Somerville city councilors are trying to preserve a pedestrian footbridge at McGrath Highway. (Photo: Julia Levine)

There’s one change around the state’s coming transformation of McGrath Highway into McGrath Boulevard that Somerville officials are trying to stop: removal of a pedestrian footbridge.

The City Council discussed an order March 28 for Somerville’s director of mobility to work with the state Department of Transportation to preserve the footbridge when the project starts construction in 2028.

The plan is to make the area safer by narrowing the street and more attractive by removing the McGrath overpass, according to a presentation on the project. That Route 28 viaduct has cast an isolating shadow over parts of East Somerville and East Cambridge, as well as development there, since the 1950s.

Ward 1 city councilor Matthew McLaughlin said that he “strongly” supports the project, but has concerns about removing the pedestrian footbridge and the swapping of full stoplights at the footbridge with blinking stoplights that give drivers more discretion.

For non-able-bodied people, children and seniors, without stoplights and a footbridge, crossing that area could be dangerous, McLaughlin said.

“I don’t want to get in the way of a very positive project, but I do think that I don’t understand the logic behind removing it if there’s a way to keep it and save money. That would be ideal to me,” McLaughlin said, explaining the preservation order he co-sponsored. “And I know it’s a big, ugly looking thing, but a lot of people use it.”

User are reaching out

Ward 4 councilor Jesse Clingan, a co-sponsor of the order, said that parents of students at the Winter Hill school have expressed to him their concerns with the pedestrian footbridge removal.

“I share those concerns,” Clingan said. “At the very least if it has to be removed I would like to see it be at the absolute end of the project, or at least until they can prove that the road is a much safer field to cross. If they fail to make people feel safe at that crossing, then I absolutely think we we have to get them to keep the footbridge.”

City councilor at large Kristen Strezo, another co-sponsor, asked if there was data on use of the footbridge. While McLaughlin said he doesn’t have data, he has received many emails from those not in his ward regarding it.

“Someone put a sign on the bridge saying contact your elected officials, so people seeing the signs are contacting me – which I think is an indication that a lot of people are using this bridge,” McLaughlin said.

Getting organized

Council President Ben Ewen-Campen noted that the next few months are “critical” for the city to “get organized about our advocacy.” Advisory bodies such as the Pedestrian Advisory Committee and the Bicycle Advisory Committee are collaborating with the Mobility Department about the project, he said.

“It would be important for us all as elected officials to make sure that we’re all speaking in the same direction, so the state hears loud and clear how full-throated we are in support of this project, and also the things that we hope to advocate within it,” Ewen-Campen said.

The order was referred to the Traffic and Parking Committee for discussion.