Re: [DSNC] Digest for davissquarenc@googlegroups.com - 5 updates in 2 topics
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Fred Berman
Feb 21, 2026, 5:16:25 PM (16 hours ago) Feb 21
to daviss...@googlegroups.com
Thanks to Christopher for the analysis, and Hume for reading my mind regarding the need for additional sampling/data collection. I have no idea about the difference in demographics of the tenants in Watermark and the likely would-be tenants in Davis. Is the Watermark a collection of studios and 1BRs, or does it also house families? I have no idea whether the Davis tenants will be using their apartments as offices or periodically commuting. Will they be perfectly happy to do their shopping at H-Mart, or want to Uber to Stop & Shop or Whole Foods? Will they be people who cook for themselves, or will they more likely order out. Will they get meal kits once a week or just go downstairs to get pizza or Indian or Thai food a few steps away. Will tenant behavior change when the weather warms up? Are tenants more likely to pick up their coffee or take out when it's a nice day? .... In other words, Christopher has illustrated the power of data modeling, but we need more data to enhance the likelihood that the data is predictive.
On Sat, Feb 21, 2026, 12:40 PM <daviss...@googlegroups.com> wrote:
Christopher Beland <bel...@alum.mit.edu>: Feb 20 11:27PM -0500
**Short answer:** At peak times, about 1 every 5 minutes (12 per hour).
**Methodology:** I spent an hour this evening during the dinner delivery peak (according to Door Dash and Uber) in the lobby of the Market Central Watermark tower. I observed:
* Deliveries: 6 (5 food, 1 Amazon)
* Pickups: 1 (sports gear)
* Residents in: 41 (many with their own meal bags or groceries)
* Residents out: 37
* Dogs being walked: 2
Scaling up from 285 units to 502, 7 deliveries and pickups per hour for Watermark is the equivalent of 12 per hour for Copper Mill.
I'd estimate most deliveries took 30-60 seconds - just long enough to enter, attempt to open the inner door, put the bag down, take a photo, and leave. Some went to the rear entrance, where there is a surface parking lot; some went to the front entrance and stopped with hazards on in the travel lane on Mass Ave. One delivery came via scooter, and the delivery person then picked up cookies at Crumbl next door and got back on their scooter to deliver that elsewhere.
Packages are held for residents in a locked room between the rear loading dock and the lobby, and fetched by a concierge. There is only a small table for food deliveries, though when the concierge is not present, they were left in the vestibule. I infer that large trucks with lots of packages (which tend to arrive during business hours, not dinner time) use the loading dock. The Market Central Link building has a separate loading dock which says a reservation is required. (There are also restaurants which need to get deliveries in both buildings.)
**Upshot for Copper Mill:**
There will be demand for quick delivery parking immediately next to the residential entrance on Grove Street. This could be accommodated by indenting a wide sidewalk to make a pull-off. Some single-parcel drivers might also be willing to pull their personal cars into the loading dock if it does not involve opening a door.
Grove Street is a 40-foot right-of-way, and is designated as a Neighborway by the Bike Network Plan - shared travel lane with cars, with traffic calming. On this type of road, 974 CMR 2.07 calls for 9-foot travel lanes and 1-foot shoulders. Given Grove Street is two-way, this leaves 10 feet on each side for sidewalks (and trees and driveway aprons) on each side. So to make a 9-foot-wide pull-off, either Grove Street would need to be made one-way, or the Copper Mill building couldn't go all the way up to the property line.
On page 56 of the 40B application, Copper Mill proposes putting the edge of the building at least 11 feet back from the property line, leaving enough room for on-street parking (or loading zone) for the entire frontage on Grove Street, except where the loading dock is. It looks like there's enough room there for 4 parallel parking spaces, each about 22 feet in length.
If I've done my Poisson distribution math right, assuming 12 randomly-distributed, 60-second deliveries per hour, the chances of getting through a peak hour without having more cars than spaces at the same time are:
* 1 space - 37%
* 2 spaces - 94%
* 3 spaces - 99.67%
So having 3 spaces would probably be fine except maybe once or twice a year, and most days the third space wouldn't be needed. Even during peak eats, all of the spaces would be empty 80% of the time. It's possible if they are not blocking a travel lane, drivers would linger a bit longer to figure out where to pick up next. From what I see, they do tend to double-park longer in front of restaurants, presumably because they actually need to wait for staff help, or sometimes for food to be ready.
When there are not simultaneous deliveries happening, loading zone spaces would be available for ridehailing passengers, though these could also be directed to a nearby passenger pickup/dropoff zone. (Quantifying demand for ridehailing would require more research - peak travel and eating times are different, I couldn't watch both curbs at the same time, and Watermark has underground parking.)
-B.
<hu...@comcast.net>: Feb 21 11:25AM -0500
Hello Chris,
This is truly impressive work. However, it is a single sample, on a particular evening. Do you think it’s worth commissioning a professional analysis that would widen the scope to capture cases you may have overlooked?
For example, this was school vacation week. Does that affect the results?
Are Fridays typical of other days? Maybe people go out more Friday, order in more Tuesday. I don’t know.
What happens if it rains/snows? Maybe a significant portion of the 40 residents with meals or groceries would order in on those occasions.
