Attend meetings in Cambridge from Aug. 18-25 about reparations and changes on Mount Auburn
These are just some of the municipal meetings and civic events for the coming week. More are on the City Calendar and in the city’s Open Meetings Portal.
A car approaches Aberdeen Avenue on Mount Auburn Street in West Cambridge. (Image: Google)
Talk of reparations returns
Civic Unity Committee, 5 to 7 p.m. Monday. This committee run by city councillor E. Denise Simmons learns about a proposed “Cambridge Truth and Reconciliation Task Force” from activists. There were two reparations and restitution proposals brought up in City Council in 2021, stemming in part from work with cannabis retailers after the federal government’s failed “war on drugs” and a study that put the median net worth of Boston area American-born Black families at $8, compared with $247,000 for white families. The orders were tabled in favor of getting more input from the community. The committee meets at City Hall, 795 Massachusetts Ave., Central Square. Televised and watchable by Zoom videoconferencing.
Plan for Friends’ former offices
Planning Board, 6:30 p.m. Tuesday. A hearing continues from June 8 on a redevelopment of 2161 Massachusetts Ave., where the proposal is to move and expand the former two-story American Friends Service Committee office building near Porter Square, creating a mixed-use building with eight housing units, office space on the ground floor and seven parking spaces. The Planning Board called the parking lot too small. There’s also an extension asked on an apartment project at 88 Holworthy St., Strawberry Hill, resulting from a torrent of litigation – recently resolved, according to the owners – from the person staying in the decaying 1872 structure now on the property. Televised and watchable by Zoom videoconferencing.
Changes on Mount Auburn Street
Mount Auburn Street at Aberdeen Avenue intersection safety improvement project meeting, 9:30 to 10:30 a.m. Thursday. Lanes for cars heading toward Watertown and Belmont on this stretch of road in West Cambridge go to one from two with improvements to Mount Auburn between Belmont and Brattle streets, including at two intersections within: at Aberdeen Avenue and Homer Avenue. A bus lane is being extended, bike lanes are being improved and turn lanes added. Watchable by Zoom videoconferencing.
Can anyone clarify is a meeting to -tell- the community about changes?
Or is it a meeting to have a conversation about whether and how to have changes and integrate community feedback?
I also hope they are open to feed back. But I likely have a very different idea of what should change than you. I for one think the issue of whether there should be changes has been clearly articulated by the community repeatedly and the attempt to reopen that debate is simple obstructionism. Cambridge residents have expressed their desire for safer bike infrastructure repeatedly in polls, in meetings, and in elections.
I also frankly do not think this plan goes far enough. The eastbound bus bike lane with a forced crossing and sharrows is really inadequate. Turn lanes should not come before bicycle safety and there is room to continue the bidirectional lane if those were eliminated. I am also not a fan of the bike lane being crossed by turning lanes on Aberdeen Ave, which this project maintains.
The only reasonable plan would be to close the mt Auburn to automobiles and buses. This entire road should be dedicated bike lane. The current width should be wide enough for two bikes to pass one another with enough room for needle dispensers along the way.
Brilliant idea. (Cole)”Slaw” appears everywhere now hiding behind his cloak of anonymity to flog his extremist, completely self-centered version of the Cambridge “bike agenda,” which fails to guarantee safety and ignores the needs of the overwhelming majority of those of us who live and work in Cambridge, including some bicyclists. (Bravo!) Does “Slaw” live in Roslindale?? The dishonesty of “Slaw’s” fake narrative about the current massive bike infrastructure remake of Cambridge – totally free for Slaw and his freeloading ilk – rivals competing narratives about the federal election in 2020. These “mandates” were slipped in during Covid, when no one was paying any attention or could do anything about it. There has *never* been a genuine, robust, Cambridge-wide debate, deliberation, and *decision* about these depraved policies, or misguided implementation, promoted covertly for years behind the curtain by unelected and unaccountable city staff, whose dream for Cambridge has always been, even explicitly at times, (you guessed it) Amsterdam! Whoopee! (But without the canals and charming architecture; but judging from Cole Slaw’s bizarre ideation, *plenty* of excellent hashish!!) Three of the politicians who voted for this garbage when the rest of us were hiding or hunkering down have wisely chosen to skedaddle – get out while the gettin’s good – lest they experience the wrath of a belatedly awakened and angry electorate. Unlike the totalitarian “Slaw,” Bono wishes someone like him *were* on the ballot, so we Cambridge voters could give him a good drubbing. Oh, wait a minute, I see a few like him who seem to fill the bill…”Can’t wait,” ’til November 7th!
Tempted to simply allow yourself to look ridiculous.
I will respond simply to say that your dystopian fantasy doesn’t sound so bad. Amsterdam is pretty universally seen as an extremely livable city. It has among the happiest residents of any large city in the world. They have good healthcare, and other social services. Relevant to this they have world class walking and biking infrastructure along with decent public transit. That isn’t an example that should be scorned.
Following the lead of one of the best cities for bicycling in the world makes a lot of sense. We can learn from best practices of other cities and not have to repeat the same mistakes they did early on. Cambridge does already seem to be doing that and I am genuinely grateful for that. Based on polling, community feedback, the number of people biking on the newly safe streets, and local elections (including your inability to gather enough signatures to get on the ballot) it seems the voters are not on your side in disagreeing.
@Poor Bono Publico
You, I, and everyone else who hold different views from Slaw are wasting our time arguing with him. You simply won’t win.
He will distort what you have said and come up with verbiage which has little meaning to the real problem. Bicycles are his main focus, Amsterdam is his place, and he’s never met a car on a Cambridge street that he doesn’t wish weren’t there.
In so many ways, he represents what is known as “the tyranny of the minority. “
@concerned43 You are just mad I saw through your “I claim to bike but I oppose every single possible improvement for bicyclists and repeat every bike lash talking point” game.
The claims of totalitarianism and tyranny are genuinely unhinged. Im sure you all think the Netherlands is a communist country too. Like here the push for better bike infrastructure there wasn’t imposed from above as you claim it was demanded from below by people seeking basic safety on their streets. look into the “Stop de kindermoord” movement which translates to stop the child murder. The bike is actually not my main focus I walk and take transit more and also advocate for those issues. Pedestrian infrastructure in Cambridge is already pretty damn good and the Ts problems are on a different scale (the city should install more bus lanes though) so it is bike infrastructure where the glaring absence has been. Wanting those who bike to be safe, which in turn encourages more people to bike, isn’t some sinister conspiracy and even if it were its only result is to make the city better. Find real problems.
Its also Ironic to claim the “tyranny of the minority” are those who want basic safety for people on bikes when as I have shown you repeatedly car drivers are a small minority of road users and a sizable majority of cantabrigians support adding protected bike infrastructure. You claim those statistics are twisting your words but they are basic facts you would rather distort than acknowledge. If there is any “tyranny of the minority” here it is in the idea that car drivers must maintain their dominance over the entirety of every single street in the city and are victims if they have to give up even a fraction of the space to anyone else.