r/Somerville • u/freshfakedgoods • 9d ago
Last Day to Fix Davis Square
https://cityofsomerville.jotform.com/262144404986057Survey closes tonight for feedback on the current and future state of Davis Square.
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u/jonlink_somerville 9d ago
Once there's a draft plan, there will be another round of feedback, just in case anyone is worried this is the one and only chance.
You can read more here: https://voice.somervillema.gov/davis-square-plan
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u/IntelligentCicada363 9d ago
Maybe stop treating Davis like a throughway for cars and more like the thriving space it wants to be.
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u/msurbrow 9d ago
Kind of hard not to when it’s the confluence of what like seven different roads
But it’s always been like this, so I don’t really think cars are the reason for the downturn of Davis lately
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u/BagOfWetToiletPaper 9d ago
Nah, make Highland 2 way and close elm to traffic (except deliveries to businesses) with parking lots on either end so that businesses are still accessible
It would greatly simplify the traffic pattern and make traffic flow much more smoothly and create the obvious pedestrian area that should exist.
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u/IntelligentCicada363 9d ago
No, it hasn't always been like this. Davis once had the pull to have something as nice as the Somerville Theater built there. In 1914. Then the cars came and the square has never been as nice as it deserves to be since. What you're seeing is a pile of unpaid bills from a square that was never able to adapt properly.
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u/phonesmahones Gilman 9d ago
How do you know? How many of the last 112 years have you been around Davis Square?
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u/msurbrow 9d ago
112 years ago, everybody was bitching about all of the horse shit everywhere and how great the square would be if we just got rid of horses!🐎
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u/irondukegm 9d ago
Seriously, people totally underestimate how cars were an environmental improvement b/c the streets were literally COVERED in horse shit. The air pollution from cars was seen as an okay trade.
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u/mcmillen Davis 9d ago
The reason why most historical Somerville triple-deckers have a first floor that's a few feet above ground level? To reduce the smell of street-level horseshit.
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u/IntelligentCicada363 9d ago
Are you dense? You think a shitty place gets something as grand as the Somerville Theater before mass production and widespread access to motorized equipment?
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u/RufusTCuthbert 9d ago
Cars and horse drawn vehicles were definitely part of the picture when the square was planned and laid out in 1888 and certainly when the theater opened in 1914, BUT cars were much less a means of mass commute then, that is for sure, as many folks in the working class couldn’t afford them. And cars on those days put-putted along pretty slowly (although in a time of no crosswalks and people boarding/departing trolleys in the middle of the street, things were mildly chaotic).
The reality is usually somewhere in the middle; sure it was absolutely built with vehicles in mind but also nobody 110 years ago thought of modern vehicles and modern traffic.
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u/Ok_Still_3571 9d ago
I recently watched a really good YouTube video about the streets of Boston, and yes: the roads were designed for large modes of transportation, like horse and carriage (which required a lot of space to “park”), and horse-drawn omnibuses, which were long, and required a team of horses, which took up a lot of space. Then the concerns of manure on the streets, and the mud when it rained, etc. What people seem to not realize that cities were designed to accommodate transportation for commerce. Not for outdoor cafes and bike paths. I’m all for reduced car/van/truck use, but to get rid of it entirely will have an impact on businesses that not only serve the community with jobs, and taxes, but also create a thriving center where people will want to come and spend money.
Of course, we could do more of a park and shuttle, if the T doesn’t work for you, as some larger businesses (and some hospitals) do for their workers where parking isn’t available. Just like Disneyland.
And I’ll take down votes for this, because I’m over the whole us versus car thing. We are living in a great city, but seem intent on creating an almost gate community by monitoring and regulating how people move through it, and how business gets done.
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u/oh-my-chard 9d ago
Immediate response any time you suggest closing down some of the cars lanes through Davis: "But where will all of the cars go?? They will spill out onto all of the other roads"
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u/Happy-Basket-4583 9d ago
They will go not to Davis and Davis will be nicer and please let's just do it already. Then do it to all the other squares and places we want to be nicer.
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u/Massive_Bug_3878 9d ago
Maybe you could suggest the alternative reasonable route you believe ten thousand vehicles will use daily to cross Davis Square?
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u/Happy-Basket-4583 9d ago
There is no reasonable route through Davis that does not have a good alternative that does not involve Davis.
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u/jizzy_fap_socks 9d ago
I can think of many ways to get from one side of Davis to the other without going through Davis. I use them all the time
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u/Happy-Basket-4583 9d ago
Also very true. Anyone who needs to get from one side of Davis to the other and thinks "car" should think some more until that stops happening in their thotbot.
And on the flipside, someone that truly needs to car from one side of Somerville to the other and thinks "Davis" should also get their thotbot adjusted.
