Tell DCR: Implement separated bike lanes and connect the necklace!

The Department of Conservation and Recreation (DCR) is restarting a project to improve the Arborway. After 25 years of disjointed planning processes and no significant progress on the ground, we need your help in holding the agency accountable to finally making meaningful changes.

Arborway Parkways Improvement Project 
Thursday, November 21, 2019
 6:30 p.m. – 8:00 p.m. 
Brigham and Women’s Faulkner Hospital – Huvos Auditorium, 3rd Floor 
1153 Centre Street, Jamaica Plain, MA 02130

Next Thursday, DCR will hold the first public meeting in this round of planning for the stretch of the Arborway between Forest Hills and Jamaica Pond, including the two treacherous rotaries. At this meeting, DCR will share findings from a Road Safety Audit conducted in April with stakeholders including the Boston Cyclists Union, review short-term improvements to be implemented over the coming months, and outline the planning process for long-term changes. 

Here’s what you can do to help us FINALLY get a safer, more accessible Arborway for all:

• Attend the public meeting and speak up for our proposed solutions (see list below)
• Spread the word to your family, friends and fellow cyclists to show up
• Join us to reach out to neighbors near the Arborway. We’ll canvass on Thursday, November 14, from 6-8 p.m., and Saturday, November 16, from 2:30-4:30 p.m. RSVP to Eliza to join either canvass.
• Submit written comments after the meeting on DCR’s website 
• Join our campaign team to see through this planning process. If you would like to get involved with that group, contact Eliza. 

This area continues to be one of the most dangerous roadways DCR manages in Boston, averaging one crash every five days between January 2017 and July 2018. The Arborway is also one of the last few links in Olmsted’s Emerald Necklace that does not keep cyclists safely separated from traffic — a gap made even more glaring after the completion of cycletracks in the Casey project. 

We won’t stand for more planning. We want action. 

We are asking DCR to:

• Implement traffic calming to reduce vehicle speeds
• Add physically separated bike lanes or an off-road, shared-use path 
• Create safer crossings for people walking; crossings should be one lane or signalized, and need to be ADA accessible
• Increase the amount of green space and trees — put the PARK back in Parkway!
• Limit carriage roads to local traffic and bicycles, and direct through traffic into center lanes

We will continue to refine our asks after we hear DCR’s proposal. To get involved in shaping those asks, join the campaign team! This is a complicated stretch of road and we need your input.