Howard/Stein-Hudson Associates, Inc.
CREATIVE SOLUTIONS • EFFECTIVE PARTNERING ®
MEMORANDUM
October 26, 2012
To:
Steve McLaughlin
Project Manager - Accelerated Bridge Program
MassDOT
Through:
Essek Petrie
HNTB
Project Manager
From:
Nathaniel Curtis
Howard/Stein-Hudson
Public Involvement Specialist
RE:
Design Advisory Group (DAG) Meeting
Meeting Notes of October 17, 2012
Overview & Executive Summary
On October 17, 2012, the Design Advisory Group (DAG) met to continue its role in the Casey Arborway
Project 25% design process. As part of the 25% design process, the DAG is responsible for advising
MassDOT on specific topic areas such as construction management, urban design, traffic, pedestrian and
bicycle facilities, parking, and unresolved project elements from the planning study including the design of
Washington Street west of Forest Hills Station and the design of Shea Circle. The local knowledge provided
by DAG members is able to guide the efforts of the Casey Arborway team and inform the 25% design. Since
April 2012, the DAG has met at least once every month except August.
The meeting covered by these minutes was held specifically to address DAG questions regarding the traffic
analysis prepared for the Casey project. For the purposes of this project, the word ‘traffic’ should be
assumed to cover its broadest definition: the movement of private vehicles, public transit vehicles,
pedestrians, and cyclists. The meeting began with a short presentation based on questions previously
submitted to MassDOT by DAG members and then went into new questions raised by audience members.
While the overall theme of the meeting was traffic, the conversation was broad-ranging. In asking an array
of traffic-related questions, themes common to the entire process to date emerged from the conversation:
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DAG members and some members of the public are deeply concerned about vehicle queuing and
whether the proposed design for the Casey Arborway can handle traffic queues without having them
to spill from one intersection into adjacent intersections.
Some area residents feel that traffic enforcement is currently inadequate in the Forest Hills area,
particular in terms of parking regulations, taxi operations, and vehicles ‘blocking the box’ at
intersections. During the meeting summarized herein, audience members suggested that changes in
roadway geometry are a better way to address safety and other traffic problems (rather than relying
upon enforcement by BTD and the several police forces responsible for different parts of the
corridor).
DAG members want to ensure that public transit operations at Forest Hills station are maintained
and improved wherever possible. Buses should not be trapped in traffic as they often are today and
steps should be taken to ensure the increased reliability of bus service. Even so, there is significant
concern from Asticou/Martinwood residents in terms of the impacts of proposed improvements to the
upper bus-way on their homes.
Providing quality bicycle accommodations in the proposed design is of major significance to some
members of the DAG, particularly with regard to ensuring that these facilities are safe to use in the
winter.
38 Chauncy Street, 9th Floor  Boston, Massachusetts 02111  617.482.7080
www.hshassoc.com
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Howard/Stein-Hudson Associates, Inc.
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DAG members are deeply concerned about cut-through traffic and other impacts associated with the
construction period.
During the previous WAG process, the project team provided the DAG and broader public with an
array of graphic representations of the options being considered. As the DAG process has moved
towards 25% design, the material presented to the community and DAG has become increasingly
technical and engineering in nature. In light of comments received at the meeting summarized
herein, the design team will track back towards a more graphics based approach where appropriate.
Detailed Meeting Minutes
C: Kate Fichter (KF): Welcome everyone. I am Kate Fichter with MassDOT and thank you all for coming out
tonight to Curtis Hall. Tonight’s meeting is about the Casey Arborway and we’re going to focus on
traffic. That means traffic for all modes. I’m going to briefly go over tonight’s format and then we will
go through a very quick presentation based on the questions we received from DAG members in
advance of this meeting. After that, this is your meeting to ask questions about traffic. We’re going to
focus on those questions tonight. Other topics or grand policy statements I am going to gently hold for
our meeting on the 29th. A couple of quick ground rules for tonight: the space we’re in tonight has got a
closing time which means we have a hard stop at 8:45. I will not distinguish tonight between DAG
members and members of the public. I will call on you one at a time as I see your hands. If you have a
question with multiple parts, please ask them one at a time so other folks have a chance to speak. Essek
will bring you the microphone when I call on you.
Since the last meeting of the DAG, we have posted a bunch of materials on the website including the
ridership of MBTA buses operating from Forest Hills Station as a table and a map graphic. We also
posted the capacity analysis for the 2035 building conditions. If you can’t find them, please let me
know. HNTB has also presented the Functional Design Report (hereinafter ‘FDR’) and 25% design plans
to MassDOT. We will place those in the Jamaica Plain and Roslindale Branch Libraries by the end of this
week.1 We will also put a copy in the State Transportation Library which is downtown at 10 Park Plaza.
So, with that, here’s Gary McNaughton from McMahon Associates for a quick presentation and then
we’ll do questions.
Traffic Overview Presentation
C: Gary McNaughton (GM): Tonight, we’ll keep our presentation piece very brief, but we do want to set the
stage. The FDR has just come out. MassDOT has it and the full document will go to the libraries for
your review, as Kate said. We know you’ll have questions on that document after you read it. This isn’t
the last meeting (at which to discuss traffic), but this meeting is a good opportunity to get through all the
questions to date about refining the design and working through the analysis. The FDR covers
everything we’ve done to date. It discusses the alternatives, the future build conditions and no-build
conditions2 and accident histories. Everything in the FDR looks at 2035. As we go forward into 75%
design, we’ll look at a more realistic, 2016 opening year scenario which would be based on the traffic
volumes we would expect for 2016 instead of the larger 2035 volumes. We’ll look at various
alternatives for that and bring analysis and information back to you. Tonight we have a whole list of
questions submitted at least a week ago and we provided written responses to them. There are packets
with those responses on the sign-in table in the hall. We’re going to give an overview of some of the
topic areas from those questions. We have about 5-10 more minutes worth of presentation and then
we’ll do Q&A.
1
As of Friday, October 19th, these materials had been deposited in the libraries.
It should be noted that no-build conditions for this project have been evaluated as a formality related to the planning process only. The Casey Overpass is at the end of its useful lifespan and must be replaced. Therefore a
true no-build condition is not possible for this project.
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C: Maureen Chlebek (MC): Let me start with the traffic counts: what we counted and why. We did a 24hour Automatic Traffic Recorder (ATR)3 on the Casey Overpass itself and on New Washington Street. We
did turning movement counts at 17 intersections for the peak periods. We have 24-hour data, but for
the purposes of analysis, we reduce it down to the peak hours. That’s the basis for the count program:
7:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m., all movements and all directions.
We were asked why we didn’t provide seasonal adjustments. We did most of our counts in June. We
did one at Cemetery Road in September and an additional count on the Overpass itself in December.
June and September are typically higher volume months for traffic so we used them. The December
count on the Casey Overpass was lower than the June count so we stuck with June. When we talk about
the volume of cars on the Casey Overpass, you hear 24,000 per day and that’s an average. If we only
looked at weekdays it would be 27,000 and if we only did weekends it would be 17,000.
We were asked about accident histories. We looked at a 3-year period for accidents at all 17 study-area
intersections. Most were between 0 and 28 accidents over those 3 years. Shea Circle had 82. Once we
knew the number of accidents we related it to the volume of traffic at the intersections to give us some
perspective. The rate of accidents for most of the study area intersections is between 0 and 1.75. Shea
Circle is 1.95 so it comes out way ahead of the rest of the intersections in the corridor. In the FDR we
have collision diagrams where we plot out the locations and types of accidents at each intersection. At
Shea Circle, most of the accidents are single vehicle: swerving, running off the road. When there were
two vehicles involved, it was mostly angle and sideswipe crashes.
C: GM: What that high number of single vehicle accidents tells you is that there is a problem with the
roadway geometry at Shea Circle.
The next area where we had a lot of questions was about Arborway Yard and the buses which operate
from it. We were asked about the deadhead4 buses. Very briefly: right now these vehicles exit
Arborway Yard onto Washington Street north of New Washington Street and from there make their way
to the upper and lower bus-ways at Forest Hills Station. Under the build conditions, buses going to the
lower bus-way would be able to get there just as they do today. We would expect that buses going to
the upper bus-way would go down Washington Street, onto Hyde Park Avenue, make a right onto
Ukraine Way, make a right onto Washington Street west of the station and then enter the upper busway. Buses coming from Southampton Street Yard5 would be able to use the bus-only westbound leftturn lane at Arborway/Washington Street.
The western bowtie would also be able to handle MBTA buses and tractor-trailer trucks. A really large
tractor-trailer truck would need to go slowly but it could make it. The eastern bow-tie is currently
designed to handle a box truck, like a UPS or FedEx truck, but not a really big truck. We don’t see trucks
doing that (move very much), as there’s little reason for them to be there, and since trucks are prohibited
on the Arborway and since the North-South roadways allow left turn movements. The two truck
movements that could potentially approach the eastern bowtie include:
 Trucks originating from South Street south of the Arborway and destined to Washington Street
north of the Arborway, and
 Trucks originating from Washington Street south of the Arborway and destined to South Street
north of the Arborway.
3
These devices are the black rubber tubes you can sometimes see on the street. The tubes count each car which passes over them and relays the information to a counting mechanism in a box on the sidewalk.
4
These are buses not in service carrying passengers but going in to or out of service.
5
Located in South Boston.
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We could modify that bowtie to handle large trucks, but it cuts into the green space because we would
need to install a truck apron.6 Right now we don’t think that’s necessary. We were also asked about the
geometry of Ukraine Way with regard to large vehicles and the street can handle them.
We were also asked about pedestrian accommodation. We are generally proposing concurrent
pedestrian phasing. That’s crossing the street with traffic which is going in the same direction as the
pedestrians. Pedestrians will get a leading pedestrian interval and what that does is give the pedestrians
a short window of time where they get a head start on crossing the street before the cars are released.
At some spots, we will still have exclusive pedestrian phases where all traffic stops to allow the
pedestrians to cross. Exclusive pedestrian phasing has been provided at the intersections of
Arborway/East Bowtie, Morton Street/Cemetery Road/ Forest Hill Road, Ukraine Way/Hyde Park Avenue,
Ukraine Way/Washington Street, and Hyde Park Avenue/Tower Street.
The 39 bus got a lot of discussion at the last meeting and we’re currently working with the MBTA to
compile existing conditions information about the 39. We haven’t been able to do that yet because one
of the signals has been broken on New Washington Street, making it impossible for us to accurate data
on the typical 39 performance. We’re getting those existing conditions between field observations and
work with the MBTA.
