Four candidates are vying for two Select Board seats in the upcoming Town election on March 26th. We asked them questions about their travel habits and opinions on street safety in order to help inform your vote. Below are the responses, published in full, edited only for small typos.
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1. How many times per month do you walk, bike, or roll in Andover and what types of trips do you take (recreational, commute, errands, school-related, etc.)? What barriers to walking and biking have you experienced around town?
Ellen Keller:
“I am a frequent walker in town and love all the trails that we have to enjoy. I walk several times a week around my neighborhood and in the conservation lands nearby. Most of my walks are recreational and I love to bring my dog when I can. I also enjoy walking (and shopping) downtown. I live in the Ballardvale neighborhood and find those streets very easy to navigate and reasonably safe. There are many sidewalks and traffic is generally manageable. I used to bike more often, but honestly do not feel safe doing so; however, I will admit that some of that is due to my own physical limitations. I would love to see more protected bike lanes and sidewalks literally everywhere possible and support Andover's Complete Streets initiatives. I would also encourage satellite parking areas dispersed through town to encourage those to use their bikes or other non-motorized transportation tools without having to navigate entirely from their residences. This would be especially helpful for those farthest from downtown. These lots exist but are not marketed for satellite parking.”
George Thorlin:
“I walk my pug Zori at least twice a day throughout my Summer Street neighborhood. Over this last summer, as the founder of Andover Safe Streets, I delivered hundreds of yellow 25 MPH signs in all the four corners of Andover and throughout the town. In my thirty-eight years of living in Andover I traveled many roadways for the first time. I spoke with hundreds of residents who shared their traffic frustrations and the lack of support and/or response by various town departments. This is one reason I am running for the Andover Select Board.”
Ellen Townson:
“Our family walks and bikes every day. My husband bikes 10-15 miles a day for fitness. My son Owen often bikes to school when roads are clear, and he occasionally either bikes or scooters to the downtown area for the gym or to spend time with friends, although I greatly worry for his safety, and feel the need to drive him during high traffic times. I often e-bike downtown for errands, and walk downtown for exercise because my own neighborhood is not safely connected to other roads. Some barriers my family has experienced are lack of safe biking on busier roads and more congested areas, including a lack of clarity on where and how we as bikers and pedestrians should navigate. I wish there were more bike friendly routes and bike racks for my family while shopping in different areas of town. My absolute biggest concern is that not all drivers are aware of the bikers and pedestrians and their road safety, often because the spaces are not designed yet with features for equal access. I value our sidewalk master plan as part of designing our streets and connectivity to support bikers and pedestrians, making sure they have safe and equitable access.”
Kevin Coffey:
“My wife and I walk 4-7 times per week, normally for several miles, primarily for exercise or recreation and sometimes for errands. We mostly walk along, in the neighborhoods surrounding, and on trails near Lowell Street between North Main Street and I-93. We sometimes walk from our home on Stafford Lane to the library or to shop Downtown, and occasionally to Main Street to catch an MVRTA bus.
Barriers to pleasant and safe walking include lack of sidewalks, deteriorated, muddy, or flooded sidewalks, and sidewalks encumbered with overgrown vegetation in many places, missing crosswalks and vehicle controls for safety, sidewalks too close to noisy, high-speed vehicle lanes, and general vehicle-driver insensitivity to pedestrians.
We lived in The Netherlands in the early 1990’s and well remember riding bicycles everywhere there (also teaching our children to ride while living there) on safe, protected paths and with accommodations for bicycles in every shopping area and train station. We have only rarely ridden in Andover because sharing the streets with vehicles here feels unsafe.”
2. The safety of vulnerable road users (pedestrians, bicyclists, etc.) has been a focus for Andover after a series of fatal crashes over the past several years. The town’s Vision Zero Policy places safe infrastructure at the center of these issues, and takes the stance that street design dictates user behavior and that no serious injuries or loss of life is acceptable on our streets. The Select Board also adopted a Complete Streets Policy in 2023, and a plan to implement them has been started. How will you ensure the implementation of infrastructure changes needed to achieve our goals of zero road fatalities and equal access for all transportation modes?
Ellen Keller:
“The Complete Streets initiative must become policy and be woven into the design guidelines for all new development and redevelopment. The planning board must refer to it; the building dept rely on it. Only then will see true investment in this new way of managing movement. As the policy setting body in Andover, the Select Board must ensure that all committee members appointed to do this work and staff members hired to enforce it understand and appreciate that this is how we want our streets to be configured. The word "street" must be reimagined so that we do not only think about cars and trucks. A "street" must become a term that inherently includes those NOT using a motor vehicle.”
