Climate Change Challenge
The Commonwealth’s historic system of parkways is especially vulnerable to the effects of climate change, such as flooding from increased precipitation, storm surge, and sea level rise along the coast and increased temperatures. Extreme heat can result in damage to roads and loss of road service, affecting commuting times and potentially delaying emergency personnel response.
Project Alignment with ResilientMass Plan Priority Actions
This project addresses the following 2023 ResilientMass Plan and 2022 MA Climate Assessment Priority Impact: Damage to Roads and Loss of Road Service in the Infrastructure Sector, particularly Action 13: Complete climate change vulnerability assessment of DCR’s parkways system to support the DCR Parkways Master Plan.
The project also aligns with the following 2023 ResilientMass Plan goals:
- Science-based and Informed Decision-Making
- Implement Adaptation Actions for Communities and Ecosystems
- Climate mitigation
- Resilient and Equitable Infrastructure, Ecosystems, and Communities
Climate Resilience Project Scope
The Resilient Parkways project is a continuation from previous fiscal year efforts which focused on the development of the Parkways Climate Chance Vulnerability Assessment (CCVA) to identify DCR’s most vulnerable parkways to coastal and precipitation-based flooding. In FY25 the project focused on developing an expanded interpretation of the FY24 CCVA findings with an emphasis on community impacts and economic findings, advancing concepts or adaptation strategies for five of the most vulnerable parkways identified in the Parkways CCVA, and support several design efforts and some construction of projects along vulnerable segments of DCR parking and roadways.
Metrics and Results
In FY25, the Resilient Parkways project was able to:
- Develop an expanded interpretation of the FY24 CCVA findings with an emphasis on community impacts and economic findings. The draft report of the Parkways CCVA and StoryMap can be found on the Resilient Parkways project website.
- Advance concepts or adaptation strategies for five of the most vulnerable parkways identified in the Parkways CCVA: Nantasket Ave/Hull Shore Dr, Winthrop Parkway, Alewife Brook Parkway, Quincy Shore Dr, and Nahant Circle. These are high-level concepts aimed to get the conversation started around the pros and cons of different adaptation approaches given site constraints. These concepts are still under development and continue to move forward in FY26.
Additionally, the FY25 effort was also able to support several design efforts and some construction of projects along vulnerable segments of DCR parking and roadways, including:
- Stormwater Improvements – Revere & Boston: Design efforts for stormwater upgrades along Broadsound Avenue in Revere, Soldiers Field Road (North Beach St and Herter Park) in Boston, and infrastructure improvements on Park Drive, the Arborway, and the Riverway in Boston.
- Stormwater Retrofits and Cool Pavement– Agawam & Chelsea Pools: Application of cool coatings on parking lot pools in Environmental Justice communities of Agawam and Chelsea to combat extreme heat, combined with drainage redesign and nature-based stormwater solutions to manage increased rainfall, reduce flooding risk, and promote groundwater recharge.
- Climate-Resilient Infrastructure – Winthrop Parkway/Short Beach: Repairs to underground conduit infrastructure supporting street lighting, addressing vulnerabilities exposed by extreme weather. Improvements include smart street lighting and resilient
underground utility strategies to prevent cascading infrastructure failures. This scenario underscores how interconnected systems are, and how a single point of failure can have cascading effects on broader infrastructure.
Additional metrics that can be counted in FY 25 include the number of outreach meetings for this project: 1 stakeholder meeting to share the results of the CCVA and expanded community impacts, and 10 internal multidisciplinary workshop sessions with DCR staff to work on high-level concepts to address vulnerabilities at five DCR Parkways.
Best Practices and Lessons Learned
Best practices include expanded outreach both, internally and externally to develop products that would be meaningful to DCR staff and stakeholders when working on solutions to identified vulnerable parkway segments.
Further Action
In FY26, DCR will continue supporting design efforts and some construction of projects along vulnerable segments of DCR parking and roadways, as well as complete the high-level resilience concepts for Nantasket Ave/Hull Shore Dr, Winthrop Parkway, Alewife Brook Parkway, Quincy Shore Dr, and Nahant Circle.
Additional Information and Resources
Here are the links from the FY25 project deliverables: