A & D Street Bike Lane Design Review

Jon Ramos, one of Planet Southie Bike Action Team's most active members, posted the below story.

Great news Southie Cyclists: we’ll soon be getting some bicycle infrastructure on A-Street & D-Street.  What does that mean exactly?  Well, the City’s current plan is a mixture of bike lanes, buffered bike lanes, sharrows, and perhaps even cycle-tracks making the crucial link between Dot Ave to the Seaport.

Overall the City’s plan is a great start, but there is room for further improvement and several ways to make the bike lanes safer… but we need your help if we want to see these improvements made. 

As the voice of cyclists in South Boston the City will listen to our feedback.  We need a good turnout at the next meeting to review the plans and come to a conclusion for which sections should be changed. 

To help us through this process Pete Stidman, director of The Boston Cyclists Union, will be attending our next meeting.  Pete has extensive knowledge of bike lane planning, and can help guide us through the process of discussing our conclusions with the City.  If you want to see positive change, and make cycling safer in South Boston then now is the time to act.

See you at the next Planet Southie meeting:

Thursday, February 28^th at 6:30pm

The Distillery Building
516 East Second Street, South Boston

(All are welcome and encouraged to attend)

Planet Southie Bikes goes to City Hall

Exciting update from the Planet Southie Bike Action Team!

It's been a just over two weeks since we listened to the extraordinary presentation that transportation engineer Mike Tremblay delivered to Planet Southie.  Mike's proposal for major improvements to our urban landscape along East & West Broadway, immediately caught the attention of Mayor Menino's Boston Bikes director Nicole Freedman who requested a face to face meeting with us to review his key concepts, and to hear about Planet Southie Bikes' overall goals.  

Mike's plan goes well beyond the inclusion of bicycle infrastructure, its a much broader improvement to Broadway for pedestrians, motorists, trees and more; however, since Nicole represents Boston Bikes the topic she is most interested in hearing about is of course bikes.

On February 28 ~ bike, walking, transit and energy savings solutions!

Please join us at our next monthly meeting. All are welcome at Planet Southie!

Agenda
6:30 pm - 6:45 pm
- Brief Q and A about Renew Boston's energy savings incentives

6:45 pm - 7:30 pm
- Bike, Walk and Transit Action Teams meet in small groups

February 28, 6:30pm - 7:30pm
The Distillery Building
516 East Second Street, South Boston 02127

Redesign East & West Broadway for Safer Walking and Biking?

We are pleased to announce that at our next Planet Southie meeting transportation engineer Mike Tremblay will share his study & design ideas for East & West Broadway. Tremblay will identify problem intersections, and present possible solutions ranging from the obvious to the innovative.

The presentation, devised by Tremblay and other former students of Northeastern University's civil engineering program, is focused around the idea of adding cycle-tracks, crosswalk improvements, and other street amenities to East and West Broadway. The plan is presented as food for thought along with other improvements for all modes of transportation.

All are encouraged to attend and provide their feedback. Hope to see you there!

Jan. 24, 6:30pm - 7:30pm
The Distillery Building
516 East Second Street, South Boston 02127

Development on D Street

Development on D Street:

What does it mean for Pedestrians, Cyclists, and Transit riders?

The Boston Redevelopment Authority (BRA) will be hosting a community meeting to discuss the latest proposal along D Street. The project description paints a picture of an animated pedestrian friendly street-scape stretching from Summer Street to West First Street. In my experiences this picture is often described beautifully in words but neglected in reality... for example this proposal includes a large parking structure along D Street... how pedestrian friendly will that be? We won't know until we ask the question. What I do know is that these meetings are our one chance to tell developers what we would like to see. So join me at the meeting where we can tell them we want bike lanes, we want safe crosswalks, we want friendly human scale sidewalks, we don't want expansive blank facade parking garages (perhaps first floor retail / commercial at the parking garage would help). We can suggest additional buses or shuttles may be required to get people to and from this new place to alleviate our current bus shortage. Speak up now because once its built its much harder to change.

Happy Holidays Southie! Next Monthly Meeting is January 24, 2013

Best wishes to you and yours for a very happy holiday season and a wonderful new year. 

There is no December monthly meeting, so we hope to see you on January 24, 2013 from 6:30 - 7:30 pm at the Distillery Building.

South Boston winter scene

What's the word on the street? Share your Walk, Bike, Bus/MBTA solutions on November 15!

Next Planet Southie Meeting is Thursday, November 15 from 6:30 - 7:30 pm at the Distillery Building.
516 E 2nd Street


Check out our eNewsletter for updates here.

Use the Bus, Walk and Bike tabs at the top of the screen to join the conversation (especially if you can not attend the meeting).

All are welcome at Planet Southie!

Please join us at our next monthly meeting!

November 10 Walkability Audit!

Join us!

Want to report a walking hazard to the City? Click here!

Next meeting: Thursday, November 15 and thank you!

Please mark you calendars to come together again to work on walk/bike/bus solutions on 
Thursday, November 15 from 6:30 - 7:30 pm 
at the Distillery Building, 516 E 2nd Street.

Last night's meeting was a smash! Over 25 people participated and worked together to create concrete action steps to improve bike, walking and bus/MBTA access and safety!

A longer meeting summary and next steps will be posted in the next few days, we just wanted to be sure to post the next meeting and say a big THANK YOU to all who participated!

Stay tuned!

The Bike team was one of the three Action Teams that met last night.

Thank you and please join us on October 25th to continue to work on bus, walking and biking issues

Hello neighbors!

Thank you so much for attending our 9/27 meeting about creating better bus/walking/biking options for South Boston!

Please mark you calendars to come together again on  
Thursday, October 25 from 6:30 - 7:30 pm  
at the Distillery Building, 516 E 2nd Street.

At the 10/25 meeting, we will divide up into three Action Teams (bus, walking and biking) to start to refine and implement the action steps you all brought forward last Thursday. Over the next 3 weeks, we will provide more information about the meeting details and pre-meeting planning; including a way to share ideas in advance of the meeting.

Thank you for making this meeting a bigger success than we had ever imagined! Over 50 people attended, including the Commissioner of the Boston Transportation Department (Tom Tinlan); leaders of the South Boston MOMS Club; representatives of elected officials; City Councillor Linehan; leaders of neighborhood associations; developers; artists; police; MBTA, walking and biking safety advocates; local business owners; longtime residents; new residents; students; moms, dads and many others. Your enthusiasm, creativity and intense commitment to our community is astounding.

Even better, over 40 of the participants volunteered to work together to move these issues forward! This is a good thing because the Action Teams will succeed according to the participants' level of passion, collaboration and hard work. This will be an ongoing process. Please try to bring a friend to the 10/25 meeting -- we need all the help we can get to advocate for better, safer and more accessible bus, walking and biking options for our neighborhood.

Hope to see you then and thank you again,

Stefanie, Elise and Aaron

Over 50 people attended our September 27 meeting about better bus, walking and bike access for South Boston