The City of Boston has published a Request for Proposals (RFP) aimed at hiring a consultant and design services to kick-start the planned redesign of a 2.4 mile stretch of Columbia Road between Moakley Park and Franklin Park.
Columbia Road “has a long history and also has a need for new investment. It has some of the same problems that we see citywide,” said Vineet Gupta, a project manager with the Boston Transportation Department. “We thought it was about time that it gets some attention.”
The team that wins the bid will likely follow the same model as the processes in Mattapan Square and Blue Hill Avenue – local community organizations lead community engagement alongside, and in tandem with, the city planners.
“This is significant because the Parks Department has an ongoing process for the Franklin Park Master Plan and there is an ongoing and almost complete process for Joseph Moakley Park,” said Gupta.
Dorchester Bay Economic Development Corporation (Dot Bay), which is headquartered in Uphams Corner, has for some time been gathering residents to talk about the redesign, which has been discussed by the city since the Go Boston 2030 report was released in 2017.
“Dorchester Bay EDC is excited to begin engaging residents in the Columbia Road design process to ensure that they have a seat at the table and that their priorities are heard,” said CEO Kimberly R. Lyle. “The proposed addition of a connected bicycle and pedestrian path and vibrant green space will provide our community with critical opportunities for active transportation and improved air quality…Residents are ready to be involved in this project that will be beneficial to our community and are excited about the potential safety improvements to Columbia Road.”
Gupta said the consultant will create a conceptual plan that identifies short-term action items like “fixing what’s broken there today” to include things like sidewalk work, streetlight adjustments, drainage maintenance, and tree pruning. Other early items could be tactical street interventions like flexposts, street bump-outs, and green infrastructure to better contain stormwater drainage.
The second piece will be the long-term vision for the corridor to be implemented over two to five years. That will be based on the community input gathered by the consultant next winter and next spring.
“We have to now get feedback from the community so we can design a street that works for them,” Gupta said. “It’s going to be exciting. We haven’t seen any activation on that corridor in a long time and it’s such an important corridor.”
While most of the RFP includes bidding requirements and information, the goals of the project are also spelled out. Primarily, the work will preserve two-way vehicle traffic while expanding the existing median and the sidewalks. Another aim is to create a “linear park” that will connect Franklin Park and Moakley Park. Reallocating the roadway space – it’s among the widest roads in Boston with more than 100 feet from side to side – will be done in conjunction with the community.
That, however, doesn’t necessarily mean a center-running bus lane, which has been extremely controversial and a major tension point in the Blue Hill Avenue re-design process over the last two years.
The RFP does ask the consultant to “propose bus and bike related facilities including lanes, bus stops, and Bluebike locations,” but city officials said that isn’t a call for bus lanes.
“The answer is we don’t know yet,” said Gupta. “It’s different from Blue Hill Avenue in the sense that Blue Hill Avenue had citywide, and probably statewide, the highest bus ridership numbers. That’s not the case for Columbia Road. We see what’s most important on Columbia Road is to make it safer, greener, and inviting…for people who live and work there.”
Public transit, however, will certainly be a topic of conversation, and while there is an ongoing bus network redesign process in the works by the MBTA, Gupta said the city process will demand better bus service in some fashion.
“This is a corridor that should get additional public transit service,” he said. “There aren’t a lot of subway connections here and people depend on the bus to get where they want to go. Regardless of any MBTA plans, we should try to improve bus service and make better connections here.”
Though a center-lane bus is uncertain, the project will target improving pedestrian crossings, notably for older adults and people with disabilities, creating separate bicycle travel lanes, and substantially increasing the number of trees for the proposed “linear park.”
“We will work with the community…so people have a better choice of the travel modes they want to choose to get where they want to go,” he said. “I think that’s something we can all agree on. In that sense, it will be multi-modal. The corridor really needs more trees and shade and places for people to sit and places for people to stop along the side of the street.”
The bid deadline for the RFP to get the process started on Columbia Road has been extended to the end of July, and Gupta said they would like to have a bidder on board by mid-September.
