This is the month work on a $7.2 million redesign of Cambridge’s Linear Park might go out for bid, but the city’s Committee on Public Planting is asking city manager Yi-An Huang to pause and reconsider.
The redesign “falls short of aligning” with the city’s own Urban Forest Master Plan with a path widening that “will significantly increase pavement at the expense of existing trees” and poses “a clear threat to the health and longevity of existing mature trees,” the 12-person committee said in a Dec. 20 letter.
The letter was in response to the committee being told in December that a request for proposal would go out this month on a plan in the works for nearly three years could widen the paved path and add seating, play areas and lighting.
Stakeholders from the city will respond to the letter in the coming days, said a spokesperson for Cambridge, Jeremy Warnick, on Friday.
The park, completed in 1985 in North Cambridge between Alewife Station and the Cambridge-Somerville city line, is used by walkers and bike riders and needs to be widened to accommodate recreation and commuting side by side, city planners say. As a link between the Somerville Community Path and Minuteman Bikeway, “it’s getting busier and it’s not meeting the needs of all of its users,” project manager Charles Creagh told The Tufts Daily in 2023.
The aging paved path through the park is now an average 10.5 to 11 feet wide, but would go as wide as 14 feet in the redesign, a standard for the kind of use the Linear Park sees.
Debate over effect on trees
While the city says its plan does not not remove any healthy mature trees – only five deteriorated cherry trees, which will be replaced with more cherry trees as well as more than 100 other trees – the committee disagrees with planners’ assurances that it is applying a “belt and suspenders” approach to tree trunk and root protection.
The expansion of path to accommodate more commuting and transportation will increase the area of impermeable surfaces, which exacerbates stormwater runoff and intensifies the urban heat island effect, and it “jeopardizes critical root systems” on trees, the committee wrote.
It wants stone dust shoulders taken out of the plan, because members consider them to be part of the hardscape that eliminates the natural aspects of the park, and it wants no section of the path to be wider than 12 feet.
Having 2 feet of stone dust shoulders on each side will make the path 18 feet wide from the current 10.5, said a resident named Nonie Valentine who has been following discussions around the redesign. She wrote a letter expressing concerns after attending a Nov. 21 meeting on the project held by the Community Development Department.
Errors in plan
Incorrect measurements of trees taken when the plan was developed – they were measured from the side farthest from the path, rather then from the path itself – made it look like trees were farther from the path and thus safer, but that has been corrected, the city says. There are newer problems with plans seen as recently as Dec. 11, co-chair Sophia Emperador said, noting trees marked as existing where they do not and vice-versa.
“I hate to use the word ‘sloppy,’ but I can’t see another word,” Emperador said. “It’s just lack of attention to detail, and when you start seeing little things you wonder ’What else is wrong?’ It just seems a lot it hasn’t been resolved and I know it’s going out to bid in a few weeks.”
A widened path still risks the lives of at least 70 trees that are within 3 feet of the existing pathway’s edge in Linear Park, committee member Maggie Booz has said.
“Any loss of these trees would undermine the city’s stated commitment to increasing canopy coverage,” accordion to the Dec. 20 letter by the committee.
The next meeting of the committee is 5:30 p.m. Wednesday at the Department of Public Works, 147 Hampshire St., Wellington-Harrington, Cambridge, and online.
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Evidence that if you lie enough times and just keep doing it enough people will believe you that it starts to influence policy more than the truth.
What is the Committee of Public Planting? I couldn’t find much from a Google search. Who are its members ? How were they appointed or elected? Why does it exist and what is its role?
Sloppy is true although I would also use deceitful. The city got Barrett to do airspading to see how close the roots of trees were to the current path. The report went through the city first and said 11 (out of 31) were least impacted. It didn’t mention that they couldn’t event airspace 7 of them because they were too close to the path of anything about the other 13. None of these were the cherries trees that are in bad shape.
Let’s not make the park safer for people. Let’s pretend trees are at risk because I am feel upset when anyone suggests changing anything.
The path is falling apart. A delay is inexcusable.
All this city does is delay.
you are so correct, slaw. Unfortunately, we see this approach used on many issues including multifamily upzoning. Housing is not the issue- accurate information, consequences down the road, ultimate cost to the city needs to be looked at. The unit counts projected are erroneous. These issues are influenced by the same approach. repeat and create the panic first. And gov dept like DPW and CDD are not hearing or acknowledging the public comments.