George Thorlin:
“I strongly support the town's new Vision Zero Policy and look forward to the full embrace of its principles by the town. I also very much support the town's efforts with the newly adopted Complete Streets initiative. However, I am very concerned when I read it described by town officials as a "generational investment" and "multi-decade." effort. The town points out that it budgets approximately $1M per year for new sidewalks and repairs that would be additional with the low amount of state funding of $500K once every four years. I really don't see very much being accomplished any time soon. I strongly believe that the town needs to make significantly larger annual investments in the five-to-ten-million-dollar range. We need to remember that SAFE STREETS BUILD STRONG NEIGHBORHOODS and by extension great towns!”
Ellen Townson:
“It is important to keep the focus on these exact principles with every roadway project- from planning to maintenance. As a community, we need to consistently keep conversations and education going, while gathering together to create additional plans and features. Building these policies and visions into habits is the responsibility of our town leadership. The welfare of our residents, in terms of health and safety, must remain a priority. It is also important to consider design examples from other communities, ones that both work and don't work, so we can build on some and learn from others. I remember seeing shared streets arriving in Old San Juan and thinking that if it could be done in those narrow streets among compact development, it could absolutely be done at home in Andover. As the mother of a 13 year old son who has just started going downtown independently with friends this school year, I hold very tightly the fear that others feel about road safety. It will always motivate me to protect not just our children but all of our community members by keeping these policies and design features at the forefront of our decisions. I do feel Andover is very fortunate to have many residents with great strengths in this area who are willing to volunteer their time to make our streets safer and more equitable.”
Kevin Coffey:
“A small first step is to ensure that appropriate design elements and review steps are built into our zoning bylaws and plan review processes. This can create a series of incremental improvements. But we need other mechanisms to achieve bigger gains.
We have far too many initiatives, plans, master plans, visions, projects, policies, committees, and interest groups. We have no real discernable priorities among them, have dedicated little funding for any of them, and thus have achieved little in results. Critical, I believe, is to combine some of these efforts and build consensus on one or two projects to fund and complete. We should identify and choose these to be very visible, genuine steps forward, and tangible daily symbols of what can be achieved.
Even the plan being developed under the Complete Streets policy has roughly thirty potential projects identified. The two with possibilities of near-term funding are Essex Street and part of Lowell Street which, even if done well, connect to nothing else and are unlikely to be seriously impactful.
We need a bigger and more symbolic project to crystallize vision and commitment. An example might be really starting on the Shawsheen River improvements with a protected shared-use pathway along the river, linking Shawsheen to Downtown to Ballardvale, which would expose a beautiful natural asset in Andover and provide both recreational and non-vehicle transit benefits. Such a project will need huge community support as it will inevitably require redirecting funding from many current-consumption areas of the Town budget to a transformational investment over many years.”
3. Reducing vehicle miles traveled and encouraging active transportation options (walking, biking, rolling, and transit) are core goals of Andover’s new Climate Action Plan. What steps should Andover take to achieve these goals and what actions will you take to support them?
Ellen Keller:
“We must stop devoting so much open space to parking. Too much land is dedicated to the ease of using a car. We should reorient some of that space to shared bike use, and other bike amenities. I'd love to see bike rallies downtown and special demonstrations of the different types of non-motorized transportation options. Let's set up rental bike stations in satellite parking areas and at transit stops. I would REALLY love to see a downtown Trolley and have brought this up many times with town officials. The trolley should be free to use and could run from the History Center to Oak & Iron. This would dissuade folks from parking and moving their vehicles around town and would help businesses who complain that they need more parking.”
George Thorlin:
“I believe that the widespread and a quicker implementation of Complete Streets will have a significant impact on achieving Andover's new Climate Action Plan.”
Ellen Townson:
“Active transportation has so many incredible benefits beyond just environmental impact. The benefits to our physical and mental health are so important to our wellbeing both as individuals and to our community. Infrastructure and design features must be in place, and built on consistently, in order to encourage the opportunities to achieve those benefits. From a planning perspective, continued public participation in determining community needs and design solutions would bring residents into the loop in terms of understanding those values and benefits. Creating additional and more regular community challenges and events would be a great way for residents to take that first step towards experiencing and hopefully embracing active transportation. Personally, I would make sure to attend and encourage others, in hopes of leading by example.”
Kevin Coffey:
“Reducing driving miles can be encouraged with quality development creating additional employment and entertainment opportunities in Andover and creating protected non-vehicle paths along main transit routes to link residences to employers, schools, and business areas. At some point, parking lots and minimum parking requirements in zoning can begin to be reduced. This is inevitably a long-term effort and real challenge given our vehicle-centric existence and inventory of roads not intentionally built to accommodate riders and pedestrians.
As noted above, I believe that we should take one big step to deliver real benefits and illustrate potential.”
4. The new MBTA Communities Zoning Law acts to increase housing supply in town through transit-oriented development. How do you view the interaction between housing and transportation and how would you respond to resident concerns about increased vehicular congestion?
