Howard/Stein-Hudson Associates, Inc.
CREATIVE SOLUTIONS • EFFECTIVE PARTNERING ®
September 6, 2013
To:
Steve McLaughlin
Project Manager - Accelerated Bridge Program
MassDOT
Through:
Paul Godfrey
HNTB
Project Manager
From:
Nathaniel Curtis
Howard/Stein-Hudson
Public Involvement Specialist
RE:
Design Advisory Group (DAG) Meeting
Meeting Notes of August 8, 2013
Overview & Executive Summary
On August 8, 2013, the Design Advisory Group (DAG) met to continue its role in the Casey Arborway final design
process. As part of that process, the DAG is responsible for advising MassDOT on specific topic areas such as
construction management, the new green space associated with the Casey Arborway, pedestrian and bicycle
accommodations, particularly wayfinding and figuring out how to best buffer the Asticou/Martinwood
neighborhood from increased traffic in the upper bus-way associated with the Route 39/taxi swap. With the
design for the Casey Arborway now past the 75% stage and approaching 100%, also known as the Plans,
Specifications and Estimate (PS&E) stage, the work of the DAG is now focusing in on tightly defined elements of
the design such as bicycle and pedestrian mixing zones, the exact configuration of the upper bus-way, particularly
its exit onto Washington Street west of the station, and amenities such as street furniture and plantings. The local
knowledge provided by DAG members will help guide the project team and refine the final design. It is
anticipated that the final design for the Casey Arborway will be advertised for construction during the fall of 2013
with work set to begin in spring 2014.
Generally speaking, the increasingly finalized designed discussed in this meeting were well-received. Both the
bicycle roundabout and changes to the upper bus-way were seen as improvements, though a few attending
community members expressed strong reservations about the entire idea of expanding the upper bus-way. One
idea raised by attending community members which was generally embraced was the idea of having a raised
crosswalk where Asticou Road meets Washington Street as a way to discourage cut-through traffic. The project
team believes that this is possible and will follow up the suggestion. A handful of DAG members expressed
continued deep concern over the historical process associated with turning Shea Circle into Shea Square. The
coordination effort with the Massachusetts Historical Council (MHC) is ongoing and MassDOT is confident that it
will be able to adequately demonstrate to MHC why Shea Square is the right choice for the eastern end of the
Casey Arborway. DAG and community members who wish to be added to MHC’s list of consulting parties are
welcome to contact that agency.
Detailed Meeting Minutes
Opening Remarks
C: Michael Trepanier (MT): Good evening. I see we have a lot of new people joining us from the general public
tonight. You are welcome and please feel free to participate in tonight’s break-out groups. To get started,
38 Chauncy Street, 9th Floor  Boston, Massachusetts 02111  617.482.7080 www.hshassoc.com Page 1
Howard/Stein-Hudson Associates, Inc.
we’ll do introductions. We’ll begin with DAG members and then run through the consultant team, MassDOT
staff members and anyone from the public who’d like to speak. To get us started, I am Michael Trepanier,
environmental planner with MassDOT and your liaison for the DAG and the rest of the Jamaica Plain
community. I’d like to acknowledge Julieanne Doherty from Mayor Menino’s office; Julianne, thank you for
being here.1 I’m happy to see how many of you came and volunteered your time on this lovely summer
evening to work through this material with us. We have a number of items to introduce you to up front. It’s
important at this time to go over the status of the project now that we’ve passed the 75% design. We’re
approaching final design. All of the team members here tonight and others not with us this evening are
producing a final design package for submission to MassDOT at the end of the month. As many of you are
aware, we have continued consultation with the Massachusetts Historical Commission (MHC) and continuing
through the adverse effect process under Chapter 254. We have a meeting scheduled with them on August
23rd at the MHC offices where interested parties can join us to discuss Shea Circle. We need to walk them
through the alternatives we studied before we begin discussing mitigations, but we are confident we’ll get to
that point soon.
Q: Jeffrey Ferris (JF): Can you clarify some of that?
A: MT: Sure, Jeff, go ahead.
Q: JF: You used the term “continued consultation.” You have already been consulting with MHC?
A: MT: Technically the submission of the Environmental Notification Form (ENF) for the MEPA process initiated
formal consultation with the MHC; however we had been in informal consultation prior to that.
Q: JF: I thought there was no consultation prior to the MEPA process rather than informal consultation so I’m a
little confused.
A: MT: I guess it’s something of an issue of semantics. There is consultation of a sort any time we contact MHC.