That’s everything from us. We’re here to answer your questions. We’ve been at this for a year and a
half and so we have a lot of information to share. We’ve brought extra technical staff with us so that if
you ask a question that Maureen or I don’t have off the top of our heads, they can look it up for you so
we can answer you tonight. If you really stump us, we’ll get back to you.
C: KF: Before we open it up for questions, I do want to say please sign in, Curtis Hall needs a record of who
attended, and we can open or close the windows depending on how people feel.
Question & Answer Session
Q: Community resident (CR): I live on Custer Street and I don’t own a car. I take the 39 bus every day and I
went to a lot of meetings for the 39 bus initiative. Are you coordinating with the MBTA on that?
A: KF: That’s the Key Bus Routes initiative you’re referring to and yes, we’re coordinating with the MBTA on
that.
C: CR: So the MBTA has been through this process to make the 39 run faster and it turns out the big delay
is downtown traffic which they cannot control and I am worried that we’re making another place where
there will be gridlock [at Forest Hill station, the terminus for the Route 39].
A: GM: McMahon Associates is working for the MBTA on the Key Bus Route program; in fact, I’m doing that
work as well. I hope we’ll be implementing those recommendations and changes from the Key Routes
process next year. With the 39 bus, the Casey Arborway team originally proposed keeping it operating
from curbside on New Washington Street. We have to move the 39 into the upper bus-way during
construction while we remove the old bridge. In doing that analysis, we began to see some travel time
benefits to keeping the 39 in the upper bus-way permanently. In the a.m. peak, the 39 operating from
the upper bus-way, versus the alignment on New Washington Street, is about 20 seconds faster. In the
p.m. it’s about 8 seconds slower, but we’re talking a difference of less than 30 seconds from today.
We’re continuing to assess it and in 10 days we’ll have more information on the 39 and how everything
fits together.
6
A truck apron is a section of pavement at a curved point in the roadway not generally used by small vehicles
such as private cars, but which allows trucks to make a turn without going up onto a curb or median. They are
often concrete or some other contrasting material to show that they are intended for use by larger vehicles.
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C: CR: Six lanes of traffic versus the Overpass where everything goes overhead. I’m a scientist and my
instinct tells me that (the new condition) will be worse. I’m concerned. That’s why I’m here. I think the
Overpass was a good solution. I’m concerned this will impact the 39 bus.
A: GM: The MBTA is working on this with us, they are well in the loop, and they are as sensitive as you are
about the 39 bus.7
Q: Lynn McSweeney (LM): I was on the same 39 bus committee and six lanes of traffic are really very
impossible for me to cross as a pedestrian. I’m disabled and I have asthma. I don’t know how this will
be ADA compliant and increasing compliance was a big driver behind making changes to the 39 bus.
Last time I was at a meeting I was there as a member of the public. Tonight I’m representing Paula
Okunieff [a DAG member]. I’m disappointed that you don’t have the statistics for the 39 bus. I got all
my neighbors to come to yet another evening meeting and for you not to have the statistics is pretty
unconscionable. You’ve failed big time on that. 8 Did you say that I would have to go underground to
cross six lanes of traffic to access the 39 bus?
A: GM: Under the overpass is an existing MBTA head-house which serves as an exit from the northern end
of the Orange Line platform. Under the proposed new design, the roadway will go where the headhouse is today. We’ve determined that it’s feasible and desirable to take the head-house north of the
roadway so that people coming from the Southwest Corridor Park and South Street can use it both as an
entrance and exit. The head-house will take people directly to the Orange Line platforms; it will not
serve as an underpass for individuals wanting to cross the Arborway. If you want to access the buses or
cross the Arborway for other reasons, you would cross at an ADA-compliant crosswalk. We cannot build
anything that’s not ADA-compliant.
C: LM: I cross the road very slowly. Right now, when I cross to the main gate of the Arboretum, I can often
wait 2 full traffic light cycles to cross. You’re now asking me to cross six lanes of a highway. That’s not
convenient or an improvement. You’re sacrificing bus riders and pedestrians so you can get out of
caring for the Overpass. I can get more people who feel that way. I feel I’ve been flimflammed. It’s not
democratic.
A: Representative Russell Holmes (RRH): O.K. let’s not make this about bridge or at-grade. We fought very
hard to make this meeting a discussion about traffic. This meeting is about answering the question of
whether we can handle the traffic. You demanded this meeting for a year and a half. Tonight, it’s traffic
questions. You live here; you want to know if the design solution selected can handle the traffic. That
comment was turning into bridge or no-bridge. I’m asking you, because we have 2 hours to do this, that
for a year and half I’ve been listening to community members say that this team isn’t answering traffic
questions, well tonight they’re doing it. They met with me about traffic to go over their answers and get
more questions. I want to make sure those get answered. Please, make this about the traffic questions.
C: CR: I understand that the bicycle lane on Washington Street has been eliminated in favor of an off-street
bicycle pathway. Taking a bicycle lane out doesn’t make sense.
A: GM: We had meetings with the bicycle and pedestrian professionals for the City of Boston. Our earlier
proposal had been to include both on- and off-street accommodations for bicycles and we were told that
it was getting a little overdone given the accommodations off-street. The desire was to reduce the
overall pavement width and lower crossing distances given that we did have those off-street bicycle
paths.
C: CR: They have on and off-street accommodations on the Boston University Bridge.
7
Here, Kate Fichter paused to recognize Representative Russell Holmes.
During the period leading up to the meeting, the signal at South Street/New Washington Street was damaged,
preventing the design team from collecting accurate data on the running time of the Route 39 bus.
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A: GM: One of the things we plan on discussing on the 29th is bicycle accommodations.
Q: David Wean (DW): My question is also bicycle related. How will you handle wintertime bicycle
commuters when the sidewalk is not perfectly plowed and what will the widths be on Washington Street
going north?
A: GM: The lanes are 11 feet wide and we have 2-foot shoulders. That’s not a fully bicycle accommodating
shoulder. And we plan on discussing that further in 2 weeks because the design is flexible enough to
handle changes to that.
C: Gail Sullivan (GS): For the meeting on the 29th, please present sections and in a big enough scale to
show the relations between the bicycles, pedestrians and cars.
A: Essek Petrie (EP): We’re annotating the design plan for that.
Q: Michael Epp (ME): I was on the 39 bus committee for 18 months. I missed one meeting for open heart
surgery which I think shows some dedication to that cause. For clarification, you guys are using Toole
Design Group for bicycle design?
A: GM: They have participated in our discussions, yes.
C: ME: They are excellent. They have done good work on Centre and South Streets. In the original position
for the 39 bus on New Washington Street, I believe that the slope going up to the station exceeds 6%
which is noncompliant with ADA. The proposed location on an expanded upper bus-way deck would be
flat which meets or exceeds the ADA requirement.
C: Bernard Doherty (BD): As you know, about a week ago, I send in an email concerning this meeting and
where it would be held. I assumed it would take place upstairs in the senior center, but there’s
basketball going on above that and so I asked if there was some consideration given to moving the
meeting. I didn’t think you would do this, this is totally inadequate.
Q: KF: Do you have a traffic question?
A: BD: I wanted to protest the room, but O.K. You suggest that trucks can turn at the western bowtie. If
they don’t, they will head down the Jamaica Way. Enforcement of keeping them off the Jamaica Way
will be on the State Police. Anything on Washington Street or Hyde Park Avenue will belong to the
Boston Police. Anything on MBTA property will belong to the MBTA police. I live on Asticou Road and I
can’t get the police to address double parking or taxis. What makes you believe or feel confident that
they will get enforcement under control? I still hate the room.
A: GM: The current design at New Washington Street/South Street allows trucks onto the Jamaica Way and
it’s up to enforcement to stop them. The difference we’re proposing is that left-turning trucks going
southbound on South Street would encounter signs in advance of the intersection telling them that they
need to use the western bowtie to turn around. If a truck continued past the bowtie it would be subject
to enforcement whether there is an officer there regularly or occasionally. That’s just like all DCR
roadways today.
C: David Hannon (DH): I would like to address the lady’s concern about handicapped access. In addition to
crossing six lanes of traffic, you are now proposing that people will have to go to the upper bus-way to
access the 39. She proposed the issue to you in terms of bridge or no-bridge, but it’s a handicapped
issue. Handicapped people will have a problem with this.
A: GM: For anyone, handicapped or not, if you are coming from the north of the station to access the 39
bus, having the 39 bus in the upper bus-way would mean a longer walk, but if you’re coming from the
west or the south, it’s going to be a shorter walk. All routes will be fully ADA-compliant. It’s the same
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process we went through on the Key Bus Routes initiative. We’re moving bus stops to better locations
and walks get shorter or longer depending on what happens, but the whole route has to be ADAcompliant.
Q: DH: So you know how many people approach the buses from each direction and long it will take to cross
those six lanes and will they have to stop in the middle?
A: GM: We have changed our standards for pedestrian signal times since the early part of the planning
process to better account for pedestrians who may be elderly or disabled. It was not our intention to
give people the relatively short walk times seen in our early models. Those were just basic numbers to
check our assumptions. It’s our plan to get pedestrians across the street in one move so they don’t have
to wait on a median. If the signal out there is running a 100-120 second cycle, then there will be 15
seconds of walk time. Depending on when you arrive at the signal you might have 80-90 seconds or
have no wait at all, but that’s the nature of any traffic signal for vehicles or pedestrians.
Q: Todd Consentino (TC): Haven’t your studies shown that the Arborway in 2016 could get by with four
lanes? As I understand it, you’re predicting your 2035 volumes with a Big Dig-era model which predicts
too big9 and younger folks are getting their licenses later and Secretary Davey is trying to triple the use
of non-vehicle modes. With all that, doesn’t it make sense to build for 2016 volumes?
A: GM: The FDR and 25% design is based on the projections for 2035. You’re right that the regional model
may be conservative though it has been updated since the modeling work for the Big Dig. It assumes
regional background growth and local development projects here in Forest Hills as well. As Vineet
Gupta of BTD will attest, we’re predicting greater traffic increases on this project than any other project
in the City of Boston because we wanted to make sure the at-grade solution could handle it. So yes,
traffic volumes could be overstated. That’s why, a few months ago, we started discussing the idea of
2016 conditions. There are development projects in Forest Hills in all phases of construction or
permitting and we wanted something flexible for opening year 2016. We discussed changing the rightmost lanes into right-turn only lanes in the 2016 conditions to reduce pedestrian wait times and we’ve
started looking at that. Whatever we design we wanted to make sure it could handle the heaviest future
traffic that could come to pass. So our approach has been to design for 2035 and then work back to
something for 2016. We’ll continue to work on the 2016 opening year as we go into the 75% design
process to make the design more pedestrian friendly.
