Make It Safer: A Petition

Dear Mayor Fuller,

What is the responsibility of a community to address an intersection that the state recognizes as a “High-Crash Cluster”? The posts, bridges and signs at Albemarle/Crafts tell the story of that designation, as they lie broken, flattened and splintered by cars unable to proceed safely through—and yet this cluster is part and parcel with North/Albemarle and North/Crafts, a trio of high-risk spaces in a community where many people walk and bike.

Risks at Albemarle are local…

The Newton residents who live within blocks of Albemarle are routinely unsettled by high-speed crashes, pedestrian near-misses, hearing squealing brakes and crunching metal. Cedar Pruitt reflects, “My daughter crosses North/Crafts twice a day, only ever at the walk light, and has video after video of not just one or two cars running the red light while she stands in the intersection…but three cars. Next year, my son will attend Day Middle. Should I drive him instead of let him walk?”

One resident has started doing just that; driving her children to Day and Horace Mann, adding to the traffic and yet saying, “We can’t imagine letting them walk those few blocks to school anymore. It’s just not safe.”

But drivers in this triangle aren’t safe, either. Resident Richard Dinjian says, “Driving on Crafts both today and yesterday I had cars coming from Albemarle not only NOT stop at the intersection but…actually accelerate straight through the stop sign in order to get in front of me. It’s insane!”

Many of the recent accidents, including from the past week, are documented on the Friends of Albemarle blog. Local residents reflect the fear and concern felt by many in the area. “I hope it doesn’t take a fatality before the City takes action,” says Matt Mazer. And fellow Maynard St. resident Dan Evans quips of the unsettling regular sight of wreckage, “I could probably build a car out of the spare pieces found on North, Crafts, and Albemarle Streets.” 

…and city-wide, and beyond.

The risks at Albemarle impact much more, though, than local residents. This space is undeniably a city asset. The athletic fields are the most heavily-used in the city. Day Middle School is the largest middle school with 1,000 children and almost 200 staff. The NECP preschool is an all-city venture. The impending renovation of Gath Pool will make the city’s only outdoor pool into a water complex that draws even more than the current 30,000 visitors per summer. The special events at Albemarle draw tens of thousands at a time, from all over Newton and beyond. And the environmental impacts in this space have a long reach, including a creek that is a tributary of the Charles River and Atlantic Ocean.

Everyone who enjoys, uses, commutes, exercises, or appreciates Albemarle is at risk due to the unsafe driving in the area. This critical walking/biking route for F.A. Day Middle School is also used by students going to Newton North and Horace Mann. The schools combined enroll 4,000 children. And the opening of NECP in January 2023 resulted in increased vehicular traffic overlapping with F.A. Day arrival and dismissal.

What can we do?

Attached you’ll find a petition for change signed by 203 Newton residents and taxpayers. Immediate short-term action is needed while we wait for the $861,962 Safe Routes to School Infrastructure grant to make improvements in FY 2025 (https://hwy.massdot.state.ma.us/projectinfo/projectinfo.asp?num=607977). 

The Roadway Safety Audit done in Spring 2022 by Howard Stein Hudson (https://drive.google.com/file/d/1_UfHibkm_r-l8YKSmWWXxforxlta-wRL/view) identified many safety issues across the following six categories:

  1. Speed Limits and School Zoning
  2. Intersection Geometry and Conflict Points
  3. Lighting
  4. Pedestrian and Bicycle Accommodations
  5. Intersection Signalization
  6. Drainage

It also offered 34 recommendations, including some that can be implemented at low cost and/or in the near-term. We need 20 MPH safety zones on Crafts and Watertown streets that include their intersections with Albemarle, through the Eddy/Eliot intersection, and signage that clearly alerts all drivers of these limits. We also support directed patrols with demonstrable increased ticketing for running red lights and driving at high speeds, especially during F.A. Day arrival/dismissal. 

We also need swift action to install lighting, and measures taken to reduce vehicle speed and other infrastructure as outlined in the Mass DOT Road Safety Audit.

We ask that a committee determine urgently, by Friday March 17, what solutions from this list of recommendations that can be undertaken in 2023 to bring much-needed ease to this scary situation.

