Tag: MassBike

Fitness challenges to get ready for November 

Fitness challenges to get ready for November 

Can’t wait for Beat the Bay State to return in November? Check out these partner events to keep you occupied this spring!

MassBike’s 30 Days of Biking Challenge (Month of April)

All you have to do is ride every day in April, even if it’s just once around your block, and you’ll have a chance to win a Rover Rain Cape from Cleverhood. The April 30 Days of Biking is a great way to kick off your riding season before Bay State Bike Month starts in May!

Mattapan Walks Spring 2022 Walking Challenge (starting April 6)

Track your steps per day and be entered to win prizes for new & returning walkers per week for each theme. Challenge starts April 6th and will last for 5 weeks (Wednesday, April 6th to Wednesday, May 11th). Each week is a different theme:

  • Week 1: Buddy Week

  • Week 2: Adventure Week

  • Week 3: Pets and Family Week

  • Week 4: Kindness Week

  • Week 5: Whacky Week

MA Councils on Aging’s Walk Massachusetts Challenge
(registration now open, challenge goes May 1 – October 31)

Lace up your sneakers! The Walk Massachusetts Challenge is back and better than ever! This year, we are opening up the challenge to everyone age five and up. Anyone under 60 can sponsor an older adult to walk with or for. You can sponsor your parent, grandparent, neighbor, teacher, Council on Aging employee, etc. What are you waiting for? Your participation helps your local Council on Aging/Senior Center win money for fitness programs and gives you the chance to win one of several prizes!

Choose one of four challenges based on a Commonwealth of Massachusetts fun fact:

  • The 1788 Challenge – Walk 88 Days (at least 30 minutes per day) 

    • Complete 88 days to celebrate the year Massachusetts became the sixth state! It is only a 30 minute walk every other day for the duration of the promotion.

  • The Turnpike Challenge – Run, Jog, Walk 126.6 Miles(or about 253,000 steps)

    • Complete 126.6 miles to celebratethe length of the Massachusetts Turnpike from Boston to Lee! It is only about 0.7 miles or about 1,380 steps a day for the duration of the promotion.

  • The Shoreline Challenge – Run, Jog, Walk 192 Miles(or about 384,000 steps)

    • Complete 192 miles to celebrate the length of the Massachusetts shoreline! It is only about 1.1 miles or about 2,090 stepsa day for the duration of the promotion.

  • The Commonwealth Challenge – Run, Jog, Walk 351 Miles(or about 702,000 steps)

    • Complete 351 miles to celebrate the number of cities and towns in the Commonwealth!

The challenge runs May 1 to October 31, 2022. During this time, you will have chances to be entered into a drawing to win a $50 Visa, $25 Amazon or $10 Dunkin’ gift card. The more you walk, the more chances you have to win. Reach each milestone and receive a total of five entries. By completing the challenge, your local Council on Aging gets a raffle entry to win up to $1000 for fitness programming.

Safe Roads Alliance Global Road Safety Week Relay (starting May 15)

In this primarily virtual event, we are asking participants to run the width of our Commonwealth to help raise awareness of road safety. The event will take place May 15-22, 2022 during Global Road Safety Week. It will start in Lenox on May 15th and end at the Marathon Finish Line in Boston on May 22nd.

Most of the relay legs are 5 miles long and participants can run, walk, bike, or roll their leg that they have selected. The number of people completing each leg is unlimited and we set a goal of raising $500 for each leg for a total of $16,500.

Where and when is the event?

The first leg will kick off on May 15th at 10am in Lenox, MA and the last leg will be on May 22nd with a ceremony at the finish line in Boston. The legs in between will be mapped and tracked but participants will be able to complete them at the leisure virtually during that week.

For a few sections of the route, we are recommending that people opt to do a virtual run/walk/bike due to the safety of the roads in some areas. We tried to create a route that would have sidewalks or wide shoulders and a low speed limit, but in some parts of the state, this was not possible. We highlighted over nearly two dozen virtual options around MA that are on bike paths or rail trails and these can easily substitute for a leg along the route where we recommend a virtual option. Massachusetts has many beautiful, connected off-road paths that we want more people to know about, so check these out too when you are selecting your leg. Just make sure to log your finish so we can see if we successfully relayed across our Commonwealth!

Joint Comment Letter – Recommendations for Boston’s Healthy Streets COVID Response

Joint Comment Letter – Recommendations for Boston’s Healthy Streets COVID Response

Below is the letter Boston Cyclists Union, MassBike, LivableStreets Alliance and WalkBoston sent to Chief of Streets Chris Osgood regarding Boston’s Healthy Streets plan on June 16, 2020.

