Roslindale Square Transportation Action Plan
We're advancing mobility ideas to improve safety, connectivity, and placemaking in Roslindale Square. We're focusing on supporting small businesses, improving the public realm, and making it easier and safer to walk, bike, and take transit in the square.
Project Phase
Project Information
Boston's Streets Cabinet is leading this plan to get into the details on transportation concepts that emerged from Squares + Streets. Through this project, we aim to:
- Maintain and uplift the vibrancy of Roslindale Square
- Increase the comfort, safety, and accessibility of walking, biking, taking transit, and lingering in Roslindale
- Advance proposals in partnership with residents, community leaders, and businesses
Throughout 2025, we gathered data to understand the transportation needs and opportunities in the square. In 2026, we're coming back to the community with updates about our research and plans for transportation design.
Have Questions? Let’s Talk!
Book a 20-minute one-on-one session with a project team member to learn more, share your ideas, and ask questions about the project.
Roslindale Square Storymap
Use our online tool to read about what we've learned in our initial analysis, what the community's been saying, and what’s next for the project.
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.
WHAT IDEAS ARE WE STUDYING?
The Boston Planning Department recently adopted (February 2025) the Roslindale Square Small Area Plan as part of its Squares + Streets planning process.
The adopted Squares + Streets plan made a series of transportation recommendations. Those initial proposals we're building on are shown below. They include studying whether Washington Street can be made two-way along Adams Park and ways to reconfigure the Belgrade/Robert/Corinth intersection.
With this project, the Streets Cabinet - who designs and builds our streets - is picking up those recommendations for further evaluation. Through this project, it's possible we'll refine, tweak, or even abandon some of the recommendations as we get into detailed design. We might take up other ideas in our project area to make it safer and more pleasant to travel in the square. As we have design proposals, we'll look forward to sharing them with the public.
Of course, there will be several rounds of engagement, planning, and design before we get to construction. There will be plenty of chances to weigh in along the way.
TIMELINE
Squares + Streets, a initiative led by the Planning Department, has evaluated some transportation ideas for Roslindale Square. The Boston Transportation Department is responsible for designing and building City streets. Through this project, we'll evaluate and develop these mobility visions for Roslindale Square. This will include:
- Background research: In 2025, we reviewed existing plans and conditions on the ground in Roslindale. We wanted to make sure we understood all that we needed to before proposing changes to how the streets work.
- Initial community engagement: In March 2025, we hosted 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. Our partner, Openbox, a community-centered design and planning group, has been helping us with targeted outreach to these communities.
- Project updates: In May 2025, we published an interactive website where community members can review information and provide input on our work. The same month, we held a public meeting to introduce the project more broadly to residents, share learnings from our review of the existing conditions, and discuss next steps.
- Community Update: In May 2026, we gathered the community for a project update.
- Testing early ideas: In Summer 2026, 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 2026, we'll present the first draft of our concept designs to gather community feedback.
- Project close-out: By the end of 2026, we'll share our final report with the public. This will provide a preliminary engineering feasibility analysis for the ideas we're studying. This will include cost estimates, traffic modeling, and conceptual drawings. These will provide a strong roadmap for us as we look to advance these projects beginning in 2027.
GET INVOLVED
Get involved! You can provide your email using the link below to receive project updates as we have them:
PROJECT MATERIALS
Project MaterialsAt this meeting, we shared a summary of what we've been researching and hearing from our engagement. We clarified our scope, and provided an update for where we're headed for the rest of 2026.
Thank you to those who made it - we had 111 registrations! We appreciated the thoughtful engagement and great questions.
We're happy to share some materials from the event here. Below you'll find the presentation slides and the meeting recording. More materials will be coming soon.
Thanks so much to everyone who joined and contributed. We heard loud and clear a desire for safer streets and intersections, with almost half of all the comments we received focused specifically on safety. Folks shared many ideas for making it safer and more pleasant to get around Roslindale Square. You can read a full summary of our takeaways here.
The boards we presented and discussed can be found here.
We loved how much input everyone gave on our interactive map exercise! Find the full map, comments and all, here.
In March 2025, we hosted 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. Our partner, Openbox, a community-centered design and planning group, helped us with targeted and in-depth outreach to these communities.
We're happy to share a report-out from our first round of engagement. The linked document below includes stakeholder quotes from the residents, business owners, and visitors we heard from. It also highlights some specific directions we're taking based on all that we've heard so far.
Full reporting from engagement round one, INCLUDING DEMOGRAPHICS
Thanks so much to everyone who joined and contributed. Find a brief summary of what we discussed here.
Frequently Asked Questions
FAQsThe 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 project will result in a preliminary engineering feasibility analysis. This is a report that includes cost estimates, conceptual designs, traffic modeling, and more. Our aim is to first ensure our designs work before we get too far into the details. Any potential changes will go through further testing, refinement, and engagement before they’re constructed.
The City works with many partners to accomplish our goals. We have hired a team of engineers and planners (Bowman), landscape architects (kmdg), and community engagement specialists (Openbox) to leverage their expertise to complete this project with us. Working with Openbox, we've developed a nontraditional approach to engagement, allowing us to learn from the perspectives of community members who have not been represented in past planning projects.
We may try out a few short-term projects to make it safer and more comfortable to travel through the square. We may repave streets or repaint crosswalks and bike lanes. But the larger proposals of our long-term vision will take a couple years. There will be many rounds of community engagement and many opportunities to get involved in design.
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.
Sign up to our email list first and foremost. That's how we'll be sharing updates about different engagement opportunities. There'll be public meetings and interactive pop-up events in the square.
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.
2007 community based plan for Roslindale, largely for changes to zoning, that also includes transportation recommendations.
Plan from 1989 showing some history of planning for streets and sidewalks in and around Roslindale Square.
Who's Involved
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