1. Introduction.
2. Marilyn Wellons comments on the Anderson Bridge Project.
3. Editor response.
1. Introduction.
I believe I commented when passing on items about the Anderson Bridge that I was unaware of any problems. The Anderson Bridge connects Harvard Square over the Charles River to Allston. It is the third bridge over the Charles River west of the BU Bridge.
I stand corrected on my comments, and I thank Marilyn Wellons for correcting me.
The following are her comments from facebook. I get very confused as to how these things work on facebook. The comments are, at minimum, on the Charles River White Geese page and may also be on the Robert J. La Trémouille page.
2. Marilyn Wellons comments on the Anderson Bridge Project.
Previous plans have shown the destruction of most trees within 50-100 feet or more of the Anderson Bridge. These include not only the hawthorns along the northwest abutment (in Cambridge) and the fine elm tree on the southwest one, but the... cherry trees in Cambridge at some distance from the bridge.
The hawthorns could easily be moved. They are important food sources for robins and other birds that overwinter here. They also are beautiful, but as the DCR's landscape consultants told a previous meeting on the Anderson Bridge, the landscape to follow repairs there will be "austere." Read "bare and ugly."
A further example is that the DCR has proposed, and DOT has apparently agreed, to put the staging for work on the Anderson Bridge right on top of the cherry trees. Never mind how welcome they are to the general public, starved for beauty after our winters. The DCR wants them eradicated as "not native."
Given how much the public values them, the DCR trots out other reasons for destroying them on the Charles when necessary.
The agency's last assault on Mem Drive's cherry trees was between the BU and Longfellow Bridges, where DCR's planners proposed to use Obama stimulus money for a "muitipurpose path" right over the root zone of scores of cherries and to remove them to improve sight lines from the MIT President's house to the river.
Fortunately that project has not gone forward yet. In the meantime we have the forthcoming loss of a great deal of beauty around the Anderson Bridge, thanks to the DCR and its agent, DOT
3. Editor response.
The City Engineer stated the REAL position of Cambridge and its buddies on native vegetation / animals when he justified the pending destruction of the CORE Alewife Reservation on grounds that, sniff:
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Those trees grew from seeds that blew in from elsewhere in the reservation.
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Thank you, Marilyn, for the very astute comments.
