Personal Experience with Non-Car Travel
Please share your recent experiences walking, biking, using public transit, or traveling with someone who has mobility challenges around Melrose. How safe and accessible did you find those experiences outside of a car?
I love what a pedestrian friendly city we are, and have the potential to be. I walk my kiddos to school every single day, walk with my dog to main street frequently for regular errands, and my kiddos bike around town with their friends (including utilizing Winthrop’s Friday bike bus). I also run many days a week with my youngest child in a jogging stroller, and do take the commuter rail and/or orange line into Boston for various work obligations.
On the mobility challenge front, my mother in law spent the last two years of her life mostly confined to a wheelchair, as she had ALS. While she was living in Philadelphia, our family was all to aware that lack of ramps, sidewalks, or obstructions made it impossible for her to navigate her own neighborhood. This is foremost in my mind when crafting city government mobility policy.
I find many portions of our city to navigate easily without a vehicle, though certainly through a lens of somebody who is fully ambulatory. However, certain sections (e.g. Lebanon Street crossing, Main Street & Lynn Fells) are highly unsafe for not only pedestrians & bikers, but also drivers.
Near-Term Municipal Actions
Please name one concrete step the City of Melrose should take within the next two years to make streets and sidewalks safer for people walking, biking, or using mobility devices. How will you ensure this step will serve people of all ages, abilities, and neighborhoods equitably?
Expanding our sidewalk network as quickly as possible, repairing 100% of broken sidewalk panels each year, building robust biking infrastructure where appropriate, installing raised crosswalks in our most heavily used intersections, pinching roads to naturally lower speeds, more consistently (e.g weekly in the summertime) shutting down Main Street to car traffic as we do for Summer Stroll, and encouraging our state delegation to change the Massachusetts law to allow for automated car speeding ticketing in targeted neighborhoods.
City’s Role in Advancing Active Transportation & Climate Goals
Transportation is the largest source of carbon emissions in Massachusetts. What role should the City of Melrose play in encouraging people to travel by foot, bike, or transit? Please share one specific action you would take as a councilor, and explain how it supports Melrose’s sustainability and climate goals.
From my laundry list on the previous question, I would like to work with the Mayor to prioritize free cash (particularly in the event of the override passing) expenses on more protected pedestrian crosswalks in high traffic areas.
School Travel & Family Transportation
Melrose does not provide school buses and students are not assigned to their neighborhood elementary school by default, contributing to significant car traffic at drop-off and pick-up. Name one specific thing you would do to help families who want safe, reliable options to get children to and from school without relying on cars?
Many of the levers to encourage kids to travel to school on foot would normally be through parent groups/relationships at the school; for instance, the biweekly bike bus has been such a wonderful option for my younger two kiddos to get to the Winthrop on their bikes. From the City Council perspective, working with the Mayor and School Committee to prioritize hiring crossing guards (and/or increasing the salaries for those roles) so parents feel safe with their children at each crossing. I know we’ve struggled to hire folks at the Winthrop to cover all shifts.
This may be a bit in the weeds in terms of attracting candidates to the crossing guard roles, but last year, Council declined to allow City of Melrose employees to get health insurance if they held multiple part time jobs with the City (I had voted for this provision). If somebody is trying to cobble together work with our city, I want to do everything possible to encourage them to grow in their career, and not create obstacles as Council did.
Regional Connectivity
Many nearby communities are investing in interconnected trails and paths that support both recreation and commuting. How would you work with neighboring communities and state/regional agencies to expand safe walking and biking connections to and from Melrose?
The Lebanon Street TIP project is of particular interest to me, given that it’s the biggest corridor in Ward 7. I was proud to vote for the $500,000 in planning funding for this project, and am hopeful that we’ll see the full state funding come through before too long.
One issue I observed with the Swains Pond sidewalk build out is that even with good planning and plenty of time, residents can still feel blindsided. I want to be thoughtful and proactive about the community engagement piece of this project, and while door knocking this year (both for my own campaign, and my budget survey earlier this spring), dozens of residents talked to be about how the corridor might be improved. They discussed adding stop lights, sidewalks, protected/raised pedestrian crossings, bike lanes, and flooding improvements.
I am hopeful that your group could be helpful in this effort, as I want residents on Lebanon Street and the adjacent roads to feel like their voices are incorporated into the planning and execution of this initiative as much as possible.
Street Design & Business Districts
How can street design improve safety and foot traffic in Melrose’s business districts? Name one specific thing you would do to encourage the city and business community to make these areas more inviting for people walking, biking, or arriving by transit?
Raised crossing at every major Main Street intersection would improve pedestrian safety and naturally slow car traffic. Also, bumping the curb out where possible to shrink the distance that pedestrians have to walk, and forcing cars to take turns more slowly to account for the diminished real estate.
Collaborate with the Chamber of Commerce to jointly bring multi-modal transit improvements to our business district. If there isn’t already a working group between the Ped/Bike Committee and the Chamber, I would be delighted to help coordinate. I mentioned this earlier, but have a summer series of having an every Friday or Saturday shutdown of car traffic to Main Street. That way families in surrounding communities can regularly count on there being space for kiddos to run around, rotating beer garden for nearby breweries, and activities. Businesses can also count on dramatically increased consistent foot traffic, which typically highly correlates with increased sales.
Budget and Staffing Priorities
Budget cuts impact the City’s ability to implement street projects, pursue state transportation grants, and enforce safety laws. What specific actions would you take (e.g., prioritizing budget, accessing other funding sources) to improve the City’s ability to respond to resident requests (e.g., traffic calming, speed enforcement, street design, etc.)?
This spring, I embarked in the first universal budget survey in Ward 7. I personally went to every door in my Ward and captured 200 households (out of 1,400) worth of policy/budget data. I would love to make this an annual practice, and would love to work with Ped/Bike to fine to how I capture mobility information. The data that I did capture gave me numerous specific requests to bring to the Mayor: sidewalks to build/repair, potholes to fill, crosswalks to bolster, and intersections to reconfigure. Any way that I can be helpful in translating that resident-led laundry list into free cash expenditures, I am all ears!
Most Pressing Street Safety Issue
What do you see as the single most pressing street safety issue in your ward (for ward council candidates) or in the city as a whole (for at-large candidates)? As a City Councilor, how would you address it?
In Ward 7, we have one of the most spread out parts of the city with the most dilapidated infrastructure, so I believe sidewalk & crossings on our aging roads is the single greater priority (of many).
As the budget is being formed, I would encourage the Mayor to increase the line items that fund those activities, and work with DPW to regularly socialize what my neighbors as highlighting as problem areas in our Ward. I would also encourage the Mayor to prioritize sidewalk repair/paving and protected crosswalks in free cash orders. This will be of particular note if the highest dollar figure of the override passes, and we have more ample resources collected to make infrastructure improvements before the FY27 budget is enacted.