Sidewalk Petition for Watertown Street, Lexington, Massachusetts

New Sidewalk Request Form
Submit to Transportation Safety Group
(transpsafety@lexingtonma.gov)

Name of Proponent(s): Bijan Afshartous
,
Address: 5 Green Lane, Lexington, NA 02421-6313

Phone Number(s): (781) 417-9268 Cell Email(s): biafshar@gmail.com

NOTE: A complete list of all proponents will be submitted shortly,

New Sidewalk Location (list road(s)): Watertown Street, Lexington, Mass

Starting Point(s): 60 Pleasant Street, there will be a new bus 76 bus stop here,
plus a new crosswalk

Ending Point(s): West Service Road; Exact Location, Engineering Decision

Reason for request (provide some information on the pedestrian activity in the
area and any potential connectivity to existing sidewalks,
trails or bikeways, as well as surrounding land uses)

Please see the following pages
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SIDEWALK PETITION FOR WATERTOWN STREET, LEXINGTON, MASS

Revision 1, May 9, 2017

This sidewalk petition consists of two parts:

1) Why we need sidewalk on Watertown Street.
2) Part two, A simple request for creation of space for parking for several cars.

Part one, why we need sidewalk on Watertown Street

1) Safety Improvements: Pleasant Street and Watertown Street are very busy
streets, with heavy traffic in morning and evening
rush hours, continuous traffic all other times.
2) Most cars travel at high speeds (above 40-45 mph in both directions. Since
the street is curved along the entire stretch, it is very difficult to see far
enough ahead for both cars and pedestrians. This specially creates a
dangerous situation for those walking or crossing the street.

3) Residents of Watertown street and its side streets have no safe place to
walk on Watertown Street. Many residents avoid walking on this street, out
of concern for their safety.

4) Runners and cyclists are also frequent users of these streets.

5) School buses pick up and drop children on both streets.

6) There are MBTA bus 76 stops in both directions, with no paved sidewalk or
surface upon which to wait for the bus.

7) The most important reason for having sidewalk would be to enable
Bowman School students to walk safely to and from school.

Part 2, A simple request for creation of several car parking spaces

UPS and Federal Express trucks sometimes park on the Watertown Street
on the Bowman Park side. They partially create blockage on Watertown
Street, and create a dangerous situation. There is some space on the
Bowman Park side.

It is requested that these spaces be widened, and levelled so that these
trucks could park further to the right, and don’t block traffic. These spaces
don’t even have to be paved.

Note: We plan to discuss part 2 with Town engineering to see if it can be
implemented during paving of Watertown street that will be started
very soon.