Cambridge defies state’s ‘Sunshine Law’ order around releasing documents on park and trees
Cambridge’s Law Department usually emails documents, large and small, promptly and at no charge.
But asking about trees is different. The city has never released a Linear Park traffic count requested last November. The city withheld a tree canopy report for months, claiming “it was not complete.” The city was ordered to release documents about the park three separate times but it continues stalling, creating months of delays.
By violating our “Sunshine Law,” which is our right to get information, and defying the commonwealth’s order to release documents, our City of Cambridge feeds distrust of our local government. Transparency and obeying the law are critical to earning our trust. The commonwealth’s order states “the Public Records Law strongly favors disclosure by creating a presumption that all governmental records are public records.”
Instead, the city continues to hide its plans for our public park like Donald Trump hiding boxes in Mar-a-Lago. We have a right to see how our tax dollars are spent, and public servants should damn well be obeying the law. Above all, the city should comply with the state order. The next step is for the state to sue the city, in which case you, the taxpayer, get to pay both sides of that lawsuit. That will be the city’s fault.
Sadly, the motive for hiding the plans is simple and appalling. Our city is on track to kill or maim nearly 100 trees by redesigning our Linear Park when its existing design has won four awards. That this is a waste of money doesn’t matter. That these trees are critical to locally combating climate change means nothing. And the city couldn’t care less about breaking the law and our trust.
Charles Teague lives in North Cambridge and is a longtime tree advocate.
“Our city is on track to kill or maim nearly 100 trees by redesigning our Linear Park” – false. The June 2023 public meeting materials posted on the city’s Linear Park Redesign project page (https://www.cambridgema.gov/Departments/communitydevelopment/linearparkredesign) show that only 6 trees will be removed: 1 near Russell Field, and 5 cherry trees near the Mass Ave entrance to the park which are in poor condition anyways. This information is not hidden, there is a full slide (page 42) dedicated to it. Additionally, the plan states that 120-150 new trees will be planted as part of the reconstruction.
“The city has never released a Linear Park traffic count” – also false. Cambridge publishes their bicycle counts EVERY SINGLE YEAR and the data is available online to the public right here: https://cityofcambridge.shinyapps.io/CitywideBicycleCounts/
It took me under 5 minutes to go to the data app , find the street filter for “Alewife Linear Park,” and get a graph of bike ridership on the path in both directions from 2003-2022. If the author was unable to do this for some reason, I would be happy to post the graph, but I suspect he just couldn’t be bothered to look because it didn’t fit his narrative.
As for withholding of the tree canopy report, I don’t know about that – but given the above outright incorrect claims and allegations of conspiracy re: bike counts and tree destruction, I am disinclined to believe the author on this point as well.
One final note: the organization “Cambridge4Trees,” of which the author is president, also has a petition circulating (https://www.cambridge4trees.org/folp) that continues with the hyperbolic rhetoric, repeating some of the above false claims as well as painting the redesign as an “expressway” in an attempt to equate a slight widening of the path to the destructive urban car highway projects of yore. Sorry, but that is a truly ridiculous reach. For those who haven’t been following the project, the current path is roughly 12 feet wide (though it varies in places, with a 10-15 ft. range), and the plan is to widen it to 14 feet (with a few 12 ft. pinch points to preserve mature trees).
I can’t wait for the city to ignore your ridiculous fight against widening the community path. And quit misrepresenting AASHTO standards which would want this path to be at least 14ft wide given its high use.
