Fwd: Elm-Beacon Connector Project Updates

[Anna Leslie]

---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: Katherine White <kwh...@somervillema.gov>
Date: Thu, Aug 28, 2025 at 1:45 PM
Subject: Elm-Beacon Connector Project Updates
To: Transportation <transpo...@somervillema.gov>

Greetings, 

You are receiving this email because you either attended the virtual September community meeting or signed up at the March open house for updates on the Elm-Beacon Connector Project. We are excited to reach out to you with new project updates. 

Concept Design Community Engagement Report 

In March of 2025, the City published a concept design for the Elm-Beacon Connector project. The design included quick-build protected bike lanes, clear corners, parking regulation proposals, traffic signal changes and closing the southbound motor vehicle connection between Mossland Street and Cedar Street. 

We shared these designs at an open house on March 10 at the Kennedy School and spent the following month engaging community members to gather feedback and promote awareness about the project. This included outreach activities like 

• tabling at the Kennedy School parent teacher conferences 
• hosting a street outreach pop-up on Elm Street at Hancock Street 
• holding a virtual office hour 
• conducting an online feedback survey 
• meeting with businesses one-on-one along the street 
• posting fliers on over 400 homes in the project area 
• and meeting with our Pedestrian and Transit Advisory Committee and Somerville Bicycle Advisory Committee. 

We’d like to thank community members who participated and shared feedback. Please check out our Elm-Beacon Connector Concept Design Community Engagement Report which describes all the outreach activities we held and what we heard. We estimate that we spoke with over 571 people in these efforts. 

Updated Limit of Work 

We are excited to announce that we have expanded the scope of the project to include the intersection of Somerville Avenue at Craigie Street. We appreciate all the community members who shared their safety concerns about this specific location. We will now be including quick-build changes at this intersection to increase safety and comfort. We will share the new design when we publish final designs for this project later this year. This work will connect to the future quick-build protected bike lanes planned for Somerville Avenue between Elm Street and Bow Street.  

Updated Timeline 

City staff are working to incorporate the feedback we heard into a final design. We had originally hoped to begin delivering this project in late 2025, however, we ended up dedicating more time in the early summer to review and process all the community input we heard. It has also taken more time than anticipated to incorporate all of that feedback into the next phase of the design plans. We are now expecting to finalize the design by the end of the year and publish the final plans in January 2026. We will then conduct the bidding process over the rest of the winter and start implementation first thing in the Spring of 2026. 

If you have any questions, please reach out to transpo...@somervillema.gov. 

 For all project information, please visit www.somervillema.gov/elmbeacon.  

Thank you for your time and engagement, 

Kate 

Kate White (she/her/hers)

Transportation Planner - Outreach & Engagement, Mobility Division

Mayor’s Office of Strategic Planning & Community Development, City of Somerville

93 Highland Ave., Somerville MA 02143

kwh...@somervillema.gov 

P: (617) 366-7293

 
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