Q: Liz O’Connor (LO): My first question is about taxis. You’d relocated them to New Washington Street.
Can you rerun the traffic model with them there? I’m very concerned about the taxis mixing with school
bus operations.
A: GM: We’re working with the Boston Police Department because they oversee the taxis. We should have
that data very shortly and that will let us know all about the taxi trips in and out of Forest Hills Station so
we can analyze where the taxies are going and incorporate that into our model.
Q: LO: So for anything still up in the air for the opening year, can you tell us about the queue lengths and
wait times at different lights, like with a system of red, yellow and orange pictorial ratings so we can
figure out the tradeoffs? We’re not clear on the tradeoffs like when the bicycle lanes come out it gets
better for pedestrians, but worse for cyclists.
A: GM: Looking to the opening year, if we start taking away lanes we’ll prepare those implications.
9
The Central Transportation Planning Staff (CTPS) regional model used for this project was also used for the Big
Dig. During the planning process WAG members asked CTPS to see how their projections for the Big Dig had
faired as compared to current volumes using the Central Artery Tunnel system. This inquiry showed that the
model overstated traffic volumes for 2011 by approximately 13%.
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Q: GS: I have a small question and then a bigger one. In terms of distance to the 39 bus, where’s the
nearest stop on South Street?
A: GM: There’s currently a stop at Saint Mark’s Street, but because of its proximity to Forest Hills, the Key
Bus Routes initiative has it being eliminated. It hasn’t come up yet with the MBTA, but in light of these
changes they might or might not elect to keep it.
C: GS: And then the main point is that you have a lot of different pieces of planning and they need to be
coordinated. Let’s get the maximum access and convenience for everything. I was thinking about Liz’s
point and I see the signals, intersections and lanes, but I don’t understand the difference between the
cars and bicycles and pedestrians and I need to understand that to grasp what you’re proposing. I’m not
sure what you need, but it’s come combination of graphics, tables and charts that address tradeoffs
because you’re hearing concern about tradeoffs. I’m concerned about my access to the various modes.
Most of us use more than one. I use all three. I want to see how we get the best performance for all of
those modes. I don’t think we’ve had that yet from you. You’ve left a vacuum on that.
Q: CR: I went on the project website and I’m very graphically oriented. I think we do need to see artists’
renderings. I had a lot of trouble figuring it out. I came to this very late and am attempting to reach a
good decision. Will you make it easier to see the alternatives?
A: GM: During the planning process, we started with very graphic representations highlighting the vehicle,
pedestrian and cycling paths. Lots of those graphics exist and we spent a lot of time evaluating tradeoffs
looking at the different modes and a wide median or a narrow median and so forth. The design has
generally incorporated feedback from the WAG and later the DAG. We’ll continue work on bicycles with
the DAG. It is on us to prepare graphics, but a lot of those were done during the planning process.
Now we’re in design and that does mean you’re going to see more of these black and white engineering
style drawings.
A: EP: Those perspectives are on the project website. I’d suggest you look at the earlier WAG meetings and
public information meetings 1-5. Those will probably be the easiest for you to read. 10
C: Pete Stidman (PS): Regarding bringing back color and color-coding, I think that would help. I want to tell
people our concern about the bicycle lane. DCR has told the cycling community that there will be better
snowplowing and I’ve met with DCR about how we can increase their capacity and it’s still an open
question and the bicycle community isn’t done with the idea of lanes versus pathways either. One
interesting comment is that I recently ran into Ken Kruckemeyer who did the Southwest Corridor bicycle
path and he said that he was interested in looking at the path the roadway will take. This corridor was
originally the Olmsted Arborway, which was about views, and we started with traffic in the WAG process.
Maybe we should start with views of the pathway the road will take. I thought that was neat.
Q: Karen Wepsic (KW): My question is whether you have modeled transit for 2035.
A: GM: We haven’t increased the bus frequently for 2035. I’m not sure if the MBTA has plans to increase
frequency and I don’t want to speak for them, but I will say that 6-minute headways for the Route 39 in
the peak periods is about all the capacity you can get.
C: KW: The 39 bus is a replacement for the trolley. It doesn’t carry as many passengers as the trolleys
could. In 2035, when gas is $10 a gallon, there will be pressure to have more buses.
A: GM: We grew all the traffic volumes going through the intersections. It’s not as though we grew the car
volume for 2035, but left the buses at a constant 2012 level. If more buses get added, the corridor will
still work.
10
See http://www.massdot.state.ma.us/caseyarborway/Meetings.aspx
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C: KW: If you have more buses, you will need more bus bays and so both bus-ways may need to be
expanded.
A: GM: The current plan expands the upper bus-way, but not the lower.
C: Paul Romary (PR): Tying these themes together, the visualization that many of us have trouble with is the
flows of traffic and signalization and when the starts and stops come and the bowties. These are driving
people batty. If this was just a simple east/west roadway, it would be easy, but it’s not. During rush
hour, South Street is a mess with the signals and buses queuing up. It’s hard to envision 4-5 years out
when all this is done. I don’t how you communicate it, but maybe walking people through the corridor
and saying how long the trip will take, how many things will impede traffic that maybe in reality are
matters for signals and/or enforcement.
A: GM: The existing street system is a mess. It’s been fit in piece-by-piece around past infrastructure and at
the beginning of the WAG process we were charged by that group with cleaning it up and making it
better. One thing that’s going to make it better is making the strange, multi-leg intersections that are in
the corridor into traditional, four-way intersections where the through move actually goes straight
ahead. During the planning phase we had animations. The background for those would now look a
little dated because the base-map has been tweaked a bit, but it tells you how things will operation. The
animations are on the website.11
A: EP: Now that we have the 25% design submitted, we’re working on having a graphically friendlier view
for the meeting on the 29th. We’ll have this annotated and more reader-friendly.
C: Chase Billingham (CB): I am a member of the Asticou/Martinwood Neighborhood Association and I want
to say with all due respect that the idea of limiting this discussion to traffic is semantic and ridiculous.
The bridge or no-bridge decision is the real decision because it will drastically increase traffic in my
neighborhood. We need to deal with the broader issue.
A: RRH: That’s O.K., but we have to address traffic first. We’ve been dealing with the broader issue for
almost 2 years and people come to meetings and repeat themselves. I want people leaving this meeting
feeling comfortable regarding the traffic. Once we get to that, you can ask anything you want.
C: CB: Asticou Road is already very bad because of the buses across from South Street and people using it
as a drop-off point. You’ve put in new pick-up/drop-off locations, but I expect that won’t work because
people will want to use Asticou Road to get to South Street. You’ve added the 39 bus to the upper busway and you have it exiting across from Asticou Road which will further clog up the road and your new
signal will increase traffic. We propose that you reverse how the buses enter and exit the upper bus-way
which would be better for our residents and slow down traffic.
A: GM: One of the reasons we’re pulling the bus-way exit south is because the South Street intersection is
the busiest, most challenging part of the corridor. A lot of the problems in the corridor radiate out from
the portion of South Street between the intersection with the bus-way and the Arborway ramps. The
proposed exit from the upper bus-way would come out across from the old stump of Asticou Road, the
one that drops down. We also propose to relocate the existing pedestrian signal for the Blackwell
footpath up towards the bus exit to make the exit work better. We have talked about reversing the flow
on the buses. It has some benefits, but the challenge is internal. The buses load from the right and it
forces passengers to walk further to get on. We’ll keep kicking it around.
C: DH: The bus-way exit was put across from South Street. The buses will now face right up the street
towards Martinwood Road. We’ll have noise and light pollution and we’ll need a huge wall which will
just invite urban blight. I agree with Chase that we consider moving the bus-way to keep the current set
up.
11
These videos can be viewed at http://www.massdotprojectcaseyoverpass.info/
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A: GM: I’m happy to discuss it further on the 29th.
Q: Peg Preble (PP): I live on Eastland Road and I want to caution you about using traffic enforcement as
your solution to things, especially the problems with the South Street intersection. Over that intersection
is this poor, peeling sign that says $150 fine for blocking the box. It’s not enforced. Any time your
design says “enforcement” on it, we’ll just giggle. My other question is if you can’t turn left to go down
South Street, today there are all these cars coming down New Washington Street and both lanes try to
go left. That’s a large quantity of cars. How many cars can queue to make the U-turn at the bowtie?
A: GM: It’s about 300 cars in the peak hour that take the left from New Washington Street onto
Washington Street west of the station. They are forced into doing it in 2 lanes. It’s not the demand, it’s
the geometry. As you come around to bowtie, I forget the exact length but what we’ve done is to
coordinate these two signals (Arborway/South Street and Arborway/Western bowtie) so we don’t have
the issue with box-blocking. I forget the exact length of the turning lane for the bowtie. We’ll get it for
you.
C: PP: I’m talking about the U-turn queue length.
A: KF: Yes, we know, just hold on for a few minutes and we’ll look it up for you.
C: Elizabeth Wylie (EW): I want to support what Chase and Gail said and what Allen will say. If this were a
simple east/west road it would be much simpler. There are a lot of tradeoffs in making the buses work
and Gail’s suggestion about a graphic explanation of those tradeoffs would be helpful and might get
some of the divisiveness out of the process.
C: LO: The issue of the tradeoffs for the bus-ways is presented as having to make pedestrians cross another
island to get on the buses because the bus doors would be on the opposite side from where they usually
are. I’d gladly cross one more island to save Asticou Road from the damage that moving the bus-way
exit will do to the neighborhood. I think we need to discuss this as a community to save Asticou Road.
A: EP: There are other issues associated with reversing the entrance and exit to the upper bus-way. The 39
bus route’s 60-foot articulated buses really can’t handle the geometry.
Q: LO: It’s one of 2 things: either it can’t be done, so let’s not discuss it, or it’s difficult to do, but still
possible. Your answer was about people crossing islands to get to the bus, it’s either possible or not
possible. Which is it?
A: EP: It’s a combination of the geometry issue for the buses and people having to cross more islands to get
to their bus. I would say you should put it in the not possible category.
C: GM: O.K. We have an answer for the question about the queuing for the western bowtie. 12 In the peak
hour, there are about 600 cars that want to make a left onto Washington Street west of the station. The
storage length for the western bowtie is 350 feet. You can fit about 14-18 cars into that depending on
the size of them. The thing to know about the U-turn signals is that they are very efficient because they
have only 2 phases and the westbound through traffic never stops at the western bowtie. You can flip
the signal very quickly. It’s not like a conventional intersection with 4 phases or 6 phases. It’s only 2
phases so the queue doesn’t build up.
