Photos of BU Bridge Rotary and Related, Cambridge, MA / Charles River.
1. New Photos.
We have three new photos for you, a rush hour scene of the BU Bridge Rotary, a felled tree near the overpass I showed being “Storrowed” last time, and a new photo of the Charles River White Geese.
First of all, to place things in perspective, here is the Drone Photo of our principal area:
"From Cambridge to Boston with the DJ Inspire 1 Drone footage," https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sN-OmMzvHhw
2. Charles River White Geese.
A. Report and photo
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Two whites were among the Canada geese on the Charles River.
They were off the gravelly area next to the observation deck.
That was a nice photo op. they came in close to the shore to see if I had any food for them and the sun was sparkling in the water so nicely around them.
B. Location in the drone photo.
Starting at the left end of the BU Bridge, the open space below it is the environmentally responsible MWRA plant. The brownish color is probably out of season grass.
It is surrounded by trees. The next open area in the main parking lot for the Magazine Beach recreation area. Then there is a softball field which is part of the Magazine Beach playing fields..
During the outrages inflicted by Cambridge and the state bureaucrats, they walled off the Magazine Beach playing fields with a row of introduced bushes which were allowed to grow to heights exceeding 13 feet. They thus turned the playing fields into a situation where the playing fields might as well be ten miles from the Charles River. That wall, in 2008, commenced years of heartless abuse of the Charles River White Geese from their principal feeding area for most of their residence on the Charles River, the Magazine Beach playing fields.
In 2008, the two also introduced poisons onto the Magazine Beach playing fields with obvious problems for resident animals.
A lot of games have been inflicted on that opening, primarily as part of the continuing heartless abuse of the Charles River. A nonsensical pond was introduced. Over the pond was placed a bridge which was too weak and narrow to support vehicle which had transported boats to the Charles River at that location. That “bridge” thus was another barrier to boat use of the Charles River from Magazine Beach. This barrier was to boats larger than a canoe.
The Charles River White Geese loved the introduced pond, and used it, horrors, to get food from grass on either side of the parking lot. With the contempt of governmental entities for resident animals, that could not be allowed. So the pond was drained and converted into sloping wetlands and another wall of bushes was introduced between the introduced wetlands and the parking lot keeping the Charles River White Geese from that parking lot.
Most recently, the Cambridge City Council, in an essentially SECRET action, “improved” the opening by splattering gravel which would be offensive to web feet and putting in a new wall, an observation deck. The lie to explain this SECRET was that they were creating a canoe dock. Since they did not change the bizarre “bridge” which in reality was a wall for boat larger than canoes, they created nothing.
The photo was taken from the gravel area.
3. BU Bridge Rotary..
A. Photo.
In the drone photo, the BU Bridge Rotary is to the left of the BU Bridge.
The report:
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The picture shows two #47 buses bulling their way through the daily 4:30 traffic jam at the BU bridge rotary. The two together is so typical of how the T runs buses (and trains). One is late, so everyone jams on it when it finally arrives, then another appears right behind it after the first one is loaded and runs mostly empty. The schedule may call for a bus every 20 minutes but you get two with a 40 minute gap between, essentially. On the 47 route sometimes the driver won’t even stop to pick up people waiting at a stop, which is really bad for those who rely on the T to get in to work on time. Don’t know if this happens on other lines but I’ve seen and experienced this, as the 47 goes right down Pearl Street and I used to use it quite a bit. Quite a ride, though, for the price, long route all the way to Southie via Roxbury
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The near bus is approaching the BU Bridge Rotary from Brookline Street, Cambridge. Beyond the Yield sign is the other bus, going under Memorial Drive..
The Yield sign is for the BU Bridge Rotary. The ramp from the rotary to Memorial Drive Westbound can barely be seen beyond it. Memorial Drive is overhead. The buildings visible under Memorial Drive are on the far side of the Charles River, very certainly Boston University. Structures look closer than they are because of telephoto distortion.
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B. . Continued Thanks to Governor Healey.
Kitty Corner from the ramp in this picture is the entrance to the Destroyed Nesting Area of the, Charles River White Geese. Governor Healey arranged for that entrance to be reopened. All that can be seen from the blockage is one lone barrel. Governor Healey reopened this entrance to allow the 43 year resident Charles River White Geese to regain access to the luscious grass under Memorial Drive at that point. That much LESS heartless abuse by the Cambridge City Council and selected state bureaucrats.
C. Continued Target of the Cambridge City Council and, maybe, state bureaucrats.
Walking up the ramp and crossing over the Grand Junction Railroad bridge, you come to the Wild Area. I have repeatedly presented a winter view of the Charles River White Geese swimming in the bay next to the Wild Area in the worst of winters. Here is a view from the BU Bridge, from about halfway across the bridge behind the above photo.
Memorial Drive can just barely be seen over the Grand Junction railroad. The trees on the left are the Destroyed Nesting area of the Charles River White Geese. Kitty corner across the DNA is the view in the immediately preceding photo. The most recent plans of the relevant state bureaucrats that I am aware of show exactly one tree in that area. My video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pTplCCEJP7o goes into an extended analysis of these plans. The plans reported in the video resulted in the destruction of hundreds of trees on the Charles River running from the white Boston University building in this photo to the second bridge east of the BU Bridge, the Longfellow Bridge. This limit was a pleasant deletion. The Cambridge City Manager condemned int this video has, thankfully, retired.
