This story originally appeared on Brookline.News, an independent, nonprofit news organization dedicated to providing comprehensive local news coverage for Brookline.
Brookline’s Select Board on Tuesday evening voted to advance plans for a major reconstruction of Washington Street on Tuesday night, signing off on a consultant’s latest design and sending it to the state for consideration.
While the start of construction is several years away, the project would completely reimagine Washington Street from Beacon Street to Brookline Village, adding safer, separated bike lanes in both directions and making a number of other safety improvements. The town is aiming to secure around $29 million in state funding for the reconstruction.
See an intersection-by-intersection breakdown of the plan here.
The 4-1 vote, with board member John VanScoyoc as the lone no, came despite broad objections from Brookline’s business community, which criticized the elimination of parking spaces in and near Brookline Village and Washington Square.
The project would eliminate 64 of the 199 public parking spaces along the stretch, largely to make room for the safer bike lanes, a tradeoff that has been highly controversial during the nearly three years the project has been in development.
The owner of Brookline Village hair salon HC Studio told a local TV station the changes would be “devastating” for her business. Nearly two dozen other nearby business owners signed a letter opposing the project in its current form.
“This will cause maximum pain and negative impact for businesses along the … route,” said Brookline Chamber of Commerce chair David Gladstone on Tuesday.
In an effort to placate the business owners, the town has committed to undertaking parking studies of both commercial districts, as well as adding wayfinding signage to help drivers locate parking that might be less visible.
The project, in particular its inclusion of sidewalk-level protected bike lanes, does have wide support throughout town.
Before the Select Board signed off, it was approved by an appointed Design Review Committee and the town’s Transportation Board.
A petition from Biking Brookline in support of the bike lanes gathered more than 1,200 signatures from residents and a majority of Town Meeting members.
“I am disappointed that the entire business community has not come around to support this plan at this stage, but I do hope that as the town progresses with the parking study, they will come to see there is adequate parking in both districts, particularly if we are wiser about how we use the parking resources,” said David Kroop, president of Biking Brookline.
Town leaders, in particular Transportation Board chair Brian Kane, have also argued that the protected bike lanes are necessary for the project to meet state policy preferences and secure funding in a competitive state grant process.
Select Board’s debate
VanScoyoc, who had previously called for altering the project’s design in the Brookline Village area to preserve parking there, was the one Select Board member who voted against advancing the project.
“We talk all the time about Brookline’s weakness when it comes to the share of our tax base that consists of commercial enterprises, and we talk about doing what we can to get more commercial enterprises in the town, and support the commercial enterprises that we have,” he said.
The project’s design, he argued, does not “serve the interests of our commercial districts.”
Board member Michael Sandman noted that bicycle riders can also be customers, and that increased bike traffic because of the safety of new bike lanes could benefit businesses.
The state transportation department will review the project next and hold a public hearing on a date which has yet to be determined. Future iterations of the project will come back to the Select Board for further approval, and the town is hoping to start looking for a construction contractor in the fall of 2027.
