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’ve walked about 25 miles in the past month canvassing door-to-door. I also bike to our downtown from the Melrose Highlands frequently.
More importantly, my kids walk to school everyday, and my older son (12) bikes across town for activities. My younger son (10) also bikes to soccer practice. I am a bit nervous when he bikes home after dark as the days get shorter.
I feel safe walking in quiet neighborhoods and side streets. I am extra vigilant when crossing busy streets like Franklin, Lynn Fells, Lebanon, and Upham, and East Foster. I don’t assume that cars are paying attention when I’m biking. I tell my kids to not assume that cars will see you at stopwalks.
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?
We should fund DPW to maintain bike lanes, side walks, and traffic signals in good condition to support biking and walking.
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.
Repair and reuse are far more effective in reducing carbon footprint than recycling. I would organize more repair cafes and draw on handy Melrose citizens to show off their skills and repair items that would end up in a landfill. I would recognize their efforts publicly, and set up MMTV to record a series about how our neighbors fix basic household appliances. Handy people often like to show their resourceful craftiness and help others. I would prioritize and publicize swap meets, and have them more frequently.
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?
I would encourage neighborhood walk-pools for younger children, more frequent bike buses, and carpooling in the winter time.
We should consider moving towards neighborhood schools for the vast majority of students who do not need access to special services at specific schools.
Significantly fewer kids are walking to school now compared to 30 years ago. While in some cases this is because kids live further from school, the reasons are more a cultural over-estimation of danger on the part of parents. We need to encourage our kids to walk on their own as we did when growing up. Let’s have these conversations in our friend groups and PTOs.
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?
We need more frequent (every 20 minutes) commuter rail trains! They currently run every 40-50 minutes, resulting in a lot of wasted time around the margins. While it still beats sitting on 93, more frequent trains would tip the scales for commuters with tight schedules. We also need more local frequent buses to commuter rail and Oak Grove T stations. Many bus schedules were reduced during COVID and were not restored to their original frequency.
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?
I find most people stop at the pedestrian walks downtown on Main St, and around the train station business districts where drivers are more alert. The most dangerous pedestrian crossings I’ve experienced are along Franklin where drivers are speeding. Strobe stop lights would be effective here to signal inattentive drivers.
Install smart bike locking racks. I often don’t know where to park my bike downtown, and am not sure if it’s correct to lock up to a light pole.
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.)?
We need to be able to model neighborhood traffic as a network. All of the traffic studies submitted by developers for individual projects state that their housing project’s increase in traffic will be negligible. I did some of the math and agree that individual projects do not add a significant amount, but I haven’t seen a comprehensive network model of all of the increased traffic. There are free cloud-based traffic network modeling software which can help us understand the total effects of all these developments, and how we might alter traffic to alleviate congestion. I would ask a few tech-savvy community members to learn this software and create localized traffic network models to be more insightful on where we might be creating major traffic issues with development, and request for our developers to address those as part of their projects.
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?
I live in Ward 1 on a cut-through street. The traffic in Ward 1 is already bad due to the major East-West roads of Franklin/Lynn Fells, and having train stations, schools, and dense housing. The eight additional developments will only make traffic more congested.
We’ve been discussing and collecting this “neighborhood knowledge” of where we see major issues. DPW and MPD are aware of some of these, but neighbors can help highlight a few high risk areas and work with the Traffic Commission, DPW, and MPD to address these.