Mayor Wu and Phil Eng Pitch Latest Blue Hill Avenue Redesign To Skeptics In Mattapan

On Thursday evening, neighborhood residents filled the large sanctuary of Morning Star Baptist Church in Mattapan to hear Mayor Michelle Wu, MBTA General Manager Phil Eng pitch, and their staff pitch their latest redesign for a transit-focused redesign of Blue Hill Avenue.

The city and T were prepared for a tough audience. Before the meeting, City councilors Miniard Culpepper and Brian Worrell, who remain staunchly opposed to the project in spite of the city’s latest design changes, had organized a rally outside the church that attracted a crowd of about 50 people, some of whom held campaign posters that said “NO CENTER-RUNNING BUS LANES DOWN BLUE HILL AVE.”

But while that group was chanting outside, a much larger crowd of people was gathering inside Morning Star Baptist Church, whose large sanctuary hall soon filled to standing-room-only capacity.

As the meeting got underway, Bishop John M. Borders III, the pastor for Morning Star Baptist Church, welcomed the meeting’s attendees by imploring them to maintain civility.

“I know there are many of you here, that I love, who are opposed to this. You just came down from the rally down the street. From the bottom of my heart, I beseech you, let’s not get out of hand in the house of God,” said the bishop.

The bishop’s welcoming remarks helped set a tone of polite skepticism among the critics, but the meeting’s question-and-answer segment revealed that there were a significant number of project supporters who had turned out for the event.

A transit project’s sponsors focus on the parking

In their opening remarks, Mayor Wu and MBTA general manager Phil Eng appealed to the project’s critics by emphasizing the project’s promises: hundreds of new trees, newly reconstructed sidewalks that meet modern accessibility standards, and 19 new crosswalks with traffic signals.

City and MBTA officials put a particular emphasis on how the project’s center-running bus lanes would create more on-street parking for car owners, by moving bus traffic away from the curb.

“The one option that actually provides more parking is the center-running bus lane,” explained Eng, because the center-running busway and its dedicated boarding platforms would eliminate dozens of large no-parking zones around the street’s existing bus stops.

“Senator (Liz) Miranda and I were walking in the neighborhood, and I remember going into a hair salon and talking to the owner,” recalled Eng. “And she was concerned about the project, and a loss of parking. And we explained to her that the bus stop that is in front of her business would be relocated, and give her more parking in front of her business.”

Eng spoke relatively little about how much the project would benefit the MBTA and the 40,000 transit riders who ride along Blue Hill Avenue on a typical weekday.

Instead, Mayor Wu spoke more about the benefits to transit riders.

“This would guarantee that our buses work better,” said the mayor. “With this new design, we’d be able to cut bus rides almost in half, down to 10-15 minutes, which means that a bus would come down Blue Hill Ave. every three to six minutes. That is what the Red Line is aiming for, in terms of how fast, how frequent, how reliable. It’s possible if we can get the buses out of the way of people trying to park their cars or delivery trucks and bikes and all of that.”

Safety and gentrification remain leading concerns

After an hour of speeches and presentations from city and MBTA officials, about three dozen meeting attendees signed up to weigh in with questions and comments.

While several people rose to criticize the city’s plans, and accused the city of not listening to Black residents of Mattapan, several of those residents did stand up to express qualified support and constructive critiques for the city’s plans.

Ruth Georges, who introduced herself as a Mattapan homeowner and a mother of young children, cited the city’s recent completion of another major street reconstruction on Cummins Highway as a positive example of what Blue Hill Avenue could potentially look like.

“As a mother who has a young child, who one day will get on a bike, and they will want to be active, and I am extremely concerned that in the updated design there’s only one-sided bike lanes… I know there’s a lot of opposition against bike lanes, but I am concerned for the individuals who will be using Blue Hill that could lose their lives,” said Georges.

“I have something positive to say: I live on Cummins Highway. In the beginning, (construction) was a nightmare. However, I really like it,” said Mattapan resident Darlene Smith, as applause broke out.

Others expressed concerns that building a safer street with more trees and fast, reliable transit would fuel gentrification in one of Boston’s last Black neighborhoods.

“As an engineer, I support the middle-lane (busway),” said Marlon Solomon.

But he went on to express concern that the city’s planned improvements would be like “a nuclear bomb explosion” for property values in the neighborhood.

“What do you have in store for the people who will be displaced because you’re re-energizing a place that has been disinvested from for 60 years?” asked Solomon.

Mayor Wu acknowledged that displacement was a citywide concern, and she offered a laundry list of programs that her administration was working on to build more housing and preserve affordability in existing buildings.

“It can’t be that the only two choices for our community are either disinvestment or displacement. Those can’t be the only two choices,” said the mayor.