As I said, that began informally some time ago and was initiated officially through the submission of the ENF
C: Kevin Moloney (KM): I think you’re misleading people about the MHC. I have a letter here, dated July 15 th,
2013 to Steven Roper, Historic Resources Supervisor at MassDOT signed by a representative of the MHC, one
Brona Simon and she says an important part, quote: MassDOT’s submittal is not responsive to MHC’s January
8th, 2013 adverse effect. The January 8th 2013 from MHC requested that MassDOT reconsider and further
explore alternatives…” not as you claim mitigations. “Alternatives, to avoid and minimalize the adverse effect
to Shea Circle and the surrounding historic district, not for MassDOT to simply justify and reiterate your
preferred alternative to eliminate Shea Circle.” Her letter goes on to say that the MHC requests and again
requests, this is now January and then last month that MassDOT reexamine the possibility of retaining Shea
Circle through a redesigned roundabout or signalized egg intersection. MHC’s regulations require the
completion of a good faith effort to explore all, underlined all, prudent and feasible alternatives; citing to 950
CMR 71.073C. Shea Circle is listed by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts on the register of historic places
and a full consideration of all alternatives with the consultation process carried through. Now continuing,
starting with the WAG and DAG and through your remarks tonight you’ve misled us about what is and what is
not going on between MassDOT and MHC. We were told at the state lab and I remember it very clearly, you
had some young fellow working for MassDOT’s historic whatever and he told us that Shea Circle wouldn’t be
a problem.
A: MT: That was me.
C: KM: Then you really ought to know better. We’ve had people talk to the MHC and they tell us that there has
been no informal consultation.
A: Mary Stadalnik (MS): Excuse me, I’m Mary Stadalnik and I work for MassDOT in the cultural resources unit
and we sent our first letter, just for your information, to the MHC on June 28 th, 2012.
1
Here, the meeting paused for introductions. For a listing of meeting attendees, please see Appendix 1.
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C: KM: That was your letter to the Landmarks Commission.
A: MS: Well yes, MHC is cc’d on that letter so as Michael said, any time we contact them, it counts.
C: KM: MHC takes the position that you guys had not begun any consultation with them until January and you
are up there tell me different.
A: MT: Excuse me, hang on.
Q: KM: Can I finish, can I finish?
A: MT: Just wait a minute. The MHC process is not the subject of tonight’s meeting. This is one bullet-point that
I was making as part of a broader update for the DAG on where we are with our process.
Q: Bernard Doherty (BD): What I want to know is why that letter is not in every DAG member’s hands. If this
young lady wants to take responsibility for it, great, but why don’t we have this information to make informed
decisions? We have to go and dig this information out for ourselves rather than having it presented for us.
You ought to be saying to us that “we understand there’s an issue,” in the interest of being transparent.
A: MT: This is exactly why I brought it up in the first place.
C: BD: I’m looking at how we got here. We wouldn’t be having this discussion if all the members of the DAG
had access to the information.
C: JF: And I’d like to see the alternatives.
A: MT: It’s the same set of alternatives. They are the same ones that you first saw in the summer of 2011. Shea
Square was selected as a preferred alternative because it accommodates traffic at an acceptable level of
service and fixes major bicycle and pedestrian connectivity issues inherent to Shea Circle. We summarized
that in our effect finding to the MHC. They are looking for additional documentation and we will provide it to
them. I would really like to cover some of the other material we need to discuss tonight. 2
C: KM: They are looking for good faith alternatives and you’re still presenting this as a done deal.
A: Jeffrey Shrimpton (JS): I’m Jeffrey Shrimpton with MassDOT cultural resources. We were under the impressed
we’d presented our evaluation of alternatives in our June letter. Evidently that was not sufficient so we’ll
present further details at our meeting in August. We recognize that its an adverse effect and we hope to
mitigate it through ideas that we’ve developed. We discussed the alternative in our June letter and we’ll
discuss them further later this month.
Q: BD: Is this a public meeting or is it private and internal?
A: JF: We have a long list of consulting parties as defined by the MHC and we are in the process of adding to it.
I believe that Michael was going to bring this up tonight, and I don’t know if he’s had the chance yet…3
Q: BD: Can you give an example of a consulting party? I’d like to know who’s on that list now.
A: MT: We were informed of the consulting parties in the June letter from the MHC.
2
3
Here, Mr. Trepanier paused to recognize Nathanael Shea from Senator Chang-Diaz’s office.
Here, Mr. Shrimpton was interrupted.
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A: JS: Right now the consulting parties are DCR, MBTA, Representative Liz Malia, the Boston Landmarks
Commission, the Boston Preservation Alliance, the Emerald Necklace Conservancy, Elizabeth Wylie, Christine
Poff, Sarah Freeman, Tom Jacobson and Anne McKinnon.
C: BD: Thank you.
A: JS: We will add to the list and the public is invited to the meeting at MHC.
Q: BD: Can you send an email out telling DAG members the time and place of the meeting?
A: JS: Anyone who strongly wants to be a consulting party can request it of the MHC.
C: MT: And with that, I am moving on to our next topic.