June 16, 2020
Chris Osgood, Chief of Streets
1 City Hall Square, Room 603
Boston, MA 02201

Dear Chief Osgood,

On May 12th, the Boston Transportation Department (BTD) presented a plan to the City Council for adapting streets for COVID-19 response and recovery. However, we are concerned about the focus and scope of the first phase of the Healthy Streets plan that the Transportation Department announced on May 30th, and want to ensure these issues are addressed before future phases of the plan are implemented:

Equity

The most glaring issue with the Healthy Streets plan is the lack of attention paid and investment made in the Black and brown neighborhoods that are disproportionately suffering from the health and economic impacts of the pandemic. As early as April, members of this group reached out to BTD staff with specific recommendations for tactical interventions in the most impacted communities. These recommendations came directly from community leaders and individuals in Mattapan, Hyde Park, Roxbury, and Dorchester. Almost none of these recommendations have been included in the first phase of the Healthy Streets plan.

Additionally, the City has offered no transparency or criteria for how they chose the first phase projects and no timeline or criteria for how they will choose and implement additional phases of the plan. This seemingly arbitrary approach has already compounded the pre-existing inequitable investment in streets in our communities of color, and will likely only exacerbate these existing inequities of investment if not addressed explicitly and immediately.

Bike Network

The Healthy Streets plan only includes implementation of bike lanes on downtown corridors. We know that a network of bike lanes are essential infrastructure for safe travel — at all times, as well as during this time of physical distancing. The recent death of a person biking on Cummins Highway on June 9, 2020 only underscores the urgency of building safe infrastructure in all neighborhoods, not just in the city’s core. While protected bike lanes on downtown streets are long overdue, the corridors laid out in the Healthy Streets plan do not build out the network that is required for people to travel safely throughout the city. Go Boston 2030 provides a clear plan for where interventions are needed. We recommend prioritizing these corridors for quick-build protected bike lanes in Phase 2 of the Healthy Streets plan:

  • Cummins Highway
  • Malcolm X Boulevard, from Nubian Square to the Southwest Corridor
  • Albany Street, from lower Roxbury to South Boston
  • Western Ave, in Allston and Brighton
  • Hyde Park Avenue
  • Dorchester Avenue
  • American Legion Highway
  • Columbus Ave, from Mass Ave to the Downtown Network
  • Columbia Road
  • Columbus Ave, in Roxbury
  • Cambridge Street in Allston, from Union Square to the Charles River
  • Commonwealth Ave from the BU Bridge to the Bowker Overpass
  • East Broadway and Summer Street, in South Boston

As street space is reconfigured to allow for outdoor dining and retail, it’s important that plans for protected bike lanes are incorporated into the new layouts. For example, Charles Street is a key corridor in the protected bike network, but the neighborhood civic association is calling for a lane reduction that only accommodates outdoor dining, not protected bike infrastructure. Neighborhood associations should not be given the power to supersede years of public process that identified the need to create a critical bike network link on a corridor like Charles Street. It is clear that both outdoor dining space and protected bike infrastructure could be achieved there.

Many Main Streets and business associations are in support of swiftly repurposing parking lanes into cafe seating (as was installed on Hanover Street in the North End), which leaves the travel lane to be repurposed for critical mobility access. Improving safety for people walking and biking to Main Streets and other commercial districts is a key goal of Go Boston 2030, and COVID-19 response and recovery plans must align with this goal.

Enforcement + Policing

We have already provided several recommendations to Mayor Walsh regarding the role of policing and enforcement on our streets (see attached for reference). As outlined in the general recommendations to follow, it’s important that any adaptations to streets for COVID-19 response and recovery do not require police enforcement. As has been made so apparent in the last several weeks, policing is not a solution for street safety in communities of color. It’s important that the City develop a plan for how these interventions can be maintained and enforced without a police presence. We recommend that the City facilitate a community-led program which can be maintained by local organizations and residents.

Pedestrian Experience

The City should prioritize automatic recall of WALK signals in low-income and communities of color which have been most impacted by COVID-19, as well as WALK signals that are close to the most heavily used bus stops (which are already highlighted on the City’s Healthy Streets map). This work should be included in Phase 1 and should begin now. It is a long overdue and basic adjustment to all signals in Boston.

We already recommended in mid-April that BTD automate WALK signals so pedestrians do not have to push buttons. It is one less surface to touch and potentially contract/spread disease. Brookline, Cambridge, and Somerville have already implemented this effort.

