Longfellow Bridge Project, excellent MassDOT behavior, as usual

0. General introduction to letter to MassDOT.
1. Introductory.
2. Drainage system.
A. Magazine Beach.
B. Ebersol Fields.
3. Bicycle traffic.
A. General.
B. MassDOT’s proposal is responsible.
C. The friends of Cambridge and the DCR.
D. The record of Cambridge, the DCR and their controlled activists.
E. The falsely named Charles River Conservancy.
4. Summary.

Last night, I attended the public hearing by the Massachusetts Department of Transportation concerning the Longfellow Bridge repairs.

The Longfellow Bridge is the second bridge to the east of the BU Bridge. It is the farthest point that I am aware of of the environmental outrages coming on the Charles River by Cambridge, the Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation, and their stand-ins.

As usual, the biggest problem was not with MassDOT but with Cambridge, the DCR and the stand-ins.

I am sending in the following comments. They are self explanatory.

Thomas F. Broderick, P.E.
Acting Chief Engineer
Massachusetts Department of Transportation
Highway Division
10 Park Plaza, Suite 4160
Boston, MA 02116-3973
Attn: Kevin Walsh

RE: Rehabilitation of the Longfellow Bridge over Charles River

Sir:

This will follow up on my comments of last evening.

I have great respect for MassDOT and great lack of respect for Cambridge and the DCR.

1. Introductory.

Cambridge has a massive organization, as well as does the so called Charles River Conservancy. Large turnouts furthering the cause of either should be ignored because those turnouts commonly are based on false information to well meaning people.

An excellent example of the most basic lie comes in the name of the Charles River Conservancy which is most definitely not a Conservancy, as your department has very responsibly noted in rejecting past environmentally destructive initiatives from this entity. When there is a large perhaps even blind turnout with a key “organization” lying about itself in its name, need I say more? And I really do not want to spend a long time bad mouthing bad people.

I have more than 30 years experience defending the environment in Cambridge. I have frequently encountered and defeated such “groups.” My 30 years plus experience includes experience in transportation including bicycle matters.

Two points stand out to me: Your complicated drainage system to drain off pollutants and the treatment of bicycle transportation.

2. Drainage system.

Your proposal devotes a fair amount of land to natural drainage of pollutants.

A. Magazine Beach.

This natural drainage is strikingly similar to a system put in place at Magazine Beach and the problems are similar at Magazine Beach and on the Boston side of the Longfellow Bridge.

At Magazine Beach, Cambridge and the DCR destroyed seven acres of vegetation which had successfully existed for the better part of a Century without poisons being used to keep it alive.

Cambridge and the DCR destroyed the responsible grasses and replaced them with sickly grasses which need poisons to avoid dying. These introduced grasses thus exactly fit the definition of vegetation which should be destroyed. Instead of destroying this destructive stuff, Cambridge and the DCR destroyed what had been playing fields to put in complicated fancy drainage to keep poisons out of the Charles River which are being used to keep alive grasses which have no business on the Charles River.

If Cambridge and the DCR were responsible entities, instead of dumping poisons on the banks of the Charles River, Cambridge and the DCR would be spending the money seeding the responsible grasses back onto Magazine Beach which they should not have destroyed in the first place.

Once the responsible grasses were returned, the playing fields which were destroyed for this irresponsible drainage could be returned and the Charles River would have as many playing fields as it did before this irresponsible destruction.

A parallel step at Magazine Beach would be to chop down the introduced wall of vegetation as the DCR, twice a year, chops down all other bordering vegetation the Charles River Basin. But it continues to grow and it continues to grow for a purpose. The DCR’s goal is to wipe out all animals living on the Charles. Destroying almost all bordering vegetation serves that goal by driving away migratory waterfowl. Keeping the bizarre wall growing and growing furthers that goal by starving the 30 year resident Charles River White Geese.

The DCR is unfit to manage the environment.

