Howard/Stein-Hudson Associates, Inc.
CREATIVE SOLUTIONS • EFFECTIVE PARTNERING ®
MEMORANDUM
May 25, 2012
To:
Steve McLaughlin
Project Manager - Accelerated Bridge Program
MassDOT
Through:
Andrea D’Amato
HNTB
Project Manager
From:
Nathaniel Curtis
Howard/Stein-Hudson
Public Involvement Specialist
RE:
New Design Advisory Group Members’ (DAG) Meeting
Meeting Notes of May 15, 2012
Overview & Executive Summary
On May 15, 2012, members of the Design Advisory Group (DAG) who had not participated in the Casey
Overpass Replacement Project Planning Study through the Working Advisory Group (WAG), we invited to
join members of the design and MassDOT teams for an overview of and conversation about the WAG
process. This briefing and discussion session was arranged to ensure that all members of the DAG can
participate in that committee’s efforts on an equal footing.
The DAG is composed of a combination of new members and participants in the previous Working Advisory
Group. The name change is indicative of the group’s more focused role now that roadway design has been
selected to replace the current Casey Overpass. In the current 25% design process, the DAG will address
specific topic areas such as construction management, urban design, traffic, parking, and remaining
elements from the planning study including Washington Street west of Forest Hills Station and the design of
Shea Circle. The local knowledge provided by DAG members will guide the design team’s efforts and inform
the 25% design. Over the next several months, the DAG will meet regularly to ensure that the 25% design
process can be completed in a timely manner to allow the Casey Overpass to be replaced with a new
boulevard by the end of the Accelerated Bridge Program (ABP) in 2016. In addition to DAG meetings, the
project team is willing to hold additional sessions to reach out to the Jamaica Plain business community or
particular community institutions or neighborhood groups.
The meeting described herein gave new DAG members a brief history of the Casey Overpass Replacement
Project planning study, also called the WAG process. This tutorial touched on how alternatives for replacing
the overpass were generated by WAG members; WAG influence on the project team’s understanding of
areas of local concern, and the Measures of Evaluation (MOE) which were also largely based on WAG input.
Also discussed at length were the traffic studies, both local and regional and for all modes, including transit,
done for the planning process. As with their former WAG colleagues, new DAG members are generally
concerned with transit operations, bicycle and pedestrian connections, and construction-period and postconstruction traffic, particularly cut-through traffic on smaller residential streets. New DAG members
generally expressed their acceptance, to a greater or lesser degree, of the choice made by DOT to proceed
with an at-grade solution and their willingness to work with the agency and design team provided their
questions are taken seriously and answered in a reasonable amount of time. The project team and agency
will do their collective best to comply with this request, but noted that the project must continue to move
forward and that increasingly little time will be spent addressing questions covered by the planning study
since the crucial bridge/no bridge decision has been made and the project team needs local input to ensure
that the new Casey Arborway is as good for the community as it can possibly be.
38 Chauncy Street, 9th Floor  Boston, Massachusetts 02111  617.482.7080
www.hshassoc.com
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Detailed Meeting Minutes
Overview of the Planning Process
C: Andrea D’Amato (AD): Welcome, welcome! We’ve tried to condense the WAG process down into a
quick presentation. This will give you the highlights of the Casey Story and how we all came to be here.
This has been a long process with a lot of information and contributions from the community. We want
to tell you what’s happened over the past year and how we got the information. We will skim the
surface and then answer your questions. We’re going to fly high over the traffic because we’re doing a
traffic primer on May 24th. That meeting will be all traffic. 2/3 of the past year was spent on traffic and
we’ll spend some more time on it. We’ll also give you a little tutorial on the MassDOT project website
and how to use it.
We’ll start with the planning process, refresh you on the schedule for the next few months, and talk
about where the interface will be and how we’ll work with that and what we’re looking at for the 25%
design process. This project has been defined by a strong partnership between MassDOT, the City of
Boston, DCR and the MBTA. The Casey Overpass was built in 1955 as a six lane highway viaduct. The
car was king and we were moving cars out of the city in their exodus to the suburbs. In 1990, a
rehabilitation project removed the outer two lanes and replaced them with sidewalks. The outer lanes
were unsafe and traffic volumes never warranted them. So, the wide combined bicycle and pedestrian
pathways were installed. They never really connected anything, and that lack of connection was a big
concern for the WAG.
C: Jessica Mink (JM): I disagree that the bridge sidewalks don’t connect anything. The south sidewalk
connects green spaces and avoids several major street crossings.
C: AD: It does do that and people use it, but the crossing at either end isn’t safe and it’s uncomfortable for
pedestrians. That was what the WAG told us. So, finishing up with the bridge, in 2010, structural
problems brought the overpass down to a single lane in each direction.
C: Steve McLaughlin (SM): In 2008, Governor Patrick signed into law the $3 billion Accelerated Bridge
Program (ABP) to address the Commonwealth’s backlog of about 350 structurally deficient bridges.
About a year after that, in 2009, DCR, MassHighway and the Turnpike Authority merged to create
MassDOT. The new DOT received a lot of DCR assets and that agency’s $9.6 million share of the ABP
funding. Prior to 2009, MassHighway had $2.1 billion in ABP funding and so combining them gives you
the $3 billion figure.
The Casey Overpass came to DOT in 2010 with funding of approximately $25 million to fix the bridge’s
deck and give it another 50 years of useful life. That was in the DCR budget and appropriate for the
time. A new deck on a bridge roughly 1,770 feet long is about $25 million. The first thing MassDOT did
was to ask for a bridge rating report. That report told us the bridge was in awful shape and should be
posted as unsafe for heavy vehicles – immediately. Depending on the analysis, at the time of the rating
report, the bridge couldn’t carry its own weight, but we undertook emergency repairs and the bridge is
safe today.
Q: George Zoulalian (GZ): What does that photograph show?
A: SM: That is the substructure of the Casey Overpass prior to the most recent round of repairs. The steel
has been eaten away and has lost a lot of strength. You can’t repair that. There’s nothing to repair. We
were able to put traffic into one lane in each direction, in the safest part of the bridge. You’re safe
driving down that lane we marked out with barriers. Stay there. So, there is nothing left to rehabilitate
on the Casey Overpass. We’ll keep patching the bridge up to keep it operating under we go into
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construction. I want to be honest with you, and this isn’t to scare you, but the bridge could close before
the project goes out to bid. That could happen. That’s being honest.
