I'd add that the walk across Blue Hill Ave near the Wales street entrance and also across American Legion Highway near Angel St are also dangerous. Young youth are probably taught to NEVER cross the street from their homes into the park. Wouldn't it be neat to have a catwalk? That's what we call elevated crosswalks in California.

I am glad the parks dpt is doing a study of traffic and pedestrian access to the park. My impression is that mostly immediate neighbors and organized groups use Franklin Park. Only neighbors know how to dodge traffic to get in and only those who know the park well feel comfortable exploring the park. Organized groups usually just come for one activity, a game, a festival, a race.
The park doesn't feel accessible by walking. And it doesn't seem that friendly to pedestrians unless you know where to go. Busy streets cut off most entrances. And even in the park cars drive over one of the Scarboro Pond bridges and golf carts go accross the other. Indeed, parks maintenance vehicles drive through the park and over one of the Scarboro pond bridges to acces the parks maintenance yard. Years ago one of the parks dpt vehicles killed a dog on that bridge.
I hope the traffic consultant takes a good look at all these problems and then that the city doesn't sit on the recommendations.

Getting to the park by bike from the Dorchester, Mattapan side is also dicey. A left turn into the park from Blue Hill means crossing several lanes of fast-moving traffic to the turn lane. Many bike commuters head into the park through the gap in the wall by the intersection of Blue Hill and American Legion. That intersection is tricky for bikes and walkers.

Once in the park, the relatively wide well-maintained paths are good for sharing with bikes and walkers and is such a nice segment of adjacent walking/biking areas along the Emerald Necklace. It would be great as part of the city's initiative to make Boston mroe bike friendly to help both pedestrians and cyclists get safely in and out of Franklin Park by improving the tricky intersections and traffic in the areas between parks and paths.

Beware of traffic studies and bike/pedestrian counts - they can be so limited as to be meaningless.
In another area of the city, they were only counting people who crossed at crosswalks, which, if there are not enough crosswalks, will produce an artificially low number. Thereby insuring no increase in the number of crosswalks.

Having lived directly accross from Franklin Park on Walnut Ave for almost 9 years now, I have seen every manner of traffic maddness as I have attempted to access the park with my children and dog. Overtime, I have seen a steady increase in the volume and speed of traffic on Walnut Ave, and now, even though I live literally accross the street from the White
Stadium entrance, the park may as well be miles away. I fear walking on Walnut Avenue with my children as I have seen many speeding cars jump the curb in both directions. I fear crossing, because the traffic moves very quickly, and with the curve and hill in the road, you cannot see what is coming until they are nearly running you down. I cannot get accross very quickly these days with 4 children and a dog. There is no where to cross where we can be ensured a safe passage, so we look, but seldom visit these days.

That said, I agree with Rosanne -- if there is no crosswalk, how can you get a reasonable crossing count? People will cross randomly if there is no safe designated crossing point. And, like myself, there are probably many more would-be park users who refrain from crossing at all out of fear of being run down, or more simply because it is just too hard to get across the street.
From what I can see from my bird's view of the White Stadium entrance, people cross at various points on Walnut and Sigourney and hop over the wall. So they would not likely make it into the count. I also have observed that there are more and less busy times of the day and of the year for crossings. From 7:00am to 9:00am is a busy time for dog walkers year round. Dog walkers have a busy time between 4:00pm and 7:00pm and also on weekends. There are also events in the park that cause eposidic increases in pedestrian access. There are summer camps, and special summer events; there are the festivals; Boston Public School events; football season and running seasons where there is an increase in access. I do not think that the study noted above could possibly capture an accurate count when they only were out there for a few hours on one day during the year.

I have also noted that there are several roughly paralell routes to Walnut/Sigourney -- Washington Street; Amory Street, Lamartine Street, Chestnut Ave, and Center Street. On these roads, there is no length as long as there is on Walnut/Sigourney without some type of traffic break or pedestrian safety measure. Why is this? Also, how can it be that there is a Boston Public School facility (White Stadium) with no school zone signage and no cross walk??

Living across the street from the park for so long, I have had some time to think about all of this, and I find it unconscionable that the city will not take action.