C: DW: On reversing the upper bus-way, I think you might need a signal at both ends whereas currently,
you only need a signal for the exit.
A: GM: You might need that. It depends on the queuing. We can discuss it further on the 29th.
12
This answer refers back to the question posed by Peg Preble on page 9.
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C: Peter Furth (PF): It seems to me that a few things can be done to improve the 39. Buses turning left
should have a signal to help them get in so they don’t have to wait, and wait, and wait. That could
reduce delay without hurting traffic. The eastern bowtie was a big puzzle to me as to how it could work
and I’ve studied your outputs. The signal there will turn twice for every turn of the main signal. I have to
say that I’m convinced. I was a skeptic, but now I believe that it will work and won’t back up.
C: Allen Ihrer (AI): I live in the Stony Brook neighborhood and we are a major cut-through neighborhood.
People will think I’m an obstructionist, but I just want the best solution for the community. I have a
bunch of questions because I’ve been begging for this meeting for a long time. Looking at the eastern
bowtie, school buses won’t be able to use that. We already have the deadhead transit buses going
down to Ukraine Way and then north again and then the same in reverse when they leave the upper
bus-way to go out of service. This will mean several hundred extra buses per day. The transit buses
from the upper bus-way will have to go the long way around way around the station using Washington
Street, Ukraine Way, and Hyde Park Avenue. It will make it more expensive for the MBTA to operate
their buses. It looks like school buses won’t be able to make the eastern bowtie turn and they will also
have to use Ukraine Way and ditto for large trucks so my concern is that we’re not seriously looking at
how we’re going to turn Hyde Park Avenue into an industrial way for this community.
A: GM: As I said at the outset of tonight’s meeting. The western bowtie is currently set up to handle large
trucks, the eastern one is not. We can make it accommodate larger trucks, but doing so eats into the
green space and there shouldn’t be trucks coming down the Arborway. We’ve been working with the
School Department13 and we can relocate them to Washington Street so they can stay away from the
bowties. We can accommodate trucks and buses at the eastern bowtie, but we just don’t anticipate the
demand there.
Q: AI: I guess my question is about heavy vehicles coming from Roslindale that used to use Washington
Street and South Street will now no longer be able to make the turn and will wind up on Hyde Park
Avenue. We’d want to know about deadhead buses, potential school buses, and transit.
A: GM: There are already many trucks coming up Washington Street from Roslindale that elect to use
Ukraine Way and continue north on Hyde Park Avenue. We have reassigned heavy vehicles to
Washington Street as part of our modeling, but when it comes to deadhead buses, most of the buses are
in service during the peak hours.
C: AI: The point is that this is new to many people in the community and that the section of Hyde Park
which is struggling to be a functional enterprise and commercial area will be a de facto heavy traffic
route and at least people should know about it.
Q: GS: Can you confirm Allen’s assumption?
C: RRH: Yes, it would be good to know if Allen’s assumptions are true.
Q: GS: Is the 39 bus going to need to be on Hyde Park Avenue?
A: GM: O.K. The buses that are coming and going from Arborway Yard, that are coming into service; most
of the 39’s are coming from the Southampton Street Yard so they actually wouldn’t be on Washington
Street. If they are returning to Southampton Street Yard, they would come up from the upper bus-way,
to the Arborway, take a right and head off towards Shea Square and South Boston. Those are coming
into service will use the bus-only left-turn lane at Arborway/Washington Street and then they would go
south on Hyde Park to Ukraine Way, to Washington Street west of the station and then enter the upper
bus-way. Any buses coming into service from Arborway Yard could take the same route and when they
13
METCO has also been consulted in this matter.
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go back, they can do it in reverse. The western bowtie is designed to accommodate them so buses could
use it.
Q: GS: So when would the Route 39 bus be going between the station and Arborway Yard, either going in
or out of service.
A: Todd Blake (TB): 39’s going between Arborway Yard and Forest Hills really only happen at night and
then not during peak hours.
A: GM: Pretty much all buses are in service during the peak hours. They go in and out of service in the
early morning, middle of the day or late at night.
C: AI: That’s going to mean several hundred bus trips a day on Washington Street.
A: GM: Over 24 hours, maybe, but in the peak hours, it’s very low.
C: AI: This is brand new to us and this is the first time we’ve about this; I’d suspected this would happen.
A: GM: The western bowtie can accommodate buses. If it makes sense for them to use it, there’s no reason
why they can’t.
Q: AI: Has any modeling been done so we can have some real input on this?
A: GM: All deadhead buses have already been modeled. We’ve just pulled them out and compiled them
for you. Those deadhead buses have always been in the analysis we’ve shared with you all along and
you’ll also see them accounted for in the FDR. As to total bus volumes, we can pull that out for you.
Q: AI: The Synchro model for Hyde Park Avenue and Washington Street does that include buses, because
some buses are leaving serving between 8:00 a.m. and 9:00 a.m.
A: GM: During the hour from 8:00-9:00 a.m. most of the buses are in service. The a.m. peak in the
corridor begins at 7:15 and so we’ve looked at the buses coming in and out of service in that peak hour.
It’s only about 20 buses between the station and the yard in the peak hour.
C: AI: Let me show you why I’m interested in making things as accessible as possible. 14 This is why I’m
concerned. This is the brooding about traffic. I just want to understand. As we find problems we can
pull them out and solve them. This diagram is based on the queue lengths in the June Synchro model
which is the latest out there. We have 50% queues and 95% queues and so you can see that the impact
varies depending on who is moving through the area. People from Mattapan and Dorchester are
worried about intersections being rated E and F, now I know Gary told us not to be concerned about E’s
and F’s, but anyway, on this diagram, the pink bars represent a.m. queues and the blue bars represent
p.m. queues and focusing on what I think Gary had said to look at the queues, I’m worried that we have
a queue that backs up past South Street in the evening and meets the existing queue on the back and to
answer Peg’s question you have this queue for the left turn lane and it’s looking like a mess.
For those of you who are new to this, I’ve been begging for these questions to be answered for a solid
year. The morning data and the evening data for South Street coming down is a problem and it’s mindblowing because this if for the project when it’s six lanes across. It’s reasonable that we’d have question
about how this was articulated and to date the stock answer has been that we’re fiddling and diddling
with the signal timing, but there are only so many minutes in an hour and we’ve got to get the
pedestrians across and the cars through and cars only move so fast and so we have a big problem. Most
of the questions in the packet are mine and we were told it won’t back up, but the model says it does
14
Here, Allen put up a diagram of his own making, made using one of the design team’s corridor cross sections
for a base map.
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back up. The queues run into each other and I don’t know how it gets dealt with. We’ve been told that
the buses never spill out of the lower bus-way, but I have pictures of it. The MBTA swears it only
happens occasionally and the issue has been totally ignored. I can see the backup in the evenings at
Washington Street and in my neighborhood. These are all just questions based on my simple math. The
idea of 4 lanes doesn’t work at all. I’m discovering this is actually a little worse than I thought and this
community should demand it be dealt with.
Q: RRH: Did you put the LOS A, B, C, D and F on the intersections?
A: AI: Yes, I did.
Q: PS: Allen, I’d love to hear what the team thinks about this. Isn’t this based on 2035 volumes?
A: AI: No, this was done using the 2010 volumes.
A: GM: So, the 2010 volumes were an interim, preliminary analysis. What we’ve done in the FDR with the
analysis is to continue to refine it and make sure that the coordination works effectively and making sure
the time works effectively, because really a lot of these queues that you see, and again this design is a
little bit out-of-date compared to what’s in the FDR which includes the double left-turn at Shea Square,
but we have included design modifications to improve this. For example, we propose to put closely
spaced intersections onto a single controller that will mean that when the light is green at one signal, it
will be green at the other, giving you more green time and not giving the queues a chance to build up.
A lot of those kinds of refinements have been built into the analysis in the FDR to address these
problems. For example at the Arborway/East Bowtie intersection, there are queues, but they do
dissipate and it’s a matter of when you allow the U-turn left turn to go, you do it at the end of that red
cycle for the Arborway WB approach at the upstream signal so that the queue is dissipating and that
introduces a solution to the queues should they spill back to the eastern bowtie. In the final analysis,
you’ll let the queue dissipate so that when the light turns red again, there’s hardly any queuing at that
intersection. These signals are going to be new, the intersections will make more sense and be easier to
signalize, so things will be more efficient and operate more quickly. The issue becomes that while these
things look simple and present as a problem, when you get into coordination it’s manageable.
Q: PS: So it’s about phasing, that’s what helps to deal with it?
A: GM: Yes, and the refinements we’ve done in coordination and timing will help. The data on which Allen
has based this diagram was for an interim analysis and the results have changed. Around South Street,
things are better. It’s a matter of when the queues build up and if they back through the intersection.
Q: LO: So you’ve changed the coordination of the lights?
A: GM: Yes, but let me step back. You have a signal that runs a 100-second cycle. You give 40 seconds to
the through movements and 20 seconds to the north/south movements or whatever movements you
have. Each movement gets a certain time. What we’re adjusting now is how the signals talk to each
other. This is why we’ve asked, if you think back to some of the DAG meetings over the summer, for
time to go through and refine our plan for signalization. This queue along New Washington Street has
gotten much better in the latest analysis. On some of these interim Synchro models we were showing
things comparatively.
Q: LO: So the short answer is that Allen’s analysis doesn’t go because it’s old data?
A: GM: Yes, because it’s based on old data and because we were trying to compare alternatives, not get
the corridor to work as a total system.
C: AI: This information is from June, 2012. I don’t know why we didn’t get the FDR, maybe you’re just
getting it back from the printer. I have no reason to trust you. Every time you give us data it changes.
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You give us something, tell us it’s the most up-to-date, and when we come to you with questions, you
say “oh no, you’re using old data.” So in May you had a Synchro model showing that long queue
coming from Washington Street going up the Casey Arborway and it was some 800 feet long and I
brought it up and you said it was old data and we come to you and its 721 feet long and you say it’s old
data. I’ve got a year and a half working on this for my neighborhood, trying to find and fix problems so
people will have the least amount of problems and here, this is where we’re at: you’re late telling us
this.
A: RRH: Allen, please ask them a question.
Q: AI: O.K. Why should we trust you?15
Q: RRH: Where are we with addressing these queues and can you give Allen a new Synchro?
Q: AI: This meeting is pointless because we come here with questions and they tell us any questions we
have are pointless. A great deal of this meeting should just be thrown out.
