Last fall, Metro Credit Union — located at the corner of Main and Sylvan, near the Malden border — submitted plans to the city to construct a drive-through on the premises. This week, we are pleased to share that Metro Credit Union has withdrawn the drive-through designs, based on negative community feedback and discomfort from the Zoning Board of Appeals in granting the variances requested to construct the drive-through.
Our members strongly opposed those plans for the negative community impacts a new vehicular drive-through would impose in the area. Expanding automobile infrastructure on a site has been shown repeatedly to increase auto traffic locally — a dynamic which is anathema to the community’s goals for curbing the most extreme impacts of climate change, and to the principals of “Healthy Community Design” enshrined in the city’s Master Plan. It is for these reasons that drive-through establishments are already banned in our transit-oriented zoning overlays, a restriction we feel should be applied citywide. In a small city with access to three different forms of public transportation, active modes of last-mile transit should be encouraged in all of our neighborhoods.
The PBC champions our local business community. In encouraging Melrosians to make walking and biking their primary modes of transportation, we explicitly a vibrant public life centered around our small businesses and local institutions. We congratulate Metro Credit Union on the continued growth of their operations and hope to see them submit new plans in the future which upgrade their building design while not attempting to expand access on-site parking.