Dartmouth Street Safety and Mobility Project

The City of Boston's Go Boston 2030 plan identified Dartmouth Street between Back Street and Columbus Avenue as a bike corridor. This project builds on that plan and responds to feedback from community conversations in 2023 for the Berkeley Street Better Bike Lane project. Residents told us they wanted a safe connection to the Esplanade while avoiding putting a bike lane on Berkeley Street, and Dartmouth Street emerged as the best option.

Pedestrians will benefit from this project in several ways. 

• We’ll rebuild curb ramps to be accessible. Some ramps will be possible to rebuild this year, while others will need engineering plans and will be rebuilt in a future construction season. 
• Narrower travel lanes will encourage slower driving speeds and make crossing distances shorter. 
• By giving bicyclists their own designated space on the road, we can encourage less sidewalk riding. 
• The repaved road surface will make crosswalks smoother.

We prioritized Dartmouth Street based on community feedback for the Berkeley Street Better Bike Lane project in 2023. Residents told us they wanted a safe connection to the Esplanade while avoiding putting a bike lane on Berkeley Street, and Dartmouth Street emerged as the best option.

On Thursday, May 2, 2024, we hosted a virtual public meeting to share an update on projects in the Back Bay neighborhood including Dartmouth Street. The meeting was publicized on our project websites, via email to subscribers to the Boylston Street, Berkeley Street and Connect Downtown lists, and on Streets Cabinet social media channels. Additionally, Neighborhood Services and elected leaders publicized the meeting to local stakeholders.

This summer and early fall, we are continuing to talk with community members and businesses about the project and take feedback. See the Events section for upcoming opportunities.

We're still looking for your input! We want to finalize the plans by mid-September.  Come to a meeting or email us at better-bike-lanes@boston.gov.

National Grid is replacing gas mains beneath several Back Bay streets, including under Dartmouth Street between Commonwealth Avenue and Boylston Street. That means our work on Dartmouth Street will happen in two phases:

• This fall, we’ll repave and install the new design, including the bike lane, on Dartmouth Street between Back Street and Commonwealth Avenue.
• After National Grid finishes their work, we’ll repave and install the new design, including the bike lane, on Dartmouth Street between Commonwealth Avenue and Boylston Street. We're coordinating with National Grid to streamline their work schedule and manage traffic during construction.

We can keep the same number of general travel lanes on Dartmouth Street as there are today. We will review signal timing at each intersection and consider if any changes are needed to improve safety as well as efficiency during the busiest times.

We understand that deliveries are important for businesses along Dartmouth Street. While some double-parking currently happens for loading, it's not a legal or safe practice. To address this, we will create designated and legal spaces for commercial vehicles to load and unload. We are continuing to talk with abutters and take your feedback about where the best location(s) would be.

We understand that street parking and curb access is important. During our community conversations in 2023 for the Berkeley Street Better Bike Lane project, residents asked us to explore options to create a bike route between the Esplanade and Copley Square while impacting the least amount of parking in the neighborhood. Our design for Dartmouth Street preserves the most street parking out of all other options we evaluated.

• Our preliminary estimate of parking impact is 31 - 39 spaces. We can keep parking on one side of Dartmouth Street. These numbers are subject to change as we refine the design.
• We also considered a pair of one-way separated bike lanes on Dartmouth Street (northbound) and Exeter Street (southbound). That option would impact 63 parking spaces, impacting abutters that rely on curbside access for passenger pickup/dropoff and deliveries.

We want to know what types of parking regulations you want the most of! We can explore changing existing curb regulations to rebalance based on your priorities.

We’re looking at crash data and traffic patterns to understand safety issues and how proposed changes could affect traffic.

• Crash data: We reviewed serious crashes on Dartmouth Street over the past nine years. Between Back Street and Boylston Street, there were 38 crashes with injuries, including 11 pedestrians, 10 bicyclists, and 17 people in motor vehicles. At the Dartmouth and Stuart Street intersection, there were 16 crashes with injuries, including 4 pedestrians, 2 bicyclists, and 10 people in motor vehicles.

Traffic data: We counted vehicles at signalized intersections on Dartmouth Street in September and October 2023. We collect data using automatic counting technology on mid-week days representing typical traffic conditions.

Curb ramps and landing areas will be concrete as required by accessibility standards. Detectable warning panels will be red cast iron. We’ll preserve existing brick sidewalks around the ramps. While some ramps have engineering plans, others will be designed on-site by work crews following citywide processes to allow us to deliver accessible ramps in a timely manner.

To create a useful bike network, people need a way to get where they’re going and back again. We considered several options, including keeping a one-way northbound bike lane on Dartmouth Street and adding a one-way southbound bike lane on Exeter Street. A two-way bike lane on Dartmouth Street:

• Offers a direct route and creates a clear connection between Copley Square and the Esplanade.
• Has the least impact on parking compared to other options.

Placing the bike lane on the east side of Dartmouth Street is the most efficient option for all users:

• Several intersections have a high volume of left-turning drivers (Newbury Street, Commonwealth Avenue, and Beacon Street). A bike lane on the west side of Dartmouth Street would put bicyclists going straight in direct conflict with left-turning drivers. For safety, we’d have to have them go on separate signal phases, which would add delay for all users.
• The east side bike lane allows for a seamless connection with the separated bike lane on Boylston Street.

While putting the bike lane in the pedestrian mall might seem like an option to keep more parking on the road, it wouldn't be practical. 

• Using the mall would take away valuable space from pedestrians and would require major reconstruction of the entire corridor. 
• Putting the bike lane on the west side of Dartmouth Street would create similar challenges with traffic signal timing as the option to have the bike lane on the west side. 
• South of Commonwealth Avenue, the sidewalk is already very busy and has limited space due to street furniture and MBTA subway entrances, making it difficult to safely accommodate both pedestrians and bicyclists.

The section of Dartmouth Street between Back Street and Boylston Street is funded for repaving in 2024, which presents a perfect opportunity to include design changes. The section south of Boylston Street has more complex traffic patterns and would require lengthy planning and design work. Including this section would significantly delay the construction of the section between Boylston Street and Back Street.