Anyone who enjoys Linear Park (and doesn’t just race through on their bicycle) will recognize right away that there are two deeply worn dirt paths on either side of the paved surface. These near trenches are the obvious result of the vast numbers of users fleeing the paved path out of fear of, or just understandable discomfort with, the numerous speeding bicyclists (and, increasingly, all manner of motorized bikes.) For a pedestrian – or those out walking their dog, for example – this is no joke. Widening the paved surface can’t be great for the environment, regardless of the exact number of healthy trees which would have to be cut down. But will it help reduce the speed of these arrogant, appallingly self-centered and endangering bicyclists, who are probably quite pleased with having successfully driven so many pedestrians off this supposedly “shared” path?? (After all, we’re just “getting in the way…”) Widening the path will almost certainly just make it only *easier* for the bicyclists who race through to go as fast as they like. Hence, it’s perfectly reasonable to call the essence of this plan a “bike speedway…” This will be the entirely predictable outcome of the current plan, being steered along, not coincidentally, by two avid bicyclists from CDD. (No “bias” or conflict of interest there, of course…) I realize things like ASSHTO are akin to some kind of “bible” for some bike fanatics, deserving of veneration and solemn reverence. But even ASSHTO allows for deviation, and there are examples of (though disingenuously named) “multi-use” paths where our all knowing and always perfect city staff have allowed bike lanes to be as wide or narrow as four feet. They don’t *have to be* seven. There are better solutions here. Sadly, the so-called “redesign” of Linear Park is looking more and more like just another piece of the ever-expanding bicycle infrastructure in Cambridge. Bravo! You’ve done it again! Nothing and nobody else matters… Bikes! Bikes! Bikes!
You are truly unhinged and incoherent. You say bikes are crowding people off the path but also oppose widening the path to reduce those conflicts because it will make it better to bike. You don’t actually care about making anything better you just hate bikes.
You also make that clear with statements like: “Anyone who enjoys Linear Park (and doesn’t just race through on their bicycle)” biking along the linear path is a completely valid way to enjoy/use it.
Multi use paths are meaningfully different than bike lanes in that as the name suggests they serve multiple uses. Bike lanes can be as small as 4 feet, although bigger is better to allow passing and people to ride side by side comfortably but a multi use path does need to be wider. I would genuinely be curious what the “other solutions” would be to the specific problem of the path being too narrow for everyone who wants to use it to be able to do so comfortably besides widening it. Again though it seems like you are more interested in waging a war on the bike than actually solving anything.
Poor Bono, did a bike use to steal your lunch money or something?
Okay… there’s way too much happening in there so let’s pick out the less ranty bits. So interesting how when the brazen twisting of the facts is called out, such as inflating 6 tree removals to 100 “killed or maimed,” suddenly it’s just bad “regardless of the exact number.” Stop moving the goalposts.
According to “Bono”/Mr. Williamson and others opposing the redesign, we can’t have public art in the park, because that would make it too much like those “urban” parks. We can’t add places for people to sit and take a break, because that might invite loitering. (These are real comments from the last public meeting, by the way.) And we most definitely can’t slightly widen the path, in the hopes that keeping it too narrow for its actual traffic levels will deter certain groups of users.
Spoiler alert: The only thing that would achieve is overcrowding.
I’m reminded of that Parks & Rec episode with the town meeting about what to do with some park space, where one attendee asks: “Is there going to be basketball there? Basketball courts attract undesirables to my community.” The more I read comments like those above, the less that seems like a caricature.
If having to share the Linear Path with cyclists is truly that upsetting, advocate for cycling connections of equivalent quality (i.e. safely separated from cars + not ridiculously roundabout). And no, Dudley Street is not an acceptable substitute even though Cambridge4Trees claims it is: it’s just sharrows with parked cars on both sides, and is the wrong way for the final block to Mass Ave.
For me the issue is the City hasn’t done their due diligence to show the effects on the bike path. A common way to do this is to stake out the path including side paths so we can see how wide it will look and how trees will be effected. Right now they claim 5 or 6 but we can’t see how that is possible given how narrow it would be in their design at some points.
This should include the stone dust sides since they are impermeable as well.
I leave right near the park and walk through it multiple times per day. Yes, I walk on the sides but not because I am scared for my life. I walk on the sides because I like the feeling of dirt under my feel and my dog prefers it to pavement. A wider path means I will just walk wider and impact the trees more. But still I invite the city to show the effects through flags and then invite everyone to have a more concrete discussion.