I hope even in this era we can still trust the expertise of the hard-working, expert employees of the city. Reading closely, it sounds like further delay will decrease the number of trees since more will be planted as the path is improved. This seems like a win-win plan by the city that has been in the works for years. The path gets improved, allowing for more harmonious use, and the park gets more trees.
Linear Park was created by an (unrecorded) easement from the MBTA to the City of Cambridge. According to the easement, the City asked for a pedestrian walkway, and the easement gives it a walkway for pedestrians and bicycles. That’s a walkway, not a transportation corridor as CDD claimed in one of the many CPP meetings I attended. Thousands of people use the Public Garden and Boston Common to get between Back Bay, Beacon Hill and downtown Boston, but they’re still parks, not transportation corridors.
The easement also requires the City to maintain the park, which it has not seen fit to do, resulting in the death of many trees in recent droughts because the irrigation system was no longer functional. The City has allowed the pavement to deteriorate so that there are places where it’s not safe for wheels or feet, which is why the City Council unanimously asked for the path to be restored, not redesigned. The CDD Transportation Division (note that CDD has blatantly lied in public meetings about the obvious fact that the Transportation Division was assigned to run this project rather than park planners) wants to spend $7.2 million on a stretch of path a mere 2/3 of a mile long, or about $1,000,000/.1 mile, in a time of belt-tightening when there are so many other needed projects that could use this money. Yes, spend a third of that amount to restore an award-winning park that so many people use and enjoy, and repurpose the remaining $5 million where it will do far more good, as the City Council asked in two policy orders.
$7 million is the cost to build one mile of a six-lane super highway. Linear Park is a green space shared by pedestrians, strollers, seniors, children, and cyclists. When did this shared pathway become a transportation corridor? Why does the city want to spend so much money to exclude current users? We’re also cutting down many mature trees.
If anything, the path should have more turns and be narrower to slow down cyclists and e-bikes. This measure is called “traffic calming.”
I see the anti-change + afraid of bikes coalition has deployed themselves to the comment section in a very organized fashion 😂.
CH39 – I am not anti-change or anti-bike. I myself bike (my son uses bike lanes in Cambridge to go to school every day) as do many members of the CPP. I just like walking my dog on Linear Park in the shade.
I just don’t see the benefits of this design.
The question is what benefits are there for this change?
Why is the project so expensive? This does seem excessive
The benefits are that it will reduce conflicts between bicyclists and pedestrians, which has been a consistent source of complaints due to choke points and generally not being wide enough for people to walk side by side and bikes to safely pass. That’s why this is happening in the first place.
They are also planting hundreds of new trees and adding new features to the park space.
A walkway is a transportation corridor. Walking and biking are modes of transportation. This corridor connects to the minute man to Bedford (with other trails going even further), the alewife brook trails to Medford, and to Belmont (which will eventually get extended to Northampton). This is one of the most important non-automotive transportation corridors in the commonwealth if not the nation.
You said the exact same thing on the other article on this subject and I pointed out how wrong you were to which you had no response but yet you double down on the same bad faith arguments and misinformation…
If your opposition to a project relies on lying and fear mongering it does not deserve to be taken seriously.
Cportus – here it is. It took 10 seconds to search. Attend a meeting to find out what they do. It is made up of a variety of people include landscape architects. They advise the city on projects. https://www.cambridgema.gov/citycalendar/view.aspx?guid=3ae79ff1631b435a8a1f4e0c3468dc00
Stop with all this nonsense about this park is not a transportation corridor.
The 1984 easement aims to provide a “walkway for pedestrians and bicyclists,” which supports improving the path for both groups. The redesign will enhance safety and accessibility while honoring this original intent.
Currently, the path is in poor condition and too narrow. Widening it will create safer spaces for cyclists and pedestrians. Additionally, adding more trees and seating will benefit everyone, promote green transportation, reduce pollution, increase street safety, and decrease traffic by minimizing car use—benefits that extend beyond park users.
Unfortunately, a small group is resisting these necessary improvements due to an instinctive opposition to change or anything that supports cyclists.
It’s disheartening that the selfishness of a few is hindering progress for the entire community.
Well I spend more than 10 seconds googling and did indeed find that before (a link to a meeting…)
Was curious more who its members are? How and why they are chosen? Their committee profile page basically only has a suggestion to email the city Arborist which is not helpful.