Ellen Keller:
“The zoning law was written to intentionally concentrate housing around transit nodes. Most transit locations are in the downtown areas of cities and towns. The idea will promote walking and biking organically as it will be easier for new residents to access the services they need without driving. Complaints about traffic are a tired excuse to shoot down new development. The one disappointment I see in Andover's plan is the addition of the River Road parcels. While this may increase development there, the location is far from any real transit options and support services. Anyone moving there will have to drive to get anything they need. But, if this is the concession we need to get this plan approved at Town Meeting, I support it. The benefits of the rezoning as a whole outweigh this one issue.”
George Thorlin:
“I support MBTA Communities and look forward to reviewing the new zoning recommendations that will be voted on at the Andover Town Meeting this April. I do have concerns about increased traffic resulting from 1,000+ MBTA Communities housing units located in the downtown area, along with the 160+ new housing units approved for the Old Town Yard development. My understanding is that for each MBTA unit one parking space will be allocated. I am concerned that most new residents will have at least two cars. Combine this with the 360+ parking spaces in the newly approved Old Town Yard development it comes to over 2,500 new vehicles in the downtown area with probably a 1,000 of those vehicles looking for a second overnight parking space. I would like to see a comprehensive downtown traffic study conducted before any zoning is changed. Do not forget that MBTA zoning will be by "RIGHT" of the developer and the town will have little control once it is adopted.”
Ellen Townson:
“This is the perfect opportunity, while this zoning is fresh in our minds, to gather together and start considering the plans that address warding off vehicular congestion through creative and thoughtful community design. There are wonderful design examples of this in other communities that would work so well here in Andover, both in function and in visual appeal. It is important that concerns and design solutions be addressed early in the planning stages, well before neighborhoods are developed. Again, it is important to gather together and listen to all concerns and perspectives as part of growing our community in a way that feels safe for all residents.“
Kevin Coffey:
“Being a member of the Andover MBTA Communities Zoning Working Group has immersed me in this topic and gave me the opportunity to listen to many resident views. Planning for housing growth near public transportation and, hopefully, more protected non-vehicle paths, make sense for starting to reduce our near-complete dependence on vehicles.
Feedback indicated that our Town was very concerned about downtown congestion if the whole of our MBTA was concentrated downtown, so we recommended that portions of the overlay zone be sited on River Road and in Ballardvale. Though the largest part of the zone will still be downtown, dividing significantly increases the likelihood of support and adoption at Town Meeting. If successfully implemented this way, we must start building commitment for effective non-vehicle connectivity between these three subzones and support and encourage thoughtful (re-)development on River Road and in Ballardvale.”
5. How could street design help improve Andover’s business and retail districts? What are the most needed roadway improvements to make Andover a more attractive place for both shoppers and business owners?
Ellen Keller:
“Our local businesses need customers. Anything that helps bring those customers into the stores deserves a close look. Now, if someone can't get a parking space, they move on. What if they didn't need a space? What if they could find a space at a remote lot and easily bike or enjoy a scenic walk? What if a trolley picked them up? What if we did a better job of linking our trails with our business centers with signage, artwork and places to rest? Again, we should shift our focus from cars alone to cars along with everything else. Rather than being locked in an airconditioned shell, our resident shoppers would be more engaged with their surroundings and one another. Street design must not be a slave to the automobile.”
George Thorlin:
“I find it difficult to comprehend that the town spent many millions of dollars on the new downtown parking lots and there are no bike lanes on Park or Barnard Streets. Actually, there are parking spots on both sides of the streets, with bump outs, next to the new parking lot. I believe that with a little vision much more could have been accomplished including changes in the traffic flows, one-way streets making room for dedicated pedestrian/bike lanes incorporating High Street, Elm Street, Summer Street and Chestnut Street and intersecting roadways. More to follow on this vision which could be extended throughout the Center Andover District. Good for people, great for business!”
Ellen Townson:
“As a resident who often bikes downtown for errands, I find it very hard to navigate Main Street, but there is no place to navigate just outside it, either. I feel we need some safe connectivity and shared roadway features on the outskirts of the shopping district, with convenient places to park our bicycles. All of this while assuring pedestrians also have room and safety to shop and stroll. This must include access to navigation that works for all abilities. As a liaison to the Andover Commission on Disability, I have learned first hand that we need to always keep all abilities in mind as we make decisions. In addition, a larger vision of connecting nearby neighborhoods and schools to the downtown area would benefit so many more residents, and encourage active transportation.”
Kevin Coffey:
“People and their safe movement must be prioritized over vehicle convenience in these areas. This can include narrowing driving lanes and other traffic calming measures, adding protected bike lanes, insisting on well-marked, lit, and prioritized crosswalks, and designing for necessary parking behind and under buildings. Also valuable may be additional outdoor gathering and dining areas, occasional outdoor entertainment, and secure storage for bicycles while downtown.”
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