Thursday, September 30, 2010

CHS -- Trees on Boyston Street

As planned, the sidewalk between Boylston Street (Route 9) and the proposed Chestnut Hill Square is inadequate. There is not enough separation between pedestrians and cars. The sidewalk is too narrow and there isn't a buffer of street trees. And, there's an opportunity to provide a cycle-track*.

This one should be easy to solve. It's a simple question of math. The sidewalk needs to be 6-10 feet wider. There are fourteen columns (north/south) of parking between the front building along Boylston Street and the other buildings on the interior of the lot. Move the front building 6 feet closer to the interior buildings and you eliminate 14 parking spaces. A more than fair trade: street trees for parking spaces. (There is almost certainly too much parking already.)

Another trade: take one lane out of the proposed roadway widening. Again, another fair trade: space for people on foot or on bikes for lanes for people in cars.

As the various issues with Chestnut Hill square go, this one ought to be easy.

* A grade-separated path dedicated for bicycles.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Is that a pedestrian-hating lack of crosswalk at the corner I spy?