“Lemon Grove Bike Lane – Massachusetts Ave” by beany0 is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0. To view a copy of this license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/?ref=openverse.
By MARK SARDELLA
WAKEFIELD —— The Final Bike/Pedestrian Plan for the town of Wakefield was presented to the Town Council this week and plans to eliminate parking in favor of bike lanes drew significant pushback from several councilors.
In particular, the plan calls for the elimination of all parking spaces along Main Street near Lake Quannapowitt in order to create a new “shared-use” bike lane.
The plan was developed by David Loutzenheiser, Senior Transportation Planner and Jessica Boulanger of the Metropolitan Area Planning Council. Funding was provided by MAPC and the Town of Wakefield.
The final plan was presented Monday night by the “Project Team” consisting of Wakefield Community and Economic Development Director Erin Kokinda, Town Engineer Bill Renault and Loutzenheiser.
Kokinda outlined the key goals of the plan: to encourage walking, bicycling, and rolling to key destinations throughout town; establish a plan that connects local destinations and surrounding communities through safe, comfortable, and convenient routes; and advance the Town’s Complete Streets Policy.
According to the Bike/Pedestrian Plan, “A key goal of this plan is to establish a process and a culture of designing for and including needs of pedestrians and cyclists in all infrastructure projects in Wakefield.”
Kokinda talked about efforts to engage the community in the plan’s development, including site visits to various parts of town and a community survey conducted in the fall of 2021, which generated 360 responses.
Public meetings were held via Zoom on Dec. 13, 2021 and June 8, 2023 to discuss the the highlights and key goals of the plan, Kokinda said.
The plan cites 2020 Census commuting data showing that 73 percent of Wakefield workers drove to work alone, 10 percent worked at home, 9 percent used public transit, 5 percent carpooled, 2 percent walked and 1 percent bicycled to work.
The plan recommends requiring short and long-term bicycle parking in all new multi-family, business and retail construction. It also calls for bicycle parking to be provided at schools, the library, the downtown business district, grocery stores, parks, commuter rail locations and other destinations.
For pedestrians, the plan calls for ladder-style crosswalks (as opposed to parallel lines) for optimum visibility at all times and reflectivity at night and completion of the sidewalk network on both sides of all arterial streets.
The plan describes different types of bike lanes for different situations, including shared-use paths, protected bike lanes, conventional bike lanes and shared streets/sharrows.
The part of the Bike/Pedestrian Plan that drew the most discussion and push back from the Town Council was where it states, “To provide space for a shared use path and safely accommodate all users, removal of parking is required along the Lake.”
Councilor Robert Vincent noted that 18 percent of Wakefield residents are 65 or older, in addition to a significant disabled population. He noted that older people not only walk the Lake, but many enjoy the Lake by sitting in their cars parked along Main Street. Vincent wanted to know if anyone from the MAPC had spoken to the Council on Aging or the Commission on Disabilities about the plan to eliminate parking along the Lake.
Kokinda said that they had not.
Councilor Edward Dombroski was critical of the overall Bike/Pedestrian Plan, observing that it seemed to incorporate designs that were more suited to urban areas than a suburban town.
“You can’t always drop city plans into Wakefield,” he said.
He also questioned the recommendation to remove nearly 200 parking spaces on Main Street along the Lake. He noted that he previously supported the shared-use bike path along North Avenue because it did not impact vehicular traffic or parking. Dombroski said that he was not convinced that Wakefield is, or will ever be, the bicycle-centric community that the plan contemplates. He noted that the “Safe Streets Working Group,” mainly dedicated cyclists, appeared to have an outsized influence on the plan’s recommendations. The survey of 360 people, he added, seemed to reflect the views of a small, self-selected minority.
“We shouldn’t be demonizing motor vehicles in a community that depends on them to get around,” Dombroski said.
Councilor Julie Smith-Galvin disagreed.
“Change is hard,” she said. “This is a safety issue. Our streets are 100 percent designed for cars,” she added, suggesting that until there is bike-friendly infrastructure in place, people will never switch from cars to bikes. She called the Bike/Pedestrian Plan “an opportunity to reduce congestion, reduce traffic and save lives.”
But Councilor Ann Danehy also questioned the recommendation to remove all parking on Main Street along the Lake in order to accommodate cyclists. She said that all constituencies need to be taken into account.
Chairman Jonathan Chines observed that, except during special events, the 180 parking spaces along Main Street near the Lake are rarely all being used. He asked Renault about the timeline for that aspect of the plan.
“There is nothing imminent,” he said. “We don’t have the funding yet,” adding that the town continues to seek grant funding.
Renault added that heard the message that people don’t want to lose all of the parking on Main Street along the Lake.
