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Streetsblog Network

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

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Map of Route 9 and the Norwottuck Rail Trail in Hadley. Route 9 runs diagonally from lower left (SW) to upper right (NE) while the green line representing the trail runs in a less-steep diagonal path that crosses Route 9 in the center. A red X at the intersection marks the location labelled "Rt. 9 Tunnel Closure".

NorwottuckClosureMap

Trails

Changing Course, MassDOT Will Provide Safe Detour For Norwottuck Trail Blockage in Hadley

A homemade sign printed on 8.5"x11" paper is haphazardly taped to the entrance to a pedestrian tunnel. The sign uses different fonts for each line of text. The top line reads (in blue, italicized text): "Join other trail users:" the next line, in black, larger text: "Plan an alternate route", the next line, smaller black text: "to use during the" (in red, larger italicized text) "upcoming" (final line, red bolder text) "tunnel closure". On the left side of the paper, someone has hand-written the word "When?" with a black marker. Fine print at the bottom of the sign says "FOR MORE INFORMATION CONTACT PARK SUPERVISOR AT (413) 387-4339."

DCRHadleySignage_creditMassbike

Accessibility

In Hadley, MassDOT, DCR Shut Down Norwottuck Trail With No Viable Detours

Riders check out a newly-rebranded Merrimack Valley Transit bus, with colorful red, blue, and orange stripes wrapped around this bus, next to a fall-themed park with haybales, mums, and pumpkins in Lawrence, Massachusetts. In the background are several triple-decker apartment buildings. Courtesy of Merrimack Valley Transit.

MeVaBus2022

Regional Transit Authorities

MeVa Launches Free Beach Bus This Weekend, From Lawrence to Salisbury Beach

<p>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></p>


PROMO-milneil

Christian MilNeil

A photo of a street in Chinatown. In the distance on the left, several construction workers shovel asphalt to patch a hole in the street, which is roped off around the construction site. On the right, a Boston Police officer in a green high-viz vest talks on his phone while watching the work.

BPDConstructionDetailOnHudsonStreetChinatown

Policing

The Cops’ Directing-Traffic Racket Is Delaying Safety Projects

Grecia White

Arborway Parkway, Murray Circle, December DCR public meeting

Changes Coming to Jamaica Plain’s Arborway Parkway

Five college students in winter clothes stand around an older man wearing a Franciscan monk's habit, and a poster-sized display board with the title "Listen to Me! Stories of the unnoticed" on a grassy lawn in Boston Common. Downtown high-rises are visible on the horizon under grey skies.

Boston Common December 2022. Listen to Me series

Emerson Students Amplify Under-Represented Voices from Boston’s Streets

A diagram showing recommended installation heights and four varieties of signage from MassDOT's bike route signage design guide. Gray outlines of a person walking and a person riding a bike are shown for scale against a light grid of horizontal lines that indicate height in 1-foot increments. The four example signs all have 7 feet of clearance underneath them. The leftmost sample sign, which is indicated as 18 inches tall by 24 inches wide, shows icons of a bike rider and pedestrian in white on a blue background above the words "Linear Route Name." To the right, the next sample sign shows two signs mounted on a single pole: the top sign is a smaller 8-inch-tall blue-background "Linear Route Name" indicator sign; below it, a green sign split vertically into three sections has three white arrows pointing in various directions next to three copies of the word "Destination." To that sign's right, a third sample sign shows the same 18-inch-by-24-inch blue "Linear Route Name" sign over a smaller sign with a single, bold white arrow on a green background. The fourth and rightmost sign, specifed as 6 to 8 inches tall, says "Street Name" in white on a green background.

MassDOTBikeWayfindingDesignGuide

New Wayfinding Guide Aims to Help Riders Find Their Way Across the Commonwealth

An animated GIF showing Congress Street in Fort Point as it is today – a wide two-lane street with on-street parking on both sides – alongside a rendering of how the street will look after a reconstruction project is finished, with protected bike lanes and widened sidewalks.

Congress Street rendering_creditBTDpng

Boston Planning New Bikeways, Widened Sidewalks for Fort Point

a white car is parked in between two trees planted in the street.

Bologna, Italy, trees in the street.

What Planting Trees In the Street Could Look Like in Boston: Learning From Other Cities

A chain-link fence blocks the entrance to the JFK/UMass Red Line station.

ClosedJFKStationEntrance

Citing Structural Hazards, T Shuts Down Critical Access Point to JFK/UMass Station