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Extensive revamp proposed for Franklin Park
By adamg on Wed, 12/14/2022 - 9:55am
WBUR reports on proposed upgrades released by the city yesterday.
Much of the money for the work will come from the roughly $150 million that Millennium Partners paid for a condemned city parking garage in Winthrop Square downtown, which it razed to make way for a mixed-use 55-story tower now nearing completion. Some $56 million of the money was earmarked for upgrade work at Franklin Park and Boston Common.
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Comments
A few questions. Why is the
A few questions. Why is the stadium so underused? It is empty and locked up 99% of the time. What will be done about dirt bikers endangering people and ripping up the park? Why do so many dog owners think that leash laws don't apply to them in Franklin Park? Is $56 million enough to clean up some of the broken glass that coats every inch of the park?
regarding the off leash dogs
... when the city (or nimby residents) refuse to support off-leash dog parks in the SW part of the city, people will flaunt leash laws. Give people a legal alternative, and many of them will use it.
The same complaints come up with Millennium Park and others. Will a dog park solve all the problems? Of course not. But if there's no alternative, it's going to keep happening.
Unregulated
off-leash dogs are hazardous to their surroundings and themselves. At the end of the day, the onus is on owners to provide for their dogs rather than the City. Even so, can you show me where the City refused to support off-leash dog parks in the SW? I recall there being contemporary advocacy related to this.
Why get a dog if there aren't off-leash dog parks reasonably close by and you aren't willing or able to make the trip further away?
White Stadium
The document says the goal is to open the stadium during daytime hours and better integrate it into the playstead (which I agree is definitely needed).
Impressive document but
I'll be honest though, I wish all of the effort that went into these 456 pages was directed into actually effecting immediate change and making incremental improvements. Over the past three years plus of this process Franklin Park has been static or diminished (e.g., closing the disc golf course). I understand the need to understand what the community wants, but these planning processes are just getting ridiculous. So many relatively inexpensive projects could have improved the park over the last three years while this planning has been ongoing, including lighting, signing, crosswalks, traffic calming etc. I appreciate that they at least recognize this in the document, but It's unfortunate that the city's policy seems to be all at once or nothing. Additionally, after three years and 456 we still have earmarked "future work" for traffic studies and testing. I guess maybe we'll finally improve the park in 2050?
I'm looking forward to the changes though if they happen, especially the improved parking directed at park usage and reducing through traffic. Franklin Park is an underappreciated gem, and even in its neglected state is truly a wonderful natural place. I hope this plan is implemented and it gets the love it deserves and becomes even more of a destination for the entire city to visit.
Fond memories of the Eliot Arch...
and the Elma Lewis Playhouse.
Question for bicycle riders: Is the Eliot Arch the one that is at the end of a big hill with a wicked sharp left turn after you go through it?
As a kid the tour around Franklin Park Golf Course was always a special treat for me and my friends riding bikes. There was one part of the path where you really picked up speed going down a long hill then through a tunnel. We called the sharp left turn "Dead Man's Curve".