In past years I have been at the Playstead ballfields and watched the motor bikes zooming through the outfield of a little league game, roaring past elderly walkers with canes, or cutting off a small child on a tricycle. They're incredibly noisy, dangerous, and probably a lot of fun to ride. 

Boston Police and Park Rangers claim they can't chase them. Some park walkers who talk to riders say the police tell them to go to the park to get off city streets. No one seems to know (police and riders) that motorized vehicles are never allowed off-road (on paved or dirt paths) in Franklin Park.  

For a few weeks this spring the park seemed quieter. The Mounted Police had patrols out several nights a week. It seemed like a deterrent. The Rangers are trying to patrol more often, but I don't see them out in the evenings when the motor bikes are at their worst.

What have you noticed? What do you think about the motor bikes?
    -We have to get them out of the park!  OR
    -Kids need a place to ride and have fun? 

As part of the transportation and park access study we have been asked to consider bicycle use - what deters it? Is it a problem? What can be done to promote and support bicycles? Where can children learn to ride a bike in the park? Do we need designated bike lanes on walking paths and roads?

My own pet peeve is having to carry my bicycle over the low stone walls and granite blocks at entrances when I bike through the park from the Stadium entrance to American Legion Highway (my route to work). I wish the entrances and granite blocks running along the roadways had wider spaces for a bicycle with side baskets to pass through.

I also think we need more bike racks. The only ones are at the Golf Clubhouse (and they're just a year old). I park my bike at the Playstead, at the Zoo, and at the Shattuck picnic area and usually lock it to a sign post, others use the trees for lack of anywhere better. Where would you like to see a bike rack? 

Weigh in if you are a park bicyclist or a wannabee bicyclist! We may convene a small working group to look at bike access in the park. Want to be part of the discussion? Post on the blog and send an email to: mail@franklinparkcoalition.org
 

The plan is to inject Japanese knotweed with glyphosate, the active ingredient in Round Up; paint stumps of the few glossy buckthorn and Asian bittersweet plants that cannot be pulled by the roots; and spray leaves of poison ivy that pose a health hazard because of their proximity to walking paths. The bulk of invasive removal will continue to be done by hand with volunteers and young people. Cutting knotweed to prevent its spread, pulling buckthorn and bittersweet by the roots with weed wrenches, snipping catbrier, and weeding garlic mustard will all continue with the generous assistance of volunteers.

Signs, some type of lightweight fencing or means to rope off an area, and publicity on this website will alert park users to herbicide use. Notification will go out a few days in advance and areas will be roped off for a week to ten days following herbicide treatments. Special precautions will be taken to limit spread of herbicide in the broader enviroment. To learn more, you can go to the Woodlands Restoration page and read specifics.

People who came out to last Saturday's (March 8th) meeting, including many FPC volunteers, listened carefully to the the proposal to save the Franklin Park woodlands - Boston's oldest and perhaps largest forest. As one said afterwards, "if you think of it in terms of a cost-benefit analysis, it makes total sense. We're impacting our woodland environment with a small amount of herbicide in order to save the entire woodland. One chipmunk may become ill, but if we don't act, the park will turn into a knotweed desert and not a single native creature will find it habitable."

Do you have questions? concerns? add to this blog!

A team from the B.U. School of Environmental Health will be helping evaluate and test conditions before and after herbicide use. They can answer public health concerns, understand the impact, and are following the emerging science around invasives control.

The Seaver and Blue Hill Avenue corridor is no better. Despite traffic lights and crosswalks, getting across four lanes with drag racers ignoring red lights means that families often stay home rather than risk a trip to the playground. Cutting down towering street trees and road "improvements" on American Legion Highway has increased speeding on that road also.

When parks and active play are increasingly turned to as a key solution to childhood obesity, we are limiting access.  

A transportation study for Franklin Park is currently in the works. We hope that recommendations will include increased pedestrian access. The Franklin Park Coalition would like to see fewer cars in the park, but it's not always easy or safe to get to the park without a car. What issues have you faced walking, bicycling or taking the T to the park?  

The park does suffer from what the police call "quality of life crimes" that are not a threat to anyone but mean added trash or unsavoriness in the park. Roaring motor bikes, some drug use, a drinking party, or the occasional smell of pot impact our experience of the park and may chase people away.

The Franklin Park Coalition has advocated for more Park Ranger patrols in Franklin Park - a rider in uniform on horseback is a great deterent to quality of life crimes and makes people using the park FEEL safer. Horses can access the woodland paths and riders notice more than they would if they were in a patrol car. Among the FPC Board and broader membership we have imagined a dedicated park ranger during the warmer seasons. This would be someone we can get to know, who will learn the different areas of the park, hear about trouble spots from park users, and do nature education with young people and park visitors. A few dog walkers are wary of this. More frequent Ranger patrols might crack down on off-leash dogs.

In my decade as an active park user I have never once felt frightened or that I was compromising my safety by walking in the park alone. But how about you? Have you felt safe? Have you stayed away from the park out of fear? Would a park ranger you can get to know make a difference?

--Christine Poff, Franklin Park Coalition

The Franklin Park Coalition has long believed that a healthy park is only possible if the communities around it are healthy and vibrant. One Friday a month I participate in the Egleston Square Main Streets business development committee, working to bring pedestrians and shoppers to the area and to entice restaurants and services that will serve the community and park users. Tonight I attended the monthly Shattuck Partners meeting working to bring wellness resources to the hospital community. I am looking forward to a meeting with the national Student Conservation Association whose urban youth coordinator is eager to help with our summer youth conservation crews. They will bring decades of experience to our program, greatly enriching what FPC teens will get from their summer job.

These are such diverse partnerships - but all will bring benefits and improvements to the park, not always directly, but by strengthening the communities that abut the park.

Are you involved in a community or neighborhood group that would benefit from a connection to FPC? Or that would bring something to the park?  Post a comment, let us know!

--Christine Poff, Franklin Park Coalition