This is just an amazing shot of Washington Street in Jamaica Plain 25 years ago when the elevated came down.
Sunday Apr 22 09:19pmOld Orange Line demolition. Fall, 1987
Photo by Chris Lovett
This makes me all kind of happy. The future of Forest Hills is looking brighter.
Friday Mar 9 09:55amCasey Overpass to be torn down, replaced with surface roads
- The state announced Thursday that it will not rebuild the aging Casey Overpass that carries the Arborway over the Forest Hills MBTA station in Jamaica Plain but instead will replace the deteriorating structure with surface roads.
This is a great look at the wasted opportunities of park & ride transit stations. Imagine the little villages that could be built near Boston at Riverside Station in Newton, Route 128 Station in Westwood, or the Anderson Regional Transportation Center in Woburn.
Of course the sea of parking around Forest Hills Station right in Jamaica Plain would be the best place to build a dense, transit-oriented village.
Friday Mar 2 01:52pmIf we built village of small streets today, where would we locate it?
One great candidate would be a park-and-ride lot, which is a parking lot located next to a subway, light rail, or commuter rail station. These parking lots do the job of getting some people to use public transit who wouldn’t ordinarily take it.
But that’s just the problem: the people who use park-and-ride lots don’t ordinarily take transit. The reason they have to drive to a train station is that they don’t live near it. That’s why building new neighborhoods next to transit (called transit oriented development in planner lingo) has become popular in the last 10 years. If we built a small streets village next to transit station, then we’d have a whole village of people who could use transit for all of their trips longer than a walk or bicycle ride away.
There are countless park-and-ride lots to consider, but we’ll look at just a couple. Greenbelt Station is located in Maryland at one end of Metro’s Green Line, which goes through Washington, DC and back out to Maryland. If you’ve ever hopped a ride on the Bolt Bus from New York City or the bus from BWI Airport, you may have visited this station.
Greenbelt Station’s parking lot has 3,399 all-day spaces and uses an area of 37 acres. Is that large enough for a village of small streets? Let’s use the village of Jakriborg, Sweden as an example, since that was built next to a train station and we’ve discussed it before.
The whole village of Jakriborg is just 12.5 acres, and over 500 families live there! Do a little basic math and you find that, at the average US household size of 2.6, almost 4,000 people could live in a small streets village that extends no further than the current boundaries of the parking lot. We’d still have plenty of room for buses, taxis, and Zipcars on the edges.
Even the UNESCO World Heritage Site of Telč, Czech Republic fits on the Greenbelt park-and-ride lot. Built during the Renaissance, Telč is organized around a large town square with small streets surrounding it.
We would of course craft the village to best fit the site. But as you can see, there’s no reason why well over 1,000 people couldn’t live in a village of small streets on the site of a former park-and-ride lot.
There are plenty more park-and-ride lots on Metro. This example at Landover Station is 16 acres in area with 1,866 parking spots. Around 1,600 people could live here in a small streets village. Which would you rather see here? Parking spaces for 1,866 commuters or houses, apartments, shops and restaurants for 1,600 village residents and visitors from all over the DC region?
We’ve invested billions of dollars in providing these sites with a rapid transit system that whisks passengers away every 6 to 20 minutes, from 5 am to 12:30pm weekdays and 7am to 2:30am on weekends. What’s really the best use of this land?
Let’s take these parking lots and build small streets villages.
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If you’re curious to find out how many people could live in a small streets village next to a park-and-ride lot near you, use this handy tool to measure the site in Google Maps.
Tuesday Feb 28 01:34pmPAUL MCMORROW
Ripe for building on Orange Line
- Activists from both sides of the Charles are assembling again, with the goal of redeveloping neighborhoods along the length of the Orange Line corridor.
The Benefits of At-Grade at Forest Hills video by BostonCyclistsUnion
For more on this issue see my blog post at Panorama of the Mountains.
Time to chime in on the Casey Overpass « Boston Cyclists Union - http://t.co/hyX93AHT
Tuesday Sep 27 11:34pm
How to make sure motorists notice you when you’re driving a bike.
(via Visibility! | Another Bike)
Friday Sep 16 10:54am
I hope to participate in this ride if it stops raining.
(via Spring Roll 2011 this Sunday! - JP Bikes)
Thursday May 19 11:52amWould you like to help out a cute 3.5 year old kid and his dad as they ride a bike 15 miles around Boston to support Bikes Not Bombs? Then donate now to support our efforts for the Bikes Not Bombs Bike-A-Thon.
My son Peter & I love riding our bikes around Boston and look forward to the 15-mile ride around the city on June 12th to support Bikes Not Bombs. Bikes Not Bombs is a great charitable organization that helps the youth of our city through programs that offer bike safety lessons, teach mechanic skills and encourage a healthy life. As a result of Bikes Not Bombs programs, kids learn confidence and leadership skills. Bikes Not Bombs also refurbishes bicycles and ships them abroad. These bikes help people in Central America, the Caribbean and Africa fulfill necessary transportation and technological needs in an environmentally-friendly manner.
Please consider making a donation to sponsor us and support Bikes Not Bombs. Better yet, sign up and ride with us!
Thank you very much.
Sunday May 15 10:42pm