Resident Letter: Implement Immediate Safety Enhancements on Lynn Fells Parkway in Melrose

Note: the below open letter was written by community members who live in the neighborhood near the intersections of Lynn Fells Parkway and Linden, Bellevue, Elm, and Batchelder Streets. On the night of Sunday, September 4th, these residents awoke to a fatal motor vehicle crash outside their homes — the third major crash they have lived through this summer. They are asking the agency which manages Lynn Fells Parkway, the Department of Conservation and Recreation (DCR), to take immediate action to improve street safety in this area. Our committee firmly supports the goals of these residents, and we are sharing this letter in order to bring greater awareness to this very serious public safety issue.

We have also created a petition to allow other Melrose residents to sign onto the neighborhood letter. If you support a safer Lynn Fells Parkway, you can sign the petition here. We have included photos of other recent crashes at this exact location below, which were provided to us by members of the neighborhood.

To:
Commissioner Doug Rice, Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation

CC:
Mayor Paul Brodeur
City Councilor John Obremski 
Sen. Jason Lewis
Rep. Kate Lipper-Garabedian
Melrose Pedestrian & Bicyclist Committee

September 5, 2022

To Commissioner Rice and the staff of the Department of Conservation and Recreation:

Last night, our neighborhood witnessed a violent crash on Lynn Fells Parkway that left at least one person dead. Sadly, this was only the latest in a series of tragic episodes on this stretch of roadway. Just five days ago, a driver veered off the road and totaled their car immediately across the street. Earlier this summer, another driver crashed in exactly the same location as last night’s fatality, also with severe consequences.

The fact that our neighborhood has grown accustomed to rushing out to this area of the parkway to witness injury and death underscores a grim reality: this is by far one of the most dangerous and poorly designed roads in Melrose. At this point, most of us will not walk near Lynn Fells Parkway out of concern for our safety. Other vulnerable uses, such as letting our children walk along or across Lynn Fells Parkway, are out of the question.

There is a bitter irony in the fact that a road built and maintained by the Commonwealth specifically for recreational purposes is also probably the one where Melrosians are most likely to feel unsafe. Sadly, the roadway design of Lynn Fells Parkway shows little concern for the neighborhood’s residential character and the road’s recreational purpose. Instead, it facilitates unsafe speeding of the kind that has resulted in the recent crashes and loss of life.

We demand that DCR implement short-term interventions at the quickest possible opportunity and also establish a study group to investigate safety interventions on Lynn Fells Parkway before the end of this calendar year. As neighbors, we can no longer tolerate a so-called “parkway” that regularly produces violence and death on our doorsteps and makes our community unsafe to cross, whether on foot, mobility device, bicycle, or even in a car. The DCR’s own adopted Parkways Master Plan identifies the many deficiencies in parkway design throughout the Commonwealth. Immediate, short-term safety interventions on Lynn Fells Parkway must ultimately be followed by a thorough redesign of these unsafe roadways.  

As residents of Melrose, we will organize and support collaboration with the City’s Department of Public Works, and insist that our elected representatives hold DCR officials to account for fulfilling the agency’s obligation to steward safe travel corridors that prioritize recreational use. We all look forward to the day when we can celebrate a treasured parkway, designed with all users’ safety considerations in mind, running through the heart of Melrose.

Sincerely,

[[[the undersigned]]]