Fun walks for the serious walker

By adamg on Mon, 06/29/2009 - 8:28am

Georgy likes to walk. She lists some of her favorite routes in Boston and Cambridge.

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Comments

Comments on getting from Union Square to Cambridge

By neilv on Mon, 06/29/2009 - 10:23am.

Great walks. Just a couple comments on things to avoid or be careful of...

Prospect St. is poor for pleasant walking. (It's a busy, noisy, dirty street, with little for pedestrians on it, and often narrow sidewalks with no planting strip or other buffer. It also sometimes also sandwiches you between traffic and buildings, both flush up against either side of the sidewalk.) Prospect is an OK way to get over the train tracks from Union Square, but you'll have a more pleasant walk if on the Southern side you use one of the parallel streets.

In Union Square, the intersection of Prospect and Somerville Ave. is a long wait for the walk signal. (You can make rude gestures at the surveillance camera on the aptly-named SCAT building while you wait. Or bring hand puppets, and perform a scene from Shakespeare each time you pass.) This is a relatively unsafe intersection on foot, so it is especially important to wait for the walk signal, and watch to out for aggressive red light running from multiple lanes.

Incidentally, Union Square has a few best-of gems, but the pedestrian situation along that stretch of Somerville Ave. is not pleasant, and needs a lot of creative work. Unless that's intentional, like a wall to keep residents from venturing to Inman Square with their money. :)

Walk from Central Square to Union Square

By Ron Newman on Mon, 06/29/2009 - 10:41am.

I'd walk up lovely Inman Street, then continue straight across Inman Square onto Springfield Street, then right on Concord Avenue, fork left on Newton Street, left on Webster Avenue to Union Square. All very pleasant and low-traffic residential streets.

In my experience, traffic in Union Square is usually slow enough that pedestrians can and should seize the right-of-way by just using the crosswalk, regardless of the lights.

If you want to keep walking from there to Davis Square, Summer Street is much more pleasant (but also much hillier) than Somerville Avenue.

Don't seize it at Prospect and Somerville Ave.

By neilv on Mon, 06/29/2009 - 10:55am.

Several years ago, I was giving a walking tour to someone new to town. As we were coming back from the Citadel and stopped at Somerville Ave., I cautioned her that we have to be careful and wait for the light at this particular intersection. A few moments later, a pedestrian from our side of the street was struck by a speeding car and appeared grievously injured.

Sadder details are at:
http://www.neilvandyke.org/weblog/2002/06/#2002-06-30

Urban hiking

By Eighthman on Mon, 06/29/2009 - 1:04pm.

I've been doing long "urban hikes" around town for 20 years. They weren't planned in advance, I would just go to Porter or Harvard Square and set out, eating, shopping, and taking photos along the way, with the goal of winding up near a T station toward the end.

I hadn't done much of that in recent years, but now being jobless and in what seemed like the only nice day during spring, I resurrected the practice with the goal of arriving at a community meeting about the new Lechmere station in the evening. When I got back home, I plotted the route on a Google Maps pedometer thingy and found that I had walked about 8 miles. Best of all, my feet didn't hurt; the New Balance sneakers I bought a couple weeks beforehand did their job well.