A: KM: I’d rather have these communications out in public. I’ve been consistently misled as a WAG member and
through these private person-to-person communications.
C: MT: Kevin, I am moving on to our next topic. If you want to speak with me further about this, I’m happy to
accommodate you during the breakout groups, but I want to make sure everyone has an opportunity to
interact with the design team.
So, project development schedule: the final design is being prepared for the end of August. MassDOT will
review the submission and advertise the project in the fall. The main point is that the advertising date is not
quite as significant as the date on which we give Notice to Proceed (NTP) which is for spring 2014 at which
point we’d begin work on the pre-stages of construction which many of you have seen at prior meetings. If
you’re new we can send that information to you or you can see it on the project website. That being said I
want to move into a discussion of the actual construction period. We’ve heard from many of you that this
process will end with project development and we’ll then go into 2.5 years of construction during which you
won’t have a contact person the same way you now have me and have had John Romano and Kate Fichter in
the past. We are planning on having that dedicated community liaison person and getting our contractor to
have someone to deal with the community concerns and facilitate notifications to community such as major
milestones and changes in traffic patterns. We anticipate regular open public meetings that would be similar
in style to the project development public information meetings, but would concentrate on construction
activities. If there are periods that require nighttime work, we’d have rigorous outreach prior to and during
that phase.
Q: Name not Given (NNG): What will that be like?
A: MT: We haven’t worked out all the details yet, but we have a strong sense of who your MassDOT liaison for
construction is going to be.
Q: Anne McKinnon (AM): So, Elizabeth Wylie who I’m representing tonight wanted to know about how if the first
consultation session is August 23rd, the first, she says, how does that effect your ability to finish final design in
the fall?
A: MT: Well it could have an impact on our early October advertising date. It could be later in October. It might
impact the date the contracting community see this in the newspaper, but we don’t feel it will impact the NTP
date. Any amount of time the advertising date moves out represents an internal need to expedite our
procurement process. We’d still have the six or seven month timeline, but there’s additional work we can do
inside MassDOT to take our design package and more quickly turn it into a set of bid documents for a
contractor. That process can be expedited and we have a process in place for how we accomplish that
increased speed.
C: AM: I’m not going to read this whole thing, but she’s obviously very concerned about Shea Circle and wants
to make sure that an appropriate amount of time is spent analyzing those and coming up with an alternative
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that does not, well she does not want, to see it obliterate the circle. So her point is she’d like to see you spend
appropriate time studying alternatives to save Shea Circle.
A: MT: O.K. that’s noted.
Q: Gail Sullivan (GS): Thus far you keep saying spring 2014 for the start of work. Can you be more specific?
A: MT: Not yet, we’ll know soon, though some of it will be dependent on winter weather.
Q: NNG: You mentioned contractors, where will they park?
A: MT: We will direct contractors not to park on residential roads. We know that’s a concern the community has.
Q: NNG: In writing please?
A: Mark Gravallese (MG): Once this goes into construction, it will go to District 6 construction and receive a
resident engineer. We will provide lay-down areas, specific, contained, fenced, safe areas to store materials
and equipment. These areas will have locking gates and we will clearly let the contractor know where they
can and cannot park. It’s not like they are going to show up every morning and look for meters.
Q: NNG: I want to see it in writing. Now, another topic: South Street is little. It’s not supposed to have large
trucks on it. What will you do about trucks?
A: MG: I’m not sure about what the designated trucks routes in your area are, but the contractor will have to
establish truck routes and stick to them. I’ll look into it further.
A: MT: Can you come see me about that directly during the breakout groups?
Q: Kevin Wolfson (KW): Can we please move on? I’d like to get to the agenda.
A: MT: I’m doing my best.
C: BD: Let me ask a question first.
A: MT: O.K. one quick one; and then I’m moving on.
Q: BD: The issue I want to know is this: when we get done with this presentation here, will you have reportbacks?
A: MT: Yes, definitely. I want to leave enough time for them.
Discussion of the Upper Bus-Way
C: Paul Godfrey (PG): Two images on the board in front of you: through the DAG and public meetings and the
April 25th meeting with the Asticou/Martinwood/South Street Neighborhood Association, we have heard a lot
of concerns about the upper bus-way expansion and the issue of headlights from buses shining into the
neighborhood. In light of that, we went back and looked for ways to keep the light off Asticou Road. This
graphic is what we showed in the 75% design public information meeting. The revised upper bus-way is
shown in this graphic, the higher one,4 and what it does is introduce a turn at the exit to the point where we
are directing the headlights for buses onto Washington Street. This is the key design element that lets us fix
the headlight issue. We have a series of low walls which further prevent the headlights from hitting Asticou
4
See appendix three for a copy of these images.
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Road. We met with the MBTA about this design. This costs us a bus berth and about seven layover bays and
it’s not optimal from their perspective, but it’s streets ahead of where they are today and in the world of
balance in which we live, it’s a reasonable approach to meeting your concerns. I will be happy to talk about
this with you in further detail during breakouts.