B. Ebersol Fields.

The irresponsible behavior of Cambridge and the DCR at Magazine Beach follows on irresponsible behavior at Ebersol Fields.

Ebersol Fields also has sickly grasses which will not survive without be dosed regularly with poisons.

A few years ago, the poisons proved inadequate. So the DCR dumped Tartan on Ebersol Fields. Tartan is marked against use next to bodies of water. But the DCR is unfit to manage the environment. So the DCR dumped Tartan.

The next day, the Charles River was dead from the Mass. Ave. (Harvard) Bridge to the Harbor, infested with algae. That algae recurs annually.

If the natural drainage being installed on the Boston side of the Charles River is being installed to neutralize the poisoning of the Charles by the DCR at Ebersol Fields, the responsible thing to do is stop the poisoning. As at Magazine Beach, instead of spending money on poisons at Ebersol Fields, money should be spent on seeds for the responsible grasses the DCR and Cambridge destroyed at Magazine Beach.

If responsible grasses being introduced at Ebersol Fields solves the pollutant problem, MassDOT can create parkland rather than this drainage system.

3. Bicycle traffic.

A. General.

I have done extensive bicycle commuting. I commuted daily even during the worst of weather to Boston University Law. My bicycle commuting has been as long as seven miles, even in the worst of weather.

I commuted over the Longfellow Bridge to an internship at the State House. During that internship, I was given personal credit by the Governor’s Office for killing a silly change in bicycle laws which had passed both house without negative comment.

B. MassDOT’s proposal is responsible.

A bicycle lane to the right of traffic separated from the sidewalk is the sensible way to go. Vehicles capable of traveling 20 miles an hour on a highway with a 30 mile an hour speed limit should be handled like vehicles capable of traveling 20 miles an hour. They should not be mixed with pedestrians.

Bicycles must, in order for our world to survive, be made a responsible part of the traffic mix. Bicycle commuting must be viable. Treating bicycle traffic with the contempt that is associated with limiting the rights as if they were the most incompetent, irresponsible members of their community is exactly the wrong way to go.

C. The friends of Cambridge and the DCR.

Bicycles on sidewalks endanger pedestrians and prevent normal commuting by bicyclists.

I have a friend who was laid up for six months when she was run down by a sidewalk bicyclist.

The irresponsibility of sidewalk bicycle highways is shown on Cambridge’s Vassar Street small vehicle highway on the sidewalk. That project is an obvious failure.

Cambridge is repeating the Vassar Street error on Western Avenue. Cambridge’s response to the impossibility of making a left turn at an intersection for bicycles traveling on the right sidewalk is that bicycles do not have to use the supposed bike paths. So Cambridge is deliberately constructing “bike paths” which Cambridge knows are useless. The short term for that kind of behavior is incompetence.

D. The record of Cambridge, the DCR and their controlled activists.

MassDOT has rejected the proposal to build a small vehicle highway (the euphemism is “bike path) on the north side of the Charles River in wetlands and in the river.

MassDOT has accurately pointed out that this is environmentally irresponsible.

The DCR has sought Obama moneys to destroy hundreds of trees between Magazine Beach and the Longfellow Bridge in part for their irresponsible small vehicle highway. This includes devastation of an excellent 104 tree grove at the Memorial Drive split.

The DCR lied concerning the Obama application that this destruction was only destroying sickly trees. The DCR documented that their lie was a lie by its exactly contrary filing with the City of Cambridge.

The governor received a copy of the filing at the City of Cambridge. Somebody killed this irresponsible proposal this time. But friends of Cambridge and the DCR continue their efforts.

E. The falsely named Charles River Conservancy.

In the middle of all the destructive outrages.

4. Summary.

MassDOT is behaving responsibly in this proposal but should consider whether reversing the DCR environmental destruction at Ebersol Fields would negate the “need” for the natural drainage system.