So, we realized we needed to replace the Casey Overpass. We knew how to put a new bridge back,
which would cost about $73 million, but we decided to step back and study our options given the historic
nature of the opportunity we had with the current viaduct coming down.
C: David Wean (DW): When the bridge closed for construction in the 1990’s, it was posited that it was
going to be a disaster and it actually turned out O.K.
A: Paula Okunieff (PO): Yes, but the police hated it because it cost them a lot of money on details to direct
traffic. It took a lot of manual intervention. It happened again during the 2010 repairs and the police
were very upset about the time and resources they had to dedicate to keep traffic moving through.
Without that, it would have been impossible.
Q: GZ: It’s down to one lane in each direction today and there’s no appreciable back-up like when the
Sagamore goes down to one lane. Isn’t it true there’s no real back-up?
A: AD: The volumes are down and we have been working with the Boston Police Area E on this. They were
the ones called out for a lot of this area. Part of the reason the closure was successful was because of the
well-publicized nature of the diversion and a significant police presence. There was a lot of press and
plenty of VMS signs.
Q: Dorothy Farrell (DF): The design flaws in the Casey Overpass: what are they and who are these people?
A: SM: The bridge was built in 1955 by an architecture firm long since out of business. The firm was a
structural engineering outfit, but they did buildings and not bridges. Essentially they built a building and
not a bridge and so they made a structure with a huge dead load to carry.
A: AD: And the breaks in the deck allow water to just pour in and get at the steel members. The design was
very aesthetic. It was a lovely bridge when it was new with the stone facing.
C: JM: I think the bridge on the Arborway over Route 9 is also stone-faced.
A: AD: That’s stone all the way through so it doesn’t have the same sorts of problems.
C: SM: There is nothing we can do with the Casey other than continue the Band-Aids. At some point the
bridge closes itself and we have to put up barriers. We don’t want to do that, but the goal is not to get in
a position where the bridge is closed and the solution isn’t in place. The ABP ends in September 2016
and so our completion date is just that: 9/30/2016.
Q: DW: Where does that restriction come from?
A: SM: It’s a state bond bill. This project is all state funded even though there is federal funding in the ABP.
It’s under the bond buying program and it’s what the Commonwealth told buyers when they bought those
bonds. It will take about 3 years to build this. So if you work backward from 9/30/2016, it’s about
September 2013 for us to go out to bid and we’d like to see construction start in early 2014.
Q: Karen Wepsic (KW): Will you have one contractor for demolition and one for construction?
A: SM: We assume one contractor for everything. It is possible, but unlikely, that some specialized MBTA
elements would have to be done by a specialty contractor, but it will all have the same deadline
regardless.
Q: KW: Does the MBTA have to pay for any of this?
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A: SM: No. All the work being done here is the result of the bridge project so ABP is paying for it. It’s
funded and we can do this. We can’t just out of the blue go to another MBTA station and do
improvements, but at Forest Hills, it’s fine. A new bridge would cost about $73 million. For the at-grade
solution it’s about $53 million to take the bridge down and do all the associated MBTA work: relocating
the bus-way, head-house and vent-stack. It’s cheaper than a new bridge. There are a lot of reasons for
the at-grade solution and that didn’t come easy. We didn’t know at-grade would work going in. We got
accused of having plans in drawers. I’d like to see those plans, I never saw them, but I’d glad pay to
have a look at them. So, that’s how we got where we are.
C: AD: At the time when MassDOT brought us in, we came into this with the idea of replacing a bridge, but
then MassDOT asked us to step back, look at everything and be more open about possibilities. Here are
some facts: the bridge is coming down and coming down fast so this is a fast project. We learned from
the WAG that the current at-grade system doesn’t work – period. So we had to think about make the atgrade system work. The at-grade system was built around the Casey Overpass, the elevated Orange Line
and the old railroad viaduct, but the streets have never been adjusted to the fact that those things have or
will come down and it shows.
So, here’s the plan view: here’s the overpass, the green loop is the route 39 bus turnaround, here’s the
exit only stairwell which is under the viaduct today, and here’s the vent stack which is the twin sister of
that stairwell. There’s a ton of right-of-way out here, but there’s infrastructure in the middle of it. This is
older infrastructure. Remember it’s about 25-30 years since the new Orange Line was built. Holding
transit operations harmless has been a big challenge for us. This is a big transit hub and we want to
improve transit operations wherever we can. From the outset, the MBTA and community told us not to
touch the Arborway Yard and we have not. We got the plans for that project and we incorporated those
into ours. The other big piece is a chance to restore the Emerald Necklace, putting back the connection
between historic green spaces. This is a place of great historical properties, green space and
transportation. Could we make a gateway of it? And, how to do all that while addressing traffic needs
for all modes and local and regional traffic desires?
Let me just bring home the confusing and overly complex street network. That’s today’s traffic network
minus the bridge. We came in with the goal of starting from scratch and looking at where all modes
want to move.
C: SM: That red line on the aerial photograph is the desire line for the corridor, but that doesn’t connect that
way. What you have instead is a series of left and right turns and that’s what gets traffic to gridlock. So
we tried to remove the left turns and once you get that concept, you realize it can and it does work. The
final alternative is a morphed version to connect that missing link and it works quite well.
C: PO: Except for pedestrians. To create enough capacity for cars, you wind up with two layers for
pedestrians to cross and six lanes in order to meet your capacity needs.
A: Gary McNaughton (GM): This is at South Street, they’re already crossing this many lanes at South Street
today.
C: PO: The middle crossing is only four lanes wide.
A: AD: We modeled all the movements, and I promise you we’ll get into that.
We went through the planning process with a commitment to balance livability and mobility. Mobility is
about questions of circulation and access. Livability is about questions of how nice it is to be somewhere.
We started off to treat both equally. Let’s talk about the WAG. They worked very hard and we wouldn’t
be here today without them. The directive from the community was safety first. They told us to deal with
the current street system and to improve it to better accommodate all modes. They asked us to make
Forest Hills more a center piece for the community and not to ignore Shea Circle. We used to end the
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project before Shea Circle, but we extended the limits of work to encompass it because of its nature as a
critical connector to green spaces and as a current barrier to bicycle and pedestrian access. That came
directly from the community. We had 13 WAG meetings. We had them do 5 assignments which were
not easy: connections analysis, cross section studies. They spent their own time to give us ideas and we
used a lot of them. We had 6 public meetings with open houses where anyone could come and speak
directly to the designers and MassDOT one-on-one. It was very deliberately structured to get as much
input as we could.
