Neighborhood Slow Streets

Neighborhood Slow Streets is a City of Boston program. We look at a network of smaller, neighborhood streets for traffic-calming and safety improvements. Our goals are:

• To create safer and more accessible streets,
• To reduce the number and severity of crashes on smaller, residential streets and,
• To engage residents in prioritizing safety interventions

We have the resources to work on 3 Neighborhood Slow Streets zones each year. With this in mind, we must work first in the neighborhoods with the highest demonstrated need.

Community groups are invited to nominate their neighborhood streets for traffic-calming. We then look at every zone and select zones based on:

• Large numbers of youth, elders, and residents with disabilities;
• More community places, such as public schools and parks;
• High crash rates on neighborhood streets;
• Connections transit stations, bus stops, and walking or biking routes identified in  Go Boston 2030 

In 2020, we scored zones on a scale of 0 (less need) to 100 (most need). We award up to 60 points based on population statistics and locations of public places. Up to 35 points are provided based on crash rates from the last three years. The final 15 points are awarded based on walking, bicycling, and transit connections.

This year we added three neighborhoods that had nominated themselves in previous rounds (2017 and 2018). We used the latest data to evaluate all past applicants. We are working with the top-scoring zones:

• Hancock Street Triangle in Dorchester,
• Lower South Street and Vicinity in Roslindale, and
• Moreland Street and Mount Pleasant Avenue Historic Districts in Roxbury.

• We collect your stories and comments. Tell us what you see as problems or concerns in your neighborhood.
• We will visit your neighborhood several times. We will observe how people move through the area and note any issues we see.
• We will collect data, as needed, about things like how many people are crossing the street in a certain location or how fast drivers are going and in which direction
• To develop a concept plan, we will combine our work with your comments, survey answers, and conversations with us.

We first document and listen to your concerns this fall. We will then share the plan for your feedback before we start the engineering design process, during which we finalize what the changes will look like.

If you live in one of our three new Neighborhood Slow Streets zones, we want your comments. We want to hear about the places in your neighborhood where you feel unsafe because of speeding drivers or where visibility is limited. Tell us about important community destinations, like playgrounds or community centers, that need better crosswalks.

You have three ways to engage with us:

1. Complete our survey on your mobile phone or on your computer,
2. Fill out a paper version of the survey and mail it to us, or
3. Meet us in a nearby park during our advertised drop-in session

If you prefer to mail us your survey, you can. Just download the surveys below and print them out. If you don't have a printer, you can print up to ten pages for free each day via the  Boston Public Library's Printing-to-Go service .

Return your survey to:

• Boston Transportation Department
• Attn: Neighborhood Slow Streets
• 1 City Hall Square, #721
• Boston, MA 02116

We will be outside in a park in your neighborhood at least once this fall. You can stop by any time during the hours noted below.

Hancock Street Triangle

•  Stanley-Bellevue Park on Bellevue Street 
• Saturday, September 26, 2020
• 12-3 p.m.

Lower South Street and Vicinity

•  Healy Field on Florence Street 
• Saturday, September 12, 2020
• 12-3 p.m.

Moreland Street and Mt. Pleasant Avenue

•  Gertrude Howes Playground on Moreland Street 
• Saturday, September 19, 2020
• 12-3 p.m.

•  Mt. Pleasant Play Area on Mt. Pleasant Avenue 
• Saturday, October 3, 2020
• 12-3 p.m.

Please note: We will follow all State and City guidelines, including wearing face coverings and standing six feet apart.

The City of Boston uses a variety of tools to improve safety and comfort on City streets. Not every tool works on every street, and sometimes multiple tools are used in the same location. It all starts with an understanding of the concerns and issues in a specific location or on a certain street.

Below, we will share some of the common tools used in the Neighborhood Slow Streets program. Design plans for your zone will include one or more of these tools, but it's unlikely that every tool will be used. We may also use other tools on a case-by-case basis.

The Neighborhood Slow Streets program won't solve every issue, but we aim to address the most pressing safety issues in a neighborhood. We will build permanent, long-lasting changes to streets.

It takes a while to design and build our plans.

• We need to make sure that all of our new crosswalks are fully accessible for people in wheelchairs, which means meeting certain City and state standards.
• We often need to rebuild parts of sidewalks and driveways. Our engineers carefully design these areas so they don't create big puddles in the middle of the walking path or result in water draining off into someone's yard.
• We work closely with other agencies and departments to coordinate drainage and utility structures. It can take a while to figure out the best solution.

Our designs go through multiple rounds of review by other divisions, including the Public Improvement Commission, the City of Boston Public Works Department, Boston Water & Sewer Commission, and the Mayor's Commission for Persons with Disabilities.

After that, we send the design plans to our construction team in the Public Works Department. They work with a contractor to order materials, lay out the design, and build everything.

We hope to speed up our design timeline this year. The below timeline is approximate and can change. The most up-to-date information will be available on the Neighborhood Slow Streets website for your neighborhood.

• Listening to your safety concerns with the goal of co-creating a draft plan in the winter

• Review concept plan with residents and identify key improvements
• Begin developing engineering plans and investigate concepts through engineering process

• Bring plans back to residents for feedback
• Begin to finalize the engineering design plans based on your feedback

• Finalize plans
• Share final plans with construction team to begin scheduling construction