Challenge
Boston’s residential streets faced safety challenges, including speeding, limited pedestrian visibility, and gaps in multimodal infrastructure. The City of Boston needed ways to both respond quickly to community concerns and implement traffic-calming and safety improvements at scale. Past traffic-calming efforts were reactive and available only to neighborhoods who knew how to request them. This led to inconsistent measures that simply rerouted traffic to streets that had not been “calmed.”
Solution
Kittelson has supported the Boston Public Works Department (BPWD) and Boston Transportation Department (BTD) since 2018 with planning, design, and construction documentation for safety and multimodal interventions. From the early phases of the Neighborhood Slow Streets program to its evolution into the Neighborhood Safety and Multimodal Improvement Program, Kittelson has helped deliver traffic-calming, ADA accessibility, green infrastructure, and multimodal improvements across the city. These efforts have included developing the Bowdoin-Geneva Neighborhood Action Plan; conducting a systematic speed hump eligibility and prioritization analysis; mapping the public benefits of Boston’s expanding bike network; creating 3D visualizations for proposed bike lanes; and developing construction and pavement marking plans for treatments including curb extensions, intersection realignments, raised intersections, raised crosswalks, and separated bike lanes.
Kittelson has also worked with BTD to use quick-build design to respond to community safety requests raised through the City’s 311 reporting system. Through the Small-Scale Safety Program, Kittelson has worked with BTD to develop streamlined quick-build and speed hump design and implementation processes. The team has provided nearly 40 installation guides for quick-build treatments, such as daylighting, median islands, chicanes, intersection realignments, and other treatments that calm traffic, improve visibility, designate space for people biking, and enhance pedestrian crossing safety.
The Outcome
Rapid Safety Improvements Across Boston’s Neighborhood Streets
The team’s work has helped the City of Boston deploy more than 500 speed humps on residential streets along with dozens of other quick-build safety interventions. By combining fast field work, responsive design, and close coordination with City partners, we’re helping Boston make meaningful progress toward safer streets.