Lack of Engagement with Community Partners

We understand there are staff capacity limitations for rapid response and tactical implementations, especially due to COVID-19. As many other cities have done, we believe it is critical for the City to partner with Main Streets organizations, community groups, advocacy organizations, and other partners to implement, manage, and help communicate about these interventions.

We have offered, on numerous occasions, to deploy our own staff to act as a liaison to community groups and to engage with community members to help identify neighborhood needs. As you know, the City has already worked with us to conduct community outreach and support City-led efforts in the past. We have community trust and a track record of success. Without explicit collaboration with community partners, the City will not be able to implement and manage tactical streets interventions at the scale and pace needed.

Communication, Data Collection, and Measuring Success

While we support the concept of “the pilot is the process,” this does not mean implementing quick-build or tactical projects without a proper strategy to inform the community, collect feedback, and measure success.

Many other communities have strong, established strategies for communications and measurements of success for these projects that can be used as models for Boston efforts. The City should develop a strong plan for monitoring these interventions, including relying on staff, consultants, and volunteers to count people walking and biking (and collect gender and race data), and using automatic technology to measure vehicle speeds and volume. The City can coordinate with employers to better understand how workers are commuting.

In addition, clear coordination between BTD’s Transit Team and Active Transportation Team is critical to ensure that the needs of transit users are balanced with the safety needs of those who are walking and biking (and those who would if there was a connected network). The Transit Team is overdue in developing a clear bus network plan that is based on public process, data, and analysis that takes equity, safety, and mobility needs into account. The City must balance rapid response with adherence to long-standing network plans, and ensure that building out the bus priority network does not preclude a safe bike network and safe pedestrian infrastructure.

We look forward to working with the City to ensure that we adapt our streets as rapidly and effectively as possible to respond to the current health and economic challenges.

Sincerely,

Becca Wolfson, Boston Cyclists Union
Stacy Thompson, LivableStreets Alliance
Galen Mook, MassBike
Stacey Beuttell, WalkBoston

CC: Mayor Martin J. Walsh, Boston City Council

Comment Letter on Waltham High School Project #16097

Comment Letter on Waltham High School Project #16097

June 19, 2020

Secretary of Energy and Environmental Affairs Kathleen Theoharides
Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs (EEA)
Attn: MEPA Office, Page Strysky
100 Cambridge Street, Suite 900
Boston MA 02114

Dear Secretary Theoharides, 

Thank you for the opportunity to comment on the Waltham High School Project #16097 for Waltham High School located at 554 Lexington Street in Waltham, MA. WalkBoston and the Massachusetts Bicycle Coalition (MassBike) would like to submit the following comments based on our reading of the DEIR as submitted on May 15, 2020.

Though we appreciate the work involved in relocating and constructing a new high school which will have significant impacts for the City of Waltham for generations to come, our primary concerns arise from the fact that unless the site is designed so that motor vehicle trips are replaced by safe and sustainable modes of walking and biking to and from school, this project will unacceptably increase the amount of expected car and bus traffic coming to and from the site on a daily basis and will have dramatic impacts to worsen the congestion on Lexington Street and increase greenhouse gas emissions.

We implore you to rethink the decisions to a.) remove bike lanes on Lexington Street and b.) raise the speed limit on Lexington Street without other traffic calming measures. As we shared previously in our letter dated November 26, 2019, the TMP noted that the Waltham Police Department identified speeding “as a significant issue” on Lexington Street. However, when a speed study was conducted for the high school project, the 85th percentile speed recorded was 41mph, leading to a new design speed set at 45mph. This does not mitigate the existing problem of speeding drivers on Lexington Street, but instead legitimizes it. The purpose of this project should not be to maximize vehicle speed and throughput. On the contrary, the goal must be to create a safe access to the new high school for all modes and ages, especially the most vulnerable on foot and on bike.

The DEIR states:

 “It is not possible to accommodate an exclusive bike lane through this portion of Lexington Street without taking private land along the right-of-way, which the Project will not pursue.” 

This is a misleading statement, and this project is only not accommodating exclusive bike lanes due to the addition of vehicle turning lanes. We are extremely concerned that adding turn lanes to “mitigate delays” will reduce safety of people who are walking and biking to the site. The DEIR also makes statements of “smooth flow,” “to ease traffic congestion,” “improve travel time reliability within a corridor, and reduce congestion,” but makes no mention of safety of students, staff, and faculty who are walking or biking to school. Instead, the DEIR is proposing “shared lanes” on Lexington Street, essentially a “sharrow” which does nothing to separate bicyclists from fast moving traffic. We believe forcing high school students to ride in “shared lanes” on Lexington Street is a dangerous option.

