October Update: CMRPC Presentation, Main Street Visioning, and Ballot Question 7

Hello Worcester Strong Towners!

General Meeting

Our next general meeting is Saturday, October 24, at 4 PM. This meeting, we will have a presentation from the Central Massachusetts Regional Planning Commission (CMRPC) on their Regional Housing and Transportation Study. The meeting will be at Technocopia, 44 Portland St. Please buzz in at the door to be let upstairs!

Thank you to everyone that attended our September meeting. We conducted a walk audit of Grove Street – there was a great turnout. The audit itself was quite revealing. Be on the lookout in the future for our walk audit report! Also, a big thank you to everyone that attended our September 19th bike ride!

Action Items

(1) Legalize Starter Homes is Question 7 on this November’s ballot! This is an initiative to update zoning laws across Massachusetts to allow single-family homes on smaller lots than may be the case in most communities. See this Ballotpedia page for a quick rundown on what a “YES” and a “NO” vote would mean.

Strong Towns Worcester will be participating in door knocking for this question in favor of “YES.” If you’re interested in joining, please RSVP for October 17th here! And thank you to everyone that participated on October 3rd!

And check out the official Strong Towns podcast with an interview with Andrew Mikula from the Legalize Starter Homes initiative.

(2) There are two City meetings this week that could seriously impact street safety and road improvements, and we would encourage everyone who is able to attend:

  • October 14th (Wednesday), 5:30 PM to 7:30 PM: Transportation and Mobility is hosting a preliminary visioning meeting to discuss Complete Streets redesigns of the section of Main Street between Chandler and May. If you live, work, or travel on Main Street, please come add your voice to the visioning process. Location: Central Community Branch YMCA, 766 Main St.

  • October 15th (Thursday), 6 PM: There is a meeting to discuss already planned and designed improvements to Chandler and May Streets, in front of Worcester State University. Some community members have been vocally against these improvements; we especially need urbanists in favor of traffic calming to show up and show support for the proposed design. Location: Worcester Dual Language Magnet School, 525 Chandler Street.

(3) Worcester’s City Council’s next meeting is October 13th. You can view the upcoming agendas and all of its other files here (just look for City Council under “Meeting Title” on the left).

Just to keep it on the radar: the City Council will be setting tax rates for the following fiscal year in November. These rates are ultimately the guideposts for what the next budget will look like – whether the City can expand services or cut them. Keep an eye out for those discussions!

Call to Action

Going forward, we’d like to compile the information we’ve received from walk audits into outreach materials for the City. If you’re interested in helping to write walk audit reports, please contact Will Talbot on Discord or at wmtz15@gmail.com!

Ongoing Information

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

Sustainable Worcester: Sustainable Worcester shares resources on how to live sustainably in our city. That includes a calendar of events! You can check out their website here, and their calendar at this link!

Where You Can Find Us

We have an Instagram, a Discord, a Facebook group, a Facebook page, and a Bluesky. And you can find us at www.strongtownsworcester.org. 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.