ABCDC Annual Meeting Tuesday To Focus on Transportation Issues

The Allston Brighton Community Development Corporation is holding its annual meeting Tuesday night at 6:00 pm at the Veronica Smith Senior Center.

This year's meeting focuses on transportation issues, with a keynote address by Fred Salvucci, who was Massachusetts Secretary of Transportation under Governor Michael Dukakis. Historical context will be given by historian Bill Marchione, President of the Brighton Allston Historical Society.

The last two decades have seen an explosion in problems in transportation and traffic in Allston-Brighton (March 11, 2006 "Transportation Visioning" from the ABCDC's Allston Brighton Community Planning Initiative):

• Allston-Brighton resident permit parking increased by 88% between 1990 and 2000;
• Auto ownership per household increased around 30% during the same time period;
  
• Traffic volumes have doubled in the last three decades on Everett Street and Market Street, and increased by around 50% on Cambridge Street and North Beacon Street;
• MBTA ridership has been up 25% since 1988 but without an increase in service;
• Bus #66 is one of the busiest lines in the city, and frequently cannot meet its schedule -- and the MBTA Green/B line is often even slower than parallel traffic; and
  
• A-B has had no bicycle lanes, although the first, limited lanes (near Boston University) are scheduled to be completed this summer.
  

The challenges are only becoming bigger with Harvard University's massive expansion into, and development of, North Allston. Harvard's January 2007 Institutional Master Plan Notification Form project an additional 16,755 commuter round-trips per day to their North Allston campus, which has the potential to overwhelm bus service on MBTA routes #66 and 86 -- not to mention the roadways and intersections.

Worst hit may be the parking lot more affectionately known as the intersection of Cambridge Street and Storrow Drive (at the River Street Bridge), which will have a traffic increase of 21% due to Harvard's new development.

Those existing transportation problems and the potentially exacerbated problem posed by Harvard's development are the context for Tuesday's annual meeting of the ABCDC.


Keynote Speakers
Fred Salvucci: Former Massachusetts Secretary of Transportation, Senior Lecturer and Research Associate at MIT's Center for Transportation & Logistics.
Bill Marchione: Author and local historian

Veronica Smith Senior Center
20 Chestnut Hill Avenue, Brighton, MA 02135
6:00 pm: Refreshments, socializing, and exhibits
7:00 pm: Program

For more information: 617-787-3874; info@allstonbrightoncdc.org; http://www.allstonbrightoncdc.org

Image of a Model T Ford by Mitchel25J provided through a Creative Commons license.