Reconstructed Dudley Square Municipal Parking Lot Reopens to Roxbury Drivers
Today, the Boston Transportation Department (BTD) announced that the Dudley Square Municipal Parking Lot at #30 Ruggles Street re-opened on Tuesday, September 16. The public parking lot supports the surrounding business community by providing 77 free, short-term parking spaces for drivers who are visiting local shops, restaurants, the local branch of the Boston Public Library, offices, and other neighborhood establishments. The newly-renovated facility is now fully ADA-compliant, and is the City of Boston’s first green municipal parking lot outfitted with environmentally friendly components, including bicycle racks
“The renovated parking lot is a great investment in Dudley Square to add to the economic development momentum in the neighborhood,” said Mayor Martin J. Walsh. “The final product is both functional and aesthetically pleasing, and is another step forward in making Boston’s neighborhoods more green, efficient, and accessible. This is the newest in a series of positive contributions to the Dudley Square area.”
“This parking lot is important to the Dudley Square business community,” said Ron Garry, Jr., owner of Tropical Foods Market. “Having the ability to offer free parking to our customers in a convenient location is an advantage that we are happy to have available to us.”
The Ruggles Street parking lot cost $600,000 to reconstruct. The parking lot offers five additional parking spaces than it did previously and, for the first time, it includes a bike rack to welcome residents and visitors who prefer to cycle. In addition, it is now fully ADA-compliant, providing new ramps and sidewalks leading into the lot to ensure access for patrons with physical disabilities. It also offers designated parking spaces with extra room for vehicles that are outfitted with equipment for drivers and passengers who utilize wheelchairs. Other improvements include new asphalt pavement and thermoplastic pavement markings, which replaced cracked and crumbling concrete, the replacement of old streetlights with new LED lights and the addition of more LED lights, and decorative fencing, trees and shrubs.
The new Ruggles Street facility is also the City of Boston’s first green municipal parking lot, incorporating environmentally friendly structural components. It includes a bio retention area for storm water management designed to divert storm water run-off away from storm drains that lead to a body of water in the area, such as Boston Harbor. The lot also utilizes special soil and landscaping that works to break down pollutants organically before the storm water becomes ground water.
A second municipal parking lot in Dudley Square was also recently reconstructed. The lot, located at #44 Warren Street, is now fully ADA-compliant. The reconstruction cost $150,000 and was completed in July. It resulted in an increase of parking spaces from 23 to 25, the incorporation of a drainage system, new LED lighting, asphalt paving and thermoplastic pavement markings, decorative fencing and landscaping, including plant beds, trees and a shrub border. The lot previously had no drainage system and no lighting.
“BTD manages and maintains 32 municipal-owned parking lots that supply a total of 1,373 in-demand parking spaces in neighborhoods throughout the City,” said James E. Gillooly, Interim Commissioner of the Boston Transportation Department. “Short-term parking is available in these lots Monday through Saturday, from 8:00 AM to 6:00 PM, with no time constraints during the evenings and all day on Sundays. Renovations to all of the municipal parking lots are completed on a rotating basis with several lots being improved each year.”
