A heavily-used pedestrian route between Back Bay and downtown Boston will be closed until spring 2024 while workers restore two historic fountains at the Arlington Street entrance to the Public Garden. Starting on Wednesday, September 13, a construction project will close pedestrian access into the Public Garden from the Arlington Street gate, located directly across…

Construction Closes Popular Walking Route Across Public Garden In Downtown Boston

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Marion Davis is a board member of WalkMassachusetts and lives in Somerville.

Marion Davis

Brendan Kearney is executive director of WalkMassachusetts and a former member of the StreetsblogMASS board of directors. He lives in Framingham.

Brendan Kearney

Op-ed

Guest Column: Enough With the Snow, We Deserve Accessible Sidewalks

Got tips? Send them to me via Signal, the encrypted messaging app, at 207-310-0728. You can also follow me on <a href="https://better.boston/@cmilneil" rel="me">Mastodon.</a>

Christian MilNeil

A sidewalk buried in a messy mixture of snow and slush along a busy city street in a neighborhood commercial area lined with one-story retail buildings.

Walking

Eyes On the Street: Days After the Storm, Boston’s Sidewalks Are An Inaccessible Mess

A photograph of a bridge construction zone in winter. In the foreground a metal crash barrier and chain link fence separate a concrete sidewalk (left) from a multi-lane roadway (right). In the middle distance another fence blocks the sidewalk, with an orange "detour" sign pointing right towards the roadway behind an orange construction barrel. In the distance, a crash barrier in the roadway separates car traffic from a temporary sidewalk across the bridge. On the left edge of the photo a second pedestrian bridge joins with the sidewalk.

Bicycling

Update: MassDOT Improves Allston Construction Detour Following Streetsblog Coverage

A map highlighting detour routes around a closure of the Linear Park in Cambridge. Davis Sq. is on the right edge of the map; Alewife is on the left. A blue line representing the pedestrian detour route follows Dudley St. from Alewife to Mass. Ave., then Kingston St. north of Mass. Ave. Pink lines for bike detour routes follow Dudley St. for eastbound traffic and Harvey St. for westbound traffic.

Trails

Park Renovations Prompt Mass. Central Rail Trail Detours In Cambridge

A smiling black woman with long braided hair wearing a black-and-yellow plaid patterned sweater

Meghan Volcy

A bicyclist rides in a bike lane alongside a row of flexible-post bollards that divide the bike lane from a maroon-painted bus lane. A sign on the curb says "RIGHT LANE BUSES ONLY". An awning over the adjacent sidewalk covers an outdoor dining area in front of a restaurant.

Elections and Politics

For Cambridge Bike Safety, the Political is Personal

Temporary fencing lines the sidewalk on the DCR-controlled approach to the Beades Bridge. Google Street View imagery suggests that the temporary fencing has been there for nearly 8 years. Photo by Tony Dutzik.

Highways

MassDOT Highway Administrator Discusses Challenges of Aging Highways and Rising Costs

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Streetsblog Network

Connecting people to information about how to improve walking, biking, and transit

Streetsblog Massachusetts

Brian Kane is Executive Director of the <a href="https://mbtaadvisoryboard.org/">MBTA Advisory Board</a>, a quasi-state body providing budget oversight of the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority on behalf of 178 cities and towns in the Commonwealth. He is also the volunteer Chair of the Brookline, Massachusetts Transportation Board. Established in 1974, by statute this board manages parking, traffic, and multi-modal transportation in New England’s largest town by population. Previously, Kane worked in both operations and budget management at the MBTA.

A middle-aged man in a suit stands in the operator cab of a light rail train.

Brian Kane

A crowded train hall filled with people, many of whom are carrying luggage. A large electronic sign hanging from the high ceiling displays upcoming train departures.

Housing

Guest Column: South Station Is Not An Adequate Emergency Shelter

Daily headlines

Wednesday’s Headlines Are Leading the Blind

Transit

Trump’s Funding Freeze Derails Transit, Undermining Growth and Economic Opportunity For All Americans: Report

A man in a grey shirt bikes down a bike lane between a sidewalk and a row of parked cars on a street lined with 4-5 story buildings and trees.

Street Design

City of Cambridge Reports Better Bike Lanes Led to Surge In Bike Traffic

‘Big Dig’ Producer Takes His Show On the Road With ‘Highway Teardown Tour’

A rendering of a wide street from a birds-eye perspective. The center of the street features a red dedicated busway, with two lanes (one in each direction) separated from adjacent traffic with landscaped medians and bus stop waiting area platforms. General motor vehicle traffic is confined to 1-2 lanes on either side of the busway. Along the sidewalks are green dedicated bike lanes, which are generally separated from the adjacent car lanes by gardens surrounded by curbs. A label in the upper left denotes the Mattapan Branch of the Boston Public Library, and another label denotes the intersecting street as Walk Hill St.

MBTA

Congress Allocates $80 Million to Build Blue Hill Ave. Busway

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A locator map of downtown Boston and Back Bay with the Public Garden in the center and the Charles River in the upper right. A red X marks the spot where a popular access point into the Garden will be closed until Spring 2024. The X is in the center of the map, where Commonwealth Avenue terminates at the western edge of the Garden.

A look at the Fitchburg Commuter Rail Line from the Sherman Street grade crossing in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The train tracks with a white utility truck and industrial buildings on the right and trees, shrubs, and a small parking lot on the left.

Accessibility

Trump’s Budget Cuts Won’t Stop Cambridge From Bridging Its Communities

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