City of Boston, MA Ruggles Street Reconstruction

Ruggles Street is a part of an evolving neighborhood “Green Links” system that enhances connections between city neighborhoods and Boston’s legacy green spaces of the Emerald Necklace, Southwest Corridor, and the Charles River. The City of Boston launched a project to create a safe and complete neighborhood street with an attractive walking environment, comfortable bicycling for all ages and abilities, walking and bicycling connections to gathering places, calmed traffic, and improved lighting and landscaping.

GPI worked with the City of Boston on the redesign of Ruggles Street between Tremont Street and Washington Street. For most of the project limits, Ruggles Street was a one-way street with on-street parking, while the cross-section varied greatly from block to block. The redesigned street incorporates traffic calming and multi-modal transportation improvements, new sidewalks with curb extensions, raised crosswalks, a raised intersection, bicycle accommodations (including a protected contra-flow bike lane), transit stop improvements, street trees, lighting, and public art.

GPI collaborated with several city departments and the Madison Park Development Corporation through a stakeholder engagement process that included public workshops, a project page on the city’s website, site walks, and several online surveys. The project involved a comprehensive analysis of on-street and municipal parking (use and ZIP code analysis of parked cars) to understand who would be affected by converting on-street parking spaces to pedestrian and bicyclist space.