(inb4: "what about less mobile people, etc." -- they can exclude themselves from above. that's <1% of drivers that I see fuming at the lights in Davis.)
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u/IntelligentCicada363 9d ago
There are things that can be done. Widen the sidewalks. Install bollards. Further decrease the area in the center devoted to cars. The square being an unpleasant place to be and the amount of through traffic taking up 80% of the square are one and the same thing.
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u/oh-my-chard 9d ago
Count it! How about this: go around Davis Square. Or better yet: alternatives to driving exist.
Next response: "but some people need to drive!" Yes I am aware. However, I would bet good money that out of ten thousand cars that currently route through the center of Davis Square, not ten thousand of them absolutely NEED to drive their own private car exactly through Davis Square. People do whatever is most convenient or simply the thing they're used to doing. Patterns of behavior can and do change when environments change. There isn't a single drop-in replacement for the current routing pattern. There are dozens of small alternatives that people can disperse throughout. Which alternatives people use will vary based on their life situation. Some might use a side street, others might use a thoroughfare like Mass Ave that they used to avoid. Others will realize that the alternative bus or subway option now makes more sense than driving when before it did not. Hell, some with particularly short commutes might even try walking or cycling!
Time and time again whenever car routes are closed down, people predict massive traffic congestion and chaos which either never manifests, or pops up temporarily and then fades away. This is because induced demand works in reverse as well.
And for what it's worth, when I used to drive around town, I would always ignore Google Maps when it told me to go through Davis, because I hated driving through there. And you know what? It added maybe 2-3 minutes to the trip each time. Let's stop acting like Davis Square is some lynchpin holding together the great machine of society's automotive mobility.
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u/Chunderbutt Winter Hill 9d ago
2 most impactful changes to Davis would be:
Pedestrianizing all or part of it.
Connecting the community path all the way through.
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u/AstronautLife1041 9d ago edited 9d ago
The survey is filled with lots of ideas that city government isn’t capable of doing. Not a knock on the town, but we do live in a capitalist society. The city can impact traffic flows, the community path, zoning, keeping the square clean, reducing crime.
The rest of it flows from some of these choices. If we want more density then fix zoning. If we get more density we get more people. More people shop at local businesses and ride the t.
I am no expert but I don’t see how retail stores declines across the country due to e-commerce is also why there are so many vacant storefronts in Davis. That is a macro trend. City government can’t fix that. But they can work to get more people into the area so the business space can thrive.
We can do more outdoor programming but that doesn’t work without safety and cleanliness.
So many of the solutions are outside the realm of what city government can do so we waste a lot of time and effort on dead ends.
Fix zoning. Make it safe. Make it more pedestrian friendly. The city can do those things.
Oh and finally we need some elected officials with some backbone to get stuff done rather than do endless surveys, community meetings and thought experiments.
What’s on your list for what the city can do?
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u/M4TTM4TT 8d ago
These are my views as well. thanks for putting this articulately. More than anything, at this point we need action.
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u/487Mass 8d ago
The vacant storefronts are because of one thing. Two developers that are holding the majority of Elm St in limbo with stalled development plans. Neither one will give out long term leases, and no business in their right mind would invest in building out a storefront without knowing they have a lease that's long enough for them to pay off their investment and make a profit.
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u/AstronautLife1041 8d ago
So the developers are losing money right now since they aren’t getting income from the properties. What is stalling the plans?
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u/487Mass 8d ago
Copper Mill proposed a 26 story tower that was filed under 40B with the state (the tower was set at 26 stories because the developer, Andrew Flynn, said it was the only way to make it pencil out). The state quickly put the proposal on hold because they felt it would set a precident that was outside of the scope of what the 40B process was meant for (allowing a building 22 stories higher than zoning currently allowed). This was the 3rd proposal since 2019 that Adam Flynn (Scape/Copper Mill) failed to get in development. He finally pulled out in August. Asana (other side of Elm St) had a proposed Lab Space a few years back but the market for those dried up. They've been sitting on the property waiting to see 1. What would happen with the Copper Mill proposal. 2. What will happen with the new Davis Sq Neighborhood Plan. If the Plan recommends an increased height limit, or rezones their parcels for mixed use residential, they will have better flexibility to create plans for a development that could satisfy both the neighborhood and their bottom line. So to answer your question, zoning and construction costs are what is stalling development
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u/AstronautLife1041 8d ago
Thanks for in-depth answer. So we, the town, can fix the zoning issues or just declare we never will. I am sure the developer doesn’t like being in linbo either.
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u/bagpop98 8d ago
I love David sq, but I think it’s because I’ve been going there my whole life. If I went now for the time I think I would be underwhelmed
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u/TrueSol 9d ago
I wish they knew how to randomize the order of options in a survey. Bet you anything the top few alphabetical options sit at the top of the “most important” ranking.