A: GM: Throughout this process we’ve been working with the WAG and then the DAG as a group. There
are 17 intersections in the study area. This isn’t one isolated intersection, that would be easy, but this is
much more complex. If I change the green time at an isolated intersection it’s no big deal, but here the
intersections are closely spaced and it is a big deal. If I increase pedestrian crossing time at one
intersection, I’ve got to chase the ripple effect from that one change through almost the whole system.
Through the process, the WAG and DAG has asked the design team for interim analysis and we gave
you summary tables to compare the analysis against each other. Then, you asked for the details behind
the analysis which we gave you and you used. We always put the draft caveat on it. The analysis, it
takes a long time to do this, and we come back every few weeks with a new one. In the FDR we go
through every intersection and it takes time and significant effort to make the intersections in the
corridor come together as a system.
A: EP: Allen has been using the same data as us. We’re finding the same problems and finding ways to
correct them. The data he has was a snapshot in time.
Q: DW: Why doesn’t the data go to Allen the moment you have it? You submitted the FDR and that
information was available a week ago.
A: GM: The future conditions analysis was made available earlier this week.
C: AI: And it was dated March 12th. The materials have been so digested that it looks like nothing. You
have to dig into the 80 pages of Synchro and look at the five columns and you look at this and for a year
were told that the intersections were at A, B, C, and D in the evening and then we dig into the Synchro
and discover problems and then you tell us that “we don’t like using E’s and F’s and we prefer to look at
V/C ratios” and I didn’t put those in because it’s make your head swim. The whole analysis is garbage
in and garbage out.
A: GM: I want to be very clear about this: LOS, the letter grades, is a shorthand way to convey overall
operations. My exact comment was that LOS is very simple. Say you have a cycle running 100 seconds.
Let’s say we have a low volume, minor approach to that intersection. It’s going to get 15 seconds of
green time. The average wait for a vehicle on that minor approach is going to be 42 seconds which
comes to LOS E, but that doesn’t mean the intersection runs poorly.
C: ME: What Allen has done here is something that should be welcomed and it’s the power of the diagram.
I do think you owe Allen and the group a diagram and I bet Allen would go to your office and work with
15
Here the writer assumes that Allen means the design team and not Representative Holmes.
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you until you get a diagram you can both agree is right. This is an amazing thing. If this is one snapshot, then you need to offer the alternate snapshot.
A: GM: Good comment and we can make those graphics available.
Q: CR: I’d suggest that if you observe the average age of people in this room then you would understand
you are dealing with active, long-time residents of Jamaica Plain and yes we have a traffic problem and
you have a problem with trust. The people in this room haven’t felt well represented on these issues and
you are responsible for it. During the demolition, construction and potential failure of the at-grade
solution, what will you offer to the voting neighborhoods which will impact our view of our public
servants, to protect us from the cut-through traffic which will become routine if this can’t handle the
volumes? This could be what drives us out.
A: GM: We did a presentation at the July DAG meeting about preliminary construction staging where we
walked the group through taking the bridge down. We went through it on a schematic basis. We’ll
advance that concept future. Generally we figure out what to build and then how to build it. We’ve
discussed construction period traffic. All of the travel times we computed for the build period will be
different during construction. We’ll determine whether people will cut through and figure out ways to
mitigate it.
Q: CR: Given that there’s no enforcement, what’s the answer?
A: GM: We need to come back with that for you. We need to review construction period turning
movements, lanes and so forth. Typically that happens after the 25% design hearing so we’ll bring it
back to you.
C: Jessica Mink (JM): I live in Roslindale and I think we have a tendency to go north to visit JP more often
than folks from JP come south to visit us. I sort of represent the Bourne neighborhood which is south of
Ukraine Way. We’re south of Walk Hill Street and one thing I’ve noticed, even when the bridge closes
for a day, I don’t think parts of Jamaica Plain north of the bridge get much traffic, but Walk Hill Street
runs from Hyde Park Avenue to Blue Hill Avenue, and in the construction period it won’t work because it
just feeds into the mess. I live on Neponset Avenue and it turns out that savvy people see it as a great
way to get from Blue Hill Avenue to Roslindale Square and I think traffic is going to move south because
that’s how people will go through. Our neighborhood will be hard hit, and a problem I have with the
model, we’re talking about more traffic on Hyde Park Avenue and Hyde Park Avenue already backs up
past Ukraine Way towards Walk Hill Street and I think if you feed in more buses we’ll be in real trouble
and I want to see Hyde Park Avenue and points south better included in current conditions analysis. I’ve
seen 2012 already and my street picks up a lot of traffic. It doesn’t work when traffic builds up. I’m
worried about what can happen. Now, I’m really worried for me, because I mostly bicycle, it’s becoming
a problem for me to go along Hyde Park Avenue. I don’t like being at a dead stop breathing exhaust
and it’s not safe to park. It will feel bad for us during construction and if something goes wrong with the
bridge. We’ve been left out. There are two of us here. The Roslindale branch library needs a copy of
the FDR.16 Anyway, further south needs to be looked at carefully.
A: GM: The study area for the build conditions goes back as far as Walk Hill Street. For the construction
phase we’ll need to expand it further out.
Q: Kevin Wolfson (KWo): Earlier on we discussed including area-wide traffic calming. That sounds like its
part of the standard process. But could more be done beyond that?
A: GM: We looked at build conditions and cut-through routes which the WAG helped us to identify. Based
on travel times, our model, and the CTPS regional model we didn’t find any major likelihood of diversion
16
As noted previously, a copy of the FDR was placed in the Roslindale Branch library on October 19 th.
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under the build conditions. Construction is different and as the project advances, we need to look at
that further.
Q: KWo: And to Allen’s earlier point about buses from Arborway Yard accessing the upper bus-way, if most
of the buses making that trip are during the off-peak hours and the concern is that they would be adding
traffic to Hyde Park Avenue because they can’t make the left turn onto Washington Street; earlier at
some point, someone had suggested allowing off-peak left turns which would allow some of the offpeak buses to avoid Hyde Park Avenue. Is that still a possibility?
A: GM: Yes, that’s something, one of those interim conditions where we’d look at off-peak treatments.
That’s still outstanding for after the 25% design.
Q: Scott [Last Name Not Provided]: As someone who comes down South Street every day when coming
back home to Orchard Hill Road every day, I want to agree about blocking the box. I would like to see
those lines painted on the street saying “do not block the box.” I’m always amazed at how something so
simple can really take care of the problem. As someone who lives on Orchard Hill and is often coming
west on 203, I understand there’s not going to be a left turn to go onto Hyde Park Avenue, I’m just
curious if you could walk me through how given cycle timing that is the better solution and having the
car travel through what would be a series of lights to make that car turn into an eastbound right turn
and having to go through 3 lights or 3 cycles versus the additional left turn signal.
A: GM: Sure. The rationale behind eliminating east/west left turns is to make the signal operate more
efficiently by taking a phase out of the signal. As I talked about the U-turn locations, you have 2 phases,
so that through movement is green when it turns red the U-turn is going and then it immediately flips
back to that through movement. You start adding another side street and now you’re splitting up that
hundred second cycle into 3 pieces instead of 2. The more pieces you have to divide the 100 seconds up
into, the less time each piece gets. The other thing is that every time you change the signal phase, you
have to go through the yellow and red parts of the cycle and the cars have to start and stop. In an
earlier concept we tried both of the intersections at either end of New Washington Street as traditional
4-way intersections with all moves available. It worked out to be a lot of pavement and nobody liked it
so we came up with the bowties as a way to reduce the pavement and get the signals to operate more
efficiently.
Q: Scott [Last Name Not Provided]: So I think I hear you saying that by coordinating all the signals the
corridor almost operates like a rotary, I mean it isn’t a rotary, but sort of like that?
A: GM: It’s an elongated turn around, yes.
Q: Scott [Last Name Not Provided]: And one, final thing, about the signals and timing, can they be adjusted
over the course of the day?
A: GM: I’d like to see several different timing schemes for this: a peak hour window, then a midday timing,
and then something for late at night. I drive home from meetings like this late at night and it makes me
nuts to wait at a red while the opposing approach is green and there’s nobody there and that’s because
the signal has been programmed to have that green on for 30 seconds no matter what. Most of your life
is lived outside those peak hours, so during off-peak hours, I’d like to crank up the time on the
appropriate directions to really maximize efficiency.
C: BD: I just want to make a couple points. You mentioned that there are 8 development parcels in Forest
Hills that will have traffic impacts. 2 have already been developed and will have an impact.
Representative Holmes is concerned about his constituents going from Mattapan and Dorchester to the
Longwood Medical Area or Harvard, for the professors, which brings me to the Harvard-Allston project
which will be up for development. The Casey Overpass is the only major east/west corridor in this part
of the city. A lot of people from Braintree will come through this area to get to Allston. They’re not
going to use the Southeast Expressway. You need to take a hard look at who uses the corridor now and
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how they will adopt to these changes. You passed out this handout which is a summary of the DAG
meeting of 10/1/12 and it discusses the 25% and 75% design packages. In discussing them, the
handout reads “because of the high level of concern by the neighborhood,” you got that right, “for the
design of these areas and the complexity involved in each area being owned and maintained by a
different public agency, a DAG review process will be part of the 75% design of these areas.” I would
like to make a statement right now that you should have a 50% design review because if we jump right
from 25% to 75% there will be a lot that gets presented as a fait accompli. This plan is now very
different from what was presented at the end of the WAG process and I expect with the flexibility you’ve
built in that there will be many more changes between now and construction. We need to have a 50%
design review as well.
A: GM: The 25% submission is the major spot where you’re supposed to give your feedback. The project
will be reviewed by the City of Boston, the MassDOT district offices, DCR, the MBTA, that’s the whole
point of pausing at 25%.
C: BD: The point is that you’re supposed to be serving the needs of this community. Going right from 25%
to 75% without real input doesn’t serve the needs of the community.
A: Steve McLaughlin (SM): We’re going to have a series of DAG meetings after tonight. This isn’t the end.
We will have plenty more between now and when we advertise this project in September, 2013. There
are a lot of issues to discuss from tonight and at the next meeting and the one after that and so on.
While going through these MassDOT procedures, we must go through 25% and 75%, PS&E, though are
all process that we have to go through as formal submissions across the Commonwealth on any project.
We’re supplementing that with DAG meetings and we’re going to have a design public hearing at the
25% design stage, then we’ll go to the public at the 75% design stage.
Q: CR: Is there a 50% design stage?
A: SM: There is not.
C: CR: Right, that’s the point; there is no 50% design stage.
A: SM: But it’s not as though we’re going to disappear. We’re going to be talking about the project, with
the DAG between 25% and 75%.