MassDOT should continue to defend the Charles River from the irresponsibility of Cambridge, the DCR and their stand-ins.

Sincerely,



Robert J. La Trémouille

Alewife letter almost published in Cambridge Chronicle; milestone

1. Response to letter almost published in Cambridge Chronicle.
2. References.
A. The letter unedited.
B. Transmittal of photos.
C. Transmittal of eighth photo.
3. Milestone. This is our 800th post on this blog.


1. Response to letter almost published in Cambridge Chronicle.

The following proposed letter is self explanatory. I will follow with the documents referenced.

Editor
Cambridge Chronicle

Thank you for very visibly publishing my letter responding to the “Silver Maple Forest” scam to which you have given such major visibility and I equally appreciate the many prior letters you have published.

The trouble is that you omitted two key paragraphs, the 3d and 4th, and thus gutted my comments.

The second through fifth paragraphs read:

“The game is: “Don’t look at what we are destroying, look at how great we sound when we yell at the other guy.”

“Attached is a photo of the massive destruction done by the "Silver Maple Forest" activists’ friends at the City of Cambridge in the core Alewife Reservation a few hundred feet away.

“This, Cambridge promises, will protect against the worst storm likely in every two year period. Two fifty year storms have hit the area in the last 20 years.

“A massive parking lot directly across Cambridge ParkDrive is about to be built on. In a combined project, this parking lot can provide the flood protection needed by local residents.”

Attached to the letter was a photo of Cambridge / DCR’s and this group’s totally needlessly destroyed acres of former virgin forest with the killing of untold numbers of animals. I was anticipating that the attachment would be counted against the approximately 250 words I had left against your word limit.

This was one of six photos I provided you a few hours earlier showing the destruction, plus a photo of the key part of the parking lot where meaningful flood protection should be constructed plus a photo of some of the destroyed reservation from that parking lot.

I find it incredible that Cambridge / DCR can needlessly destroy acres of irreplaceable woodlands hiding behind a group friendly to Cambridge / DCR conducting a smokescreen and the Chronicle only seems capable of publishing photos of the scam but not of the needless and irresponsible destruction in a related area being hidden by the scam.

Certainly I made strong statements, but I proved the strong statements and you gutted the key parts of the proof.

I am ready, willing and able to provide you the same eight photos for your use including the one I referenced in the omitted paragraphs. I realize that I could very easily have missed part of the needless destruction.

2. References.

A. The letter unedited.

http://charlesriverwhitegeeseblog.blogspot.com/2012/02/fund-raising-which-aids-destruction-at.html

B. Transmittal of photos.

This transmitted the six photos of destruction plus the photo of the key part of the parking lot which can provide the flood protection falsely claimed to being provided.

http://charlesriverwhitegeeseblog.blogspot.com/2012/02/cambridge-pols-destroy-alewife-photo.html

C. Transmittal of eighth photo.

This transmitted the eighth, the photo of preliminary destruction taken next to the parking lot where it belongs.

http://charlesriverwhitegeeseblog.blogspot.com/2012/02/response-to-alewife-destroyers-silver.html

3. Milestone. This is our 800th post on this blog.

This post is our 800th post on this blog. The blog was preceded by an email newsletter which, at its peak, reached over 1300 recipients. That letter had more than 500 issues, starting in March 2000 when the Charles River White Geese returned to their beloved Nesting Area to find that it had been destroyed for the first time.

That first destruction was an illegal gift to the state bureaucrats from Boston University. BU, as is the custom with so many of these destructive people, lied. They proceeded to deny that they did the destruction from the time of the destruction in October 1999 to six months later, when the Cambridge Conservation Commission condemned them for it. Then they blamed the lying on their president’s secretary, who was not fired. We are dealing with a lot of really rotten people.

So now they are dealing in massive starvation and heartless abuse, using fake groups in Cambridge playing con games telling people to look at everything else except their own rotten behavior and the rotten behavior of their friends, but they sound so good.