Meeting Notes

We were pleased to welcome Josh Ostroff, City of Newton Director of Transportation Planning, as our guest speaker at the April NCNA meeting. Before he began his presentation, we reviewed a few other topics.

1. Farlow Park:

• Thanks to the efforts of Representative Kay Khan and Councilor Maria Scibelli Greenberg, Newton Corner was in the finals for an appropriation of $250,000 to repair the surface of the pond and provide much-needed restoration and repainting of Chaffin House.

• We reiterated our request for Piano Pals to help care for this year’s Artful Piano.

• We reminded attendees that NewtonSERVES, held on Sunday, May 7, offered volunteer opportunities at the park and Underwood and Bigelow school.

2. We issued a request for a Facebook facilitator to grow our presence by linking the NCNA to other Facebook groups in Newton.

3. We reviewed recent activities regarding the status of the proposed development at 41 Washington Street.

Discussion of the Department of Transportation Rotary Project at Newton Corner:

1.  Why does the DOT schedule state a meeting on the Newton Corner project will be held in the spring of 2023 when we all know it won’t?

2.  What happened to the Safety Audit? It was stated (in a 2020 report) that “Newton Corner has so many issues that the city doesn’t want to begin to address them; most problems are with the DOT.”

3.  Do ARPA funds apply to Newton Corner, and can they be used for transportation issues like painting crosswalks? This would contribute to traffic calming and be a meaningful gesture by the city.

4.  Why does the Washington Street Plan not mention Newton Corner? Why is our village not mentioned as part of a Vision Plan—except for suggesting more big buildings?

5.  Josh Ostroff and David Jason met with the head of the Boston Metropolitan Association regarding their Long Range Project Plan for funding programs. Any results for Newton Corner?

6.  There needs to be more clarity over who controls which access roads onto the Mass Pike ( i.e., the state or the city). Josh volunteered to meet with David Jason to clarify this or at least learn to whom we should go for such clarification.

7. How much attention is paid to the ring road in the current project study? Josh reported that the ring road is “easily within the scope” of the study. We would like to know how this is being addressed.

8. How much coordination with other cities is occurring regarding projecting increased traffic due to developments boarding Newton in Watertown and Brighton?

9. Josh said he wanted a “line item in long-range transportation plan for multi-modal transportation.” What, exactly, is being done about this? He also said it was his responsibility to pull something together and make Newton Corner a transportation hub in a good way. Such a meeting would include Jack Leider of the Economic Development Committee and John Sisson—head of Economic Development.

10. We asked for specific data regarding the number of vehicles identified in the DOT consultant’s study. We were told, in reply, that this information is available from the city and we’d have to make specific information requests from them.

And here are two bonus questions:

11. We learned at the March meeting that we qualify for federal accident-prevention funding programs because there have been 400 accidents at the rotary in the last three years.
Has anything been done about this?

12. An article in the Globe noted that Chinatown had secured a federal grant to study building a park over the Mass Pike and rail lines. Will Newton apply for such a grant as well? We certainly have an equal cause.

Since the last meeting, we’ve received a notice from Josh about a Transit Priority Corridor project for the MBTA #57 bus. It is presented below. Other than that, we have not received any responses to the questions listed above.

“I am writing to share the news that Boston, Newton, and Watertown have launched a Transit Priority Corridor project for the MBTA 57 bus. This is a 2023 initiative led by Boston in which Newton and Watertown are participating. It’s an outcome of the GoBoston 2030 plan, and they chose the 57 bus because it’s heavily used and there are opportunities to improve service. David Koses and I will represent Newton.”

The goal is to improve transit service by reducing trip times, primarily through dedicated bus lanes and TSP (Transit Signal Priority).

Just a few notes to provide more information:

• There will not be much, if any, work happening in Newton. With the exception of Newton Corner, Route 57 travel times are OK on Tremont, but Newton riders will benefit from improvements in Boston.

• The project team (Boston, the MBTA, and their consultant) is in touch with the MassDOT Newton Corner project team to ensure coordination with the short- and medium-term improvements that MassDOT will be proposing in the coming months.

• There will be an outreach to MBTA riders in June. When the public outreach is planned, we will follow up with you (and the Mayor’s office) so you can inform your constituents and members of NCNA.

• Before that outreach, I’ll create a Newton web page for this initiative.

• We are working with Watertown’s planning staff. No action is requested, and we will have more information soon, but I wanted to share the news. Please let us know if you have any questions about this.”