On Thursday, the Boston City Council will hold a hearing about plans for improving streets in response to the coronavirus pandemic. Will you take five minutes today to ask Boston to act with the urgency this crisis demands?

Contact your city councilor: Ask that they attend this hearing and tell them you support these recommendations for improving Boston’s “Healthy Streets” plan. (Sample script below; find your councilor here, and their email address here.)

It’s critical that councilors understand why action is needed to support essential workers and essential trips. If you have a personal story about either topic — maybe you’re currently riding the bus or a bike to work, or delivering food or medicine by bike — please share it with the council!

The City Council will meet at 1 p.m Thursday, so get your feedback in before then!

The steps Boston has taken to date are insufficient to meet this historic moment. With your support, we can get the city to not only commit to more short-term changes, but to making these long-overdue fixes permanent, too.

SAMPLE SCRIPT

Find your councillor here, and their email address here

Dear [councilor],

I’m writing to express my hopes for the next phase of Boston’s “Healthy Streets” plan for adapting streets in response to COVID-19. While I appreciate the steps Boston has taken to date, I am concerned about their focus and scope.

I support recommendations made by the Boston Cyclists Union, MassBike, LivableStreets Alliance and WalkBoston for expanding and improving upon this initial effort. In particular, I would like this next phase of “Healthy Streets” to include:

• Clear criteria for how projects are being prioritized
• A greater emphasis on equity, addressing both systemic underinvestment and the pandemic’s disproportionate impact on low-income neighborhoods and communities of color
• A plan for keeping and maintaining improvements through the winter
• A commitment to making short-term improvements permanent and/or collecting data from pilots to advance priority projects

[Share your personal story about transportation and COVID]

Thank you,

[Your name]
[Address]