The WAG formed the principals, goals and objectives for this project. The most important things were
those livability and mobility principals and they wanted us to balance them. As a result we had some very
animated conversations about bicycles versus pedestrians, open spaces versus roadways. The WAG
pushed us and asked us to come back with ideas that responded to their concerns. The WAG was
integral to developing the measures of evaluation (MOE). Those MOE helped us to form a fatal flaw
analysis through which we pushed all of our potential designs. We supposedly spent 20 minutes on
traffic, but we covered it in 11 WAG meetings and touched on it in each public meeting. We did counts,
special counts, license plate surveys and built in CTPS regional data. We did 2035 traffic projections and
tested all models against concept designs.
Q: PO: Did you do a queuing study and show that to the WAG? What was your impact area? What
constituted that?
A: AD: I promise, I’m getting there; we developed a pedestrian and bicycle circulation plan. We developed
3 at-grade alternatives with 7 iterations and 3 bridge alternatives and we narrowed that down to 2 bridge
and 2 at-grade alternatives. We pulled out all the old plans for this area and presented them to the
WAG, City and State to make sure we didn’t miss anything.
Somebody stated a month ago that we only discussed the MOE once and I wish that were true. We
discussed them at every meeting and I could see some people on the WAG were just ready to pass out
when we brought them up, but they all worked with us and gave us real measures. There was even an
assignment on measures and that was excellent. We did comparable analysis of medians, crossings and
we even brought photographs back to share with the WAG. We looked at national comparable data for
viaduct removal around the United States and that’s all on the website for you to review.
Q: Sarah Kurpiel (SK): About the median; what was the deciding factor?
A: AD: We looked at a very narrow median that pushed all the open space to both sides of the corridor and
then a wide median that would have accommodated separated pedestrian and bicycle pathways in it.
Those paths would have had a direct connection into the center island at Shea Circle. Under both
schemes we worked in the idea of Olmsted’s separated modes. After much deliberation with breakout
groups and drawing on plans, the WAG settled on the medium median with no accommodations in it.
Q: SK: In terms of cross-sections at the crosswalks, how much median is there?
A: AD: It varies depending on where you are in the corridor.
Q: SK: But there is no intention of making pedestrians stop in the center?
A: GM: We were told to keep it narrow at the crossings and then let the median get wider in the eastern
end of the corridor for a parkway feel. In those areas it’s around 12-14 feet, but the signals are timed to
get you over the whole roadway in one movement unless it is very late in the cycle.
A: AD: The median width is being thought about very strategically because we want it wide enough for
trees. We cannot plant trees over the tunnel box because there’s no dirt, but right now Don Kindsvatter
is looking at tree types and root systems with DCR, MassDOT and the Arboretum.
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C: SM: We had a six hour site visit last week and there was me and three landscape guys walking the whole
job and I showed them the sight distances and the engineering stuff I know about, but you could tell they
were excited about the trees. MassDOT’s landscaper will be here at the DAG meeting tomorrow night.
The trees along the corridor are one element; the trees in the MBTA plaza are another. You want to
make sure people see the civic buildings. We will put in as many trees as we can fit. Their thinking is
corridor-wide and rows of trees in the Olmsted manner.
Q: DF: And the trees will be spaced widely enough so they won’t die?
A: AD: Yes, we spent a few meetings talking about those sorts of issues and that came up a lot. Let me just
five you a quick listing of what’s on the website. At the last meeting one of the members mentioned the
2008 DCR/SGH report. We have scanned it and placed it on the web.
C: SM: That’s the bridge rating report. It’s only a little over 1,200 pages and generally not written in a way
to be used by the public. Good luck with it. In all seriousness if you have questions after reading it, let
us know and we’ll do our best to answer them.
C: AD: Now, remember the past reports I mentioned? These are the study areas for all of those
documents.
Q: PO: Is this also your impact area?
A: GM: That slide shows past studies for this area.
Q: Mark Navin (MN): What’s the red line?
C: AD: That is the Arborway master plan by DCR. Some of the studies were very dense and we used their
traffic numbers to test ours. The one mentioned at the last DAG meeting looked at a series of rotaries
and we combed through that one, and all the others. All of these are on the website so you can
download them and read them; I don’t recommend printing them or you’ll go broke. But here they are:
improve safety, improve quality of life, address the bridge, ensure inclusive public process, integrate
artistic elements in the design, adopt principles of universal design, respect the design for Arborway Yard
and meet the ABP budget and schedule.
C: SM: Let’s go back to the ABP slide. If we don’t keep on our schedule, the money will go to other projects
throughout the state. We have to keep pushing forward because otherwise the money goes to a bridge
in Rehoboth. If we pull back, we end up with a bridge that closes.
A: AD: And 13 meetings at 3 hours per meeting is no small commitment. The WAG really put in the time
on some robust meetings. It really helped to move things along, so we’re counting on you to keep up
that good momentum.
C: GM: O.K. Paula, now we’re up to your question: this slide shows the study area.
C: PO: I’m worried about impact area. Did you analyze the unexpected consequences of making all these
changes? You mentioned the police in E9 and traffic was all the way back to Murray Circle and Hebrew
Rehab during the closure for repairs. There was a major issue there with cars turning left and right
trying to get out of the traffic. When I’m picking up my kids, they used to go the Matting School, it would
take me 20 minutes to go 600 feet and a lot of that is caused by people detouring around Murray Circle
and the Arborway.
A: GM: This is the local traffic study and I’m going to explain who it fits with the regional studies. We
worked closely with DOT and CTPS and it was an amazingly closely coordinated effort. I spent more
time in touch with them on this project than I did for the Route 128 Add-a-Lane job. We had them run
each of our alternatives and we even had them run a bridge closure with no at-grade changes as a
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reality check and it showed a ton of diversion with red all over the map. We started calling that the
heart attack model. With the bridge closed and no at-grade changes, 25% of traffic diverts out of the
corridor, but when we ran both the at-grade and bridge alternatives the traffic just stays in the corridor.
On the local level we looked at these intersections. The circles with the crosses are signalized
intersections and the open circles are unsignalized. Shea Circle is just one big circle and just beyond it is
Cemetery Road which we now included. We did pedestrian, transit, bicycle, heavy vehicle and
automobile counts. We did ATR counts and manual counts from 7:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. as mandated by
BTD.
C: PO: You didn’t start early enough. The school bus peak is at 6:30 a.m.
A: GM: That’s true regarding school buses and when they are here in the corridor, but the general peak
hour for the corridor, and we reconfirmed this with BTD, is between 7:00 a.m. and 8:00 a.m.
