Delaying a call for slower speeds on Memorial Drive after a bicyclist death didn’t result in the consensus that Cambridge councillors hoped. A policy order Monday meant to give direction to the state – which controls Memorial Drive – passed with a 5-4 vote after an hour of debate.
“I’m glad we did all that to end up exactly how we started,” vice mayor Marc McGovern said ruefully.
What changed since the order was introduced Sept. 30 but paused to seek unity: Out is language endorsing a “road diet” that will take away two lanes of car traffic; in is language calling for a “robust” community dialogue about whether the road diet is wanted. (A section of Memorial Drive in West Cambridge is getting a roadway reduction; it’s sections east of Harvard Square that are in question.)
The amount of major roadwork coming to Interstate 90 and detours from Harvard’s construction in Allston – and the possibility that those drivers would try navigating this side of the river instead – suggests a Memorial Drive road diet would be disastrous for Cambridge traffic any time within the next 10 years, some councillors said.
The state Department of Conservation and Recreation began work Monday on safety improvements on the riverfront roadway and a dangerous rotary that is likely to affect traffic at some hours until around Thanksgiving. The news comes after the third bicyclist death in Cambridge in four months: John Corcoran, 62, of Newton, killed by an SUV on Sept. 23 at a section of Memorial Drive where bike activists have long been warning of danger and calling for improvements.
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Long-awaited improvements
The call for slower speeds wasn’t controversial among city councillors, and some expressed gratitude – alongside regret that a death provided the push – for the state snapping into action on a speed limit reduction to 25 mph near the Reid Overpass; widening sidewalks nearest the river and leading to the rotary to provide 12 feet of raised shared-use path; improving and reconfiguring wheelchair ramps and median islands at the intersection of Memorial Drive and the BU Bridge; replacing some fence; and restriping crosswalks to include green paint for bike crossings.
“I’ve been working with them for 14 years, and it’s really hard to move fast with DCR, but in a week, they’re moving,” city councillor Cathie Zusy said.
Others were less impressed. Among the roughly 15 speakers on Memorial Drive during a public comment period was Chris Cassa, an organizer with the Cambridge Bicycle Safety group. “Widening the path and narrowing that on-ramp where that fatality happened was specifically called out in a 2002 DCR study, and it was again called out in a 2013 connectivity study,” Cassa said. “DCR already knew the problems, and they already knew the solutions.”
Narrow win for lane reduction
Where things got bogged down with the council was around the original language of the order calling for replacement of two car lanes “with protected multiuse paths along the full length of Memorial Drive.” Councillor Patty Nolan sought to amend her own order to get rid of that specific idea, while still calling for “reductions in motor vehicle travel lanes” and other improvements.
Memorial Drive functions as “almost a mini-highway” when Cambridge should be reclaiming it as a showpiece esplanade – a riverfront amenity that has a parkway, Nolan said.
This amendment passed 5-4, opposed by Mayor E. Denise Simmons, Zusy and councillors Paul Toner and Ayesha Wilson.
Unanimity for public process
A separate amendment, which drew its own debate, came from Simmons and Wilson around having a public process “as promised by the DCR” at a Jan. 30 meeting. The amendment went from mentioning the Riverside neighborhood to including Cambridgeport to becoming a more generic call to hear from anyone affected in potentially multiple meetings – though Wilson argued for the specificity of naming Riverside because “a lot of decisions are being made without the community involved” in a way that “really feels intentional.”
Though that change was made, the calling out of the state agency for its lack of follow-up survived. After all, Simmons said, DCR commissioner Brian Arrigo promised “‘I will come back and talk to you.’ And he never did.”
“For whatever reason, that meeting didn’t happen,” Simmons said. “They didn’t come through when they said they would.”
This amendment calling for a public process was approved unanimously.
DCR: “Waiting to hear”?
Whether the state will listen to the council or those community dialogues was its own disagreement.
Cambridge officials were encouraged to tell the state its road-diet wishes by Jeffrey Parenti. “They’re waiting for some action or communication from us supporting a further study for the work,” he said. “They haven’t heard from us yet.”
Parenti should know: Though he works in the city’s transportation department as traffic director and assistant commissioner for street management, until November he was the DCR’s deputy chief engineer.
“What I just heard Mr. Parenti say is that DCR is sitting around waiting to hear what the City Council has to say. I’m uncomfortable directing the DCR to go forth and reduce from two lanes to one lane without robust conversation with the Cantabrigians that live in that area,” Toner said. “And quite honestly they should be involving people from Belmont, Brookline, Jamaica Plain in Boston too, because they’re the ones who use the road as well.”
Nolan wanted to give a signal to the state too, though Zusy suspected it wouldn’t be necessary – that its officials and staff would move toward car-lane reductions on their own “because they’re a park organization, right? They do run parkways, but they’re really there to advocate for parks,” said Zusy, who worked with the state on improvements at Magazine Beach in Cambridgeport. “It would be natural for them to be thinking about a road diet in time, but not quite yet.”
