February Update: Love Your City and Bus Benches

Hello Worcester Strong Towners!

Next Meeting: Our next general meeting is this Saturday, February 7th, from 4pm-5:30pm. This meeting will be held in person at Technocopia at 44 Portland Street (please use the furthest door to the left and the intercom – you’ll need to scroll to Technocopia on the touchscreen to call up).

We will be starting with a presentation from Nathan Lewis about the Vernon Connected initiative and we’ll be doing a “Love Your City” activity. In addition, if you are able, we think it would be great if those attending would consider bringing a food item for the community fridge located just outside the Printers’ Building on Portland Street! You can find information about the “Woo Fridges” here.

Post-Meeting Social: After the meeting, we’ll be continuing the conversation (casually!) at the Cocktail Garden and Kitchen, at 64 Franklin Street. Everyone is welcome to join!

January Recap: Thank you to everyone for attending our January meeting. Some of the ideas brainstormed during the meeting included: a bus bench building program, group bike rides through Worcester, blog posts on Parking Reform, a Strong Towns book club, a newcomer’s guide, social events, more trash pickups, a QR code form to report dangerous intersections, and many more examples on our Discord. Let’s make 2026 a great year for the organization!

Action Items

Bus Benches: Speaking of bus benches, for anyone interested, we’ll be meeting at 5:30 PM the second Monday of each month at Technocopia to build them. Our next bus bench meeting will be February 9th.

Vernon Connected: The planning effort regarding the future of the Vernon Street Bridge continues. If you’ve ever encountered an issue with the transportation network in this area, you can add a marker to this interactive map to bring the project team’s attention to it.

Social Media Director: We are currently looking for a volunteer for a Social Media Director. This volunteer would join the leadership team and assist in running our Instagram, Bluesky, Facebook, and more. Please reach out to strongtowns.worcester@gmail.com for more information or if you have any interest in other leadership roles over the next year!

Call to Action! If you’re capable, and live near a bus stop, we’d love to see some community help shoveling them out. If you do, post a picture in our discord, or tag us on social media, so that we can share.

Updates

New Website: We are continuing work on a new Strong Towns Worcester website! We are planning to launch this website soon.

What are we watching? Check out this video on YouTube about the “Swamp Rabbit Trail Network,” a 28 mile, multi-use greenway in and around Greenville, South Carolina!

Ongoing Efforts

• We continue to advocate for the Now|Next Plan, the Vision Zero Safety Action Plan, the Mobility Action Plan, and the Housing Production Plan.

Social Media

We have an Instagram, a Discord, a Facebook group, a Facebook page, and a Bluesky. We’d love to see you there and hear your thoughts! If you have any pictures or other Worcester-specific content you’d like us to post, please share!

Thank you for your continued interest! We look forward to bringing you more in the future.