Workshop First Step to Improve Walkability in Westwood

For those of us who live on or off East Street one can relate to how difficult it is to pull out of your driveway let alone walk across a busy street with very little police prescence. I can only wonder what it will be like when the 128 project is complete and everyone from the other side of Westwood cuts down East Street to get there. If I had my way I would seriously recommend sidewalks on both sides of East St., a traffic light at Smith drive, possibly one ast Carroll Ave., more police prescence monitoring traffic, as there appears to be on not as busy Hartford Street. Also the one sidewalk and East St. is in atrocious condition. It is all cracked and littered with glass and other debris which makes for an interesting bike ride or skate board ride to school.

Feel free to add to the list! Some of these are more an issue for runners and cyclists, but it's all related...just something to get discussion started.

1. Blind curve crosswalk at Pine Lane and Gay
2. East Street Bridge underpass too narrow
3. Crosswalk on East Street at Smith Drive - no respect from cars
4. Sidewalk on High Street at Nahatan ends in front of Middle School
5. Thatcher Street is narrow and treacherous for any mode of transportation
6. Clapboardtree blind curves and no shoulder: Washington to Nahatan
7. No safe path from Winter St area to the High School
8. Frequent red light runners at Gay and Washington--many drivers treat it as a stop sign
9. Nahatan and Clapboardtree--cars run stop signs, yield lane impossible to see around, Sunday morning crossing adventures for churchgoers
10. Pine Lane Raceway - cars cut through from Islington Center to Gay Street at much greater than 30mph

I did not include anything from the Canton/Everett/Forbes area...I bet one could make a top 10 list just for that, but I know the traffic advisory committee has produced a detailed report on all sorts of measures to re-engineer that area.

"The other side of town" also has its problems. The traffic light at Burgess Ave and Route 109 has its share of drivers who run the light (often not just by one driver but by 2 or 3 drivers in a row). The walk cycle comes after the cars on the side street merge onto 109, so pedestrians who are waiting for a walk cycle think that they will not get a chance to cross and step out into the crosswalk while cars from Burgess or Oriole have a green light.

I have walked my children down Route 109 to the Sheehan School for years. I was never comfortable having my children walk along a state highway, even though there was a sidewalk. The sidewalk between Pond Street and North Street (the edge of Westwood)along Route 109 is not a poured surface that is flat. When it snows, there are always pockets of ice that form as the snow melts, and this ice lasts for a long time, making walking treacherous. The town plow that clears sidewalks cannot remove the snow very well because of the uneven surface of this sidewalk. The walkway is also narrow in spots, causing children to step out into the roadway to get out of the way of bicyclists (fellow students)on their way to and from school.

The other item that I think should be added to a list is the lack of a crossing at the end of Nahatan Street, directly across from St. Margaret Mary's Church. I watch High School students walk down Nahatan Street after school, and run across the intersection of Nahatan and Route 109. I know there is a crosswalk across from Dunkin Donuts (usually their destination), but most pedestrians do not choose to cross there. They want to cross Route 109 when they reach the bottom of Nahatan.

I am unable to attend the upcoming meeting, but here is one simple suggestion to make one little area of Westwood more walkable.

Many people walk from the high school/middle school/senior center area, through the "maze" neighborhood and then out Old Carriage Road. You can cross Clapboardtree street into Dela Park and then through Chase Estates and then behind the temple parking lot path and get to Sheehan and Oak Street areas. This entire route is safe, with the exception of Clapboardtree Street from Old Carriage to Dela Park. This is a very short stretch of road, but very narrow and dangerous. (actually, all of Clapboardtree Street is extremely unsafe, but this would be the most useful stretch to fix up) If this were just widened slightly, it would make this route, used by many children particularly at middle school and high school, much safer.

Also, I'd love to see sidewalks into Norwood along Nahattan Street. There are sidewalks all along the Norwood side of the town line.

So, tonight, after the 4:45 Norwood Central MBTA commuter train deposited us all on the INBOUND platform around 5:20pm, there was a sudden scrapping sound and a kid emerged from underneath the train. He had thrown the box he was carrying under the train, then crawled underneath to reach the boarding side. The conductor yelled at him as we all watched horrified. Then, the train continued on to Norwood.

Why does this train stop on the inbound side of the tracks? There is no excuse for what the kid did, but we are all lucky this did not end terribly. However, it is par for the course at this train station where the platform is unlighted and not long enough--prompting riders unfamiliar with the stop to jump off into the gravel if they are not in the right cars. And of course people will walk the tracks, cross in front of the approaching train, etc. But I've never seen anyone crawl under the train before!

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