And no I am not going to “attend a meeting” to find out what they do. At 5:30 pm… on a weekday… some of us have jobs and kids.
Thanks for nothing, mbakal. If anyone else that knows the answers is willing to engage without being snarky, I’d appreciate it!
@HeatherHoffman
The current redesign plan addresses maintenance concerns, including improved irrigation systems and regular tree inspections during construction. The city is also committed to tree protection and replacement, with plans to plant up to 150 new trees to offset past losses.
While previous maintenance may have been insufficient, the city is taking proactive steps to rectify these issues. Unfortunately, some are attempting to block these efforts.
Criticisms of the project’s cost are short-sighted. Investing in infrastructure that supports pedestrian and cyclist traffic offers long-term benefits such as reduced congestion, improved public health, and stronger community connections.
The redesign is not just about restoring Linear Park but adapting it to meet contemporary needs and safety standards, creating a safer and more functional space for everyone.
It’s unfortunate that knee-jerk resistance to change hinders progress toward a more adaptable and inclusive community.
“Delay the project, redo the analysis, do the design over, start again from the beginning, bring in the ‘experts’ who will provide the result I want to see, then delay some more, wait why is this project so expensive?”
I wonder…
Anonymous Slaw, AvgJoe, CH39, et al., who are too afraid to identify themselves while they sling misinformation and insults left and right, the Committee on Public Planting was created and is governed by c. 2.106 of the Cambridge Municipal Code, which you can read in full here: https://library.municode.com/ma/cambridge/codes/code_of_ordinances?nodeId=TIT2ADPE_CH2.106COPUPL. It’s really not hard to find, although I will admit that the listing on the dreaded Meeting Portal is not up-to-date and is missing members. Your beef about lack of information should properly be presented to city staff, not the residents who inform themselves and show up for meetings.
The members of the CPP have more expertise in this area than all of you put together, I’d bet, and they have spent untold hours studying these plans and applying that expertise to them, which is what they’re supposed to do. If any of you have spent more than five seconds actually looking at anything, you have given no evidence of it. Just taking the word of city staff, who themselves didn’t bother to field-check anything until forced to by the unpaid volunteers on the CPP who did do the work, is all I’ve seen you do and gives you no right to insult the Committee members.
You are the only one insulting people and you have not addressed any of the substantive points any of those who disagree with you have brought up, instead resorting to mudslinging and an appeal to expertise fallacy.
Of course I didn’t see this new article until after I’d already written up long replies to Ms. Valentine’s op-ed, ha. But what I said there still applies. To paraphrase, the threat to trees is being hugely exaggerated via multiple misleading tactics, including treating stone dust as being no different from asphalt, ignoring the fact that the city has committed to the tree treatments (air spading, soil amendments etc.) that the committee itself recommended, and attributing dozens of “high risk” trees to the proposed redesign when in actuality they are already that way under the current design.
I am not sure if this is a case of the CPP being swayed by Cambridge4Tree’s aggressive misinformation campaign on this issue, or if CPP members themselves are pushing this – for example, one member used to be VP of Cambridge4Trees before joining the committee, while another member did much of the tree risk assessment/review of the city’s plans that Cambridge4Trees based their their wild “100+ trees killed/maimed” numbers on. Either way, I hope the city takes this into account when deciding how much this letter should impact the project plans.
I’ll also note that the survey errors are not some new eleventh-hour smoking gun that’s proof of a conspiracy/cover-up. This problem was raised over a year ago, by the same people, and the city responded by correcting the errors. Same goes for many of the other issues…here’s some old CPP meeting minutes showing that despite Cambridge4Trees’ narrative that tree concerns are being ignored/silenced, there has been significant back and forth on this:
* https://www.cambridgema.gov/-/media/Files/publicworksdepartment/meetingminutes/publicplantingcommittee/2023/november6.pdf
* https://www.cambridgema.gov/-/media/Files/publicworksdepartment/meetingminutes/publicplantingcommittee/2024/january10.pdf
Finally, since the issue of cost is being raised in the comments: a detailed breakdown is posted on the project page: https://www.cambridgema.gov/-/media/Files/CDD/Transportation/Projects/LinearPark/linearpark_100percentcostestimate.pdf As far as I can tell, any cost savings from not widening the path would be dwarfed by other project components like irrigation, drainage, and electrical work. In fact, it’s even outstripped by the ~million dollars allocated to landscaping and tree care purposes such as tree fencing/protection, air spading/soil amendments, new plantings, soil/mulch material, etc.
