Activating Columbia Road: Reframing a Missing Link

of Blue Hill Avenue up to the Fairmount Commuter
Line overpass. For the next .9 miles the median
contains concrete planters. At the intersection
with Massachusetts Avenue, the type changes for
the last time to a narrow (about 4-foot) concrete
median with two, and then eventually four, lanes
of vehicular traffic up to where Columbia Road
terminates at the Kosciuszko Circle roundabout.
Figure 24: The Standard Columbia Road
Streetscape with a Tree Median
Over its 2.4-mile length, the Columbia Road
streetscape varies. Starting at the southwest end,
Columbia Road begins at a four-way intersection
with Blue Hill Avenue. At this terminus, Columbia
Road begins with six vehicular lanes, leaving a
narrowed median, a bicycle lane going east and
bicycle sharrows going west entering the Blue Hill
Ave intersection.
Progressing northeastward from that intersection,
the road narrows and takes the form of the majority
of the corridor: four travel lanes, two in each
direction, with parallel parking on both sides, threefoot
demarcated bike lanes in both directions,
and about a 14-foot median. Most of the corridor
exhibits this standard streetscape, varying only at
intersections. At primary intersections, the median is
narrowed to accommodate turning lanes, and the
bike lanes typically merge into the vehicular lanes
as sharrows.
On either side of the roadway, there is
substantial diversity in the land use of adjacent
parcels. Starting again at the Blue Hill Avenue
intersection, the adjacent properties transition
quickly from commercial, in the intersection, to
residential. Continuing along the corridor, land
use is predominantly residential with clusters of
commercial, retail, and institutional uses at the
primary intersections. Housing types range from
single-family homes with sizeable lawns, to tripledeckers,
to three or four story row houses and
block-wide apartment complexes. There are very
few unbuilt parcels, exceptions being a few parking
lots and one or two vacant lots. The mix of uses
outlined above results in an irregular facade plane.
Some blocks are rows of single-family homes with
substantial setbacks and wide spaces between
houses; some blocks are uniform four-story brick
residential structures right along the sidewalk; and
some blocks are dominated by triple-deckers
divided by driveways.
The median strip between travel lanes alternates
among the four streetscape types described in
Figure 23. Starting again at the intersection of Blue
Hill Ave, the first type is a 4-foot concrete platform
at intersections, where the addition of vehicular
turning lanes narrows the median. Beyond the
intersections, the standard streetscape described
above includes about a 14-foot raised median
that in some places is concrete with raised circular
concrete planters, and in others is planted with a
single row of trees. The row of trees type is found
for about .8 continuous miles from the intersection
40 Activating Columbia Road: Reframing a Missing Link