February 28, 2006
(Originally part of the City Manager Posting)
Cambridge to Conduct Public Hearings on the Urban Ring.
A. The proposal.
(1) General.
(2) Charles River Crossing.
(3) Highways and Buses.
B. Cambridge City Council Meeting.
(1) Monday Night.
(2) Past Experience and “Reality” in Cambridge, MA.
C. “Reality” Cambridge style.
Cambridge to Conduct Public Hearings on the Urban Ring.
A. The proposal.
(1) General.
The Urban Ring is a project of Boston’s regional transportation authority which stemmed from the need to take traffic off the downtown subway and to relocate the traffic to make the entire system work better. The basic concept is a new subway line which would run from Charlestown to Ruggles Station in Roxbury / the South End by way of Lechmere, Kendall, Mass. Ave near MIT, the Newton / Brighton Green Line branches and the Longwood / Harvard Medical Area.
(2) Charles River Crossing.
There are two possible crossings of the Charles River.
The good one, environmentally and from a transportation point of view would cross the Charles near the Mass. Ave. bridge and connect with the Green Line branches, Commuter Rail and Fenway Park by a new station between Kenmore and Fenway Park under the Mass. Pike. I suggested it to the MBTA about six years before they started to seriously look at it.
The other one has history going for it plus the political demands of Boston University, the Cambridge City Manager and a bunch of Cambridge developers.
It has an extra train stop at Putnam Avenue and the Grand Junction railroad tracks in Cambridge which is really threatening to the Cambridgeport neighborhood. It could be strikingly destructive to the Charles River environment. It would also stop quite close to the heart of the BU Campus at a location next to St. Mary’s Street on the far side of the Mass. Pike. It would directly connect from this station to commuter rail. By an awkward tunnel and walking across Commonwealth Avenue, it would connect from that station to the Commonwealth Avenue Green Line. It would also have another station very close to this one, under Park Drive between Beacon Street and the Riverside line, connecting to the Riverside Green Line at the existing Fenway station and to the Beacon Street line at another new station under Audubon Circle.
(3) Highways and Buses.
The MBTA has turned this good rapid transit concept (with the correct river crossing) into a bus / highway project called Phase 2, while the rapid transit is not phase 3. Phase 2 would create new highways in Cambridgeport and tar over part of the track area between Memorial Drive and Mass. Avenue.
B. Cambridge City Council Meeting.
(1) Monday Night.
Monday night, February 26, 2006, the Cambridge City Council decided to conduct public hearings on the MBTA’s Urban Ring transit proposals.
As is the wont of the Cambridge City Council, two members spent an excessive amount of time discussing this matter and saying nothing. Councilors Decker and Davis, both with bad records on the Charles River, had an extended disagreement on which committee should hear the matter and whether the hearings should be joint or separate. Both, without providing details, insisted they were on the side of the angels in the matter.
The Councilor who is chair of one of the committees participated in the discussion a little. Councilor Davis who chairs neither committee talked a lot.
(2) Past Experience and “Reality” in Cambridge, MA.
Key in my hearing of Davis’s comments was Davis’ apparent insistence that city staff present the plans to the public hearings.
Cambridge, on environmental matters, can live in a reality strikingly different from the reality that everybody else lives in.
The last time the Cambridge City Council conducted a hearing on the Charles River, it concerned the off ramp which would connect the Mass. Pike to Cambridge’s Cambridgeport neighborhood and to Memorial Drive.
Councilor Davis was insistent that no such possibility existed.
So they conducted a hearing at the Morse School, within view of Magazine Beach. The MBTA showed up and the MBTA behaved in a manner which was quite inappropriate from the point of view of the Cambridge pols. The MBTA had the nerve to tell the truth.
The MBTA informed the neighbors assembled that the MBTA had done engineering studies to determine if it were feasible to connect the Mass. Pike to Cambridge by way of the railroad bridge under the BU Bridge. The MBTA described this proposal as a rebuilding of the east side of the two track bridge so that the track on the eastern side would be replaced with a three lane road. The MBTA’s studies also showed the viability of moving the one track currently on the east side to the unused west side of the railroad bridge.
The MBTA clearly stated that the project was viable from an engineering point of view. The MBTA only withdrew from the project because it made no sense from a public transportation financing point of view. The latter was obvious from the beginning. They were proposing a major bridge rebuilding project to run an express bus from Newton to Cambridge. Such a bus would be unlikely to run more than three times an hour in rush hours, and that would be pushing it.
After this major defeat for truth City of Cambridge style, the minutes of the meeting were striking.
The minutes did not even recognize the existence of the rail bridge under the BU Bridge. The minutes talked only of the BU Bridge itself, over which a connection to the Mass. Pike would be silly.
C. “Reality” Cambridge style.
Councilor Davis has long been an advocate of the really bad BU Crossing.
Councilor Davis is talking of City of Cambridge staff reporting to the public on the Urban Ring proposals rather than the agency doing the work, the MBTA, doing the reporting.
City staff managing the information would ensure a “reality” more consistent with the official Cambridge view of reality.
Councilor Davis has good reason to fear the agency doing the work doing the talking.
The MBTA is much more likely to give an accurate version of reality to her voters.
