The City of Waltham has issued a Request for Proposal for design of the Mass Central Rail Trail segment in Waltham. The proposal may be viewed online.

Thanks to Bill Whalen for interviewing Larry Finison and me.

You may read the story here.

The developers of the 1265 Main street project have announced a meeting followed by a site visit on Thursday, August 25 at 10 AM. This is an important opportunity to listen, ask questions, view conditions at the site, and form opinions. The meeting will be at the Flank Steak House Community room, 74 Tower Road.– see the attached notice (PDF document).

Be there or be square!

Also, the comment period for the draft environmental impact report on project has been extended to September 9. In case you need a copy of the report, contact Mr. Nagi, at VHB consulting. Contact information is in the PDF document linked to this post. There is a copy at the Waltham Public Library.

Larry Finison on Waltham bicycling history 1880-1900 (56 minute illustrated talk)

Traffic signal actuators (1  1/2 minute narrated helmet-cam video, October 20, 2012)

Northbound on Lexington Street (9 minute narrated helmet-cam video, July 4, 2015). 90% of motorists were courteous.

Southbound on Lexington Street (8 minute narrated helmet-cam video, July 4, 2015). All motorists were courteous except for one who used his car to intimidate and endanger.

Westbound on Main Street (3 minute narrated helmet-cam video, November 20, 2012). No problems during this ride. Some issues with markings placement.

Left turn, Main Street to Eddy Street (1 minute narrated helmet-cam video, November 12, 2012). Motorist turning right on red fails to yield to me and to another motorist.

 

The instructors have canceled the classes due to insufficient turnout. They plan to give a class in the spring.

The complete set of three Cycling Savvy sessions is to be offered in Waltham in September.

You may sign up for these sessions on the Cycling Savvy site.

Instructors are Bruce Lierman and Eli Damon. The links include contact information, in case you have questions for the instructors.

The Truth & Techniques of Traffic Cycling (3 hours):

7 PM -10 PM Friday, September 16, Arthur C. Clarke Government Center, 119 School Street, Waltham (map)

This is an offering of the Cycling Savvy program. This Friday evening session will be followed by optional daytime sessions on Saturday.

Through guided discussion with video and animation, this session familiarizes students with bicycle-specific laws, traffic dynamics and problem-solving strategies. Students discover that bicycle drivers are equal road users, with the right and ability to control their space.

This is a classroom session. There is no need to bring your bicycle, but there is a bike rack at the left end of the building and if you would like to bring your bicycle inside, it is easiest to enter through the handicap-access ramp at the back. There is car parking in front of the building.

Train Your Bike! (3 hours):

9 AM – noon Saturday, September 17, Hobbs Brook Office Park, 303 Wyman Street, Waltham (map)

This is an offering of the Cycling Savvy program. This riding session goes with the classroom session on Friday evening: you may sign up for one or both. There is also a Saturday afternoon riding session which you may take if you have taken both of the others.

This session consists of a set of progressive drills designed to increase students’ control and comfort handling their bikes in various situations. Drills include:

• Start/Stop, Power Pedal & Balance Stop
• Snail Race, Slow-speed Balance
• Drag-race, Gears & Acceleration
• Ride Straight, One-handed
• Shoulder Check
• Object-avoidance Handling, Weave, Snap
• Turning: Slow-speed Tight Turns, High-speed cornering, Emergency Snap-turn
• Emergency Braking

Lunch is available following this session at nearby Pizzi Farm

Tour of Your City (3.5 hours):

1 – 4:30 PM Saturday, September 17, Hobbs Brook Office Park, 303 Wyman Street, Waltham (map)

This Saturday afternoon riding session goes with the Friday evening classroom session and the Saturday morning parking-lot session. The Tour session is only available with the full course. The other two sessions may be taken á la carte, in any order.

This session is an experiential tour of your city’s roads. The course includes some of the most intimidating road features (intersections, interchanges, merges, etc.) a cyclist might find in his/her travels. The students travel as a group, stopping to survey and discuss each exercise location. After observing the feature, discussing the traffic dynamics and the best strategy for safe and easy passage, the students ride through individually and regroup at a nearby location.

The Waltham Bicycle Advisory Committee has submitted comments on the Transportation Master Plan. Brew a cup of coffee and sit down — 18 pages and a map!

The main topic at today’s Traffic Commission meeting was a road connection between the 1265 Main project and City Point office park. Rob Nagi from the firm Vanasse Hangen Brustlin, which is consulting for the 1265 Main developers, gave a presentation showing a road connecting to 5^th Avenue in the City Point office park, which presently has access only from Totten Pond Road. (The map did not extend as far as the connection to 1265 Main). The new road would have a sidewalk on one side and be gated during peak hours, though still open to bicyclists and pedestrians. Connecting sidewalks would be built in the City Point office park.The developers would pay for the project.

Rep. Thomas Stanley, among others, spoke in favor of the project, citing traffic issues

On behalf of the Bicycle Committee, I spoke in favor of the project but asked that a path connecting to 3^rd Avenue also be built, because this would make a much shorter route for bicyclists and pedestrians, and avoid a long climb in both directions. Other cyclists including Leo Keightly, Martha Creedon and Laurel Carpenter attended the meeting, but did not speak.

Several business owners and employees at City Point expressed approval of the project. A major concern was the difficulty of exiting to Totten Pond Road in rush hour.

Several other commenters including Ward 2 councilor Fowler, and citizens impacted by traffic congestion, expressed conditional approval, asking that the project be delayed until it could be examined in the light of an overall plan including new connections to Route 95/128, and expressing concern that it would increase traffic, notably on Wyman Street, Smith street, Lake Street and Totten Pond Road.

City Traffic Engineer Michael Garvin spoke in favor of the project, indicating that it will help to alleviate traffic, and he spoke in favor of the timed gate closing, which would be removed when additional infrastructure is built.

City Planner Catherine Cagle asked to look at signage because she wanted to be sure that it would clearly indicate when the gate is open. Mr Nagi indicated that the signs would be electronic. Ms. Cagle also wants a sidewalk on both sides of the new road, and presented this as a friendly amendment to a proposal to approve the project. She

[My own opinion of this is that sidewalks on both sides make sense in the developments, but on the connecting road, one sidewalk would probably be adequate.]

Mr. Nagi indicated that the problem with having two sidewalks is of available space and easements, rather than money.

Police Department Chief MacPherson and Fire Deparment Chief Ciccone made strong statements in favor of the project in the interest of public safety, as the City Point office park presently has only one entrance. This is a problem which goes back 35 years to the construction of the project.

The Traffic Commission voted unanimously in favor of a motion to approve the project, though I don’t have a copy of it, so I’m not sure of its precise wording. I also don’t know whether or when the plans will be available online, but we’ll pass along that information as soon as we can.  The meeting will be broadcast on Waltham Community Television’s Mac Channel — John Allen

Streaming video of Waltham Traffic Commission meetings is online, now including the May 19, 2016 meeting (no longer tied to an on-air date) and as far back as the September 2015 meeting. Here’s a direct link to the May 19 meeting.

There are many URLs for earlier meetings, so instead surf to http://wcac.org, and in the On Demand Streaming window on the page click on Playlists, scroll down to Traffic Commission and click on it. A list of Traffic Commission meetings will appear. Scroll down if needed to find the meeting you want to view, and click on it. It will appear in the pane to the left of the list. By clicking on the double arrow icon below the lower right corner of the image, you may expand it to fill the screen.

To view the May 19 Transportation Master Plan meeting, just click here.