation of the Arborway in Jamaica Plain that would convert multiple motor vehicle lanes to parkland and fill a missing link in the Emerald Necklace with new bicycle and pedestrian paths.
It’s a project that has been in the works for two years now, and judging by the updates from a recent online public hearing, it’s hard to tell whether the project is actually moving forward, or just going around in circles like a car stuck on one of the Arborway’s notorious rotaries.
The last public hearing on the Arborway Improvements Project, which we covered in October 2020, outlined three alternative designs, which all strive to preserve trees and reduce the Arborway’s paved footprint while adding new bike paths, sidewalks, crosswalks, and greenspace.
At that meeting, DCR officials told the public that they hoped to finalize a design by the spring of 2021, and begin construction shortly thereafter.
But at a virtual public hearing on January 20, DCR confirmed that they had not yet settled on a preferred design. In fact, instead of narrowing down the options, they’ve added a fourth alternative (pictured below), and are asking the public to weigh in one more time on all the alternatives.
The four alternatives share some common elements – like a continuous dedicated bike path that would extend from Jamaica Pond to the Forest Hills Orange Line Station, and lane reductions that would tear up asphalt to create more accessible parkland. But the details of the four designs vary considerably.
Public comments on the four alternatives, and an online survey, will be open through Thursday, February 17th (note that parts of the project website still say that the deadline for public comments is Feb. 10, but DCR extended that deadline one week because it took them longer than expected to post the meeting’s presentation and recording).
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