The way a community regulates its growth is inextricably linked with bicycle access. (Imagine how different Newton would be if Route 9 didn't cut such a bike-unfriendly swath through it, or if Chestnut Hill Mall were genuinely bike and pedestrian accessible, or if Needham Street were a tree-lined boulevard with a green-line spur!)
Bike-friendly is community friendly.
A number of current and pending projects offer opportunities (or, if we ignore them, barriers) to bike-friendly development:
- Chestnut Hill Square
- Riverside
- Needham Street
Guidance on good planning (pretty close to Complete Streets, pedestrian and bike-friendly, public-transportation-friendly) is already in place in Newton in the recently approved Comprehensive Plan (just scroll down a little and click on "Final Comprehensive Plan" to download the pdf.) Unfortunately, though much of the plan is very progressive and forward-looking, very little of the plan has become policy. Judging by how hard it is to find the plan on the City of Newton website (in a long list of reports on the Planning Department's page), there is a good chance the aims of the plan are elsewhere buried as well. It's up to the residents of Newton to make sure the City doesn't lose sight of the Comprehensive Plan as it chases short term gains in development money.
The Comprehensive Plan suggests a development planning process in which Newton would set the rules of development, and developers' plans would need to be transparent, instead of the current process, where meetings that are convened by aldermen for public "input," are controlled by developers. Residents and abutters attend a meeting hoping to hear development plans, and what they get instead is vague development marketing, without any pushback from elected officials. The message is clear: developers run development in Newton. Residents have little input, and elected officials seem to take a passive role. A much better process is outlined in the Comprehensive Plan, but so far, nobody with any power or vision has tried to make that process into a set of policies.
Discuss Biking & Development