@cportus – It’s not easily findable for those not already tuned into city matters, but the membership of all city boards/committees including this one is posted at https://cambridgema.iqm2.com/Citizens/Board, though it doesn’t seem to be completely up to date. This committee doesn’t seem to have a nicely organized record/repository of meeting materials like many others do (for example, the pedestrian committee has a dedicated page with agendas and minutes going back for years available at https://www.cambridgema.gov/CDD/Transportation/forthepublic/pedestriancomm) so you have to go to https://www.cambridgema.gov/publications and search for “public planting” in the “Meeting Minutes” category. The recent minutes should give you a better idea of active CPP members.
As for the recruitment process, as far as I understand, a call for members goes out (a past example: https://www.cambridgema.gov/Departments/publicworks/news/2023/03/committeeonpublicplantingvacancy). People apply, the city reviews applicants, then usually there’s a City Council meeting agenda item from the City Manager noting the final appointments (another past example: https://cambridgema.iqm2.com/Citizens/Detail_LegiFile.aspx?ID=20259). Though if Robert Winters’ recent reappointment to the Central Square Advisory Committee is any indication, perhaps the city’s vetting process isn’t as rigorous as it should be.
I’m sorry but what citizens in their right mind, when we have a school and mental health crisis and looming budget attacks from a fascist federal government who hates our city want to spend 7 million dollars on replacing trees with (checks notes) more pavement in park????
The city’s plan aims to make the park safer and includes major upgrades to infrastructure, irrigation, and long-overdue path maintenance. It also involves planting more trees. The issue with tree placement was addressed long ago.
The city is working to improve public spaces and develop green transportation infrastructure to reduce pollution, alleviate traffic, make streets safer, and combat climate change.
However, as often happens, progress is stalled because some people resist any change.
@Heather Hoffman: Blanket statements about the CPP’s “expertise” and how much time they’ve “studied” the park compared to others are baseless. Hyperbole like this undermines credibility. If committee volunteering makes someone an expert, consider Robert Winters.
@OhTo13: The goal isn’t to add “more pavement” but to make the park safer. Numerous complaints about close calls and accidents between cyclists and pedestrians show the current path is too narrow. Widening it will reduce injuries. And yes, the plan includes planting more trees.
It would be helpful if some community members stopped reflexively opposing change. Cities must adapt to meet the needs of growing and evolving populations.
The city’s plan is well-intentioned and designed to benefit the community, but resistance to any change continues to be a barrier.
Most of the 7 million is being spent on adding new trees and caring for the existing ones. Trump also agrees with you about prioritizing cars over active transportation.
There’s plenty of room on the Linear Park path for walkers, runners, and bikers, as long as everyone keeps to the right except to pass, and remembers that it you’re walking, running, or biking to the left of someone, you’re not keeping right.
I live a few blocks away and regularly bike, walk and run on this path. It’s really fine as is with some needed restoration work and I’m certainly not anti-bike. I generally like the growth of new separated bike-paths and I’ve been biking around Cambridge since the 1970’s. Please don’t conflate wanting to keep this well-functioning park substantially intact with being anti-bike.
This path is *existing* so it’s not a contradiction to be in favor of both of protecting the park and trees and maintaining its utility as a pathway for travelers on foot and on wheels. And the CPP is certainly not lying about the risk to many trees (more on CPP below.)
The reality is that this path travels a tortuous route both before Linear Park and after: There are seven 90° turns, two MBTA pedestrian plazas, active playing fields, multiple major road crossings and then it’s an average of 10′ wide when it gets to the new GLX portion. These aspects will never change, it’s just the land the path travels through. See diagram here: tinyurl.com/PathComplexity
Looking at the broader route, it’s never going to be a wide, bike-predominated path. Widening a 1/3rd mile section to 14′ plus 4′ shoulders has little benefit and comes at a high financial, quality of life and canopy cost which the CPP – doing its City-appointed duty – has done a great job of making clear. Thanks to CPP for formalizing their grounded concerns in a letter to the CM. Full letter here: tinyurl.com/CPP-CityMgrLtr
Re, the CPP, here’s their page: https://cambridgema.iqm2.com/Citizens/Board/1145-Public-Planting-Committee
I went to all of the members’ LinkedIn pages (assuming the names are current) and most of them are senior professionals in landscape, architecture and sustainable design – people with 20-30+ years of professional experience – principals at firms, etc.
