Small street gets lots of attention as residents plead to keep access closed from Linear Park

A fence will come down between a small street and the Linear Park bike and pedestrian path in North Cambridge, to the dismay of residents of Westley Avenue who fought the plan voted 5-4 on Monday by the City Council.

More lighting and the possibility of a lockable gate was added to the plan before approval as vice mayor Marc McGovern tried to address the fears of crime, disruption and violence voiced by some residents in 100 emails and dozens of spoken public comments over two council meetings.

Certainly in testimony, some residents of the one-block, dead-end street gave a stark picture of barely contained chaos.

“When somebody put a hole in the chain-link fence a few years back, during that period the residents experienced theft, vandalism, things broken, items stolen out of yards and bikes stolen. Litter was thrown everywhere, including beer bottles, pizza boxes, plastic bags, cigarette butts and even hypodermic needles,” resident Jonathan Slate told councillors Monday. “Residents would open their doors to find strangers on their doorstep. People would hang out in the street morning, day and night. Residents were constantly woken up in the middle of the night. People did crimes in the park and used Westley as a getaway, or would steal packages from Westley homes and escape onto Linear Park. The problems were so bad that the City of Cambridge decided that the hole in the fence had to be closed off and did so. Immediately all the problems stopped.”

Removing the fence is part of a $7.2 million redesign of Linear Park, which was created in 1985.

Linear Park and Westley Avenue have been separated by fencing since around 1995, according to city staff, and by wrought iron (with chain-link fencing at each side) since 2006, according to a 2009 memo from the city manager at the time.

Police did not respond immediately Tuesday to requests for information about 911 calls or other responses to that stretch of Linear Park and Westley Avenue or to the places that residential neighborhoods do have access to Linear Park, and vice versa, from the north side: the paths to Cottage Park and Whittemore avenues.

Since the fence went up between Westley Avenue and Linear Park, crime in Cambridge has fallen 42.5 percent, to 3,232 calls citywide in 2023 from 5,620 in 1995, according to statistics from annual police reports. (A 2024 report is not posted.) While the population of North Cambridge has risen to 15,372 residents in 2020 from 11,908 a decade earlier, according to the annual reports, crime has fallen from the 1990s between 10 percent and 74 percent in five key crime categories.

During a midnight visit after the council meeting, Linear Park from Massachusetts Avenue to Russell Field and back again was found to be deserted, with only one person using the trail during one traversal. There was no conspicuous litter along Linear Park or at its neighborhood access points at Cottage Park or Whittemore avenues, including at the rear of an office building that makes a third Linear Park access point to the north.

Westley Avenue access was closed three decades ago because of “some antisocial behavior,” deputy city manager Owen O’Riordan said. “There is not any evidence that there’s antisocial behavior happening at those other entrances. And so, given the passage of time, it’s not unreasonable to suppose that there won’t be antisocial behavior here.”

O’Riordan didn’t address recent incidents brought up by Westley Avenue residents, and wasn’t asked to by councillors.

Whatever the statistics or anecdotes, several Westley Avenue residents and city councillors voting in their favor said that the access from Linear Park wasn’t needed: The Cedar Street entrance is perhaps 30 seconds’ walk away, or maybe 10 seconds away by bike.

Councillor Patty Nolan, who wrote the policy order for the change, rejected the argument. “That would be like saying, ‘Well, we didn’t need the Yerxa road underpass, you know Sherman Street is right there. We don’t need two entrances to public parks’ … we should always want connections, and we should not ever want to keep fences up if by taking them down it would improve community,” Nolan said.

The access point is still wanted by planners, said transportation commissioner Brooke McKenna, and it got thumbs-up from the city’s pedestrian and bicyclist committees. It also has support from other neighbors of the park to the south, even if those closest to the park are opposed, McKenna said. Some of the input came from surveys and a neighborhood meeting on final designs held at St. James’s Episcopal Church, Nolan said.

Councillor Burhan Azeem noted that the adoption of McGovern’s idea should cool debate, since a gate could be locked again if things went poorly, but councillor Ayesha M. Wilson was unconvinced.

“We really need to be mindful of the disruption of opening up a space like this and the havoc that it will cause,” Wilson said to staff and fellow councillors. “I hate for us to be in a sense of, ‘Well, let’s just try it out.’ You don’t live there.”

The votes in favor were from Nolan, Azeem, McGovern and councillors Jivan Sobrinho-Wheeler Sumbul Siddiqui. The votes opposed were by mayor E. Denise Simmons, Wilson and councillors Paul Toner and Cathie Zusy.

A stronger

Please consider making a financial contribution to maintain, expand and improve Cambridge Day.

We are now a 501(c)3 nonprofit and all donations are tax deductible.

Please consider a recurring contribution.

Donate now