What happens on moving day, supposing something like 15% yearly turnover? ~50 – 100 novices trying to navigate U-Hauls and overpacked cars, Ikea vans, etc.?
What you have shown is very much in the vein of what I believe the DSNC needs to understand to develop an informed opinion on the impact of the proposed tower, and what mitigations might be necessary. Do you agree it’s important to broaden your analysis to be confident of covering a comprehensive set of scenarios?
-Hume
(And, no, we don’t have to consider the case where parent’s weekend coincides with the World Series coming to Fenway Park, the Beanpot, and, I don’t know, the kickoff of the Boston Early Music Festival. Oh, and Honk!)
From: 'Christopher Beland' via Davis Square Neighborhood Council <daviss...@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Friday, February 20, 2026 11:28 PM
To: daviss...@googlegroups.com
Subject: [DSNC] How much delivery traffic does 500 housing units generate?
Short answer: At peak times, about 1 every 5 minutes (12 per hour).
Methodology: I spent an hour this evening during the dinner delivery peak (according to Door Dash and Uber) in the lobby of the Market Central Watermark tower. I observed:
* Deliveries: 6 (5 food, 1 Amazon)
* Pickups: 1 (sports gear)
* Residents in: 41 (many with their own meal bags or groceries)
* Residents out: 37
* Dogs being walked: 2
Scaling up from 285 units to 502, 7 deliveries and pickups per hour for Watermark is the equivalent of 12 per hour for Copper Mill.
I'd estimate most deliveries took 30-60 seconds - just long enough to enter, attempt to open the inner door, put the bag down, take a photo, and leave. Some went to the rear entrance, where there is a surface parking lot; some went to the front entrance and stopped with hazards on in the travel lane on Mass Ave. One delivery came via scooter, and the delivery person then picked up cookies at Crumbl next door and got back on their scooter to deliver that elsewhere.
Packages are held for residents in a locked room between the rear loading dock and the lobby, and fetched by a concierge. There is only a small table for food deliveries, though when the concierge is not present, they were left in the vestibule. I infer that large trucks with lots of packages (which tend to arrive during business hours, not dinner time) use the loading dock. The Market Central Link building has a separate loading dock which says a reservation is required. (There are also restaurants which need to get deliveries in both buildings.)
Upshot for Copper Mill:
There will be demand for quick delivery parking immediately next to the residential entrance on Grove Street. This could be accommodated by indenting a wide sidewalk to make a pull-off. Some single-parcel drivers might also be willing to pull their personal cars into the loading dock if it does not involve opening a door.
Grove Street is a 40-foot right-of-way, and is designated as a Neighborway by the Bike Network Plan - shared travel lane with cars, with traffic calming. On this type of road, 974 CMR 2.07 calls for 9-foot travel lanes and 1-foot shoulders. Given Grove Street is two-way, this leaves 10 feet on each side for sidewalks (and trees and driveway aprons) on each side. So to make a 9-foot-wide pull-off, either Grove Street would need to be made one-way, or the Copper Mill building couldn't go all the way up to the property line.
On page 56 of the 40B application, Copper Mill proposes putting the edge of the building at least 11 feet back from the property line, leaving enough room for on-street parking (or loading zone) for the entire frontage on Grove Street, except where the loading dock is. It looks like there's enough room there for 4 parallel parking spaces, each about 22 feet in length.
If I've done my Poisson distribution math right, assuming 12 randomly-distributed, 60-second deliveries per hour, the chances of getting through a peak hour without having more cars than spaces at the same time are:
* 1 space - 37%
* 2 spaces - 94%
* 3 spaces - 99.67%
So having 3 spaces would probably be fine except maybe once or twice a year, and most days the third space wouldn't be needed. Even during peak eats, all of the spaces would be empty 80% of the time. It's possible if they are not blocking a travel lane, drivers would linger a bit longer to figure out where to pick up next. From what I see, they do tend to double-park longer in front of restaurants, presumably because they actually need to wait for staff help, or sometimes for food to be ready.
When there are not simultaneous deliveries happening, loading zone spaces would be available for ridehailing passengers, though these could also be directed to a nearby passenger pickup/dropoff zone. (Quantifying demand for ridehailing would require more research - peak travel and eating times are different, I couldn't watch both curbs at the same time, and Watermark has underground parking.)
-B.
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Mieke Citroen <mie...@gmail.com>: Feb 21 11:57AM -0500
This is phenomenal. Thank you for doing that.
Even though one sample hour is not enough data for big decisions, it
absolutely shows that it could work and we should look at it. I'd be happy
to do data gathering for an hour or two, just observing and recording.
--Mieke
On Fri, Feb 20, 2026, 23:27 'Christopher Beland' via Davis Square
Colin McMillen <colin.m...@gmail.com>: Feb 20 01:35PM -0500
If we already voted in the Board elections a few months ago, is there a need to re-verify?
On Fri, Feb 20, 2026, at 12:28 PM, Elaine Almquist wrote:
Ashish Shrestha <ashres...@gmail.com>: Feb 21 08:36AM -0800
Given the likelihood of another large storm before a major DSNC meeting
(the weather gods really seem to hate us!) is there a plan to have remote
verification prior to Monday's meeting as well? Same as we're doing
in-person verification at the start of the meeting?
On Friday, February 20, 2026 at 1:35:49 PM UTC-5 Colin McMillen wrote:
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