A: AD: We can go over that further in the traffic primer meeting.
C: PO: The school buses start before 7:00 a.m. and they are a significant amount of traffic in the morning.
There’s always a back-up when I put on the signal to cross the street at the Arnold Arboretum. There
are school buses right over there in Forest Hills to take the kids to Latin School. There are about a dozen
buses then.
A: AD: That’s not actually what the School Department told us today. Today we met with them and they
said the only school buses actually picking up in the corridor serve West Roxbury High School.
C: DW: The Latin School buses are MBTA charters.
C: PO: But you missed the school bus peak at 6:30 a.m.
A: GM: We got the busiest hours of the day. We don’t roll up the sidewalks after 7:00 p.m. Everything we
focused on is the worst, busiest hour. 7:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. captures the City’s worst times.
C: MN: A roadway designed for the busiest hours will handle the less busy hours.
C: PO: Buses typically code as five cars. There are 10-12 buses at 6:30 a.m. Maybe you don’t have as
many cars, but you will still have a lot of traffic.
A: MN: I live right there and I take the dog out and while I’ve seen the school buses, I still don’t think it’s
busier at 6:30 a.m. than at 7:30 a.m.
C: PO: A lot of traffic goes over the bridge at 7:30. I assume you counted both the traffic over the bridge
and under it.
A: GM: We did that and we have a graphic, available on the website, that shows New Washington Street
and the overpass and we have it all charted out. You have about 2 busy hours in the a.m. peak and
about 4 hours in the afternoon. Those hours are hard and the rest of the time, outside those hours, the
volumes drop by about a third.
C: AD: And you can see, playing out right here, a smaller version of the conversation we had over multiple
WAG meetings. We were told to accommodate all the traffic, but not to design to it. It’s illustrative of
the balancing act and how we are right-sizing the design.
C: GM: When you talk about the surface streets, here’s the aerial with the overpass taken out. If there was
no overpass, your through movement is left, right, this leg across and down here. That’s design around
infrastructure that’s gone.
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C: AD: And we had to wipe our minds clean of today. If we’re building for tomorrow, let’s make it about
tomorrow and think of what we want. We know nobody wants to live with today. That was a real
struggle: getting both the WAG and design team to let go of their personal experience.
A: GM: It’s important to see this and think about the bridge being gone. When I started this project I
thought we’d have to put a bridge back. That’s based on my own experience with the surface streets,
but through the WAG process and the modeling we’ve done, I ultimately got convinced.
Q: SK: I live to the north of the Casey Overpass. Is the distance between the signals to the north the reason
why none of the intersections to the north are considered?
A: GM: It’s the distance between signals, yes, and the available connector roads between those signals.
C: PO: I disagree with that.
A: SM: If you know of cut-through streets you think we have missed, let us know.
A: AD: We also vetted the cut-through streets with the City and community.
C: JM: The worst cut-through street is Walk Hill. I live on Neponset Avenue in South Bourn. I’ve been
polling people and traffic is up. Walk Hill Street is the only straight cut-through from Blue Hill Avenue to
Forest Hills. People go inbound on it in during the morning and out again in the evening. We’re
worried about what will happen during construction. Traffic is marginal right now and we worry it will
worsen. People are worried about speed, but I think volume is even more of a problem. I think during
construction we’ll have people delayed through two light cycles.
A: GM: Walk Hill Street is in the regional model. We tried to define cut-through traffic for the purpose of
this study. My cut-through could be because I’m avoiding congestion or short-cutting a corner. We
spent a lot of time looking at this and we did look at cut-through activity in the northern edge of the
corridor.
C: JM: I see a lot of people using Walk Hill Street. Neponset Avenue is the next road to the south and
that’s already in use for local cut-through traffic.
A: GM: We’ve looked at all the potential routes of diversion and we didn’t see that much potential for it.
We’re not creating that much additional delay. The only people getting delayed are overpass users and
people making east-west left turns. Now, construction is a different discussion and we’re working
through that. During construction, we’ll need to take steps to protect the neighborhoods.
Q: PO: Did you take counts on the cut-through roads to check the volumes? I live on the utility road and it
backs up a good way. Drivers are cutting through Custer and they’re speeding down that street. They
are cutting through Goldsmith Street and soon they’ll be using Carolina Street and there’s a school
there.
A: MN: I’ll admit to being one of those cut-through drivers. I live on the east side of the overpass by the
courthouse and my most direct route to work is over it, but recently, I haven’t wanted to take my nice
new car over all those bumps so I’ve been going past the carwash and going from Rossmore Road, to
Custer Street, to Carolina Street and there I go.
C: PO: I’ve been hit by cars twice. The cars just race through there.
A: MN: Well, I don’t race. I believe that after 3 hellish years of construction, this new roadway is going to
make me a lot less likely to cut through.
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C: PO: I disagree and that’s what I’m concerned about in terms of impact area. The air quality will be
impacted. My kids have asthma and this is one of the highest asthma areas in the City and even though
CTPS did their study it was macro and not micro and I want to see the impacts on local streets. You
didn’t even get into West Roxbury.
A: GM: West Roxbury would have been handled by CTPS. The local traffic study did not cover it.
C: AD: As we moved through traffic with the WAG, they defined our areas of concern. South
Street/Arborway/New Washington Street was our toughest nut to crack and after that Washington Street
west of the station where Asticou Road comes in. We also looked at Shea Circle and both ends of New
Washington Street. This is where the WAG told us to focus and where we went in depth to address
issues of connections, who wants to go where and what trade-offs would we be willing to make.
Q: PO: On Washington Street, did you go all the way to Walk Hill?
A: AD: In the CTPS regional study yes, in the local study no. This is about replacing the bridge. We had a
lot of interest in the upper bus-way and Asticou Road. We went where the WAG told us to go.
C: GM: This is input we requested. We didn’t want to go out and solve. We asked for the input from the
community. Often times in a job, you come up with an idea early and fall in love with it and so we really
held back and allowed ourselves to be guided by the WAG. We talked about future volumes. We
assessed existing conditions and we looked 25 years out. 2035 is our analysis year for all traffic
projections. The WAG told us to address the local surface street system and in that New Washington
Street/South Street is the biggest problem. We needed to address pedestrian, transit and bicycles as just
as important as or maybe even more so than cars. The car isn’t the overriding factor in how we get this
done. We don’t want to enforce cut-through traffic and so we need to address regional traffic without
impacting local streets and the local streets need to be able to support future developments. The Forest
Hills Improvement Plan was a study a few years back that identified development parcels, the LAZ Lot,
the MBTA parcels; the bulk of their property is the station itself, but there are parcels further to the south.