C: BD: Steve, when the DAG says it speaks for all of the neighborhood groups, these people need to be
involved at more than just 25% and 75%, and this is homes, lives and transportation.
C: RRH: 25%, 75%, these are just milestones where DOT releases something. Rest assured we’re meeting
as a DAG monthly. It’s not suddenly going to jump 50% without input. The chances for input are built
in along the way. I thought it was important for people in room to understand the old business about
traffic. It looks like they may be able to address some of what Allen said and then let’s see what else we
can get to; I understand there are some semantics and conversation about process. This is traffic. We
have them on the hook and I hate it when we get them on the hook for something and then talk about
something else.
C: MC: I want to make a minute to explain what’s up here. In the FDR, we have 2035 analysis results and
as Gary was saying, it’s been further tweaked and modified since Allen’s version. So just to give you an
idea, we put up here in market the overall LOS at major intersections and wrote out the queue lengths
as well to tell you where we’ve at.
Q: PS: Can you describe LOS to folks?
A: MC: Sure. LOS is a shorthand way of talking about how well a signal processes traffic and we rank LOS
A-F. For an urban area during peak hour, D is good. At E we start worrying about queues. This has
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Howard/Stein-Hudson Associates, Inc.
been an iterative process and where we started with some poor LOS, we’ve worked to make them
better. We tied signals together so that east/west and north/south movements are coordinated. These
letters up on the sheet behind me don’t represent each movement, they’re for the whole intersection
overall. At this intersection (Arborway/Morton Street/Circuit Drive), the northbound approach which has
a low volume operates at LOS E, but bear in mind that at the beginning of the planning process, this
community told us not to let the vehicles rule. So we’ve tried to drop the LOS as far as we can while
keeping it within acceptable limits to make room for bicycles and pedestrians. One more thing: these
LOS letters are based on the 2035 projections.
Q: Esther Kohn (EK): I’m from Martinwood Road and I want to emphasize my concern about moving the
buses down, but we also want South Street to work better. 2 quick things: are there any alternatives to
putting the bus-way exit across from Asticou Road and can you explain why you propose to move the
bus-way exit?
A: GM: The original proposed design kept the 39 bus operating curbside on New Washington Street. First
we suggested having it turn around using a queue-jump light in Washington Street, and then we
suggested a median cut-out on New Washington Street. We worked with the City and MBTA to
investigate further how it might work. We started to discuss some of this in the WAG process, but we
didn’t get very far on it. As we started to look at it further, we identified a number of benefits. Moving
the 39 bus to the upper bus-way simplifies Washington Street/New Washington Street and removes a Uturn move which is one of the hardest moves to make. We can consolidate bus operations into 2
locations, down from 3 today, and facilitate transfers among buses and the trains. It lets us take taxis,
about which we’ve heard a lot from Asticou Road and move them away from that neighborhood.
Another thing is that it takes a leg out of the South Street intersection which helps it run better. The 2
options we have are to move the 39 into an expanded upper bus-way or leave it where it is. During
construction it has to move because the bridge has to come down and the bus can’t be there. That’s
what got us look at it as a permanent solution.
C: GS: So first a thing about traffic and then process. The LOS at Shea Square, E, that’s unacceptable.
A: MC: You’re looking at Cemetery Road and Morton Street. Shea Square is at LOS C.
C: GS: In that case, I want to go back to process. The issue that someone said is that you have a problem
with trust and traffic. Those are things my neighbors don’t have. I do trust you guys. The problem is
that your process isn’t transparent enough. I’ll give Gary’s response as an illustration of what I mean.
The problem is that engineering drawings don’t communicate to me and I’m an architect. The
community doesn’t understand them and shouldn’t have to. Your obligation is to do what it takes to
communicate to this group, transparently, enough information that people can give you good feedback.
You don’t want people angry at you, you want good input. I do the drive up Hyde Park Avenue most
mornings from the pool to my office and it is hard. We have the fine granular information which you
need and should use. You need to give us things like Maureen did, but on the plan. Give us data
because there are people like Allen who like the data. Give it to me graphically. You have to give us
data, tables, graphics and do it on a big enough scale. I’m so sick of looking at this plan at this scale.
You can’t come to a meeting that’s supposed to be about traffic and not give us enough information.
Representative Holmes is frustrated because a lot of the chatter isn’t about traffic and that’s because this
plan has so little information and doesn’t give people what they need.
Q: RRH: But Allen’s graphic was really good.
C: GS: But it wasn’t Allen’s responsibility to make it. That’s on the DOT and the consultants. The team is
doing a good job and I trust them that have tweaked and revised the traffic and put it in the FDR, but
they haven’t figured out how to communicate it on a Wednesday night to a group of concerned people.
The relationship we need to have is how we will solve this big problem and its group of contributing little
programs. The folks from Asticou/Martinwood keep raising the bus issue. Kate, facilitation isn’t about
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Howard/Stein-Hudson Associates, Inc.
taking one question and then another, you ought to have a written parking lot of ideas and whatever
you can’t solve then and there goes in the parking lot. We pay for this project and you owe us that.
Q: KWo: The queue length numbers you put up are different from Allen’s drawing, and is that because of
coordination?
A: GM: The numbers are different and coordination plays a role. It’s also because of a couple of things
and some of them were discussed at the last DAG meeting. Changed items include an expanded upper
bus-way with 3 bays, a 4-lane cross section on Washington Street north of Ukraine Way, we moved the
39 into the upper bus-way and we have a double left turn at Shea Square. There have also been
changes to signal timings, coordination, and intervals.
Q: LO: So it’s primarily the buses and the signalization that’s helping?
A: GM: You’ve taken out this bus movement at the intersection of the Arborway/Washington Street
intersection, which frees up some time at this intersection.
Q: KWo: The big difference to me is that the back-up from Hyde Park Avenue up past the Arborway in
Allen’s diagram now seems to be cut in half. Is that new?
A: GM: Taking the bus out of the New Washington Street area reduces the queue a lot.
Q: LM: I live on Ballard Street and I use the 38 and 39 buses both of which you’re giving an A. You’re
calling it a consolidation, but I see it as a bottleneck. When the 38 makes a right to head up South
Street which is what you want for the 39, the 38 is very slow in getting out because there’s a traffic jam.
You call it a consolidation, but you’re adding stuff, making the bottle bigger, but having the same
opening. How will that possibly make it better?
A: GM: Currently, you have buses going two ways out of the upper bus-way and in very close proximity to
the Arborway ramps and right across from South Street. Today, this is a terrible spot which impacts the
whole area. When the 38 turns out it does run right into congestion which is why we propose pulling the
bus-way exit south so it’s no longer opposite South Street. We’re widening the bus bay so that the 39
can lay over without impacting other buses. There’s no South Street across from the bus-way exit under
proposed conditions to create that additional delay.
Q: CB: Just a few things: when Allen brings up LOS to critique this plan, that was dismissed as not useful,
but you used it to rebut him, so that’s confusing. Bernie has discussed the flow of information. For
people next door to this job, it’s about traffic, health, safety and traffic disruptions. For people in
Dorchester, Mattapan and Quincy, and you can see my column in the Dorchester Reporter about this,
they are concerned about traffic. As this project nears construction, you’re going to see people from
those communities coming to these meetings. You will have to answer their questions. A specific
question on traffic is about enforcement. Given that there are already ‘no parking’ signs in our
neighborhood that don’t get enforced and the regulations at South Street don’t get enforcement, in
future meetings, will the police departments be here so we can hear from them about enforcement?
A: SM: Two weeks from now we have a meeting scheduled with BTD and DCR to discuss operations and
maintenance. The roadway is owned by the City and DCR. DCR and the City have been at every
meeting we’ve had. We have a half dozen MassDOT people here, at least one MBTA person I can see
and several City of Boston folks. We’re always coordinating and we’ll raise long-term maintenance,
signal maintenance and enforcement with them. So, yes, we’re talking.
Q: CB: But will the police come to these meetings?
C: DW: Yes, DCR and BTD don’t own the police forces.
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Howard/Stein-Hudson Associates, Inc.
A: KF: We have tried to get police attendance and will keep trying. I’d ask Vineet Gupta from BTD to help
us on that.
Q: CR: Coming back to Asticou Road, could you pull the bus-way exit even further south?
A: GM: There are limitations. The more we expand the deck, the further we go out over the commuter rail
tracks, which greatly complicates design and raises costs. If we shorten the bus-ways to make room to
pull down the exit, then we don’t get the benefits of expanding the bus-way.
Q: LO: So is this possible but very expensive?
A: GM: Right, it’s not technically impossible, but it is very expensive.
Q: Mark Tedrow (MT): With the expanded bus-way, could there be a connection to Hyde Park Avenue?
A: GM: The grade there is too great. It’s a full story difference in terms of height between Hyde Park
Avenue and the upper bus-way.
Q: Dottie Farrell (DF): I also think the project team is doing a really good job, but can’t we have this on a
computer and projector so that when someone brings something up we can zoom in and see it?
C: PS: I thought we had a moment of clarity there. I trust the project team is doing a good job, but a lot of
folks aren’t seeing it. Representative Holmes and I had a bad experience on the 28X project because of
a bad presentation. The community said the bus route on Blue Hill Avenue would divide the community
because the design team kept showing jersey barriers defining the bus lane. The team said they would
trim them down to little curbs, but kept showing jersey barriers. Better presentation would have helped
that and would help us here.
A: GM: Good comments. We did do a lot of graphics during the WAG process. Recently, we’ve been
cranking out the 25% design, which is technical. As we go forward, we’ll be relying on Essek, who is a
planner, to whip us into shape.
C: AI: Looking at the intersections of Arborway/Washington Street, we have up to 3-4 buses arriving here
with 120 feet of clear space. If you get a 40-foot bus and 60-foot bus at once, you don’t get the clear
space. When the buses turn it takes up the middle of the intersection. We still need queue lengths at
that location.
A: GM: The signal for that gets buses across Arborway/Washington Street to access the lower bus-way and
the signal just before the entrance to that bus-way would operate together. The bus would encounter
two green lights. So that queue wouldn’t have a chance to form.
Q: AI: So the bus could turn right in?
A: GM: Correct, they would encounter 2 green signals in a row.
C: AI: O.K. that’s good. So people dropping off at the train station and going east to west will want to
drop people off in the third lane on the New Washington Street segment, sort of like they do today, I
want all the lanes we can get. I’m looking for a kiss-and-ride spot.
A: RRH: O.K. I get that you want to look at parking.