Q: NNG: Will there be a signal there; one there and one another 30 feet down?
A: PG: Yes, there will be a pedestrian crossing light at the exit to the upper bus-way. Everything will be
consolidated into that location.
A: MT: Just so we’re very clear: we have discussed this with the MBTA and preliminarily they say it’s O.K. We
intend to go find a vacant lot and lay this out with cones and we’ll put an MBTA bus through it to make sure it
all fits and that it’s within the normal skill set of their drivers to do this. This isn’t a 100% guarantee until we
have that physical test. This is a product of our meeting with Asticou Road. We’ve also changed the crosssection to improve landscaping design in this area.
Q: Karen Doherty (KD): Has it [the exit to the upper bus-way] moved away from us?
A: PG: Yes, it has moved further to the south. The right turn for Route 39 is just where it was before. The leftturn for buses going south to Roslindale has shifted down 40-50 feet.
Q: JF: So the whole thing, that big rectangle is still at the same place?
A: PG: Yes, the big rectangle which is the upper bus-way deck extension that extends over the lower parking lot
as you described it is still in just the same place.
A: MT: O.K. I’m sorry, but I am going to move us on. These are the kinds of questions for which we specifically
have the break-out groups.
Q: AM: Why not just have the questions asked so we can be efficient?
A: MT: But that’s what the breakout stations are for; it’s so that people are interested in different things, like the
plazas or this next subject we need to cover can go and see all the various elements.
C: BD: This is an advisory group and it should be able to discuss what’s going on here.
A: MT: And again, we will be doing that.
Q: AM: I have a clarification point: when you say one berth and seven layover bays, is that off the expanded or
off the current [upper bus-way]?
A: PG: The reduction is off what you would have seen in the 75% design plans.
Discussion of Pedestrian/Bicycle Accommodations
C: PG: Another design topic we want to discuss today is bicycle and pedestrian design refinements. A key
change is the area around the Southwest Corridor terminal. We’ve modified the design to remove the Tintersection between the two bicycle paths and the current design is a mini-roundabout. Essek will tell you a
lot of wonderful detail about this, but through a lot of discussion with cyclists talking about their safety through
this area, we agree this is the design. We’re also prepared to share with you a lot of detail at bicycle and
pedestrian mixing areas and road crossings.
C: MT: And this is really all in response, especially in the mixing zones, to your concerns. Our conceptual plans
only showed these mustard-colored blobs for the mixing areas and we kept hearing that concern from you at
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public meetings. The mini-roundabout for bicycles was born from the concern over the T-intersection
approach and after hearing some explanation about it, the team really feels quite good about it. The concern
I had at first, and I’ll share it with you, is that you can have this more direct connection if you go counter-flow,
but some of those details have been worked out and we continue to work them through with DCR so there
may be tweaks after we get your opinions on this.
So, with that, we are just a little behind schedule but not too badly. Please go to the breakout groups and
discuss everything: the upper bus-way, Washington Street and so on. We have a larger corner tonight for
open space and landscape design, a corner for bicycles and pedestrians, and one for curbside allocation,
that’s the pull-off or kiss-and-ride. At about 8:30 or a little sooner if I see people start to leave, we’ll come
back together and do report-back.
Group Reporting
C: MT: Thank you everyone for your hard work. I’ve started to see people trickling out the door and I want as
much of the membership as possible to hear the themes from the discussion. Let me start with Paul.
Washington Street/Upper Bus-Way
C: PG: In our very talkative revised bus-way exit group, without question we heard from some folks who just
don’t want the project. That’s been stated many times and clearly. Aside from that, I heard that the revisions
to the upper bus-way were an improvement.5 We’ve been asked to look at some things in the upper bus-way,
like could we scale back the right turn out of the driveway to push back the headlights even a little more
northward. We’ll look at that. There’s an existing inspector’s booth at the upper bus-way today and we’ll
coordinate with the MBTA about that. We discussed parking on Washington Street and the possibility of
putting a raised crosswalk at Asticou Road or making Asticou Road a “do not enter.” We’ll look into those
things with Mark Gravallese from District 6. In a nutshell, outside those who just don’t care for the project,
this seems like improvement.
Q: Sarah Freeman (SF): On the next version, can you put the signal back in?
A: MT: Yes, we can do that.
Q: GS: Can we see next time what this will look like from the Hyde Park Avenue side?
A: MT: We can arrange that for next time. And I do think we have something of an elevation view with this
graphic. Here’s a slice of that view. This will extend out over the lower parking lot at Hyde Park Avenue.
Q: Frederick Vetterlein (FV): You’re not losing parking there are you; just covering it?
A: PG: By and large yes, we do lose a handful of spaces, but it’s quite minimal.
