1. General.
2. The Crowd.
3. MassDOT was impressive on the general issues.
4. Vegetation.
5. Highway details.
1. General.
Tuesday evening, August 23, 2011, the Massachusetts Department of Transportation conducted a public presentation at the Martin Luther King, Jr. School in Cambridge on Putnam Avenue, about a block from the Callahan Playground. The Callahan Playground, in turn, faces on Memorial Drive and is not far from the footbridge across the Charles connecting Harvard’s dormitory area to the Harvard Business School.
The meeting concerned repairs on the Anderson Bridge, which connects Harvard Square to Allston. This is the third highway bridge west of the BU Bridge over the Charles River. It is just west of the footbridge.
2. The Crowd.
The crowd was reasonable in size, especially for a Tuesday evening at the end of August.
Many members of the crowd did, however, drive home to me the point of just who are the visible people in the Cambridge Pol organization. What happens is that, like most organizations, most people do not have the slightest idea what is happening. They just want to get along, do good, and try to make intelligent decisions. The trouble is that this mentality is ripe for destructive people to abuse.
The reality is that there is a very large developer lobby and development professionals are very much forced to knee jerk support any and all development proposals, no matter how irresponsible, at the threat of being blackballed.
So you have a large group, most of whom do not know what is going on, and a tiny destructive minority who will support anything no matter how irresponsible. They look good because they keep showing up. Their developer group makes money out of showing up.
The destructive minority showed up, as usual.
3. MassDOT was impressive on the general issues.
MassDOT was having nothing of the developer con game.
I spoke, praising MassDOT for standing up to the developer con game.
I objected to one of the con artists spouting safety, safety, safety.
I pointed out that their beloved new highway on and abutting the Charles is not just a minor “underpass” on this bridge and do not look at everything else.
I pointed out that their proposal is a massive highway project trying to duplicate the small vehicle / pedestrian highway on the Boston side. In contrast to the care taken by MassDOT to provide minimal impact on the Charles, these people are determined to destroy, destroy, destroy, the river, its wetlands, its animal habitat, and massive numbers of trees, many hundreds between Magazine Beach and the Longfellow Bridge including that excellent grove of 105 trees near the Hyatt Regency Hotel on the banks of the Charles at the point where Memorial Drive changes from an undivided road to a divided highway.
The nonsense about safety is belied by yet another report of a sexual attack on the highway they want to duplicate from the Boston side. The Boston side has signs warning people about muggings and sexual attacks. A portion is even marked as closed at night. And these people want to bring this to the safe Cambridge side, spouting comments about safety?
MassDOT repeated their comments made at the Western Avenue / River Street Bridge.
I cannot be positive on details from MassDOT or members of the audience. The acoustics were not that good.
4. Vegetation.
Marilyn Wellons made some excellent comments on bordering vegetation, using the outrage at Magazine Beach as an example to encourage MassDOT not to follow the lead of the irresponsible and environmentally destructive Department of Conservation and Recreation. DCR’s planning department would be improved by massive firings for incompetence based on their contempt for nature.
Again, the acoustics were such that I could not fully make out Marilyn’s presentation. I encourage her to supplement my comments here with her own presentation.
5. Highway details.
MassDOT intends to prohibit left turns on Memorial Drive at the bridge intersection for traffic going in both directions at all times. Currently the left turns are prohibited only during rush hours.
I have serious misgivings as to the advisability of this regulation. The reality is that prohibitions which make no sense to the general public add to the common feeling that regulators really do not care about what they are doing. This, in turn, builds on the contempt for highway safety which has built up over a century in New England.
No left turns during rush hours clearly make sense. No left turns at all times seems highly questionable.
