Blue Hills Parkway

Blue Hills Parkway is a 1.5-mile divided boulevard that begins at Mattapan Square in Boston and runs almost straight south through Milton to Canton Avenue, where the Blue Hills Reservation begins. Planned in the 1890s for the Metropolitan Parks Commission and designed by Olmsted, Olmsted and Eliot and later Olmsted Brothers, it was meant as an approach to the reservation. Charles Eliot's plan called for a 120-foot right of way and one travel lane wider than the other, originally for pleasure carriages. Wide planted medians and tree-lined edges still reflect that design. The granite-faced, triple-arched Mattapan Bridge, built 1901-1903 to a design by Edmund M. Wheelwright, serves as the formal entry over the Neponset River. Other contributing features include a 1823 mile marker, a veterans memorial monument and median islands. The parkway encouraged residential growth in Milton, and its improvements in the 1930s included repaving and added sidewalks.