C: AD: Parcels V and W are where the construction is now. Here’s a close-up view.
C: GM: So we went through and identified all of these from past studies. There are some parcels on
Washington Street to the north and we took that information and sat down with the MBTA and asked if
they were still real. We sat with the BRA and asked them the same kinds of questions. We made some
minor tweaks and ultimately developed this table encompassing all development for the area. Will it all
happen? Maybe, but we wanted to accommodate all of it. Remember, if you jack up density, people
will drive less and use more transit, walking and cycling and so we want to be ready for that too.
C: AD: This was subject to a lot of WAG conversations. We spent three meetings just focusing on this
because it was the foundation for 2035 projections. We took a very conservative approach.
Q: PO: Did you look at estimated numbers of parking spots lost and added?
A: GM: We did and to some degree we still are. The biggest impact is the MBTA development parcels.
They are retaining parking.
C: MN: LAZ is keeping some parking.
C: AD: There are also development guidelines from the City of Boston for TOD 1 developments.
C: PO: Right now there’s a lot of commuter parking and people come from Milton and other places. It
seems to me that commuter parking will be reduced.
1
Transit oriented development
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A: GM: We did a license plate survey and we know where people are coming from; LAZ is privately owned
and is slated for redevelopment regardless of the Casey project.
C: MN: The BRA was involved in the Forest Hills Plan so they might have some sway over LAZ.
C: PO: Arborway Yard becomes even more critical for the parking they will create.
A: GM: We met with the MBTA and the parking is going to be for MBTA folks, not commuters.
C: PO: There’s less parking at Green Street now too.
A: AD: But remember, people are driving less.
C: GM: We worked with the BRA and CTPS to establish future local and regional conditions. We took that
and superimposed our development parcels on top of that to make the 2035 projections. When you
hear about future operations, it’s with 2035 volumes and all of this development built out.
Q: GZ: What does the term no-build mean?
A: GM: It’s the future condition with no changes. That’s been something of a challenge for us on this
project because a true no-build condition isn’t an option.
A: SM: We have to study the no-build alternative. It’s a purely theoretical condition. We’re subject to
MEPA and we meet some thresholds because we are cutting down more than five trees. As a result we
have to file an Environmental Notification Form (ENF) with the MEPA office. Along with that will be a
scoping meeting which we present and MEPA runs. People comment on the ENF and MEPA tells us if we
need to study the project further. They might issue a scope for an environmental study in which case
we’d have to do a Draft Environmental Impact Report (DEIR) and an Environmental Impact Report EIR,
but we believe and hope that the material we have thus far, which is about this high, will be adequate.
That won’t be the end of public involvement for this job, but MEPA is trigged by this project and they
demand that no-build analysis.
Q: KW: A question about MEPA: if there are impacts on transit, will MEPA require you to address it? How
will they know about impacts to the buses?
A: SM: Our ENF would have to mention it.
A: GM: And the MBTA is really holding our feet to the fire on transit operations.
A: SM: This project won’t touch the commuter rail or Orange Line and it will enhance the buses. The
access/egress for the Orange Line will be enhanced.
C: KW: O.K. I don’t want to discuss it further now, but I do want to discuss the starters’ booth which has a
bathroom in it. I’ll address it further later.
C: GM: So, these are the volumes you’ll see changing, this is the growth over existing. We’re adding 5% of
regional traffic growth, another 12% of local on the local streets, and then pedestrians and bicycles up
by 13% each and transit ridership up about 10%.
C: AD: I want to pause and say we’ll have copies of this for you tomorrow; you’ll have all this as a handout.
Q: PO: How did you compute bicycle and pedestrian volumes for 2035?
A: GM: We just grew them both by 13% each.
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Q: PO: And those are commuters and recreational?
A: GM: Yes, they are. That’s how we identified future volumes. We had the base year of 2010, analyzed
and calibrated it to match existing conditions, forecast 2035 volumes, and then developed our options.
We asked CTPS to run them in their model and answer questions like do people cut through, do volumes
change on study area roadways, does air quality change? They found that nothing really changes.
There isn’t a big difference between the bridge and roadway solutions and we’ll get more into that on
May 24th. At the start of the project, we were thinking about whether a 10% diversion would be
acceptable, but neither of our alternatives needs or causes diversions.
Q: DW: We CTPS models tested against current conditions?
A: GM: Yes, and we gave them our new counts for the specific area which they plugged into their model.
A: AD: CTPS presented to the WAG and the public. One WAG member asked us about the model and its
past performance and so we looked back at how well the model did projecting Central Artery growth. It
turned out it over-predicted by 13%. That was based on the Seaport not being fully built out and
passenger levels at Logan Airport not getting to what was predicted. That’s how the WAG really pushed
us.
Q: Bill Reyelt (BR): Did they do that for the Casey corridor?
A: AD: They hadn’t modeled this area before. The modeling capabilities have really blossomed in the last
10-15 years, just imagine the difference between your cell phone today and the one you had 10 years
ago, you can look at different modes and treat them individually.
I do want to ask you to jot your questions down for the traffic primer meeting because we are moving
into design. This is the optimal meeting for you if you love traffic.
C: SM: And if you’re busy and you can’t make the traffic meeting, we looked at the at-grade and bridge
solutions and traffic isn’t a deciding factor between them. In 2035, traffic works better with our solution
than it does today. We’ll be telling you that over a very long meeting.
C: AD: I want to tell you about the design path we took. We spent a lot of time on traffic, but design is a
function of that. We balanced mobility and livability, we talked about priority sub-areas. We took all the
primary concepts and put them through a fatal flaw analysis based on WAG principals. We went to
design concepts and draft alternatives. We came up with 25 concepts and after fatal flaw analysis, 14
survived. The 14 dealt with detail areas like Shea Circle, Morton Street and Asticou Road. We
generated a lot of alternatives. This wasn’t a minor design exercise. This was very iterative and we had
break-out sessions and worked on things like regional versus local traffic and getting to transit. That
helped to narrow us down to four options: a narrow median and a wide median and then a single
bridge and a split bridge. Once we got it down to two options, the single bridge and the medium
median, we took the designs to CPTS for use in their model. This was very strategic and methodical.
With regard to design, we looked at the MBTA, station pick-up/drop-off, taxis and bus stops. We made
trade-offs within the fixed geometry: how do we provide access to the MBTA while creating more space
for pick-up/drop off, how do we protect the neighborhoods from cut-through? We wanted to allow on
and off-street bicycle circulation for recreational and commuter uses. We wanted to integrate
sustainable design concepts and tomorrow night, we’ll address that in greater depth. There was a lot of
looking at barriers because the WAG told us to remove barriers from the neighborhood so this space can
feel connected, accessible and friendly, especially to pedestrians. People want to see green space and
how Forest Hills can be a gateway to the green space: Blackwell Footpath, the Southwest Corridor,
Franklin Park and Forest Hills Cemetery. We wanted to restore the spirit of Olmstead with the different
modal corridors and what used to be here. Shea Circle was originally a square and we’re restoring it,
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just a little away from where it once was. The one thing we won’t do is reconnect South Street as
Olmsted had it because it creates a little orphan parkland that nobody would use.
These are the design alternatives; first the at-grade. We were asked to discuss the experience and we
came up with perspectives for several areas. We don’t say these are perfect, but they are based on real
photographs. We have the relocated head-house, shorter crossings and separated pathways for bicycles
and pedestrians.
Q: DW: Where is Forest Hills Station?
A: AD: Just off the right side of the graphic. The end of the Southwest Corridor Park is to your left.
Now here’s the view with the bridge. We were asked to solve for at-grade no matter what and you can
see we carried that through. By the end, people got their heads around the idea the at-grade would get
better whichever solution we chose. We kept the bicycle accommodations and a lot of other stuff that
wouldn’t be there without the community process.
On the MOE we looked to find a way to quantify the benefits of the options. We analyzed MOE for all
modes; usually, it’s just done for vehicles. We were asked to create livability measures and we struggled
with that with help from the WAG which was groundbreaking. We spent a ton of time working on the
MOE and talking through goals and objectives so we could change designs based on the measures. By
the end of the job we were dropping off measures because we realized we could and should include
them in both options. In the end, we used the MOE to analyze each option on its own merits and not
against each other to ensure that both designs cut the mustard. Seeking to have real, measurable MOE,
we got down to 15 for livability and 16 for mobility and we achieved a good balance. Using the MOE to
the score the options, today’s conditions score -20, the bridge option scores 3, and the at-grade scores
20. That’s all well-documented on the website including a technical memorandum on how the MOE
work.
C: GM: Just to touch on traffic, the big thing question is how can the traffic be so similar between the two
options? We were poring through the analysis looking for the stark difference we expected, but which
frankly never came up. Depending on which option you pick, one approach may be better or worse, but
overall they are the same. The big element is north/south traffic which doesn’t use the bridge but travels
at-grade.
Q: DW: What fraction of traffic does the bridge remove?
A: GM: It’s about 50%
Q: DW: What proportion of east-west traffic is currently on the bridge?
A: GM: About 2/3; you still have a lot of activity on the surface streets which is why you see additional
lanes to handle it in the at-grade solution. The cars down here are cars making turns so the only way to
make them operate better is to have double turning lanes which really add more pavement than the
WAG would have liked. This at-grade solution is the roadway that makes sense. The four-way
intersections work that much better. The difference in travel time for through traffic currently using the
bridge is between 30-90 seconds depending on the time of day.
Q: PO: Does that include the bus turning priority?
A: GM: It does and service for buses is going to get better. If you factor in the 30-90 seconds, some of it is
already encapsulated in today’s hurry-up-and-wait within the corridor. Today, people fly across the
bridge and then wait in the queue at Murray Circle. The signals in the at-grade solution may help to
meter the traffic arrival at Murray Circle and shorten that queue.
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Q: DW: So you’re waiting for Murray Circle a half mile away without knowing it?
A: GM: That’s right. Looking at the whole picture, the time from Blue Hill Avenue to Murray Circle will be
about the same.
Q: PO: Did you look at queues to the north and south of the corridor?
A: GM: Yes, we did travel time runs and modeled it.
C: JM: Everything looked balanced much better than today in the models except going north on Washington
Street. There were delays there.
C: PO: When I looked at those studies I thought there’d be no way to do it unless you synchronize the lights,
but if you synchronize those lights, you impact the buses on the lower bus way and the east-west lights
and I’ve been stuck on Washington Street in a queue that stretched all the way to Doyles’. If you
increase it by 20 seconds, that’s significant.
A: AD: Remember, it’s a new day and a new roadway.
A: GM: And a lot of that problem is further to the south. You see days where the bus it’s not just the one
intersection. We’ll be looking at those intersections so they are coordinated. You can coordinate it
without impacting the transit service appreciably.
C: PO: You have very high bus frequencies going north and south during peak periods, something like 2-3
minute headways.
A: GM: The tightest headway, according to the MBTA, is more like six minutes, but we’ll continue looking at
the intersections.
C: JM: Usually the buses leaving the upper bus-way come out in groups.
C: Sydney Janey (SJ): There’s also the issue of blocking the box.
A: GM: The design of the South Street intersection really invites you to do that now. The intersection
doesn’t make it clear which light you should obey.
A: AD: The simplification of the intersections will make things much clearer and get us away from that
problem.
C: GM: We want to make sure the queues don’t back up through the last intersection. Our solutions, in 25
years, work better than today and manage the queues better. All of the available cut-through routes
take longer than 30-90 seconds to do. When we get into construction, we’ll be spending time looking at
those cut-through routes in greater detail. We understand and differentiate between construction
impacts and long-term impacts. Just a quick summary: it’s improved over existing condition, it’s a
minimal difference for all modes and traffic isn’t the differentiator between alternative; they both work.
A: AD: That was then and this is now; I hope you feel brought up to speed on the history of the job.
C: SM: You are all aware that the at-grade solution has been selected to be brought into design and you
all asked to be on the DAG. You know we’re in design and I hope you accept, embrace and work to
make this the design it can be. If you feel it’s a mistake, I accept that, but with all candor and respect, if
that’s how you feel, the DAG may not be the place for you and you may feel frustrated and
uncomfortable. We’ll go to MEPA which is wholly independent of DOT and you can make your
comments there, say all the things we missed and tell us why we need a bridge or even a tunnel. I
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mean this with all respect for you when I say that if you really wanted a bridge: the next few months may
not be fun for you.
When we made our decision to go forward at-grade, it wasn’t based on any one factor and I might even
miss a few, but safety is number one. There is a falling down bridge that needs to be addressed. The
community involvement process took into account hundreds of comments, almost a thousand pages. We
mapped those comments and we know where they came from; we read each and every one.
Connecting the neighborhood is important and restoring the Emerald Necklace, we heard it again and
again. The traffic between the alternatives is the same and this works. I know that’s hard to grasp
intuitively and we’ll have another meeting on traffic. If you can’t understand after that, talk to us some
more off-line. We have other work to do and we can’t keep losing meetings to the same old discussions
of traffic.
C: AD: And the truth is we need your good ideas for the at-grade solution. Just so you can see what the
WAG did, here’s a sample of their homework and a composite of member contributions for mobility and
livability.
C: GM: Traffic will change. The planning study was just that, a planning study. Signal timings will change.
The traffic meeting will spend some time looking back, but the more we can go forward with new
iterations of changes, that’s how we spend our time best.
C: SM: More on the basis for decision: bicycles and pedestrian connections will be improved in all
directions. Bus operations will be improved through changes to Washington Street west of the station.
We talked with the manager of bus operations for the MBTA today and he told us he sees no fatal flaws;
it all looks good. That’s what the MBTA says today and they will continue to hold us accountable. The
MOE came out in favor of the at-grade solution. The cost estimates: its $73 million for a new bridge and
$53 million for at-grade and that gets us the MBTA improvements and Shea Circle. We’re doing Shea
Circle because it’s a safety project. That rotary doesn’t work well for pedestrians or vehicles. It’s the
highest accident location in the study area. It’s a documented safety hazard.
Discussion of the Project Website
C: AD: Let’s talk about the project website. We always say go to the website and we want to explain that to
you. Anything we looked at as the basis of our study is on the documents page. This is dense stuff, but
we hope it will help you explain to your groups and neighborhoods what the facts are. Look at this and
help other people understand. Go to the meetings tab and you’ll be able to see every presentation
we’ve made and all the notes Nate has taken for us.
C: SM: We update that regularly.
Q: DF: Is this unusual?
A: AD: This is pretty transparent.
A: SM: With the ABP, aside from fixing structurally deficient bridges and putting people to work, we are
required to be open, transparent and accountable. I don’t know any way to make this more accountable
and transparent than this.
C: DF: You have been accountable and transparent.
C: GZ: That openness and transparency may be your fatal flaw because the one plan I don’t see is one to
address people on the DAG who still want a bridge; time is on their side. If they can sew enough delay
and confusion, by 2016 you guys will be screwed.
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A: AD: DOT isn’t screwed; it’s the neighborhood that will be screwed.
C: DF: It’s up to us to stop them.
A: SM: We struggle in running the meetings because we both want to run a tight meeting where we stay on
the agenda, but we also want and need to heat you. It can be difficult when there are strong
personalities. At the end of the day, we don’t want anyone stifled.
C: JM: I think the at-grade decision was wrong, but I think it’s made. We’re not going to go back; the
money is just too different; it won’t work financially. I feel bad I didn’t get onto the WAG. The quality of
life just seems stacked against the bridge. That’s why I’m involved now. I’m much friendlier with probridge folks, but I feel we need to make a solution that works.
A: AD: That’s what the DAG is about. We wouldn’t be here with these designs without the WAG. The
design team is agnostic about the solution. We want your ideas. They gave us great stuff. These are
WAG designs and that’s the level of engagement we want from you.
C: SM: When we started, think of a back-of-the-envelope concept, we looked at peak hour and we said “if
we can divert 20% of traffic, then the at-grade will work,” but then we started realizing a simpler
roadway network does work. The overall math is pretty simple. It’s the modeling that we fine-tuned.
Q: SJ: I understand about the WAG and that the bridge/at-grade decision is made. I heard about the
goings on and shenanigans from a member of the Franklin Park Coalition who is on the WAG. She’d
come to board meetings and talk through the trials and tribulations and I’d talk to my family about the
bridge and they didn’t know anything about it. As information is leaking out, people are finding out the
bridge is coming down and not being put back and when the first hear, they get this shock and horror
look. Do the Mayor and City Council know about this?
A: AD: They were ex officio members of the WAG.
C: PO: That’s not true; state representatives I know were not allowed to place their representative on the
WAG.
A: AD: Respectfully, that is plain wrong. Representative Malia had Robert Torres at every meeting and
Representative Holmes came to most of them himself.
C: JM: The Mayor laid off more than he should though he has a strong opinion. The people at the City saw
this as an east-west problem and still see it that way, but it’s odd because east-west belongs to
MassDOT, but north-south are city streets.
C: SJ: I go to Bethel AME and they had a neighborhood organization meeting over there and they had a
big dust-up when somebody found out the bridge would be coming down. They had to calm people
down from almost fighting. It’s just a talk-out situation; it’s like we need a peace circle here.
A: SM: It will all be O.K. I want to address the City comment. I’m not speaking for the City, I work for
DOT, but the City was involved all along. They attended WAG sessions and public meetings and we
meet with them regularly off-line. It’s a state project, but the City is involved in all its many layers.
Julianne Doherty from Neighborhood Services came to most meetings, Vineet Gupta from BTD attended
as well, and the BRA sent Tad Read and John Dalzell regularly. We’ve met with the parks department
and other City agencies have circled in and out as needed, but they put in a lot of time and challenged
us to study things.
C: MN: You said the Mayor has a strong opinion, but that he stayed out of the process. I think that shows
respect. The Mayor respected the work of the WAG and public meetings and the decision made, even if
it was maybe contrary to what he wanted.
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A: JM: That’s right.
C: KW: I want to reiterate what George said. I’m worried about meetings not moving forward because
there are people trying to put the kibosh on this. There ought to be speaking limits or something.
A: MN: I think Kate did a good job of it.
C: PO: We need to respect each other. People who want the bridge have lived through many different
configurations of Forest Hills. They have lived through a lot. I prefer the bridge because it takes traffic
away from the buses and I’m a transit proponent. I have my issues and concerns for children and school
buses. The questions I’m asking are real questions of concern. My first question about bus pull-outs led
to a discussion 20 minutes long and so even people who want the bridge have real concerns. They will
live here as well after the job is done. I’d ask the consultants and DOT to answer as specifically as
possible because of those real concerns. We live here and pay taxes. Many of us who want the bridge
have lived here for 30, 40, even 50 years and we’ve seen the transitions and we know the traffic
patterns. We know how people live here. Respect me when I ask these questions and don’t try to limit
me.
A: DF: But there are real time constraints.
C: PO: There are and I think as long as Kate does the job she did last time around, we’ll be O.K. provided
we can get out questions answered. We still don’t have an answer on the pull-outs.
A: SM: Lane assignments are being tweaked and reassigned and you should expect them to change
through 75% design. We have broad general answers: we know it works, but we need to work together
to fine-tune it.
