The MBTA is poised to embark on yet another mega-project: replacing the aging North Station drawbridge that connects commuter rail trains from North Cambridge to Boston.
But the project, which received a $472 million federal grant in September, will not include plans for a bike and pedestrian crossing alongside the bridge, despite the state’s commitment to such a pathway as part of mitigation efforts from the 1991-2007 Central Artery Project, commonly referred to as the Big Dig.
Several Cambridge city councillors voiced disappointment about the Draw One Bridge news at Monday’s meeting.
“What will and what can we do to try to push that?” Patty Nolan asked city staff. “If there’s something that the council can do to further that … let us know.”
Earlier in the year, the council passed a policy order for staff to advocate specifically for the pedestrian and bike crossing.
Assistant city manager for Community Development Iram Farooq said her department has “advocated actively, aggressively” for the pedestrian path “on multiple occasions.” According to Farooq, the MBTA does not object to a bike path separate from the bridge, but does not feel it is safe for bikes and pedestrians to be close to a “moving piece of infrastructure.”
Though the bike path is not part of the plans for the bridge, the transit agency told Cambridge Day that it “remains committed to collaborating with DCR and other stakeholders to explore alternative plans or strategies for improving pedestrian connectivity between North Bank Park and Nashua Street Park.”
Several bike and pedestrian advocacy groups have also been advocating for the bridge connection, including MassBike and WalkMassachusetts.
In June, executive director of WalkMassachusetts Brendan Kearney sent a letter to the MBTA requesting that the pedestrian path be added back to the plans for the drawbridge, specifically citing the state’s previous commitments to the crossing.
“This crucial pedestrian and bicycle connection was a commitment by the commonwealth as part of the Central Artery project mitigation,” the letter reads. “It should be restored to the project and built on the same timeline as the rail crossing.”
Executive director of MassBike Galen Mook said it’s “one of the many” projects that have failed to develop despite being promised as environmental mitigation to the Big Dig, the $8 billion project to put Interstate 93 through Boston into the Thomas P. O’Neill Jr. Tunnel.
“This is a shame on the state and the federal government for not following through with their commitments,” Mook said. “It’s challenging, for sure, with engineering, funding and permitting, but that’s only because they haven’t prioritized the crossings in the past 20 years since the Big Dig has been completed, and it’s solely due to their inaction that we find ourselves throwing up our hands.”
Mook said advocates will continue to press for a pedestrian crossing in conjunction with the bridge redevelopment, and may even ask the governor to step in and assist the situation.
A bridge connecting North Point Park to Boston would also connect through Cambridge the Crossing development with Somerville’s new Community Path extension, enabling riders to journey all the way from North Cambridge to North Station.
The Community Development Department’s recent report on active interjurisdictional projects says the city will try to work with nearby communities, the city of Boston and local businesses to advocate for the pedestrian crossing.
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It seems to me that if the State promised to build pedestrian access as part of the big dig project they should fulfill their commitment rather than waffle about the concepts of a plan.
When it comes to the MBTA long term residents of the state have learned that NOTHING they say or promise is real… believe nothing they say as true until it exists, they constantly break promises and then will try to blame it on anyone they can to accept they had promised or that they failed. Certainly nothing they promised as long ago as building the big dig. That has been a pit of lies and misrepresentations since day 1.