Q: BD: But you’re losing parking on the upper side, right?
A: PG: Yes, MBTA employee spaces.
Curbside Allocation
C: Don Kindsvatter (DK): My group was about on-street curbside uses. The biggest issue I heard about was
enforcement. We have overlaps between the City of Boston, MBTA and State police forces. We’ll need to to
coordinate with them about parking enforcement.
5
Here, Michael paused to recognize Representative Malia.
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Q: Representative Liz Malia (LM): Have you talk about it with them?
A: DK: Certainly, but it’s an ongoing communication.
A: MT: In terms of operations and maintenance we have several overlays including police jurisdiction and snow
and ice removal. We’re continuing to finalize that.
Q: LM: And you’re at 90% design now?
A: MT: There isn’t really a 90% design stage because these numbers we toss around are really internal MassDOT
milestones, but we’re past 75% design and not quite final yet.
C: LM: Just a piece of advice: the Southwest Corridor PMAC pulls all the police jurisdictions together monthly.
It’s important to have all those jurisdictions at the table when these things are discussed because when
someone gets transferred or moved nobody remembers what was said. That’s why you want to pull these
things together.
A: Steve McLaughlin (SM): We’ve had a series of meetings where we spread out the plans. What happens with
the legal document each agency signs? We’re not there yet. This is something we will continue to work on
and it won’t be done by November, but frankly this is something we need at the end of construction, not the
start.
Q: LM: But wouldn’t it be important during the construction phase? Who’s directing the traffic?
A: SM: We’re meeting with them to address construction as well. We actually met just yesterday with BTD and
talked about construction phase services: details and what agencies will come in and how wide an agency net
we will cast.
A: MT: BTD raised the issue that we might want additional street agents or enforcement officers who would
typically write tickets, but in this case would likely be out there saying “move along or I’m writing a ticket.” It’s
not about revenue generation; it’s for maintenance of operations.
Q: BD: Are they doing things that get them paid beyond their normal work schedule?
A: MT: That’s a detail we have yet to address, but I’m sure we’ll get to it.
C: DK: The next thing was the pull-off spaces near Asticou Road. We went back and forth on that and the idea
that if they are not there, people will double park and pull onto Asticou Road. The feeling was to have the
four spaces on the south, but not those on the north. We’ll go back and look at that. If we can put in the
raised sidewalk to make Asticou Road seem more like a driveway, there was some agreement that would
help.
Pedestrian/Bicycle Accommodations
C: Essek Petrie (EP): We focused a lot on the roundabout. I don’t know that we got to consensus, but people did
say they felt it was better than the T-intersection. Some people didn’t care for it in general. Some other
people wanted it shifted south into the plaza. One thing we talked about was what can be done in the
roundabout island like a bicycle maintenance area. Another concern raised was pedestrians crossing the
bicycle path on a desire line and we brought in some example pavers to show the contrast between the
bicycle and pedestrian area. One concern was the idea of pavers shifting over the time and perhaps
replacing pavers with inlay pavement like at Brigham Circle.
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Q: BD: I see we’ve got the bicycle pathway coming down from the north and then going east and west. Where is
the pedestrian pathway in this area?
A: EP: Around the head-house, pedestrians are using the plaza.
C: BD: There will be a tendency for people to walk in the bicycle path.
A: EP: A point of the pavers is to help differentiate the spaces and keep pedestrians off the pathway.
C: Mary Hickie (MH): The basic concept behind this is the separation between bicycles and pedestrians. Now
that I know that, the roundabout makes sense.
A: EP: It’s about safe interaction, not just separation. This helps to reduce the speed and make things safer.
C: Maureen Chlebek (MC): On Circuit Drive we got a suggestion to put sharrows in the right turn lane to line up
bicycles for the turn. At the upper bus-way we had comments about the crosswalk on Washington Street,
possibly having a raised crosswalk and then a flashing warning signal activated by buses to make it obvious
when a bus is coming.
C: MT: That would be pointed away from Asticou Road.
C: SF: It didn’t get drawn in, but there’s the desire to cross from the future path to the western bow-tie.
A: EP: We’re still going through that to see whether it would work.
C: BD: You would need to put another signal in there to make it work.
A: EP: There’s a signal at that location today.
C: BD: But it’s not a full traffic signal.
A: SF: It’s only a pedestrian signal.
Q: BD: That light there at the very end, or the beginning I guess, what is the distance between that light and the
end light up at where you’re thinking of putting in a pedestrian crosswalk near the gate?
A: MT: 1.1 miles, around that.
C: BD: I think it’s less than that to tell you the truth. That would be 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 traffic lights.
A: MT: Two of which would be in a typical state of green.