Info on the page says they are tasked to: “Promote and improve the quality and diversity of public plantings throughout all areas of the City.”
And:
“Preference for members with horticulture or practical experience, or interest in urban forestry and landscape issues.”
You may not like their professional and consensus opinion, but it’s silly to suggest they’re lying.
P.S. I agree with “cportus” and others that the City does a lousy job of providing info on committees and linking them to meetings and notes.
If you go to the CPP page and click “view meeting minutes”, it goes nowhere. On a related note, I don’t think the City even gives the contacts and names for City Council Aides. Why? They’re city employees and often the easiest way to reach Councillors.
Cportus – I also have a child and a job. These things take time. Most of their names are on the letter and you could look them up. I know some of the people on the CPP and have learned a lot from them. At least 3 are/were landscape architects. They take their roles seriously and submitted the errors in the original design (simple stuff like trees being mis-measured) early in the process. This took time measuring each tree carefully. Something the city didn’t do. Why should we know them all? They are volunteers,not paid city employees. The city approved them to review the design and then ignored their findings.
Paths should be wide enough that people can walk or ride side by side actually. Your suggestion is anti-social.
Having no one with a background in active transportation on a committe tasked with reviewing an active transportation project is a serious issue in my opinion. You have to weigh competing priorities sometimes and if all you have is a hammer everything looks like a nail.
This plan also isnt intended to make it so bikes “predominate.” It is explicitly intended to make the park more functional for all users. The narrowness of the paths and the choke points is a problem and just because other nearby paths are also inadequate isn’t a good reason at all to keep this one in that state. By your logic we would never improve anything.
To reiterate my earlier comment in the thread (and 12:35pm post on the other thread), I’m a cyclist and I regularly bike on this stretch of path and all over Cambridge, Somerville, etc. I live a few blocks away so I also walk and run through Linear Park as does the writer and others on this thread. For the record, I’m in favor of new separated bike paths along the streets of Cambridge.
However, backing up to consider the impacts on trees, I spoke in detail with two landscape professionals who have carefully looked at the location of trees and the proposed wider path and have come to a very different conclusion than the City regarding the risk to trees in Linear Park.
The Committee on Public Planting, an official City Committee, agrees and expressed its concern for the health of mature trees in a letter sent to the City Manager, City Council and dept. heads on Dec. 20th, linked here: https://tinyurl.com/CPP-CityMgrLtr
I wanted to understand this myself so I asked about the four big trees in the pictures above. Here’s what the landscape professionals say, based on widely accepted standards of tree care. It’s also intuitive if you look at the pix:
Bartlett Tree Experts, a highly respected source for information on tree care, says that a tree is at risk if a significant portion of the roots are cut within a zone three times the tree’s diameter at breast height (DBH) – the risk being great enough that the design should be changed.
In the bottom photo, the diameter of the tree on the left is 20” and the one on the right is 16”. Per Bartlett, the roots for the one on the left should not be cut closer than 5′ (3 x 20″) yet the existing path is already within that zone at 3’ from the trunk. Thus root cutting to widen the path here is ill-advised.
The roots for the tree on the right should not be cut closer than 4′ (3 x 16″) yet the existing path is 5′-6” from the trunk. Cutting the roots more than 18″ here is ill-advised according to Bartlett. In both cases, the root cutting required to widen the path would occur very near the base of these mature trees, so no cutting is advised.
Looking at the top photo, the tree on the left is 30” DBH and the one on the right is 18” DBH. Using the 3x formula, the roots for the tree on the left should not be cut closer than 7’-6” yet the path is currently 5’ from the trunk so cutting to widen the path is ill-advised here. Per Bartlett, for the tree on the right, the roots should not be cut closer than 4’-6” yet the existing path is 3’ from the trunk so no cutting is advised here either. As with the previous pair of trees, widening the path in this location would require root cutting very close to the base of the trees and would gravely impact their health.
In these four cases, professional standards state that the *design should be changed* to remove the serious risk to trees. To suggest the current design is not cutting down these four 45+ year old trees is a diversion. It may be true in the near-term, but instead, these trees and many others will die slowly. In that process, some will become unstable, posing serious risks to people in the park. Like cutting a leg from a stool.