Skeptical about the state
Other councillors were more skeptical that the state was looking for a nod from Cambridge. “I love the suggestion that that DCR will just do whatever we say, that the City Council says ‘jump’ and DCR says ‘how high?’” Jivan Sobrinho-Wheeler said. “That has not been my experience.”
McGovern was another skeptic, recalling how the council voted 7-2 twice last year in favor of closing Memorial Drive to cars on Saturdays to turn it into a recreation area known as Riverbend Park. It had no effect. It was later revealed in state documents that a DCR official said the council had “reversed its support” for the park – untrue. Three councillors called for the state to reconsider its rejection of the park based on falsehoods, but the state never responded.
“Maybe they’re waiting to hear from us. Maybe they’re not,” McGovern said. “I don’t get the sense that if this order passes, it’s going to be anything close to 7-2.”
A stronger
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After extensive debate, the City Council voted for an order with a clear directive. The decision — while contentious — is not a mixed message. The order calls on the DCR to restart a community process to redesign Memorial Drive.
The order requests that the DCR lower traffic speeds, improve safety at crossings, expand green spaces, and ensure equitable access for all road users. The council’s request is also explicit: the DCR should redesign the road to meet modern safety standards and reduce the number of motor vehicle lanes.
Given that there have been over 1,200 crashes, 446 injuries, and 4 fatalities in the last decade, there is no question that the state needs to act boldly to fix this. Several intersections rank in the MassDOT top state-wide crash list, including many pedestrian and bicycle crash clusters.
Stop trying to build consensus with people who even after someone dies on a dangerous roadway care more about vehicular throughput and parking than safety. They are never going to do the right thing and attempting to build consensus with them will always mean delays and compromising safety.
The sides are clearly drawn. Patty Nolan, at this point knows that if she betrays those who elected her again she is going to lose her seat. You have the majority, do what needs to be done and make the people prioritizing vehicle speed and parking over human lives have to own that publicly.
If Amsterdam started the changes to become the world capital bike city it is today with a one-vote margin, so can Cambridge: https://citychangers.org/it-was-no-easy-ride/
It’s going to be a long time before we truly get our waterfront back.
Posting slower speed limit signs does nothing. Cambridge posted them all over the city and yet every day I still see vehicles traveling well over those posted limits. The only effective way to reduce car speed is with engineering. Where people see wide straight lanes, they go fast. Simple as that. Also, DCR has no interest in what the Cambridge City Council has to say or Cabridge residents. So, I’m really even sure what all this pomp and circumstance is about.
Paul Toner prioritizes the interests of car owners and homeowners, consistently opposing initiatives for safer streets and affordable housing.
Despite campaigning on safe streets and affordable housing, Patty Nolan has repeatedly voted against these promises, betraying her supporters.
@FrankD Agreed, but don’t forget business owners. These councilors prioritize customers with money over protecting the vulnerable.
Patty Nolan’s actions are particularly disappointing. She campaigned on promises she’s now abandoning.
Her comments before voting to pause bike lanes were infuriating. She praised lanes in her neighborhood for keeping her daughter safe, then voted against lanes that would protect other children.
Home owners benefit from Toner’s policies the people harmed by them are renters (most of the people who live here)
I appreciate councilors who think beyond constituents to include stakeholders and ALL residents. lobbyists are masters at pressure (in most things) without considering the larger ripple affect. why can’t we take an extra beat and do it right? Mem-drive is indeed a highway of sorts bypassing neighborhood streets. many of the users are from other municipalities cutting through. This is not an easy issue.
@Pete, I think this is the type of issue where ‘protecting’ the neighborhood is actually hurting it. Ask anyone in Cambridgeport if they want to keep the rotary design — it’s an emphatic no. They want to move away from a broken highway interchange and the backups into Cambridgeport streets.
So when our policymakers talk about prioritizing regional car commuters (Belmont, JP, Boston) over livability or safety for people in our community, it’s actually bad for us. Keeping the status quo design for I-90 detours, or worse, for future growth in Allston, will guarantee more congestion.
Regional commuters are the ones clogging that rotary and our neighborhood streets every day. We need to shift the focus to resident safety and quality of life, rather than accommodating these pass-through commuters.
In a perverse example from Google Maps, some number of drivers every day break the Cambridgeport neighborhood traffic grid by going from Boston through Cambridge and back into Boston. This is bonkers, but it’s a few minutes faster on Google Maps, so they do it. We could actually prevent this!
Google Maps Picture: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/pa0knuh95jw0ae7uzrlup/Mem-Drive-Fastest-Route.jpg?rlkey=p6xu86jnx1ep4zvw9aol718ws&dl=0
There would be no traffic on the rotary or Mem Drive if we didn’t dump commuters from the Mass Pike into Cambridgeport and Riverside. These commuters are not traveling to Cambridgeport and shouldn’t be using our neighborhood as a shortcut. Instead, they could stay on the Pike or Storrow, which are better suited for through traffic. But we have a highway on our side of the river, so they use it.
The issue is very easy. People are suffering terrible injuries and dying. We fix that. Lives are more important that driving convenience.