Q: BD: I understand that, but we’re talking about potential for the future here and we’ve got two or three
entrances into the Arborway and two of them will be used with the potential parking garage where 500
Arborway is right now and that could be three or four stories high to accommodate the courthouse and the
needs of the transportation group. That’s a lot of exiting and entering into the street. What have you done
about that?
A: EP: We’re not assuming a parking garage at that location.
C: LM: We talked about that two years ago and that was a concern we had on the state level about the overlap
between the two projects. The Arborway Yard, as far as I know, remains frozen. They can’t really touch more
planning for the garage until they figure out the funding.
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A: MT: The overall issue at Arborway Yard is the lack of MBTA funding. Back to your original point; the western
bowtie idea is still under review.
Landscape Design
C: George Batchelor (GB): In landscape design, I think we could have kept going all night. There’s a lot of
development in this design. We discussed programming and interesting ideas were raised for the plaza area:
a dog park, a skate park, an arbor. Generally speaking, and we spoke with Joe Orfant from DCR about this,
those are programmatic things and they don’t see those as appropriate for this project, but those types of
suggestions should go right to DCR. The plaza at the end of the Southwest Corridor, we’ve done a little
grading to raise it, but the key area is the space by the electrical substation. There’s talk about the space
going up to McBride Street, generally from the MBTA. We’re looking for programmatic flexibility and keeping
this northeast corner of the space adjacent to that corridor open for future cool things. Right now, the plan is
for an open, green lot. We talked about the plaza a lot.
We discussed some of the things we’re going into for low impact stormwater and generally liked the bicycle
roundabout. I told the group I wasn’t entirely sold at first and Michael wasn’t either, but we are really falling
in love with this from the bicycle and pedestrian perspective and it does contribute to an “ah-hah!” arrival. I
checked with Paul Godfrey about trying to realign the roundabout’s location and trying to get it into the right
alignment with other trajectories.
Lighting was discussed and that’s in progress. There will be different lighting levels for the MBTA plaza and
the DCR corridor where we expect the lighting type to be the pendant style. We talked about plant species;
we’ll be using disease resistant cultivars of Elms and working to get the right cultivars of crabapples. We also
got some additional guidance around Cercis canadensis (aka Redbud) with the magenta flowers and we will
continue to discuss possible different colors. Things to fine-tune: on the west side near Arborway Road we
looked at the planting the future potential sidewalk development. We also talked about Washington Street
towards Ukraine Way and discussed providing street trees along the west side, separating the sidewalk and
bicycle path and providing a planted buffer for Asticou neighborhood. At Shea Square there was a
suggestion to narrow the street at Shea Square. We haven’t done that, but we got some reinforcement on our
overall approach there.
C: FV: One of our goals in the Stony Brook neighborhood is to be able to get to the Forest Hills Cemetery safely.
On our side, the main road we go down is Forest Hills Street with the pole yard and then on the other side,
the sidewalk just dies and it seems there’s no development of sidewalk on Forest Hills Street. The intersection
is Circuit Road which is up higher and doesn’t connect to the neighborhood. On the side opposite the pole
yard, the sidewalk just stops.
Q: GS: You’re asking for a sidewalk there? I guess it is kind of crappy. What about along Cemetery Road?
A: FV: Cemetery Road has the tunnel and you’re overpowered by the cars which are going pretty fast and the
sidewalk just sort of blends into the street.
C: GS: The sidewalk there is also ridiculously narrow.
Q: Michael Reiskind (MR): Would it be better to do a better sidewalk on Cemetery Road?
A: FV: It would be best to have both of them really.
C: GS: Cemetery Road’s never really going to be nice. It’s dark, stinky.
A: FS: It’s all the things in one spot that are wrong with the underside of the Casey Overpass.
C: MG: Don’t hold back, Gail, tell us how you really feel about it.
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Q: BD: I see all these green pom-poms and I guess those are trees. Are the brown ones dead?
A: MT: No. No, those are flowering trees and if you get up close you can see they’re kind of pink, but the
overhead lights do wash them out.
Q: GS: Would it be possible to get a real sidewalk on one side of Cemetery Road? It’s wider than it needs to be
for the traffic it carries.
A: MT: We’re right up against the edge. I don’t think that’s in our work area.
C: GS: They are showing sidewalk on Cemetery Road, but maybe it could be on Forest Hills Street.
A: MT: Just so I’m clear, there’s always some sidewalk there. Do you expect to get much benefit from it?
C: FV: Right now people wind up having to walk in the street past the pole yard.
A: MT: We can talk to BTD about it.
C: Pete Stidman (PS): Gail was also talking about extending the bicycle path up Morton Street up to Cemetery
Road since it’s already in the work zone and also connecting Circuit Drive to the old horse path in Franklin
Park. We’ve been talking with the state about the design for Morton Street and Toole Design is involved.
There is the width for a cycle track and that plus putting the path in the park would help avoid a weak link.