Q: LO: Operating the two signals encountered by buses entering the lower bus-way from the east as a
single signal, does that preclude the possibility of allowing off-peak left turns?
A: GM: No, those could still happen.
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Howard/Stein-Hudson Associates, Inc.
Q: KWo: Where would the 39 layover in the expanded upper bus-way?
A: GM: The 39 would operate in the third bay. There would be enough room in that bay for there to be a
bus on the left side, right side, and one to still pass down the middle.
Q: Sarah Kurpiel (SK): I just want to thank you for having this meeting. We do live in a City and these are
urban problems. We’re doing our best to solve them. Please keep that in mind. My question is for
Vineet: will this area have traffic cameras connected to the traffic center downtown? Given that people
are concerned about queues; will the City look into that?
A: Vineet Gupta (VG): We will ask for traffic control cameras at all of these intersections. We need to make
sure the fiber optic connections are there, but we want to have in this project a real time visual. We
have around 120 intersections in the city where we can monitor the performance of the intersection by
camera and remotely adjust the timing from City Hall. Clearly we can’t watch 120 feeds at once. That’s
normal for any city, but we augment the viewing with feedback from field operations, the police or
community members and if they call in and tell us about a problem we can check the camera and adjust
the signal to address any issues. We’re happy to have any of you come and take a tour of our traffic
operations center and see how it works. We want to have the same level of watchfulness on this system
once it’s up.
C: KF: O.K. everyone, thank you for coming. That’s all the time we have for tonight. We’ll see you all on
the 29th.
Next Steps
The next DAG meeting will take place on October 29th at 6:00 pm. This meeting will be a continuation of
the discussion begun at the DAG’s October 1st session.
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Howard/Stein-Hudson Associates, Inc.
Appendix 1: Attendees
First Name
Last Name
Affiliation
Alice
Jonathan
Chase
Todd
Nathaniel
Heather
Marjorie
Maureen
Todd
Linda
Tom
Bernard
Michael
Dorothy
Kate
Giannalda
Francesca
Sarah
Peter
Paul
Helie
David
Chris
Mary
Russell
Allan
Tom
Hillary
Paul
Esther
Sarah
Amatai
Allie
Steve
Gary
Lynn
Colleen
Jessica
Mark
Liz
Essek
Peg
Jeffrey
Alexander
Baker
Billingham
Blake
Cabral-Curtis
Carrito
Charney
Chlebek
Consentino
Cranston
Crawford
Doherty
Epp
Farrell
Fichter
Fontana
Fordiani
Freeman
Furth
Godfrey
Gwyn
Hannon
Helms
Hickie
Holmes
Ihrer
Jacobson
Kelley
King
Kohn
Kurpiel
Lipton
Luff
McLaughlin
McNaughton
McSweeney
Medeiros
Mink
Navin
O’Connor
Petrie
Preble
Rand
Community resident
Community resident
Community resident
MBTA
Howard/Stein-Hudson
Community resident
Community resident
McMahon Associates
DAG
Community resident
Community resident
DAG
DAG
DAG
MassDOT
Community resident
DAG
DAG
Community resident
HNTB
Community resident
DAG
JP Patch
DAG
State Representative
DAG
Community resident
DAG
MassDOT
Community resident
DAG
MassDOT
McMahon Associates
MassDOT
McMahon Associates
[For Paula Okunieff]
McMahon Associates
DAG
DAG
DAG
HNTB
Community resident
Community resident
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Howard/Stein-Hudson Associates, Inc.
Bill
Paul
Tom
Pete
Mark
Ture
David
Karen
Wendy
Kevin
Elizabeth
George
Reyelt
Romary
Rovero
Stidman
Tedrow
Turnbull
Wean
Wepsic
Williams
Wolfson
Wylie
Zoulalian
DAG
Shattuck Hospital
MBTA
Community resident
Community resident
Office of Councilor O’Malley
DAG
DAG
Community resident
DAG
Community resident
DAG
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Howard/Stein-Hudson Associates, Inc.
Appendix 2: Received Emails
Please see the following pages.
Page 24
Nathaniel Cabral-Curtis
From:
Sent:
To:
Cc:
Subject:
paula okunieff <okunieff@att.net>
Tuesday, October 16, 2012 6:48 PM
Fichter, Katherine (DOT)
Mclaughlin, Steve (DOT); King, Paul C. (DOT); Paul Godfrey; Essek Petrie; Nathaniel
Cabral-Curtis; josephine.burr@gmail.com; nbrown@brownrowe.com;
tconsentino@gmail.com; romoniadix@comcast.net; Bernard.Doherty@parsons.com;
eppm@comcast.net; dottiefarrell@gmail.com; francescafordiani@gmail.com;
freemansherwood@hotmail.com; mhalle@bwh.harvard.edu; dmhannon61@gmail.com;
hickiem@gmail.com; aihrer@comcast.net; sydney@sjdsgn.com; hmkllll@hotmail.com;
stk1221@gmail.com; jessica@masspaths.net; kevinfmoloney@comcast.net; mark.navin1
@gmail.com; liz@strategymatters.org; jpmichael@rcn.com; williamreyelt@hotmail.com;
stephen_schneider@harvard.edu; fsvJp@comcast.net; david@weanzabin.com;
wepsic@hotmail.co; kevin.m.wolfson@gmail.com; ewylie325@comcast.net; geopz99
@aol.com
Re: Casey Design Advisory Group - Agenda + Materials for Upcoming Meeting
Kate, r just had a chance to review the information. r assumed that the syncro models were redone and that we can see the outputs from those models. Did I miss something? are the synchro models on the site or only the T ridership data? r assumed that in the traffic meeting we would discuss some of the details of the new synchro model. Please clarify.
Thanks for your response.
Polly
From: "Fichter, Katherine (DOn" <katherine.fichter@state.ma.us> To: paula okunieff <okunieff@att.net> Cc: "Mclaughlin, Steve (DOn" <steve.mclaughlin@state.ma.us>; "King, Paul C. (DOn" <paul.c.king@state.ma.us>; Paul Godfrey <PGODFREY@HNTB.com>; Essek Petrie <EPetrie@HNTB.com>; Nathaniel cabral-Curtis <ncabral­
curtis@hshassoc.com>; "josephine.burr@gmail.com" <josephine.burr@gmail.com>; "nbrown@brownrowe.com" <nbrown@brownrowe.com>; "tconsentino@gmail.com" <tconsentino@gmail.com>; "romoniadix@comcast.net" <romoniadix@comcast.net>; "Bernard.Doherty@parsons.com" <Bernard.Doherty@parsons.com>; "eppm@comcast.net" <eppm@comcast.net>; "dottiefarrell@gmail.com" <dottiefarrell@gmail.com>; "francescafordiani@gmail.com" <francescafordiani@gmail.com>; "freemansherwood@hotmail.com" <freemansherwood@hotmail.com>; "mhalle@bwh.harvard.edu" <mhalle@bwh.harvard.edu>; "dmhannon61@gmail.com" <dmhannon61@gmail.com>; "hickiem@gmail.com" <hickiem@gmail.com>; "aihrer@comcast.net" <aihrer@comcast.net>; "sydney@sjdsgn.com" <sydney@sjdsgn.com>; "hmk1111@hotmail.com" <hmk1111@hotmail.com>; "stk1221@gmail.com" <stk1221@gmail.com>; "jessica@masspaths.net" <jessica@masspaths.net>; "kevinfmoloney@comcast.net" <kevinfmoloney@comcast.net>; "mark.navin1@gmail.com" <mark.navin1@gmail.com>; "liz@strategymatters.org" <liz@strategymatters.org>; "jpmichael@rcn.com" <jpmichael@rcn.com>; "williamreyelt@hotmail.com" <williamreyelt@hotmail.com>; "stephen_schneider@harvard.edu" <stephen_schneider@harvard.edu>; "fsv.jp@comcast.net" <fsv.jp@comcast.net>; "david@weanzabin.com" <david@weanzabin.com>; "wepsic@hotmail.co" <wepsic@hotmail.co>; "kevin.m.wolfson@gmail.com" <kevin.m.wolfson@gmail.com>; "ewylie325@comcast.net" <ewylie325@comcast.net>; "geopz99@aol.com" <geopz99@aol.com> Sent: Tue, October 16, 2012 1:57:02 PM Subject: RE: casey Design Advisory Group - Agenda + Materials for Upcoming Meeting Polly­
4
The new traffic models (and other information related to bus ridership) has now been posted to the website under Traffic
Data & Analysis at: http://www.massdot.state.ma.us!caseyarborway/Documents.aspx.
Please let me know if you have any additional questions.
Thank you,
Kate
Kate Fichter
Manager of Long-Range Planning
Office of Transportation Planning - Massachusetts Department of Transportation
Ten Park Plaza, Room 4150, Boston, MA 02116
857.368.8852 - Please Note New Telephone Numberl
From: paula okunieff [mailto:okunieff@att.net] Sent: Friday, October 12, 2012 7:45 PM To: Fichter, Katherine (DOD Cc: Mclaughlin, Steve (DOD; King, Paul C. (DOT); Paul Godfrey; Essek Petrie; Nathaniel cabral-Curtis; josephine.burr@gmail.com; nbrown@brownrowe.com; tconsentino@gmail.com; romoniadix@comcast.net; Bernard.Doherty@parsons.com; eppm@comcast.net; dottiefarrell@gmail.com; francescafordiani@gmail.com; freemansherwood@hotmail.com; mhalle@bwh.harvard.edu; dmhannon61@gmail.com; hickiem@gmail.com; aihrer@comcast.net; sydney@sjdsgn.com; hmkllll@hotmail.com; stk1221@gmail.com; jessica@masspaths.net; kevinfmoloney@comcast.net; mark.navin1@gmail.com; Liz@strategymatters.org; okunieff@att.net; jpmichael@rcn.com; williamreyelt@hotmail.com; stephen_schneider@harvard.edu; fsv.jp@comcast.net; david@weanzabin.com; wepsic@hotmail.co; kevin.m.wolfson@gmail.com; ewylie325@comcast.net; geopz99@aol.com Subject: Re: casey Design Advisory Group - Agenda + Materials for Upcoming Meeting Kate, Thank you for these, but we have a myriad of questions related to the new models that you promised us. Will we be receiving the models prior to the meeting as promised? thank you, Paula Okunieff From: "Fichter, Katherine (DOT)" <katherine.fichter@state.ma.us> To: "Fichter, Katherine (DOD" <katherine.fichter@state.ma.us> Cc: "Mclaughlin, Steve (DOD" <steve.mciaughlin@state.ma.us>; "King, Paul C. (DOT)" <paul.c.king@state.ma.us>; Paul Godfrey <PGODFREY@HNTB.com>; Essek Petrie <EPetrie@HNTB.com>; Nathaniel Cabral-Curtis <ncabral­
curtis@hshassoc.com> Sent: Fri, October 12, 2012 5:41:00 PM Subject: casey Design Advisory Group - Agenda + Materials for Upcoming Meeting Friends ­
Attached, please find an agenda and materials for our upcoming traffic meeting scheduled for Wednesday evening
(October 17-). The materials attached consist of a package of traffic questions received by the project team from DAG
members, along with our responses. We hope that this packet will provide helpful information in advance of our
Wednesday discussion, as well as a starting-off point for additional questions or areas that people would like to
discuss. We have done our best to correctly capture the formatting of the questions as we received them, but had a little
bit of difficulty with some of the questions that we received via email.
