click on photos to see larger view
The Current View of Forest Hills & Casey Overpass ↓
THE NEW FOREST HILLS – ideas by Colleen Palmer ↓
General Traffic Concept: Simple is always better. Eliminate the unnecessary.
Change in Traffic Flow: Drive around Forest Hills during rush hour and you will experience the flow problem. There are far too many stop lights and odd traffic configurations. Cars are double parked because of limited drop off space at station which contributes to the clogging. Visibility is not good and consequently the whole area feels dangerous.
- Eliminate Casey overpass
- Introduce pedestrian overpass leading into arboretum
- USE ROTARIES instead of traffic lights
+ Rotaries allow safe turnaround for taxis and buses
+ Rotaries keep traffic in a constant democratic flow
+ only minor adjustments needed in streets + short re-route of south street - Designate fewer but more substantial pedestrian crossings.
- Stop lights for pedestrian crossing only
- Buses exit right only from station. Eliminate crossing traffic
- Make space for bike lanes on Arborway
- New entrances and exits for parking lots
- New exits for buses in order to allow right only turns out of station
- Longer taxi stand/ drop-off on Washington street
Beautify with Green: green space makes people more calm reducing road rage, improves quality of life, property value, air quality, and many more benefits
- Create a green space in median “new Washington” – renamed “Arborway”
- Create a green and seamless connection of the SW corridor to the Bussey entrance of Arboretum
- Create a green and seamless new entrance via the new pedestrian/bike overpass.
- Line Washington in front of parking lots with green
- Whenever possible, separate pedestrian walk from street with green zone
Overpass: CREATE LARGE PEDESTRIAN OVERPASS + GREENSPACE leading into the Arboretum entrance.
Click on Image to see full size:
Letter to john.romano@state.ma.us :
Hello John Romano,
I am a Roslindale home owner (for 2 years) and extremely interested in the Casey Overpass project. Unfortunately I could not make the July meeting and also cannot make the August meeting. So in lieu of sharing my ideas at a meeting, I write this e-mail. My ideas are explained at the bottom of this e-mail, and as you see above these small photos link to a full size version of the diagrams of my ideas and of the current view the Casey Overpass. I request that you bring these ideas to the table on my behalf to be considered by the community and other managers. My hope it that my ideas will spark a flow of new ideas for reworking this area. My ideas require very little infrastructure and instead focus on flow and usability. Simple, common sense solutions.
I have studied the presentations online as well as past reports from a traffic study done in 2008. I understand that the focus of this project is the overpass, and notice that all of the “Draft Designs” maintain the same traffic patterns, and MBTA structure. I am concerned that a larger view of the area has not yet been presented at the meetings. A wide view reworking is in order and it would be a shame to miss the opportunity on this project to make some great and lasting changes in this very complicated bottleneck of activity. There are simple solutions that would drastically improve the area – Solutions that involve every aspect of the forest hills area: MTBA station, bus flow, intersections, livability, safety, beauty, pedestrians, bicycles.
I am a problem solver and holistic consultant, and although I have many ideas, I know that this area needs a redesign by advanced landscape architects, engineers and city planners who have experience integrating projects with public and private. Thus far it seems that there is a lack of innovation in the proposed designs, and I sincerely hope that my ideas will be considered through this process. As a resident of Roslindale, this project is extremely important to me, and I would like it to be prepared thoughtfully.
Before making any final decisions, I urge you and your team to assess if the decisions made will make lasting positive change on all aspects of the area. Also, please, get the best people; big thinkers! This is a wonderful opportunity to change the lives of thousands of people in a positive way.
Thank you so much for bringing my ideas to the table for me.
Feel free to call if you have any questions.
Best,
Colleen Palmer
Holistic Consultant & Efficiency Expert
Roslindale Resident
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Side note:
I spend quite a lot of time in Europe, just recently in France and Switzerland. The European countries are, in my observation, much more adept at city planning and modernizing than we are here in Boston. They face the same challenges that we face since our city is quite old and not designed for the automobile, but it is clear that when projects are approved in Switzerland, France, Germany, or Denmark many of the right people have come together to make a lasting impact. Everything is considered: traffic flow, bikes, pedestrians, train station location and usability, green spaces. All the things that must come together to create spaces that work, are beautiful, and people friendly. We can make a lasting positive impact on Forest Hills by taking this big picture approach.
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