Maverick Square Transportation Action Plan
Building on visioning in PLAN: East Boston, we're advancing ideas to improve safety, connectivity, and placemaking in Maverick Square.
Project Phase
Project Information
The City of Boston's Transportation Department (BTD) is leading this transportation action plan. Our goal for this project is to strengthen the area surrounding Maverick Station. We're developing near-term ideas to improve safety, increase connectivity, and support public life and business activity.
- Maintain and uplift the vibrancy that makes Maverick Square a great place
- Increase the comfort, safety, attractiveness, and accessibility of walking, biking, taking transit, and lingering in Maverick Square
- Advance proposals in deep collaborative partnership with local residents, community leaders, stakeholders, and businesses.
Project Goals
Project Goals
UPLIFT THE VIBRANCY OF MAVERICK SQUARE
Maverick Square is a key gateway to East Boston. It's one of the most vibrant commercial squares in the City. This project will use transportation planning to support placemaking and community development.
MAKE IT EASIER TO WALK, BIKE, AND TAKE TRANSIT
This project will increase safety for all users, first and foremost. Importantly, too, will be improvements to transit operations at the busy Maverick Station.
CLOSELY COLLABORATE WITH RESIDENTS AND BUSINESSES
We will ensure that community input is incorporated at every stage of the project. We'll only be successful if we work together to develop visions to improve and invest in the transportation networks and public realm of Maverick Square.
TIMELINE
PLAN: East Boston included an initial look at East Boston. Now, we're taking a first step by identifying near-term action items to improve the safety, comfort, and ease of getting around Maverick Square.
- Background research: In 2025, we reviewed existing plans and conditions on the ground in Maverick Square. We're working to make sure we understand all that we need to before proposing changes to how the streets work.
- Initial community engagement: In March 2025, we hosted in-depth conversations with individual and small groups of residents from specific, harder-to-reach populations to understand their current experiences and perceptions of Maverick Square.
- Interactive update: In 2026, we'll publish an interactive website where community members can review information and provide input between public meetings.
- Pop-up engagement events: After we publish the interactive website, we'll host pop-up engagement events in and around Maverick Square where we introduce the project more broadly to residents, share learnings from our review of the existing conditions, and ask for your ideas for improving transportation in the square.
- Testing early ideas: Next, we'll gather iterative feedback from residents and passersby through early sketches, simulations, and interactive activities to ensure our ideas are headed in the right direction.
- Public meeting: Building on that input, this Fall, we'll share the first draft of our near-term improvement proposals to gather community feedback.
GET INVOLVED
We're interested in hearing from you! As soon as we have more information on all the different ways you can get involved, we'll update this section. For now, you can provide your email using the link below, and we'll share information about public meetings and other project-specific details as we have them.
Feel free to send the project team an email at maverickTAP@boston.gov, too!
PROJECT MATERIALS
Project MaterialsThe purpose of an RSA is to identify potential safety issues and possible opportunities for safety improvements considering all roadway users. A key objective of the RSA is to identify short-, mid-, and long-term safety interventions that can be incorporated in potential future work at the study area streets and intersections. Participants joined from our engineering consultant, the City, MassDOT, the MBTA, Boston Police, East Boston Main Streets, and community groups.
Potential safety opportunities were identified and documented based on the crash data and a site visit. During the Road Safety Audit, participants tried to identify a broad range of possible safety improvements. Recommendations made in this report are not considered ready for implementation. They will be subject to further analysis and, where appropriate, community engagement before implementation.
In March 2025, we hosted in-depth conversations with individual and small groups of residents from specific, harder-to-reach populations to understand their current experiences and perceptions of Maverick Square. Our partner, Openbox, a community-centered design and planning group, helped us with targeted and in-depth outreach to these communities.
We're happy to share a report-out from our first round of engagement. The linked document below includes stakeholder quotes from the residents, business owners, and visitors we heard from. It also highlights some specific directions we're taking based on all that we've heard so far.
Full reporting from engagement round one, INCLUDING DEMOGRAPHICS
Note: Some timelines and project understandings have changed since we made these materials. We're keeping them here for record-keeping, but the most up-to-date project updates will always be on this webpage.
- Project poster (English and Spanish)
- Project flier (English and Spanish)
Read more about the plan at this link.
Read more about the visions for Maverick Square laid out in the plan at these links (English and Español).
No recommendations have been made yet. We will begin the process with in-depth conversations with East Boston community members and assess Maverick Square’s existing conditions before ideas are proposed.
This project will result in a series of recommendations for near-term action items we can build. Our focus will be on small changes that make it easier, safer, and more comfortable to get around Maverick Square by all modes.
We’ve made no proposals to remove or change parking at this time. Any changes will be made in partnership with the community. There are many ways we can improve traffic, make it safer, more comfortable to linger, and park and do business. For this project, we will explore ways that make sense in Maverick Square.
PLAN: East Boston was adopted in 2024 and led by the Boston Planning Department. The plan outlines recommendations for neighborhood improvements throughout East Boston and a brief proposal on ways to enhance the plaza at the center of Maverick Square. For this project, we plan to assess the Square more deeply and work with the community to understand what should be improved in the Square.
No, this project is focused on road safety and connectivity specifically in Maverick Square.
Please see our timeline above.
Sign up to our email list and come to our public meetings! We'll post here when we have specific dates for our meetings.