A: MT: We definitely can’t do work inside the park. We’ve already tried to minimize the work we are doing
around Circuit Drive.
Q: PS: What’s the width of the bicycle lane there?
A: MT: It’s about five feet.
Q: PS: Is there any chance of getting a couple extra feet on that? There’s going to be cycle track almost all the
way from Blue Hill Avenue to here with very few interruptions, under the American Legion Highway Bridge it
would pinch down to a bicycle lane, but there are very few weak points.
Q: GS: You’re talking about both directions, on each side of the street, with traffic, one-way on each side, but
buffered?
A: PS: Right; it would be one-way on each side of the street with traffic.
A: MT: We can look at it, but what we have is a constraint on this corner in Franklin Park because the parks
department basically told us not to touch their park. It’s showing green because it won’t be hardscape in the
final condition, but Pete, we can look at adding a gore to help buffer this bicycle lane.
C: PS: On the maps of the plazas we talked about the benches and to have a good bench, you need to have a
back. It helps people feel someone isn’t going to sneak up behind them. If you just do granite slabs, well
then you’ve made a skate park.
A: MT: All right. I think that hits the major points so I’ll wrap up. We expect to reconvene in the fall and I’m sure
we’ll have something to discuss then. We are racing towards final design and construction advertising, but I’ll
do my best to give the traditional two week notice with the agenda.
Q: GS: Can I ask, knowing that all teams are working towards construction drawings, but these perspective
drawings are out-of-date compared to the plan and so could those be updated to be relevant to those items
still in play?
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A: MT: We can do that. You of all people, Gail, I’m sure understand that’s a big amount of effort. There’s got
to be a realistic expectation on new perspectives at this point. Moving a bench or a tree from here to there is
a high cost and large effort so we’re somewhat constrained.
C: LM: You saved $20 million by not fixing the bridge.
A: MT: I’m trying to tell you that it’s the community’s money. We’re trying to be respectful of it.
C: MR: Hubway is coming to Jamaica Plain and they are proposing seven possible sites. There will be a
community meeting one week from today at Curtis Hall at 7:00PM. One spot they suggest is right under the
current Casey Overpass so we need something different from that and its solar-powered so it wouldn’t work
under existing conditions anyway, but the other location they proposed is on New Washington Street near
South Street and that may be temporary too given all this, but they expect to have something out by
December. Anyway, just come to the meeting and tell them what location you’d like.
A: MT: You’re talking to Pete Stidman about all this, right?
A: MR: Not yet, but I will be.
A: MT: Hubway isn’t really our role, but we’ll make sure we have the right programmed space. George and
Deneen, did you get that? Good, and with that, everyone have a great night.
Next Steps
The next DAG meeting is currently anticipated to take place in late September or early October. This meeting will
address updates on the elements discussed in the session summarized herein and provide additional information
pertinent to the construction phase. An email confirming the date and time will be sent to DAG members in
advance of the meeting. It is likely that the meeting will take place in the library of the Boston English High
School.
The process regarding Shea Circle is also ongoing. MassDOT’s project team attended an initial meeting held by
MHC on August 23rd and is in the process of responding to the issues raised by members of the historical
commission. A response by MassDOT’s project team will be submitted and discussed with MHC at a subsequent
coordination meeting which will likely take place in late September or early October. As with the August MHC
session, this meeting will be held during the day at the Historical Commission’s South Boston offices with select
design team members present.
As the design phase for the project is rapidly approaching its end, MassDOT reminds individual DAG members
and residents that briefings to specific community groups are still available particularly to address issues of traffic
calming during construction and construction management.
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Appendix 1: Attendees
First Name
Last Name
Affiliation
George
Robin
Nina
Sander
Todd
Deneen
Karen
Jullianne
Bernard
Walter
Michael
Jeffrey
Gianalda
Louis
Sarah
Sarah
Matt
Paul
Mark
Clay
Ruth
Kevin
Janet
Janis
Marvin
Don
Dick
Diane
Andrew
Liz
Anne
Steve
Jessica
Kevin
Rebeca
Carolyn
Essek
Tad
Michael
Daniel
Nathanael
Jeffrey
Mary
Gail
Rachel
Mark
Michael
Karen
Kevin
George
Batchelor
Bergfors
Brown
Cohan
Consentino
Crosby
Doherty
Doherty
Doherty
Engstrom
Epp
Ferris
Fontana
Free
Freeman
Gifford
Gifford
Godfrey
Gravallese
Harper
Helfeld
Horgan
Hunkel
Hurd
Kabakoff
Kindsvatter
Leroy
Lipovsky
List
Malia
McKinnon
McLaughlin
Mink
Moloney
Oleveira
Paul
Petrie
Read
Reiskind
Scanlan
Shea
Shrimpton
Stadalnik
Sullivan
Szakmary
Tedrow
Trepanier
Wepsic
Wolfson
Zoulalian
MassDOT
MassDOT
DAG
DAG
DAG
CSS
Community resident
Office of Mayor Menino
DAG
Covenant Congregational Church
DAG
[for David Hannon]
Community resident
URS
DAG
Community resident
Community resident
HNTB
MassDOT
Community resident
DCR
HNTB
Southwest Corridor PMAC
Community resident
Community resident
Kleinfelder
Community resident
CSS
Community resident
State Representative
[for Elizabeth Wylie]
MassDOT
DAG
DAG
Jamaica Plain Gazette
Covenant Congregational Church
HNTB
BRA
DAG
DAG
Office of Senator Chang-Diaz
MassDOT
MassDOT
DAG
BTD
Community resident
MassDOT
DAG
DAG
DAG
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Appendix 2: Received Emails
Please see the following pages.
