They don’t, actually. Not in any meaningful way. What I meant to type was parking, not Kardashians. Sorry. Parking, the way we manage it here in Newton and how that affects traffic, local businesses, and residents—that will be the topic of a public forum on May 17.

Print out the flier (PDF).

On the face of it, parking may not be as thrilling a topic as what passes for entertainment today. But parking is a limited commodity in Greater Boston, and therefore valuable—and not only to shoppers. Village center restaurants are beholden to antiquated zoning that limits their seating (and therefore revenue). Retailers need affordable parking for their employees. The list goes on.
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As you may know, MassDOT is working to widen I-95 to include four travel lanes from Route 24 to Route 9. The design work will likely be completed in fall 2012, with construction to begin in 2013 and completed in 2016. The proposed 127 million dollar project will widen 3.3 miles of I-95 including the three interchanges (Kendrick Street, Highland Street and Route 9).

The Public Safety & Transportation Committee of the Board of Aldermen will hear a report from the City’s Director of Transportation, Clint Schuckel, on Wednesday, February 8, in Room 202 of City Hall. The public is invited to ask questions about the project and its expected impacts.

The League of Women Voters, along with a number of co-sponsors, including Newton Villages, is bringing us an evening of deep insight on what works for transportation in Newton and what we can do to improve it. We owe LWVN a debt of gratitude for bringing this forum together.

It will include some of the biggest names in transportation planning and thinking in Greater Boston. If you’re wondering about what’s next for pedestrian connectivity, bike lanes, transit, and traffic management, you need to be at this forum.  It’s in the Druker Auditorium at the Newton Free Library on Tuesday, November 29th, at 7 pm.

The full flyer is here.

School’s out and the weather is getting warmer (for New England, anyway), which leads to more pedestrians and bicyclists on our city streets.

Yesterday in Attleboro, police ran a crosswalk sting and stopped 47 cars in four hours — around one violator every five minutes, according to today’s article in The Sun Chronicle.

Police cited 16 of those drivers for failing to yield to a pedestrian in a crosswalk, a $200 fine. The same state law and fine apply here in Newton.

In May 2010, Newton police nabbed 48 drivers in crosswalk stings around the Garden City over a similar amount of time — about one violator every five minutes. (If people had as much luck fishing, we’d all be eating cod.)

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Two rent-by-the-hour cars are now available in the “triangle” parking lot on Langley Road. Zipcar members may reserve the Toyota Prius ($7.50/hour) or the Nissan Altima Hybrid ($11.50/hour).

The spaces are leased to Zipcar, the Cambridge-based car-sharing company. If this one-year trial program proves successful, the program may be expanded to other village centers in Newton.

To date, the city has three Zipcar locations: Newton Center and the MBTA stops at Woodland and Riverside. Zipcar locations in neighboring towns include Brookline (20 locations), Watertown (4), and Waltham (1). Zipcars are not yet available in Wellesley, Needham, or Dedham.

Newton resident and architect John Pears, who has served on our board of directors since the inception of Newton Villages, spoke last night at the community meeting about the proposed development at the Riverside MBTA property.

In today’s Boston Globe article by Stewart Bishop, Pears was quoted saying:

I think the way is sits now there’s a good mix of office, residential and retail.  I think its good they reduced the office and increased the residential  They’ve got the right mix, but it needs some tweaking on the site,” Pears said.

Although he said he still had concerns about the design of the project, Pears said he was not too concerned about the increased traffic the growth would bring.

They’ve put, in my opinion, a huge amount of time into the traffic thing.  I’m a big fan of, not rotaries, but roundabouts, they work very well.  I’ve watched them in London and in Holland and they just work fabulously, and pedestrians can use them very effectively as well,” Pears said.  “I think the volume of traffic will increase but the new design will even it all out.  It might not be better than it is now, but I don’t believe it will be worse.

The article did not mention the Riverside Station Neighborhood Coalition, which has done an excellent job getting the word out, organizing residents, and defining potential neighborhood impacts. In fact, the group has brought concerns to the developer and to city officials that may have otherwise been overlooked.

But this is an important conversation for all Newton residents and businesses — and even for our neighbors, near and far, who are also stakeholders in what happens at Riverside. It is commendable that the public conversation over the past year has not solely focused on the negative impacts of change. Instead, the community is weighing both the costs and the benefits in its decision-making process. We look forward to this conversation continuing.