The City of Melrose has recently kicked off a public process to conduct a feasibility study for the Ell Pond Park property. In the initial phase of the project, the city hired Weston & Sampson Design Studio to perform a survey of existing conditions and draw up a sample set of three design alternatives. Those design alternatives, which can be viewed here as part of the city’s public presentation, all present roughly equivalent visions of the park as it exists today.
As advocates for accessible, sustainable open spaces within Melrose, the Ped/Bike Committee has published the following open letter regarding our feedback for the park design. We encourage the city to favor design alternatives which acknowledge Ell Pond’s status as Melrose’s only true urban park, making it a critically important “passive recreation” resource within our city. Just as we advocate for our streets to be safe for all residents “from 8 to 80,” we encourage the city to design a park that focuses on the city’s 8- and 80-year olds alike. By visiting the park midsummer and observing where the park’s youngest and oldest users are, one can quickly get a sense of the sorts of shaded, passively-focused areas around which we feel the new designs should center.
This letter was sent to the city’s project team, as well as to the Mayor’s office.
Date: January 23rd, 2021
To: Members of the Ell Pond Feasibility Study Project Team
CC: Mayor Brodeur; Patrick Prendergast
Re: Ell Pond Park Feasibility Study
Dear members of the project team,
The members and officers of the Melrose Pedestrian and Bicycle Advisory Committee (PBC) have prepared the following letter to share our collective feedback regarding the initial stages of the Ell Pond Park Feasibility Study. The PBC is a volunteer group of Melrose residents who encourage, and advocate for, safer walking and bicycling conditions in the city of Melrose. Walking and bicycling are inherently local, and our advocacy, at its core, is about building a stronger, more sustainable city, powered by community activation and engagement. In developing our recommendations, we focused on ways to ensure Ell Pond Park, one of the most important public spaces in our community, remains open, inviting, and accessible to as many current and future Melrose residents and visitors as possible.
At this stage, our main recommendations to the project team are as follows:
- Choose a design which maximizes the amount of open “green” space and passive recreation opportunities for the community. For over a century, Ell Pond Park has served as the city’s recreational crown jewel. In the coming decades, as our community continues to grow and expand, the park’s importance will grow accordingly. Under any realistic growth scenario, the vast majority of future housing units built within Melrose will be located within multi-unit structures which may not have access to the sorts of private outdoor spaces that single-family homeowners in Melrose typically enjoy. Ensuring access to open space is a public health imperative, and we are obligated, as a city, to ensure our parks are available for the enjoyment of as many as possible.
While Melrose is equipped with many small parks and playgrounds as well as more rugged public spaces like the Middlesex Fells and Mount Hood, Ell Pond Park is the sole amenity in the city which fits the conventional definition of an urban public park, offering substantial open space for gathering and passive recreation. We therefore strongly recommend that the city not expand the total footprint of the existing organized sports fields, and instead focus on designs which improve the condition of existing fields while maximizing community gathering spaces (such as pavilions and picnic tables) as well as shaded areas, walking loops, and benches, which are of particular importance to elderly residents and parents of small children. These spaces should draw people inward, toward the pond edge, which for decades was the recreational focal point of the park. At present, the most commonly-used “informal” space within the park is likely the small shaded area next to the existing rain gardens. Here, for most of the year, you can find residents of the Fitch Home sitting on folding chairs, enjoying the shade, while parents relax on nearby blankets with their small children. Spaces like these are invaluable to the community, and demand for them is all but certain to grow over time. - Maximize connectivity via off-street pathways. We embrace the creation of a bridge connecting the Crystal Spring courts to the rest of the park, creating a true mixed-use off-street connection between Crystal Street and Tremont Street. In time, this creates an opportunity for a safer cycling loop utilizing Tremont, West Emerson, and Main Streets. Within the park, we recommend that the pathways be constructed wide enough to allow cyclists and pedestrians to occupy separate sides, or lanes, within the pathway. It is important to note that paths along the pond edge should be constructed so as to avoid disturbing existing vegetation wherever possible, and we urge that the construction of the footbridge be highly sensitive to the local environment, which is already under considerable pressure. We also recommend a formal connection to the bridge which connects to the DCR pool property.
- Enhance screening along the road edge to better insulate the park from drivers on Lynn Fells Parkway. Drivers on Lynn Fells Parkway expose park users to substantial amounts of noise and air pollution, while at the same time presenting a visual distraction which hinders enjoyment of the park. Any park redesign should consider ways to further enhance screening of auto traffic, which will improve these dynamics. One potential idea is to reserve a strip of land for the creation of a hedgerow, which the city could work with community groups like the Ell Pond Improvement Council (EPIC) and MHS Environmental Club to plant with native species. This approach would not only improve the dynamics from within the park, but would create a more inviting visual scene from outside. At present, when viewed from Lynn Fells Parkway, the property has the look of a sports complex rather than a public park. Screening of the sports fields from the roadway will make the property seem more like a multipurpose public park, which will help to invite more diverse and equitable community engagement.
- Explore options which reduce, or eliminate, the “Knoll” parking lot. Melrose is a dense, walkable suburb, one which claims for itself a reputation of being forward-thinking on decarbonization strategies. Melrose was among the state’s first 35 municipalities to be certified as a “Green Community” by the Department of Energy Resources, was a signatory to the 2015 MAPC Metropolitan Mayors Coalition “NetZero 2050” pledge, and is one of three communities currently working with MAPC to establish a framework for how cities and towns can achieve “net zero” within the next three decades. Under any realistic plan to achieve that goal, Melrose absolutely must shift as many trips as possible to non-automotive modes. The current plans, by assuming a considerable investment in automobile infrastructure which primarily serves a school age population, do not facilitate a proper community conversation around this point. We believe such a conversation is critical within the context of this project. Reducing or eliminating parking spaces within the project area would decrease direct capital costs, discourage local vehicle trips, encourage active travel modes, and send a signal that Melrose takes seriously its responsibility to prioritize sustainable mobility options and reduce local Vehicle Miles Traveled. Equivalent funds could then be spent improving non-automotive access to the park and school.
- Work with DCR to integrate the park into the Lynn Fells/Melrose St redesign. The Department of Conservation & Recreation has recently begun public outreach efforts on a redesign of the intersection of Lynn Fells Parkway, Melrose Street, and Crystal Street. This intersection lies directly on the northeastern edge of the park. Our committee has proposed a number of conceptual ideas for this work, including one which simplifies the intersection by using hardscape to close the southerly intersection of Lynn Fells Parkway and Melrose Street to vehicular traffic. A hardscape plaza at this location would extend the border of Ell Pond Park and improve traffic safety while maintaining emergency vehicular access. The city could then work with DCR to shorten the crossing across Lynn Fells Parkway at the northeasterly corner while creatively using plantings to extend the “experience” of the park through the redesigned intersection.
We embrace the fact that the design of a public space like Ell Pond Park, located at the heart of the community and serving many purposes, must involve balancing the needs of many different users. With that in mind, we feel that the current design alternatives place too little emphasis on open space and passive recreation, and insufficiently invite access to the park via walking and bicycling.
The PBC appreciates the city’s efforts to focus public attention, engagement, and ultimately investment toward this valuable city resource. We thank you for the opportunity to provide comment and look forward to seeing the work of the project team continue.