The Shared Streets and Shared Curbs programs are being implemented in select locations throughout the city as a safety measure to help protect the public from COVID-19 exposure.
— Photos by Bobbie Toner

By Isabel Sami

The City of Somerville has started implementing a pilot for its mobility strategy in Union Square and East Somerville. Beginning June 1, East Somerville began testing Shared Streets, while on May 29 Union Square started piloting Shared Curbs, both with the goal to provide safe and open streets for residents as summer eases stay at home orders due to the pandemic. The expansion is projected to remain in place until November.

New signage and flexible barriers were put in place to alert residents to the shared use of these streets, and cones show where the sidewalk extends into the road for pedestrians and bikers. The city recommends that pedestrians, bikers, and drivers on the shared streets remain alert and aware of signage and new boundaries designed to promote social distancing.

The Shared Streets pilot affects Jacques St. in Winter Hill to Glen St. in East Somerville. According to the city’s mobility division, these streets are remaining open to local vehicles, deliveries, and emergency vehicles, and are discouraging unnecessary drive through vehicle traffic. They also have slower speed limits and allow bicyclists and pedestrians to maintain at least six feet of distance while making daily car-free trips to schools, stores, and other essential locations.

Cones set up on the street give pedestrians an extra 7-10 feet of walking space by extending the sidewalk into the street and also set new boundaries for parking. On Bow St. in Union Square, street parking has been reoriented from reverse angle into parallel, and new 15-minute parking zones are being added for curbside pickup and quick errands. The extra space also allows businesses to potentially bring out tables for outdoor seating or shelves for open-air shopping.

For residents who have seen the cones on Bow St., don’t worry. Jessica Eshleman, Executive Director of Union Square Main Streets, wants to emphasize that there’s no new construction happening. She says the cones are meant to be temporary because the city’s mobility division is using tactical urbanism, a broad approach to city planning with low-cost, low-intervention techniques that are temporary and can be adjusted as needed based on feedback and experiences of residents. Community input is necessary for changes to be made.

Maria Rondeau, owner of Peruvian restaurant Celeste in Union Square, likes the changes so far. Rondeau is on the board of directors of USMS as well as an architect, and she is involved in a number of efforts to reopen Somerville. Despite understanding the adjustments on Bow St., she admits that she was shocked to see so many cones in front of her restaurant for the pilot. Rondeau thinks that boards or paint should be used as less overwhelming visual cues to define street boundaries.

“There’s a lot of things at play, and the city was very receptive when listening to the concerns,” Rondeau says. “This is an experiment for them. So they’re open to figuring out what works best.”

USMS volunteered to help facilitate the pilot by reaching out to the community and business owners to relay information and receive feedback. Eshleman says that so far, reactions have been positive, with people being open to changes. Community members can share thoughts through a survey on SomerVision or through the feedback form in the USMS newsletter.

One response said that the new 15-minute parking spaces were an improvement, making curbside pickup quick and easy. Eshleman has witnessed pedestrians and bikers being able to pass with more ease on the streets than before the expansion. “Right now it’s about getting the community and passersby – in car, on bike, or on foot – comfortable with this new configuration since it is different than it has been for several years,” she says.

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Eshleman believes it is valuable to begin the pilot now before Mayor Curtatone announces businesses can open again, giving people time to adjust to the new patterns for parking and shopping. “Hopefully as businesses reopen people will feel even more comfortable with outdoor dining and shopping from open-air bookshelves because it won’t be a brand new arrangement for everybody experiencing it.”

The community has made sacrifices for businesses, such as giving up parking spaces to allow more room for pedestrians, and Rondeau sees this as a big step forward.

“We’re hoping that as more of these extended sidewalk pilots take place in the city, people start to realize that there’s a real value in outdoor civic space,” she says, later adding, “I think that it’s going to be an interesting moment for people to recognize the value of allowing private space to come out to public space. It just makes everything more cohesive as a place to live. We’re hoping that this is an experiment that will have longer term results that people will appreciate.”

The pilots are only beginning. Later advancements to the mobility strategy include touch-free traffic buttons and “traffic calming,” a way to reduce vehicle speeds and improve the safety of residential streets.

“As we do these sidewalk expansions, I feel that they are playing a very important role in building customer confidence that Union Square is a safe place to come,” Eshleman says. “There are outdoor business opportunities, so you don’t have to be inside a store to support that business. I think by taking over the public space, it sends the message to shoppers that we’ve been working on this for weeks and we want to create an environment where you feel safe to shop here.”

For more information, visit the city’s mobility division at https://somervoice.somervillema.gov/covid19mobility.