Board of Selectmen: Traffic, Walking, and "Smut Zone"

Tonight's Board of Selectmen meeting began with a presentation by Urban Engineers about a traffic solution to enable commercial truck traffic to get through Westwood Station to 128/I95 without impact to the Canton Street neighborhoods. The unique arrangement, dubbed the "Westwood T" will channel commercial traffic around and through the development with slight modifications to the traffic design around Canton/University Ave/Oceana.

Selectmen also voted to support the Downey Elementary School's efforts with the Safe Routes to Schools Program. Downey has been participating for over a year now and needed the official support of the town of Westwood to compete for infrastructure grants that could allow improved sidewalks and other measures--at no cost to the town--to make it easier for kids to walk to school.

At the end of the meeting, Selectman considered the upcoming action at Dedham's Town Meeting to vote on creating an adult use overlay district that will abut Westwood. Selectmen and residents expressed great concern that Dedham would be creating a district that could result in strip clubs locating at 400 Blue Hill Ave (the back half of the building is technicaly in Dedham) or in the Allied Drive area that also touches Westwood. Brian at myDedham has started a topic on this where Dedham residents and officials are discussing this in more detail.