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Citizen complaint of the day: The Roslindale Standoff
By adamg on Fri, 05/10/2024 - 12:00pm
A concerned citizen filed a 311 complaint asking the city to do something about Roslindale Standoffs on McCraw Street, a short little stub of a road that's maybe only six cars long that runs (well, more like walks) from Belgrade Avenue to the Bellevue train station:
A Roslindale Standoff on McCraw St. The city needs to do something about the traffic situation on McCraw St in Roslindale. It's dangerous for everyone involved, including drivers, pedestrians making their way to the commuter rail, and Exodus Bagel customers waiting in line in the middle of the street for their order. It's a matter of time before someone gets hurt here
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Comments
Noted
Noted
Thanks for the appropriate background music
Just what I needed today.
The solution is to close it
The solution is to close it to vehicles. It's a small dead end and serves no usefulness for drivers.
The abutters might disagree
To start with, the auto body shop whose use of the street is apparent in the photograph. Add to that the newly built apartment building whose parking is accessed by the street. Finish it up with any service for the bakery at the end of the street.
It's a very useful street. In fact, perhaps too useful.
Bakeries existed long before
Bakeries existed long before motor vehicles. It turns out you don’t need an 18 wheeler to deliver a bag of flour.
Bless your heart
Oh, if you ever found out how the stores at which you buy the goods you consume get their deliveries, your head might explode.
If your blinders ever fell off…
… your head would explode.
Are you proposing the bakery
Are you proposing the bakery get its deliveries by horse cart? Because that's how bakeries got deliveries before there were motor vehicles.
Remove the street parking
There should be zero parking on both sides of this street and a stripe down the middle.
It's a short, dead end street
It's a short, dead end street. Two way traffic is rare. Angle parking on one side might work better.
Two way traffic is rare
Make it a one-way street. That'll clear out all the traffic.
"Dangerous"?
How is this dangerous? How are pedestrians endangered when cars cannot move?
Annoying? Yes. Frustrating? Sure. Dangerous? The Subaru backs out, the other 2 cars leave, and everyone gets on with their day. That's a solution.
Easy
Drivers get frustrated and make sudden, ill-considered movements with their cars, including backwards. Happens all the time. I always move more cautiously around drivers who are frustrated and stuck in traffic because they're a lot less predictable than on a clear road.
Happens all the time on my street
Last year during Open Streets the police had to intervene to stop a Dominican man from starting a fight with an old lady. None of these people live on our street.
inquiring minds
how did you know he was Dominican?
it was
the robe
The Dominican flag in his window
How do you think?
Ever try to cross a street…
… at a blocked box intersection? It’s like trying to maneuver between the jaws of hungry crocodiles.
Actually
Gridlock at Dartmouth and Stuart Streets in the Back Bay makes jaywalking easier.
That said, a comment like yours shows a certain ignorance of this area. Trust me, it’s a tempest in a teapot.
Trust me.
The ignorance is all yours.
You are assuming rationality
... and a willingness to work together to solve a problem for the common good.
Should be a Do Not Enter situation
There's no reason for cars to be on this street as far as I can tell. I think the auto shop uses it as a turn around/storage, but even Exodus asks that you not park there.
The auto shop is the second worst
The auto shop parks their cars blocking the crosswalk, on the sensors (so the lights change for no reason) and tear around the corner running the lights. (You can see the busted up car peaking out from the garage in that photo).
That being said... people getting bagels should not bother turning down the street. There are always spots 1/2 a block away.
Now... if you want to talk dangerous, the people dropping off their dogs who block the bike lane and the bus stop, they are a menace! The worst are the ones who double park on the other side of the road and just cross in front of traffic (caused by the other double parkers) so stupid and dangerous. Park up the block in the legal spots and walk your dog to the day care! So entitled and lazy!
Way too far
If motorists were willing to walk half a block they wouldn't be hauling a living room on wheels with them everywhere they go. Double parking remains the solution when there isn't a free spot within four or five car lengths of their destination.
??? Bro I hate entitled
??? Bro I hate entitled drivers too but there's a difference between somebody who doesn't want to bike 16 miles to the nearest commuter rail station that runs once an hour and somebody who refuses to walk two blocks from a parking space to their destination.
Some of the commenters here really have lost all sense of nuance.
This Street Should be Pedestrianized
There is no need for cars to be on this street at all, with the exception of a specified hour for deliveries to Exodus Bagels. There is no through route for the cars, nobody lives on the street, so no need for parking. It would be a great little plaza for enjoying bagels and safely accessing the train station.
the garage entrance for 317 Belgrade is on McCraw
so the problem is ultimately the neighborhood's fault: demand parking for new apartments, then complain when people drive to and from the apartments
Or the failure of the architect and developers.
And whoever approved parking and garage entry on that street.
Eh
The architect and developers would probably have preferred no parking - it's expensive to build and doesn't bring in much rent. The city doesn't want more curb cuts on the main street for good reason - garage entrances are dangerous and bad urban form (meaning people walking along the street find them uncomfortable).
It has two sidewalks.
Maybe a bike lane?
It’s a busy business area and always has been. Blocking off the street to all traffic will simply push the traffic onto Belgrade. Then you’ll complain about that.
Bakeries do not need door to
Bakeries do not need door to door service. Plenty of bakeries exist on pedestrian only streets in places like Paris and other cities that realized vehicles in cities are bad and dumb.
Pedestrian only?
Those "pedestrian only" streets generally have controlled bollards that go down to allow deliveries.
Red lights
They could quit making the traffic light stop Belgrade Ave traffic every two minutes whether there’s anybody on McGraw St. or not. I realize that there are a certain number of people who want to impede all motorized vehicles, but throwing out unnecessary roadblocks just helps create road rage.
What creates road rage
Assholes.
Entitled assholes.
Road rage doesn't happen because of road conditions or traffic. It happens because drivers who are entitled assholes truly believe that they have a personal right to jump into a motorized vehicle many times the size of their bodies and actually go anywhere at any time at the maximal speed they choose - and that anything else and everyone else is just "in their way".
That's what creates road rage.
Road conditions don't create toddler brains.
road rager
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OIF4u7hANbY&t=5s
If there was a functioning
If there was a functioning traffic sensor, it would no longer be our Boston!