Thanks for the Watertown-Cambridge Greenway (but let’s keep learning lessons that’ll perfect it)
The new Watertown-Cambridge Greenway shared-use path is a treasure. The path is a beautiful, useful addition to Cambridge’s and Watertown’s parkland and pathways, and is the product of years of hard work by municipal, regional and state-level planners and implementers, to whom we owe appreciation and thanks.
The 2-mile greenway is a shared-use path with one end near the Fresh Pond water treatment facility and the other at Arsenal Street in Watertown. The greenway is in the right-of-way of the former Watertown Branch Railroad, which is now an asphalt path with beautiful landscaping, simple amenities and well-designed rainwater management.
Despite having been (officially) open for only a few months, the greenway has no shortage of regulars. On sunny days I see dog-walkers, bike commuters, recreational cyclists, roller-blading children, scooter riders, runners, toddlers in bike trailers, multigenerational families walking together – all types of people walking and rolling. Part of what makes the greenway so special is that it facilitates all types of trips: commuting, shopping, recreation and more. I have already replaced some of my car trips to the Watertown Mall with biking on the greenway; the safety of the shared-use path reduces the stress I usually feel carrying large items on a bike in mixed traffic.
I consider this project a tremendous success, but not one without some lessons learned. In my opinion, the most important of these lessons is to predict and accommodate demand for path access. Although the Watertown-Cambridge Greenway has several points of access at major destinations accessible under American Disabilities Act standards, there are some places where people have made their own way. The biggest access issue appears to be at Star Market, where the clear “desire line” is an informal dirt path up a steep embankment; the formal access point causes many people to walk out-of-direction and spend more time crossing the parking lot. In another instance, residents of an apartment building that lacks path access took matters into their own hands: They tore down their fence and built a bridge to the path with the pieces. These desire lines show the types of demand for path access planners should predict in future shared-use path work, like that occurring on the Danehy Park Connector and Grand Junction projects in Cambridge.
The path could also use lighting to help people feel and be safer traveling in the dark. This will be especially important in the winter, when days are short and many commute and make shopping trips in the dark. There are several options for path lighting that are visually unobtrusive and minimize impacts to wildlife.
That being said, this path is an incredible asset for Cambridge and Watertown that will serve residents and visitors well for decades to come. The municipal, commonwealth, consultant, construction and other workers that contributed to this project deserve accolades for a job well done. Thank you!
Joseph Poirier is a Cambridge resident and regular Watertown-Cambridge Greenway user.
It is great! I have to say I’m not sure with the “beautiful landscaping” as I’m mostly looking at the graffiti’d rears of buildings, and do think it could use a few more mid-sized trees which also add cooling and oxygen, but otherwise its a new treasure in our community!
The desire line shown in the photo was repeatedly mentioned to DCR’s team, but both DCR and the property owners (Regency) chose to ignore the issue and instead install an inferior access point at the bottom of the rear parking lot. Subsequently, a friend was seriously injured when they attempted to ride their bike down the incline and went over the handlebars, resulting in broken ribs and a collapsed lung. In the future, it would be helpful if DCR would engage with the community fully, rather than the sham public process that they typically employ. Ignoring obvious neighborhood desire lines is a recipe for bad outcomes. Sad but not surprising that DCR still hasn’t learned that lesson.
Separately, the issue of lighting the path has been particularly frustrating for those of us who advocated for the Greenway over the past decade. Unfortunately, anti-bike elements within the City oppose any attempts to light the path properly, despite the City commissioning two separate studies that both found no significant impacts to wildlife for path lighting during evening commuting hours. The City even spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to install thousands of feet of electrical conduit along the full length of the path in anticipation of lighting, but as of yet there has been no efforts to install the actual lights. (Note that the existing path along Fresh Pond Parkway is lit, as are the new path sections in Watertown.) Until the lighting is completed, the path will fail to meet its true potential as a next-generation mobility project.
-Doug Brown
Founder
Friends of the Greenway
Lighting would be nice too. TBH, if it were a budget choice I’d rather have more trees though to make it feel truly green.