Recent maneuvers have been telling. The state bureaucrats had plans to destroy on the Charles River starting with the Wild Area and going beyond. They lied that the eastern end of the plans was the BU Bridge, but proved that claim a lie in slides which included the Wild Area in their definition of “BU Bridge.” The bureaucrats backed of the part of the plans east of the River Street Bridge (1st bridge west of the BU Bridge), but an employee of the Cambridge City Council spoke in a public ZOOM meeting to regain this destruction. The bureaucrats gave somewhat of a concurrence, but seem to have backed off that, although their action certainly is telling.
Hopefully, Gov. Healey’s intervention will protect this area. I have fought these outrages since 1985 with success based on non DCR entities. Cambridge’s destructiveness does not cease, and it is impossible to tell exactly what is going on behind the scene.
The white shapes in front of the Wild Area is a flotilla of the Charles River White Geese hunting for what food has not been destroyed for them.
D. Information from Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
The most useful graphics of this area that I am aware of appear in a report submitted by MIT to the Cambridge City Council in 2014.
Here is part of the presentation by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to the Cambridge City Council in 2014.
The photo in the bottom right is of the Grand Junction under that Memorial Drive Bridge, shown in the photo of the Wild Area above..
Upper right is an overview of the area around the BU Bridge rotary. At the far left is the Memorial Drive Bridge over the Grand Junction. The top left graphics is a key map showing a broader area than the close up.
On the map, point 2 is very close to the location of the camera in the first photo above of the B.U. Bridge Rotary. The two lines left of point 2 show the traffic flow around the BU Bridge rotary. The further line is the area shown in that photo.
Here is a blowup of that plan:
Key in this area is the diagonal line with the 3 marking blue lines under it marked 1, the line connecting to the 2, and the curved line IN THE DESTROYED NESTING AREA marked 4.
Line 3 is supposedly a bike highway. It is a stalking horse for a private off ramp from Interstate I90, visible above the Charles River in the drone photo above and at the beginning of the next section. The Massachusetts Bay Transportation Company in 2003 proposed that an exit be created from I90 for a nonsensical express bus route. Once proving it could be done, the MBTA “suddenly” discovered the expense could be justified for an express bus.
The proposed highway would connect to Memorial Drive heading east bound by destroying the Wild Area, and to Memorial Drive heading westbound by an off ramp running past the number 3 and connecting to the BU Bridge Rotary. Looking at the drone photo above and at the beginning of the next section, the big highway at the bottom of the photo is I90. There is a side road in I90 to the left of the BU Bridge, and the railroad can be seen going under the BU Bridge. The game proposed was to widen the railroad by cantilever construction and build ramps in two directions around that side road including the large unbuilt area on the opposite side of I90 to get connection to and from the west, i.e. the left, in the photo.
That stalking horse bike highway appears to have been funded. It supposedly will CONNECT to the mess at the BU Bridge Rotary shown in the above photo. “Suddenly” the “planners would discover the mess and say they have to connect to the I90 area described in the MBTA plans. ALL SORT OF GAMES have been tried by organized people in the planning for I90's rebuild. Naturally, after the smoke has clearly with bike highway and the RELATED widening of the railroad bridge, suddenly somebody will discover what a great off ramp that will make to MIT and MIT’s speculative development.
LAST I HEARD, MassDOT had rejected those games, BUT I HAVE BEEN OUT OF THE LOOP FOR YEARS.
The blue lines under the supposed bike highway are marked by the number 2. Near the upper right corner is the connection MIT proposed in this plan. MIT seems to be in the process of destroying that connection for another dormitory, with help of property maneuverings by the Cambridge City Council which were essentially secret.
Connecting to the bend in that blue road (Vassar Street) at the middle of the plan by a taking of a parking lot between the bend and the supposed bike highway will satisfy the “suddenly needed” connection for the bike highway. Review of the aerial photo above in the combined MIT page shows the viability. There is an open area parking lot under the bend which could be partially taken to put in platform parking to replace the parking lost.
The route marked 4 is MIT’s exposure of a highway in planning through the Destroyed Nesting Area.
4. Tree Destruction between the two overpasses.
A. The drone photo cropped to the overpass.
Here is the drone photo cropped to the overpass..
The overpass is the almost vertical line at the left. Morse School is to its right above Memorial Drive. The trees at the bottom are at the northwest corner of the Magazine beach playing fields.
Here is a tree destroyed from nature combining with neglect, photo with commentary. Apparent distances are confused by the lens used.
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here's another photo of the stressed trees along the Drive (opposite the school) that just blew down in the past few days
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The green figure to the left is the overpass. Straight ahead is, first, Memorial Drive, and then Cambridge’s Morse School, also shown in the blowup.
5. Our 50 page report.
Presented to the Cambridge City Council, Governor Healey and others. Cite is to the City Council records. This document is the basis for the clean up of the food access of the Charles River White Geese at the on ramp to Memorial Drive east from the BU Bridge Rotary. It also provides photos with more detail than have been possible in this report.
https://cambridgema.iqm2.com/citizens/FileOpen.aspx?Type=1&ID=3903&Inline=True, Pages 2654 to 2713, Communication 177, City Council, 6/26/23.
Plus a very distressing list of horrors from Cambridge and state bureaucrats.
