Activating Columbia Road: Reframing a Missing Link

Go Boston 2030
City of Boston, March 2015
The Go Boston 2030 report is a City of Boston
initiative that lays out transportation and mobility
plans for the City over the course of the next 5,
10, and 15 years. Released in 2015, the report is
based on 5,000 questions and comments collected
from the public as well as the 650 people who
participated in the initiative’s 2-day Visioning
Lab, which included interactive walls and data
infographics to help shape the report’s goals. The
three guiding principles of the report are:
• Equity
• Economic opportunity
• Climate responsiveness
Over the course of two years, the City engaged
with residents through a “Question Campaign,”
roundtables, visioning workshops, an online portal,
and project voting ballots. The goals that came
out of that process focused primarily on expanding
access, improving safety, and ensuring reliability.
The Go Boston 2030 community engagement
process was managed by Alice Brown, Boston
Transportation Department’s Project Manager
for Go Boston 2030, who in spring 2019 is the
Director of Planning at Boston Harbor Now. The first
round of community engagement focused on a
question campaign; a “What’s Your Question?”
truck circulated the city’s neighborhoods,
collecting residents’ questions about the future
of transportation in Boston. Brown described that
they “primarily used the question truck, but we had
internet options and we had ads on the subway
and things that few other plans will ever have the
funding to do.” 34 The second round focused on
collecting ideas about what Boston’s transportation
future could be. This was done on maps and
cards, at a bike trailer that went around the city,
and with another online web interface. They also
collected data through workshops around the city
and a “Share your Trip” program, which allowed
the Boston Transportation Department (BTD) staff to
join a resident on their commute to work and get a
sense of their barriers and challenges. These efforts
gathered over 3,500 policy and project ideas, with
close to 4,000 people voting on their top priority
projects. 35,36
On Columbia Road, many of these efforts centered
around the Upham’s Corner area rather than
the whole corridor. Brown explained “By the time
Imagine Boston began, every single one of the
other plans had been through Upham’s Corner, not
just somewhere on Columbia Road, but through
Upham’s Corner.” 37 Brown mentioned that their
question truck went to Upham’s Corner, as well
as the bike cart and a shared trip with BTD. All of
these activities allowed planners to hear directly
from people who lived or traveled through this
section of the corridor. “It became, maybe even
less Columbia Road but more Upham’s Corner,
became the center of a lot of planning efforts.
Everyone kept coming there. People had ideas.
In terms of continuing to think of it as a greenway,
that was still largely happening outside of the
neighborhood.” 38 Although these community
Figure 50: Cover Page of Go Boston 2030: Vision and Action Plan
34 Brown, interview.
35 Ibid.
36 City of Boston, “Go Boston 2030: Vision and Action Plan,” 3.
37 Brown, interview
38 Ibid.
Activating Columbia Road: Reframing a Missing Link
69