The landscape professionals say there are ~100 trees in the 1/3rd mile stretch between Mass. Ave. and Harvey St. that will be endangered due to the construction of new side paths, the installation of new utilities and the proposed widening of the main path.
They – and now CPP – have reviewed the entire pathway and stated on multiple occasions that either the path needs to remain closer to its current width in many locations or many trees will be harmed and many will likely prematurely die or create hazardous conditions for users of the path whether on foot or wheels.
Think of CPP as a middle ground between Cambridge4Trees and the City. They’re mostly composed of landscape and design professionals and I can’t believe they’d be collectively lying as some have suggested. (See my post in the other thread for more on CPP.)
The trees planted for the original project are now 45+ years old. Old, large trees like these sequester enormous amounts of carbon, provide shade, cooling, cleaner air, habitat and quality of life. And of course, there is an existing, successful multi-modal path for pedestrians and bikes which the writer has stated she supports having given up her car in 1989. To suggest that the writer and many others who oppose widening the path to 18′ are anti-bike-path conflates creating new paths on city streets with widening an existing and already functioning multimodal path.
As a cyclist, and as I described above, I recognize that this ~1/3rd mile stretch of park is preceded by and followed by complex and narrow stretches of shared-use pathways [Diagram here: http://tinyurl.com/PathComplexity%5D. Widening it serves very little purpose and has a significant negative impacts (and costs) which are counter to the City’s stated climate and canopy goals.
It’s a 1/3rd mile stretch which accommodates bikes and pedestrians fine as is and would be even better if it were properly restored. Like the landscape professionals I spoke with and CPP, I’d be in favor restoring it at its current width or close to it, using some of the $7mm+ elsewhere to create a new greenway or park and perhaps adding 12″-18″ permeable shoulders (soil or bark mulch) to provide a softer surface for running.
BTW, my work is in climate change mitigation and slowly killing dozens of trees here makes absolutely no sense from a climate perspective when Linear Park already accommodates non-automotive transit on foot and on wheels. Widening it will not change its utility as a biking or walking path and to maintain otherwise is (again) conflating an existing shared-use path with new separated bike paths on streets. What it will do, is destroy the broad, beautiful and functional canopy that has grown here over the last half-century.
Someone who agrees with you responded to the other article saying “I actually don’t want Linear Path to be an extension of Minute Man in culture or operation” so it is simply untrue that “To suggest that the writer and many others who oppose widening the path to 18′ are anti-bike-path conflates creating new paths on city streets with widening an existing and already functioning multimodal path.”
Some people who agree with you absolutely are anti-bike, are primarily motivated by that and using the trees as cover.
The path is not as functional as it could be and the city should not maintain it in an inferior state because of misinformation.
Widening will absolutely improve its utility for walking and cycling which is why it is being done in the first place. The existing path has choke points and is generally far narrower than accepted best practice for path design, producing unnecessary conflicts, which again many people complain about including in the comments on these articles.
“Slaw”, you’re misunderstanding.
I’m very much in favor of improving and fixing things, but it’s nonsensical to create a 1/3rd of a mile 14′ path (with 4′ shoulders) that’s constrained to 10-12′ on either side and has many crossings, plazas, etc. that will never be altered. (Should we tunnel under Mass. Ave., the Davis Sqr/Russell T plazas, Elm St. and College Ave.?)
It’s a pointless waste of money that will slowly kill a lot of trees (per landscape professionals) and provide little marginal biking benefit. I bike there regularly and it works just fine as is.
By your logic you would take a beautiful 2-lane, country road section of Rt 2, expand it to 4 lanes for 1/3rd of a mile and then narrow it back down to 2 lanes.
It is not absurd. Again by that logic we should never improve anything. One project will happen at a time. It being the first project is a terrible reason not to do it. there is a plan to fix some of the issues with the paths around alewife as part of the redevelopment too.
Most of the money is being spent on improving the health of trees that are already not in good shape.
This is a bad faith argument. Bikes aren’t cars, encouraging biking and encouraging driving have absolutely nothing in common in terms of their broader impacts. Bringing a multiuse path to a minimum width established in best practices in path design if you want to make such an analogy would be more like widening a 6 ft road into something that can actually handle basic traffic.
The gap at Davis square does need to be fixed and tunneling under roadways to eliminate crossings is something that places that do this we’ll do all the time: https://dtvcapacitybuilding.com/blog/examples-of-successful-cycling-infrastructure-bicycle-tunnels/
Yes we probably should too. But first we should get the path up to minimum standards for its existing level of usage.