In contrast to “mitigating delays” of traffic, the roads around a community school should be safe for residents to get around, whether by walking, cycling, using transit, or in a vehicle. That safety and comfort is impacted by the design of our streets and intersections. All existing elementary schools in Waltham currently participate in the Massachusetts Safe Routes to School Program, which encourages students and their parents to walk and bike to school, something they hopefully would continue through high school. Yet we are not confident this roadway design allows for safe bicycling and walking, especially for students, staff, and faculty coming to the school early in the morning. Please take a moment to ask yourself: Would you want a 14-year old student riding a bike at 6:50am in a “shared” lane, or crossing a multi-lane road that has a design speed of 45mph?

Many students walking to and from school will have to cross Lexington Street, with a design speed of 45 mph, which obviously is not consistent with safe crossing by pedestrians. Yet Lexington Street has the opportunity to see more students walking and bicycling to school in the years to come: a proposed new K-8 public school may occupy the site of the existing high school. With additional vulnerable road users in this area, it is important to ensure that anyone driving on Lexington Street is doing it at a safe speed, and that safe and comfortable facilities are provided for vulnerable users. The City should consider expansion of the 20mph School Zone on Lexington Street to include all three schools, or through creating a 20mph “Safety Zone,” which was established in 2016 under Mass General Law Chapter 90, Section 18B. 

The DIER does mention the placement of bike racks for 5% of the building occupants, though without detail if these will be protected or covered or otherwise secure, and building occupancy can be up to 1,830 students, teachers, and staff, plus 600 field spectators. We see no analysis of trips being taken to and from the site by people on foot or on bike, only that dedicated bike lanes outside the entrances and exits will be removed, and crosswalks and ADA accessibility will be studied further. This omission is telling that this project goes completely against the goals of Safe Routes to Schools, and the mode-shift goals that Massachusetts is attempting to pursue. This project, as described in the DEIR, will be a detriment to the sustainable and safety goals that are so essential to mitigate dangers of traffic and the climate crisis, and goes against our goals for Safe Routes to Schools. We feel that the City of Waltham should be constructing a school that facilitates and exemplifies safety and sustainability for their students, staff, and faculty.

Thank you, 

Brendan Kearney, Deputy Director, WalkBoston
Galen Mook, Executive Director, MassBike

Streetsblog Mass: Safe Streets Advocacy Groups Join Growing Movement to Cut Police Spending

Streetsblog Mass: Safe Streets Advocacy Groups Join Growing Movement to Cut Police Spending

Streetsblog Mass: “Safe Streets Advocacy Groups Join Growing Movement to Cut Police Spending”

“In a letter sent yesterday to Boston Mayor Marty Walsh, three large advocacy groups for safer streets – the LivableStreets Alliance, Boston Cyclists Union, and WalkBoston – called on the City of Boston to remove the Boston Police Department (BPD) from the city’s Vision Zero Task Force, reduce the BPD’s annual budget, and ‘reallocate resources for social programs designed to strengthen communities​.'”

Support of S.2553 An Act Relative to Automated Enforcement

Support of S.2553 An Act Relative to Automated Enforcement

March 10, 2020
24 Beacon Street, Room 319
Massachusetts State House
Boston, MA 02133

Dear Senator Brownsberger,

We are writing in strong support of S.2553, An Act relative to automated enforcement. As a coalition of advocacy organizations devoted to creating safer roadways, we appreciate your efforts to move forward a bill to introduce Automated Enforcement in Massachusetts. We believe this bill will have enormous safety benefits to the residents of the Commonwealth.

Automated enforcement is one of the Massachusetts Vision Zero Coalition’s top legislative priorities. Speed, school bus and red light cameras have been proven to reduce speeding and unsafe driving, prevent crashes, and reduce repeat offenders — an encouraging sign of behavior change. In one study in Maryland, speeding by 10+ mph or more fell by 70% in places with new automated enforcement measures. Nationally, 400 cities and towns have installed red light cameras, and 130 have speed cameras.

We see this legislation as an important tool to reduce speeding and unsafe driving in a way that requires no direct interaction with police officers, and that includes privacy safeguards (i.e., cameras capture only license plates, not faces; data is deleted after 48 hours after final disposition of a violation).

Sincerely,
Stacey Beuttell
Executive Director, WalkBoston

Galen Mook
Executive Director, MassBike

Eliza Parad
Interim Executive Director, Boston Cyclists Union

Emily Stein
President, Safe Roads Alliance

Stacy Thompson
Executive Director, LivableStreets Alliance