Please note that our meeting is being held in a different room than the one in which we usually meet. This meeting will
be held at the Curtis Hall Community Center, 20 South Street. We will be starting the meeting at 6pm, as usual.
5
Best wishes for a good weekend,
Kate
Kate Fichter
Manager of Long-Range Planning
Office of Transportation Planning - Massachusetts Department of Transportation
Ten Park Plaza, Room 4150, Boston, MA 02116
857-368.8852 - Please Note New Telephone Number!
6
Nathaniel Cabral-Curtis
From:
Sent:
To:
Cc:
Subject:
paula okunieff <okunieff@att.net>
Tuesday, October 16, 20127:54 AM
Fichter, Katherine (DOD; arachnedreams@aol.com
McLaughlin, Steve (DOT); King, Paul C. (DOT); Paul Godfrey; Essek Petrie; Nathaniel
Cabral-Curtis
Re: Casey Design Advisory Group - Agenda + Materials for Upcoming Meeting
Kate, I will be out of town for the next DAG, the traffic meeting. Lynn McSweeney agreed to represent the South Street Safe Neighborhood constituency. Her contact information is below. Lynn McSweeney 17 Ballard Street, #1 Jamaica Plain, MA 02130 617.524.6792 I am also disappointed that I have not had the chance to review the new traffic models. As I recall, these were promised to us at the last meeting. Regards, Polly Okunieff From: "Fichter, Katherine (DOT)" <katherine.fichter@state.ma.us> To: "Fichter, Katherine (DOn" <katherine.fichter@state.ma.us> Cc: "McLaughlin, Steve (DOn" <steve.mciaughlin@state.ma.us>; "King, Paul C. (DOn" <paul.c.king@state.ma.us>; Paul Godfrey <PGODFREY@HNTB.com>; Essek Petrie <EPetrie@HNTB.com>; Nathaniel Cabral-Curtis <ncabral­
curtis@hshassoc.com> Sent: Fri, October 12, 2012 5:41:00 PM Subject: Casey Design Advisory Group - Agenda + Materials for Upcoming Meeting Friends ­
Attached, please find an agenda and materials for our upcoming traffic meeting scheduled for Wednesday evening
(October 17.). The materials attached consist of a package of traffic questions received by the project team from DAG
members, along with our responses. We hope that this packet will provide helpful information in advance of our
Wednesday discussion, as well as a starting-off point for additional questions or areas that people would like to
discuss. We have done our best to correctly capture the formatting of the questions as we received them, but had a little
bit of difficulty with some of the questions that we received via email.
Please note that our meeting is being held in a different room than the one in which we usually meet. This meeting will
be held at the Curtis Hall Community Center, 20 South Street. We will be starting the meeting at 6pm, as usual.
Best wishes for a good weekend,
Kate
Kate Fichter
Manager of Long-Range Planning
Office of Transportation Planning - Massachusetts Department of Transportation
Ten Park Plaza, Room 4150, Boston, MA 02116
857.368.8852 - Please Note New Telephone Number!
7
Nathaniel Cabral-Curtis
From:
Sent:
To:
Cc:
Subject:
paula okunieff <okunieff@att.net>
Friday, October 12, 2012 7:45 PM
Fichter, Katherine (DOn
McLaughlin, Steve (DOn; King, Paul C. (DOT); Paul Godfrey; Essek Petrie; Nathaniel
Cabral-Curtis; josephine.burr@gmail.com; nbrown@brownrowe.com;
tconsentino@gmail.com; romoniadix@comcast.net; Bernard.Doherty@parsons.com;
eppm@comcast.net; dottiefarrell@gmail.com; francescafordiani@gmail.com;
freemansherwood@hotmail.com; mhalle@bwh.harvard.edu; dmhannon61@gmail.com;
hickiem@gmail.com; aihrer@comcast.net; sydney@sjdsgn.com; hmkll11@hotmail.com;
stk1221@gmail.com; jessica@masspaths.net; kevinfmoloney@comcast.net; mark.navin1
@gmail.com; Liz@strategymatters.org; okunieff@att.net;jpmichael@rcn.com;
williamreyelt@hotmail.com; stephen_schneider@harvard.edu; fsvJp@comcast.net;
david@weanzabin.com; wepsic@hotmail.co; kevin.m.wolfson@gmail.com; ewylie325
@comcast.net; geopz99@aol.com
Re: Casey Design Advisory Group - Agenda + Materials for Upcoming Meeting
Kate, Thank you for these, but we have a myriad of questions related to the new models that you promised us. Will we be receiving the models prior to the meeting as promised? thank you, Paula Okunieff From: "Fichter, Katherine (DOD" <katherine.fichter@state.ma.us> To: "Fichter, Katherine (DOT)" <katherine.fichter@state.ma.us> Cc: "Mclaughlin, Steve (DOT)" <steve.mclaughlin@state.ma.us>; "King, Paul C. (DOD" <paul.c.king@state.ma.us>; Paul Godfrey <PGODFREY@HNTB.com>; Essek Petrie <EPetrie@HNTB.com>; Nathaniel Cabral-Curtis <ncabral­
curtis@hshassoc.com> Sent: Fri, October 12, 2012 5:41:00 PM Subject: Casey Design Advisory Group - Agenda + Materials for Upcoming Meeting FriendsAttached, please find an agenda and materials for our upcoming traffic meeting scheduled for Wednesday evening
(October 17ili). The materials attached consist of a package of traffic questions received by the project team from DAG
members, along with our responses. We hope that this packet will provide helpful information in advance of our
Wednesday discussion, as well as a starting-off point for additional questions or areas that people would like to
discuss. We have done our best to correctly capture the formatting of the questions as we received them, but had a little
bit of difficulty with some of the questions that we received via email.
Please note that our meeting is being held in a different room than the one in which we usually meet. This meeting will
be held at the Curtis Hall Community Center, 20 South Street. We will be starting the meeting at 6pm, as usual.
Best wishes for a good weekend,
Kate
Kate Fichter
Manager of Long-Range Planning
9
Office of Transportation Planning - Massachusetts Department of Transportation
Ten Park Plaza, Room 4150, Boston, MA 02116
857.368.8852 - Please Note New Telephone Number!
10
Nathaniel Cabral-Curtis
From:
Sent:
To:
Cc:
Subject:
dwean2@gmail.com on behalf of David Wean <David@WeanZabin.com>
Friday, October 19, 2012 5:12 PM
Fichter, Katherine (DOD
Mclaughlin, Steve (DOD; King, Paul C. (DOT); Paul Godfrey; Essek Petrie; Nathaniel
Cabral-Curtis; Verseckes, Michael (DOT)
Re: Casey Arborway Project - Functional Design Report
Kate,
Any chance it could be made available online?
If not, what are the barriers?
Thanks,
David
On Fri, Oct 19,2012 at 3:49 PM, Fichter, Katherine (DOT) <katherine.fichter@state.ma.us> wrote:
FriendsAs we discussed on Wednesday evening, the Functional Design Report (and its affiliated plans) for
the Casey Arborway project is now available in the Roslindale and Jamaica Plain (Sedgewick Street)
branch libraries. In addition, the same materials are available at the State Transportation Building (10
Park Plaza) in the State Transportation Library.
Please let me know if you have any questions.
Best wishes for a good weekend,
Kate
Kate Fichter
Manager of Long-Range Planning
Office of Transportation Planning - Massachusetts Department of Transportation
Ten Park Plaza, Room 4150, Boston, MA 02116
857.368.8852 - Please Note New Telephone Number!
1
Nathaniel Cabral-Curtis
From:
Sent
To:
Cc:
Subject:
Fichter, Katherine (DOT) <katherine.fichter@state.ma.us>
Friday, October 19, 2012 5:14 PM
David Wean
Mclaughlin, Steve (DOD; King, Paul C. (DOT); Paul Godfrey; Essek Petrie; Nathaniel
Cabral-Curtis; Verseckes, Michael (DOD
RE: Casey Arborway Project - Functional Design Report
DavidWe're working on it, but the materials are enormously large and full of complex graphics. Given the requirements under
which we must operate for meeting ADA accessibility standards for online materials, it's going to take some time (hence,
we wanted to get the materials into the libraries ASAP). We're trying to figure out a good online solution, though.
Thank you for asking!
Kate
Kate Fichter
Manager of Long-Range Planning
Office of Transportation Planning - Massachusetts Department of Transportation
Ten Park Plaza, Room 4150, Boston, MA 02116
857.368.8852 - Please Note New Telephone Number!
From: dwean2@gmail.com [mailto:dwean2@gmail.com] On Behalf Of David Wean
Sent: Friday, October 19, 2012 S:12 PM
To: Fichter, Katherine (DOT)
Cc: McLaughlin, Steve (DOT); King, Paul C. (DOT); Paul Godfrey; Essek Petrie; Nathaniel Cabral-Curtis; Verseckes,
Michael (DOn
Subject: Re: Casey Arborway Project - Functional Design Report
Kate,
Any chance it could be made available online?
If not, what are the barriers?
Thanks,
David
On Fri, Oct 19,2012 at 3:49 PM, Fichter, Katherine (DOT) <katherine.tichter@state.ma.us> wrote:
FriendsAs we discussed on Wednesday evening, the Functional Design Report (and its affiliated plans) for
the Casey Arborway project is now available in the Roslindale and Jarnaica Plain (Sedgewick Street)
2
branch libraries. In addition, the same materials are available at the State Transportation Building (10
Park Plaza) in the State Transportation Library.
Please let me know if you have any questions.
Best wishes for a good weekend,
Kate
Kate Fichter
Manager of Long-Range Planning
Office of Transportation Planning - Massachusetts Department of Transportation
Ten Park Plaza, Room 4150, Boston, MA 02116
857.368.8852 - Please Note New Telephone Number!
3