The plan isn’t to create a bike thoroughfare in the park; that’s an exaggeration.
As our population grows, path usage increases, leading to more conflicts and accidents. Cities must adapt to these changes, as they always have. But they can’t if people oppose every change.
We should prioritize safety. Trees can be replanted
And let’s not automatically oppose cyclist-related improvements. Cyclists reduce air pollution, mitigate climate change, and alleviate traffic congestion. Each bike represents one less car on the road.
jhanratty, the path provides an off-road connection between Alewife Station, Mass Ave, and Davis Square. It connects with the Cambridge-Watertown Greenway. It also provides a safe alternative to biking on Rindge Ave, which is in awful condition for everyone using it. Everybody who opposes protected bike lanes is always yelling “why don’t you just use the paths?” and then of course are just as peevish when improvements need to be made to accommodate the increase in use.
I hate heat islands as a biker. This path also allows you to avoid the *actual* heat island that is the Fresh Pond Mall parking lot. I am looking at the landscaping plans on the City website right now and I am seeing lots and lots of trees– both preserved and new. I’m sure great care will be taken with the existing trees; this all feels alarmist and also too late in the process.
@lkw -You actually believe the stuff the city puts on its website?
When they first published the community feedback for this project back in 11/22 they said there was overwhelming support for their new design. I looked at the survey data myself and saw that was not the case. Bikers and pedestrians alike were against adding places to gather, adding additional pavement, anything that reduced the tree canopy, the sense of oasis or damaged the trees.
Then later the City got caught lying again about the width of the new paths and possible damage to tree roots.
We have a long history of over spending on new initiatives like this while being neglectful of existing infrastructure. Thats how the irrigation systems in Danehy and here were allowed to fail, and we lost all those trees.
Keep paying attention, you’ll see.
“We have a long history of over spending on new initiatives like this while being neglectful of existing infrastructure.”
This is an improvement to existing infrastructure that has been neglected and doesn’t meet minimum standards not a new initiative.
@kdolan, do you actually believe everything you read here?
The city corrected an error. Calling it “lying” is your interpretation.
The Linear Park project focuses on maintaining and safety updates for *existing infrastructure*. It is not a new initiative. It is already there.
I use this path for walking and biking all the time, and I’ve never thought it’s too narrow. On weekends it gets a little crowded, but so what? That’s life in the big city.
@Eric Grunebaum – here’s responses to a few of the things you said (splitting into 3 comments because it got long).
First: expertise certainly should be given weight, but it is no guarantee against bias and doesn’t automatically grant a claim immunity from outside scrutiny. Here’s a very straightforward and quick fact-check you can do for yourself: go to Cambridge4Tree’s “Friends of Linear Park” webpage (https://www.cambridge4trees.org/folp) and download the “Markup of architectural drawings” they posted. The CPP member who made these annotations is likely one of the landscape professionals/experts you say you’ve spoken with.
The trees marked with a slashed circle are the ones they count as “high risk with proposed pavement; design should be revised.” Now go to page 5 and look at all the trees marked this way in the tree wells at the Mass Ave gateways. Looks bad, right? But comparing the proposed design to the existing conditions reveals that the redesign does NOT actually modify/narrow these tree wells. In other words, these trees are already “high risk” by their metrics *right now*, under the original design that is being held up as the ideal to preserve – yet this risk is being blamed on the proposed redesign, with these trees being counted in the total number of trees that the project is supposedly endangering.
To flag this as dishonest accounting is hardly “silly” – and again, this is just one of many tactics being deployed to falsely paint the city as being hell-bent on destroying the park’s tree canopy.
Second: I’m glad you at least seem to acknowledge that Linear Park has a transportation role, unlike some project opponents who seem to want to go back to the good old days of 1985 when the park had just opened and the Minuteman didn’t exist yet. But you’re wrong about the current path width being sufficient. Hopefully, we can at least generally agree that the more people use a path, the wider it needs to be to accommodate everyone (similar reasoning behind why busy business district sidewalks should be wider than those of residential side streets) and allow more safe and comfortable passing interactions between users moving at different speeds.