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Nathaniel Cabral-Curtis
From:
Sent:
To:
Subject:
Attachments:
dwean2@gmail.com on behalf of David Wean <David@WeanZabin.com>
Thursday, August 08, 2013 2:15 PM
Trepanier, Michael (DOT); Nathaniel Cabral-Curtis
Re: Casey Arborway Project - Upcoming Design Advisory Group Meeting & Agenda
DAG - Design Discussion Agenda 8_8_13.pdf; 75% Public Informational Meeting Casey Arborway 7-11-13_Accessible.pdf
Michael Turns out I had a conflict I wasn't aware of tonight (hosting a meeting at MY house) and I won't be able to make
it to the DAG meeting tonight. Among other things, this means I won't be there to provide Cliff Bars to
Stephanie and Sean.
I know it is never a good idea to predict the contents of a presentation in advance, but I will do so anyway, and
offer the following comments for the record:
Upper Busway - the current design pulls the platforms substantially southward, extending the distance
that thousands of daily bus riders need to walk to get to the subway. While this may not be avoidable, we
should be sure that the design at least allows them to make this journey along a path that is protected from
the elements, and wide enough to not funnel everyone into a sidewalk.
Bike / Ped refinements - I will continue to put in a plug for either (a) on-street bike lanes in all directions,
which are usable year round, or (b) widening the curb laines by 2 feet (but not much more, or people will
park there) to allow lane sharing for the cyclists who choose not to battle with pedestrians and poorlyremoved snow and re-frozen ice in the winter.
Curbside allocation - keep the space for cabs and for drop-off separate - currently on the upper side the
taxis seem to overlow into the drop-off area, so people stop in the travel lane to drop off, pick up, or
(worse) wait.
Enforecment - for this plan to work as intended, strict enforcement of all rules (double parking, not
blocking the box, no-turn-on-red, crossing against the signals) Commitment from the three police forces
that have jurisdiction over various parts of the project is a prerequisite, but there needs to be a method to
be sure that these commitments are honored.
Cheers,
David
On Fri, Jul 26, 2013 at 4:33 PM, Trepanier, Michael (DOT) <Michael.Trepanier@dot.state.ma.us> wrote:
To all –
1
I am pleased to announce that MassDOT has scheduled a Design Advisory Group Meeting for August 8, 2013
at 6PM:
English High School
144 McBride Street (enter on Williams Street)
2nd floor, Library
Boston, MA
An Agenda for the meeting is attached. I would also note that because we were accepting comments until very
recently, the meeting minutes and materials have not been fully completed for posting to the website for the
75% Design Information Meeting. In light of this, I am also attaching the presentation that was given at the
meeting to keep everyone refreshed on recent changes to the project design. If you have any questions in
advance of the meeting, please do not hesitate to contact me!
Have a great weekend and I look forward to seeing you at English High!
Sincerely,
Michael
Michael Trepanier
Senior Environmental Planner
Environmental Services
MassDOT Highway Division
10 Park Plaza, Room 4260
Boston, MA 02116
(857) 368-8828
www.mass.gov/massdot
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Appendix 3: Meeting Materials
The following pages provide images of the materials used with the DAG during the meeting summarized herein.
Some of them have been marked up by DAG members with comments and suggestions. Other thoughts
provided by DAG members, but not included in the minutes in the report-back or on the graphics include the
following:
Landscape Design
 The plazas are currently very similar. Could one be more green and one more hardscape?
 Crabapple trees have rust problems and do not look attractive during the summer or fall. Consider other
species.
 Will the 4-6 trees on Washington Street near Ukraine Way be replaced?
 Can seating be placed on the grass triangle next to Arborway Gardens?
Bicycle and Pedestrian Accommodations
 Consider differentiating the bicycle path from the pedestrian realm with a grade difference of one half
inch.
 Can the crossing of the Arborway at Shea Square be reduced in length?
MBTA Head-house
 The head-house does not connect visually with the existing Forest Hills Station. Think about the pitched
roof and clock tower.
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