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The City of Boston Planning Department presented a higher-level concept for a redesign of Cleveland Circle on June 20.

The current proposed redesign, which is aimed at improving pedestrian safety, will place a flexible public realm space between Sutherland Road and Beacon Street in front of Cityside Tavern.

“We think this should be raised to sidewalk grade, but can still facilitate vehicle access for loading purposes, potentially parking, potentially food trucks. [It] could be anything,” says Colin Frederickson, transportation planner for the City of Boston. “We would want it to be built to a condition where it could handle multiple different types of activity, so that it can suit the needs of the abutting businesses and the community nearby.”

In addition to the public realm plaza, the project will consolidate several curbs to shorten the length and number of crosses needed to get through Cleveland Circle. For instance, several pedestrian islands on Beacon Street will be consolidated into larger curb spaces. 

Grey Black, an Allston-Brighton resident and member of the Planning Department’s Community Engagement staff, says that the changes are meant to make the movement of pedestrians and vehicles more predictable within the circle.

“People are making a lot of reckless decisions moving through Cleveland Circle,” says Grey Black. 

“If they’re not different islands in the intersection that they’re dodging or they’re not waiting for people to jaywalk, because pedestrians are unsure of how long they have to actually get across, this should make navigating through this in a vehicle a lot, a lot more safe, and a lot more predictable.” 

These changes are modifications to a similar proposal in the Allston-Brighton Mobility Plan, which was completed five years earlier and had also proposed a public plaza and consolidating curbs. 

Some of these changes were in response to feedback on the Allston-Brighton Community Plan as well as the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA) Green Line Transformation Project. The MBTA project will remove several existing tracks in Cleveland Circle and replace the remaining tracks with ones that can accommodate its tracks in anticipation of its updated fleet of Green Line trains. 

Because some elements of the project depend on the progress of the MBTA Green Line Transformation Project, Frederickson provides a rough estimate of ten years for the timeline. Though other elements outside of the MBTA purview could occur before the MBTA completes its work, he says that the city would need to find separate funding, potentially in the form of grants, to complete them.

Several residents during the meeting pushed the city to move faster with these changes. 

“Ten years would be way too long to make these sort of no-brainer improvements that are going to dramatically increase safety for the residents that are there,” says Cobi Frongillo.

The changes will be a part of the Allston-Brighton Community Plan draft and zoning articles, which will be released later this summer, according to Halverson.