Where we probably will disagree is on the exact scaling of width to usage levels, but thankfully instead of relying on anecdata and laypeople like us to decide this, staff can refer to national/federal guidelines from AASHTO and FHWA for best practices. These guidelines give the path a grade of “D” under the current width and user count data/mix of user modes, indicative of “degraded levels of service” rather than “fine as is.” And that’s just today – think about the future growth in path usage once the Belmont Community Path is completed, and when IQHQ and other Alewife-area developments come online.
And note how the above guidelines take usage levels into account – this is also why you can’t just point to the Somerville section of Linear Park and say we should just match that width, because the Cambridge section sees much higher usage. A good chunk of cyclists turn onto Mass Ave (which is soon slated for protected bike lanes on the current door-zone sections) rather than continuing onto the Somerville Community Path, with some headed towards Harvard Square while many others are heading for the Beacon/Hampshire corridor, one of the most heavily-used bike routes in the region.
Third: regarding the specific large trees that you highlight, I understand the root zone criteria from Bartlett and am not debating that. Once again, the issue is the misleading information about what is actually being done as part of the project work.
Assuming the pictures you’re referring to are the ones in the Christmas Day op-ed from Nonie Valentine – take a look at the actual posted project plans. For the case in the top photo, the edge of the asphalt is not being moved any closer to the 30″ tree on the left. Instead, only the right edge of the path is being shifted to achieve a widening, and very slightly at that – because despite all the claims about staff ignoring/dismissing tree concerns, the plans incorporate multiple pinch points where the path narrows from the overall planned 14′ width, specifically to accommodate mature trees close to the path.
I’m less sure about the bottom photo because I couldn’t find a pair with the measurements you listed, but betting it’s a similar case. If not – I’d actually be OK with keeping the path at its current width between these trees as a pinch point. But the CPP is demanding a blanket maximum width of 12′ along the entire project, which is unreasonable and indicates that it’s more than just tree concerns alone driving the opposition to this project.
Similarly, the city said they will omit the stone dust shoulders at pinch points like this if necessary. This is one of many commitments for tree protection the city made in discussions with CPP – see these meeting minutes from November 2023: https://www.cambridgema.gov/-/media/Files/publicworksdepartment/meetingminutes/publicplantingcommittee/2023/november6.pdf. I can’t see how anyone reads this and thinks the city isn’t taking feedback/tree concerns into account.
Finally, the main project component that actually is most likely to impact tree roots is the excavation for the utilities being installed under the path – new electrical, irrigation, and drainage infrastructure – but this is unaffected by whether the path is widened or not.
The Linear Park redesign in Cambridge is a necessary and beneficial project that deserves support.
It enhances safety for all users by widening the path and adding emergency call boxes. Safety should be the top-priority. Trees can be replanted.
In fact, the plan significantly boosts environmental benefits by planting 120-150 new trees, contributing to climate goals.
New recreational features make the space more inviting and versatile.
As a crucial link in the regional bike network, the improved park will enhance sustainable transportation, benefiting everyone by reducing car use, traffic, pollution, and improving street safety.
After 30-35 years without major investment, this redesign revitalizes a vital community asset, balancing transportation needs with green space preservation.
It’s a forward-thinking approach that will serve Cambridge residents well into the future.
The opposition to these needed improvements over replaceable trees is short-sighted.
Investing in sustainable transportation and community spaces benefits all residents and the environment in the long term.
It would be nice if Cambridge could adapt for a better future without knee-jerk opposition from the anti-change and anti-bike crowd.
For the record: The folks here claiming biking and walking are somehow “not transportation” forced judicial review of these issues and many more.
Justice Ellis of Middlesex Superior Court agreed Plaintiff arguments are wrong.
https://www.cambridgema.gov/-/media/Files/publicworksdepartment/Engineering/cityprojects/linearpark/Sept2025Decision.pdf
Justice Englander of Massachusetts Appeals Court agreed Plaintiff arguments are wrong.
https://www.ma-appellatecourts.org/docket/2025-J-0752
Not content wasting City resources on
frivolous lawsuits, the same people put forth this zoning amendment intended to make it impossible to improve Linear Park. CDD review speaks for itself: A shocking overreach with a vast array of negative consequences:
https://www.cambridgema.gov/-/media/Files/CDD/ZoningDevel/Amendments/2025/bakaletal/20250923_CDDMemo_Bakal_etal.pdf
Will the City Council’s unanimous 9-0 vote defeating this horrible amendment on Monday finally put an end to these shenanigans?