The City of Newton has a responsibility to ensure that people are able to walk, bike and drive to Albemarle and the surrounding area without such clear and present danger.

Sincerely,

The Board of the Friends of Albemarle

(Names and addresses)

Appendix:

Letter in Support of Gath Pool Funding

To the Community Preservation Committee,

We’re excited about the progress that is being made on renovating Gath Pool. We advocate for moving forward rapidly with investment into this citywide asset and community resource that impacts all of Newton. We appreciate the work and effort taken thus far and look forward to investing time and energy into the completion of the project. Thank you for your time and willingness to help make this resource something that can serve Newton residents for generations to come.

Gath Pool has a significant impact on the daily life and health of our community and needs prompt and urgent attention to continue working. The badly needed updates will make it functional, accessible to our community and deeply appreciated for decades.

Our 501(c)3 nonprofit organization, Friends of Albemarle, launched in January 2021 with Gath Pool restoration as the leading priority, and represents all 8 wards of the city. We collaborate closely with Newton Parks, Recreation and Culture. We now stand at 500 members throughout Newton, including more than half of City Council, with members eager to champion Gath Pool as an indispensable part of Newton life.

As the pool ages and falls into further disrepair, we are continually alarmed about our community’s ability to use it even through the coming summer. Thank you for your serious consideration of funding for the bulk of the renovation of Gath Pool. We are deeply appreciative.

Sincerely,
The Board of Friends of Albemarle

More than a fender-bender

There’s so much exciting progress happening at Albemarle that it seems like a shame to spend time publicizing the cars that crash into it, but if we can’t improve the traffic situation, we will never be able to enjoy the pool, forest, fields or playgrounds. Here’s the scene from Wednesday February 8 on North street and Albemarle road. Is it from a high-speed chase in the middle of the night? No…just a regular early evening in a trio of unsafe intersections.

FOUR high-speed accidents in EIGHT weeks

Click each photo to enlarge

An Albemarle emergency: On an average of every other week for two months, there has been a major accident that totals vehicles and destroys infrastructure. (I assume it also injures people, but cannot confirm that.) Right now the corner of Albemarle and Crafts is a sea of snapped posts, caution tape and broken fences.

We need things like concrete barriers, road closure trials, flashing lights, ticketing and speed humps to ensure our cyclists and pedestrians (there are 1,000 children at Day Middle School) are able to stay safe ahead of the signalization scheduled in the future. There are safety recommendations for this intersection that are yet to be implemented. There is a petition to implement them. Please sign it!

On Tuesday, January 17 around 10am: Collision and roll-over

On Friday, December 16 – 9:30am: Smashed cars, infrastructure
Police report here – driver from Florida, one from Watertown, attempted crossing of Crafts

On Friday, December 9, around 5:00am: Flattened sign, skid marks on sidewalk, crash loud enough for area residents to hear
Police report here – stolen car from Boston, driver fled scene

On Friday, November 18, around 6:30am: Car flies down Albemarle, ends up in Cheesecake Brook

You’ll notice these are all daytime, weekday accidents when people are out and about.

Action is needed for change to happen. Reach out to Mayor Fuller, your city councilors, and Newton Police Chief Carmichael and let them know what you think.

Today’s accident

Seen below, the accident from today at Albemarle and Crafts, a Mass DOT high-crash intersection. This is the third crash in the past month from speeding.

Accident from 11/18

Accident from 12/8

There are safety recommendations for this intersection that are yet to be implemented. There is a petition to implement them (with 187 signers as of today). Please sign it and circulate it, Newton residents. Our children walk here every day. And residents come here from all over the city. This is a city park, next to a city middle school, and it’s a city issue – not just this neighborhood.

Another accident

Where is this?

At the intersection of Albemarle and Crafts, which Mass DOT identified as a “high-crash” zone, and for which lengthy recommendations have been developed. A petition is actively collecting signatures to urge Newton to take the next step and implement the report action steps – please sign.

What happened?

Seems as though a speeding car flattened a bus stop sign on Thursday, December 8.

Was anyone hurt?

Unclear, but we haven’t heard of any pedestrians being injured by this one, which is amazing. This is a heavily used sidewalk within sight of the city’s largest middle school (with 1,000 children and almost 200 teachers and staff).

