Roslindale Square Transportation Action Plan
Building on the adopted Squares + Streets plan for Roslindale, we're advancing transportation ideas to improve safety, connectivity, and placemaking in Roslindale Square.
The City of Boston's Transportation Department (BTD) will lead this transportation action plan project. Our goal is to take the transportation proposals from the Squares + Streets Small Area Plan and figure out how to make them a reality, working with the community to make the streets safer and more vibrant.
This year, we'll be working with the community to build on transportation ideas to:
- Maintain and uplift the vibrancy that makes Roslindale Square a great place
- Enhance the comfort, safety, attractiveness, and accessibility of walking, biking, taking transit, and lingering in Roslindale Square
- Advance proposals in deep collaborative partnership with local residents, community leaders, stakeholders, and businesses
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Still have questions? Contact:
Transportation
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1 City Hall Square
Room 721Boston, MA 02201-2026
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Stay Connected
We will be sharing information about public meetings and other project-specific details: Join our mailing list.
MARCH 2025 UPDATE
We're excited to announce the start of our project!
This month, we'll begin our outreach process. At first, we're looking to hear from community members who tend to be less able or inclined to participate in traditional engagement events like town halls and open houses. In a few weeks, residents will hear from Openbox, a community-centered design and planning group. They will take a personal approach to community engagement, hosting in-depth individual and small-group conversations, particularly with Black and Brown businesses, mobility-challenged residents, lower-income residents, and families with young children.
We will also host public meetings over the course of the project to hear from the wider community and keep everyone informed. For more information, read our timeline and FAQs below.
UPLIFT THE VIBRANCY OF ROSLINDALE SQUARE
Roslindale Square is home to the first Main Streets district in Boston. It's one of the most vibrant commercial squares in the City. This project will use transportation planning to support placemaking and community development.
MAKE IT EASIER TO WALK, BIKE, AND TAKE TRANSIT
This project will increase safety for all users, first and foremost. We'll work with you to identify opportunities to make it easier and more comfortable to walk, bike, and take transit.
CLOSELY COLLABORATE WITH RESIDENTS AND BUSINESSES
We will ensure that community input is incorporated at every stage of the project. We'll only be successful if we work together to develop visions to improve and invest in the transportation networks and public realm of Roslindale Square.
TIMELINE
Through this project, we'll evaluate and develop the transportation ideas for Roslindale Square presented in the adopted Squares + Streets Small Area Plan. This will include:
- Background research: For the first few months of 2025, we're reviewing existing plans and conditions on the ground in Roslindale. We're working to make sure we understand all that we need to before proposing changes to how the streets work.
- Initial community engagement: Beginning in March, we'll host in-depth conversations with individual and small groups of residents from specific, harder-to-reach populations to understand their current experiences and perceptions of Roslindale Square.
- Interactive update: In April, we'll publish an interactive website where community members can review information and provide input between public meetings.
- Public meeting 1: Around early May, we'll hold a public meeting where we introduce the project more broadly to residents, share learnings from our review of the existing conditions, and share next steps with community members.
- Testing early ideas: During the summer, we'll gather iterative feedback from residents and passersby through early sketches, simulations, and interactive activities to ensure our ideas are headed in the right direction.
- Public meeting 2: Later in the summer, we'll present the first draft of our concept design to gather community feedback.
The recently adopted Roslindale Squares + Streets plan puts forward a set of recommendations for neighborhood investment (e.g., transportation infrastructure, public space, street and sidewalk improvements). Our Roslindale Square Transportation Action Plan will build on those transportation recommendations, including changes to street alignment, new crosswalks, and new public spaces. We’ll perform the next level of analysis to further develop the ideas into tangible plans for implementation.
This 9-month-long project will result in a “25% concept design plan,” a set of early proposals for the main interventions we hope to build. Any potential changes will go through further testing and refinement in the future before they’re constructed.
We’ve made no proposals to remove or change parking at this time. Changes proposed in this project will be made in partnership with the community. There are many ways we can improve car traffic, make it safer to walk around, more comfortable to linger, and park and do business. For this project, we will explore ways that make sense in Roslindale Square.
Nope. There is no proposal or plan to close Poplar Street to vehicular traffic.
The next steps for the Roslindale Square Parking and Access Plan that was completed in 2023 are to be determined. We will update this response when more information is available.
The City works with many partners to accomplish our goals. In this case, we have hired a team of community engagement experts who offer a different approach to community engagement. Openbox’s approach to engagement will allow us to learn from the perspectives of community members who have not been represented in past planning projects. The Transportation Department is still overseeing the entirety of the project, including the engagement and will be deeply involved at all stages.
Please see our timeline above.
Sign up to our email list (click here!) and come to our public meetings!
GET INVOLVED
We're interested in hearing from you! For now, you can provide your email using this form, and we'll share information about public meetings as we have them.
September 2024 iterations of a project poster, flier in English, and in Spanish are here.
Thanks so much to everyone who joined and contributed. Find a brief summary of what we discussed and photos from the walk here.
RELATED INITIATIVES
In Roslindale, Squares + Streets focused on housing, public space, arts and culture, small businesses, and transportation.
We are working toward prioritizing transit on Washington Street, between Roslindale Village and Forest Hills Station.
We are making changes to parking and curb access in Roslindale Square.
The Birch Street Plaza has transformed Birch Street, in Boston’s Roslindale Village, from a street for cars into a plaza for...
We're installing electric vehicle (EV) charging ports at curbside locations throughout the city.
The proposed path would create a direct, off-road connection between Forest Hills Station and Roslindale Village.
We're focused on street designs that self-enforce slower speeds and safer behaviors.
We added a contraflow bike lane and speed humps between Washington Street and Sycamore Street.
We're building an accessible, safer, and greener Cummins Highway in Mattapan.
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Still have questions? Contact:
Transportation
-
-
1 City Hall Square
Room 721Boston, MA 02201-2026
-
Stay Connected
We will be sharing information about public meetings and other project-specific details: Join our mailing list.