C: JM: We don’t expect answers right away, we just want them.
A: AD: That does to the reason for this briefing. We have two more DAG meetings after tomorrow so we
want to inform your questions. We don’t want to rehash stuff we covered six months ago and that’s why
we wanted to bring you up to speed on this. There’s a lot of data and its there for you to read. If there’s
a question bring it to us, but we want to get past the question-and-answer to your ideas. Why the WAG
got us where we did was because they shaped the design. They didn’t stall it and they helped us think
differently. We need that from you: constructive, thoughtful participation and your ideas. We can get
reactions at a public meeting, but you have skills to make this better. It’s a balance; there is a lot of
material and we are here for you to answer your questions. Be here for us. It worked well the last nine
months and I know it can work again.
C: BR: I’m playing some catch-up here, but I’m coming from at this from different place. The concern I
have about the design is that we’re building more road than we need. When I see volumes on other
comparable roads in Boston it makes me curious about the other 20 alternatives. Were there at-grade
schemes with fewer lanes?
A: AD: We were asked to think about right-sizing in the 25% phase. We need to think about it and we
need your thinking on it. We need to think about who will sacrifice what.
A: SM: The design of the road for non-peak: is there something we can do to shift the use? I don’t know
yet, it’s definitely not typical.
C: MN: I’ve seen places where lanes become curbside parking for off-peak hours. Even the left turns,
maybe you could allow them off-peak.
A: GM: We need to think about those things; would you prefer off-peak left turns or maybe parking?
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C: MN: I’m not expressing an opinion either way; I just want us to consider it.
A: AD: In the interim, we haven’t stopped meeting and we’ve been looking at tomorrow’s livability and
addressing open spaces. June 18th is the next mobility session and we’ll do stuff on right-sizing then.
A: GM: We did look at two lanes in each direction and it didn’t work. We could not control the queues
with the 2035 volumes. Hyde Park Avenue to Shea Square is two lanes in each direction, but we have
thought about ways to modify the design to right-size for now and expand for later if needed. You’re
not the only one who has asked about this.
C: SK: I think cross-section is an issue. I looked at the cross-section of the at-grade and it didn’t seem that
much more bicycle or pedestrian friendly. A reduced cross-section might bring pro-bridge people into
the process feeling better.
A: PO: But think about the unintended consequences of diverting traffic to side streets. Pro-bridge people
feel the bridge is the best of both words because through traffic is off the at-grade streets.
C: SK: But we’re moving forward and we need to keep addressing the cross-section for all modes:
pedestrians, bicycles, and transit and we’re at meeting 2 already. This is very condensed and for those
things to change we need to discuss the desire for change, the impacts of the change and for all that to
happen in four meetings in a few months is a lot and maybe a little scary because as we move forward,
this keeps becoming more final.
A: AD: The interesting thing is the whole area got characterized as pro-bridge or pro-at grade. There are
people who want to access local and/or regional destinations. Local businesses want people to be able
to access them and use their services. It’s multifaceted but it got reduced to one or the other. There are
benefits of both options that should be integrated into the solution.
I just want to wrap up the website discussion: all of the documents are listed as hot links, all of the
traffic documents are there. We had outside people peer review this work and that’s there too.
Meetings, notices, presentations, they are listed by date. Get yourself comfortable in your favorite chair
and just plow through it. Doing so will really help you educate your constituents and community.
C: SM: We’re now in 25% design. The hearing comes in September. The final design will be in March,
2013 and in September of 2013 is when we’ll do the notice to proceed. The 2016 date is fixed and so if
we don’t push along that will mean work on nights and weekends. There will be public meetings all
through construction. The DAG will also continue to meeting past 25% design and into the 75% design.
Q: JM: When does the ENF come out?
A: SM: Prior to 25% design. We will likely file in July.
Q: DW: Are these slides on the website?
A: AD: They will be tomorrow. Regarding community concerns, we know construction management is top
of mind. Typically construction phasing isn’t even looked at in 25% design, but we’re preparing early
concepts of it now to show those to you now so you can preview it and guide us. We felt that was
important to get your input. The other issue is cut-through traffic. Remember, there’s cut-through traffic
which is as a result of construction and then there’s cut-through traffic as a result of the finished job.
We know the difference and will keep discussing with you. How MBTA buses work during and postconstruction: we have to carefully work it through that with continued coordination with the MBTA.
There’s also the issue of coordinating with local small businesses. Kate is working that. As the project is
become more real, we’re doing more outreach on that end because they will feel the impacts. That’s
what’s shaped the DAG meeting topics. Livability is tomorrow’s topic. The change to at-grade is a huge
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opportunity for a gateway in Forest Hills and we’ll discuss sustainability as well. Please review that
sustainability document. We need your ideas and your direction.
C: SM: We discussed Shea Circle and Washington Street west of the station at the last session. Your input
was great. Tomorrow we’ll discuss the MBTA plaza and the entrance to Franklin Park. We’ll have the
station suddenly day lit. The meeting after that will be about roadway cross-section and then after that
we’ll deal with construction traffic management. That may look small, but those are very important
meetings.
C: AD: And we’ll answer your questions. We’ll carry as many forward as we can. We’ve met furiously over
the past two weeks. Air those questions for us: Nate will note them; Kate will help us get answers.
Q: MN: A question on the agenda: I asked about parking on the frontage road at the last meeting. When
will that come up?
A: AD: The specific question was about the counts, right?
C: MN: I have concerns about the design of the parking.
A: AD: We were told to get rid of the angle parking which we did and to look at pedestrian crossings. We’ll
talk about those things tomorrow.
Next Steps
The next milestone in the public involvement process will be the second DAG meeting scheduled for
Wednesday, May 16, 2012. This meeting will address sustainability issues in regard to the 25% design.
Upcoming DAG meetings are currently scheduled for June 18th and July 18th. Members of the DAG and
community are encouraged to request briefings for their organizations or neighborhoods between scheduled
DAG sessions.
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Appendix 1: Attendees
First Name
Last Name
Affiliation
Nathaniel
Andrea
Dorothy
Sydney
Sarah
Steve
Gary
Mark
Paula
Karen
George
Cabral-Curtis
D’Amato
Farrell
Janey
Kurpiel
McLaughlin
McNaughton
Navin
Okunieff
Wepsic
Zoulalian
Howard/Stein-Hudson
HNTB
DAG
DAG
DAG
MassDOT ABP
McMahon Associates
DAG
DAG
DAG
DAG
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