If we don’t manage the traffic situation, we cannot count on this area as a safe place to walk, bike, jog, roll or just get to school.

Is all of that broken fencing and the traffic cone debris also from this accident?

Nope – that’s from the speeding car that crashed into the brook a few weeks ago, on November 18 (also during a high-use time). Just…keeps…happening!

Letter to the Newton Traffic Council

December 7, 2022

To the Newton Traffic Council, 

We, the board of Friends of Albemarle, are writing in strong support of the item TC58 -22, being considered by the Council on December 15. It reads as follows:

JASON SOBEL, DIRECTOR OF TRANSPORTATION OPERATIONS, requesting to permanently close the northbound block of Albemarle Road to vehicular traffic, in both directions, between Crafts Street and North Street, except for bicycles.  This portion of Albemarle Road has been closed since September 2020 as part of an on-going Traffic Council trial.

We are confident that permanent closure will have a significant positive impact on the safety of those who use this intersection, which has been identified by Mass DOT as a high-crash intersection. 

We are eager to see safer walking and biking conditions characterize the roads and intersections leading to the park. 

Albemarle hosts not only the city’s largest middle school with an enrollment of nearly 1,000 children, but soon, a city-wide preschool as well. It holds the city’s only outdoor swimming pool and the city’s largest playing field. With limited parking and public-transit options, we all want people to choose non-vehicular methods of getting there…and to stay safe doing so.

The area proposed for closure has been used by cyclists, rollerbladers, pedestrians and more since being closed—and we’ve heard, and observed, highly positive improvements to the experience of crossing to and from Albemarle with this closure.

Permanent closure would also create safer conditions for the drivers in that intersection; fewer options for drivers heading northbound on Albemarle strengthens the safety of the area. Although, as is very clear from last month’s crash at that intersection, it is still very susceptible to speed-related accidents.

We are eager to see the continued evolution of that block into something that resembles less of a street and more of a green-space friendly bike and walking path that supports a link to the Charles River Greenway. We request that the North St. end be blocked off as well, to make it functionally safe from any vehicles that could pull in without warning. 

We look forward to supporting additional future improvements at that intersection.

Sincerely, 

Cedar Pruitt, Jacqueline Freeman, Megan Anapolle

Board, Friends of Albemarle

Petition for a Safer Albemarle

Yesterday morning a high-speed crash sent a car flying into Cheesecake Brook at the corner of Albemarle and Crafts streets.

This is the same intersection defined as a “high-crash cluster” by Mass DOT. This immediately follows our Fall Newsletter last week about Mass DOT’s proposed improvements to the area.

We now have added a petition to expedite change using all available resources. Please sign it and share it.

Reminder: 1,000 children attend FA Day Middle, Newton’s largest middle school, which sits on Albemarle. And soon, the NECP preschool will come to Albemarle. Think of all the people who want to use this area safely, and then look at what happened at 6:40am on a busy weekday morning:

Here are some other pictures taken by neighbors of multiple high-speed crashes on California and Watertown streets in the past weeks, all part of the Albemarle corridor. The smaller pictures all depict 3 consecutive crashes at the corner of Eliot and Eddy streets on Watertown, which is uniquely vulnerable as a cut-through cross street with no signalized light.

This is very preventable. Please sign the petition today.

Opportunity for NSHS Pool

Good morning Mayor Fuller,

This past spring and summer we, the Board of Friends of Albemarle, successfully advocated to add a study for an indoor pool onto the CIP. The lack of a pool at Newton South High School creates a lopsided demand loop in Newton as their swim team requires the use of the pool at North, which in turn increases pressure and scarcity for swim team and community use of the North pool.

We are confident that an indoor pool at or near South would enjoy steady use and create breathing room in the rest of Newton.

With the acquisition of this parcel of land, linked below, and now the solicitation of developers, we are hearing from community members that this is a clear opportunity to create the NSHS indoor pool that our city needs. Please consider this city improvement.

https://patch.com/massachusetts/newton/newton-seeking-proposals-possible-dudley-road-development

Sincerely,
Board, Friends of Albemarle