Newtonville Area Council - Survey on Washington Street Pilot

[Anne Goldbach]

Dear Friends and Neighbors,

If you have not had a chance to fill out the survey on the Washington Street Pilot program, please take a couple minutes to do so now. Your opinion is important!!

https://www.newtonvilleareacouncil.com/survey

Many thanks,
Anne


Anne Goldbach

[Damien Croteau-Chonka]

Some recent relevant reading on the topic:

Traffic Analysis Shows Newton Bikeway Project Reduced Car Traffic, Speeding, and Crashes
https://mass.streetsblog.org/2026/02/10/traffic-analysis-shows-newton-bikeway-project-reduced-car-traffic-speeding-and-crashes

"Vehicle volumes on the corridor have decreased without evidence of cut throughs on local roads, speeds within the pilot area have reduced, and bicycle activity has increased," according to a City of Newton technical memo.

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[Michael Halle]

To expand on Damien's point, the traffic counts show a decrease of traffic on Washington Street, and essentially unchanged traffic on Watertown St. (There was construction on Austin St when the counts were done in 2025, so we don't have data for that.)

Here's the traffic volume changes on Washington St and Watertown St:

Watertown St (east of Dunstan)

	Eastbound	Westbound
Weekday (Wed/Thu)	−27%	−12%
Weekend (Sat/Sun)	−17%	−14%

Watertown Street (east of Eden Ave)

	Eastbound	Westbound
Weekday	−3%	flat

The natural question would be, "where did all the traffic go?"  

Probably two answers: fewer commuters avoiding the Pike, and a reduction in trips. The largest business in the area, TJ's, actually saw more trips, and more left turns out of their driveway than before. 

I have the data from the Washington St pilot traffic counts. I have crash data from MassDOT, and air quality data from near Washington St as well. If there's specific questions you have, I can try and come up with an answer for you.

--Mike

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