[MCM00001654_SPEAKER_16]: On March 29th, 2023, Governor Healey signed into law a supplemental budget bill which, among other things, extends the temporary provisions pertaining to the open meeting law to March 31st, 2025. Specifically, this further extension allows public bodies to continue holding meetings remotely without a quorum of the public body physically present at a meeting location and to provide adequate alternative access to remote meetings. The language does not make any substantive changes to the open meeting law other than extending the expiration date of the temporary provisions regarding remote meetings from March 31st, 2023 to March 31st, 2025. Great.
[Emily O'Brien]: Thank you. The July 26th meeting of the Medford Bicycle Advisory Commission will come to order. Secretary, would you please call the roll?
[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: Yes. Jared Powell.
[Jared Powell]: Present.
[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: Bruce Kulick, who I do not see. Nope. Emily O'Brien. Present. B. Dan Fairchild. Don't see him. Don't see him. Bernie Munier, who I also don't see. Doug Packer.
[Emily O'Brien]: Who we haven't seen or heard from in a while.
[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: Yeah. I've wondered the same. Um, Daniel has a molar present. Uh, no, uh, rev any, sorry. I'm killing his name. I know he is currently not able to join, uh, Mary Kate Gustafson. Oh, I thought she was here. Oops. Nope. Okay. Kevin Kutterbach. Kutterbach. Yep. Kutterbach. Okay, great. Mia Grodstein. Present. Rebecca Wright. And Abigail Stone, who I do not see.
[Emily O'Brien]: I hope that people who are, I hope that, I know that the old people are still get, are definitely getting the email list messages, but I hope the new people are too. I think, I think I've gotten that sorted out, but there have still occasionally been times when somebody doesn't get the messages and there's weird settings that somebody has to figure out either they do or I do, but, um, I hope that's not why they're not here.
[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: I guess a quick intro to any of our guests. Sam, we know Lily got you on the list.
[SPEAKER_06]: Can I introduce myself? Yeah, go ahead. Sure, okay. Sam Christie, I teach engineering and robotics at Medford High School, Medford VoTech, the VoTech program. And I've been there 10 years, I actually live in Cambridge, and I walk or bike to school every day. Haven't owned a car in 17 years, like that, so that's me.
[Emily O'Brien]: Great. Thank you. And I think Dan has just shown up, too.
[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: Oh, wonderful. So I think we're good.
[Jared Powell]: Dan is here.
[Emily O'Brien]: Excellent.
[Jared Powell]: Sorry, Emily, you said our numbers were 13 or 14? So we still don't have a quorum.
[Emily O'Brien]: We need 50% plus 1, not 50%. Is that right? OK. We still don't have a quorum.
[MCM00001143_SPEAKER_09]: I'd like to just introduce myself as a non. I mean, this is my first meeting. Yeah, please do. Kevin Cutterback. I've lived in Medford since 2005. I moved here because the Green Line would open in 2009. Now that turned out. Bought my first bike as an adult from Jared off of Craigslist in 2015. and then commuted regularly as a bike commuter into Cambridge for about four years, and now have a background in a little bit of urban planning, transportation, demand forecasting. I'm currently a data scientist. I am on my bike to the high school, not as often as I'd like, but I swim there on a number of mornings each week. So I'm sure I've seen Sam or his bike many times.
[Emily O'Brien]: Great, welcome. So Bidan just says he has a count of, oh, Daniel said you have a count of 13 for our total. Okay, so in that case, we are good to go. Excellent.
[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: As long as my list isn't bad.
[Emily O'Brien]: Right. So I think your list should be right.
[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: I think so.
[Emily O'Brien]: Yeah.
[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: I hope it is.
[Emily O'Brien]: So in that case, our first thing is approval of the minutes. Do we have any questions about the minutes from the April? Oh, that's because I didn't change that. That's my fault. The minutes from our previous meeting, which was actually not the April meeting. It would have been the, what month is this? The June meeting, which was in the first week of July.
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: Can you fix that before approving them?
[Emily O'Brien]: Well, that's no, no, no, that's just on the agenda that it's wrong.
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: It's not on the actual.
[Emily O'Brien]: Yeah. The minutes are correct. It's just that I copied and pasted a previous agenda and I didn't, and I didn't fix that. Do we have any questions about the minutes?
[Jared Powell]: Motion to approve.
[Emily O'Brien]: Second. All in favor?
[Unidentified]: Hi.
[Emily O'Brien]: Hi. Great. Minutes approved. Thank you. Announcements and upcoming events. I just recently, just today or yesterday, saw an email about Harvest Your Energy Festival. I think we've typically done that one, and it's a good place to be. Oh, Leah has a question about the minutes. Where are they? They are They're generally posted to the email, to the website. Okay. And to the Google Drive.
[MCM00001804_SPEAKER_04]: All right, let me take a look, see if I can find them.
[Jared Powell]: Thanks. Yeah, we have a shared Google Drive. Can anybody access, anybody should be able to access that if they're a member of the Google group, right? Isn't that how the permissions on that work?
[Emily O'Brien]: I think, but I haven't, I always share things with it. So I haven't tried to, I haven't tried to do that except for clicking on a link in an email to be honest.
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: I know that if I just open up Google drive and look under shared with me, they show up there.
[Jenny Graham]: Okay.
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: So I think that should work in your Google account if you are in the group, basically.
[MCM00001804_SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
[Emily O'Brien]: Yes. Thank you. OK, good. OK, so the Harvest Your Energy Festival, I think we should sign up for that. It's far enough out that I don't necessarily expect that we all know our schedules. Um, that far in advance, 100%. Um, but I think we generally have been able to find people to staff a booth there. Um, and I think that would be a good one. Um, Jared was there. Did you have another one in mind recently, or was there something you had thought about or signed up for?
[Jared Powell]: Sorry, are you asking about harvester energy or?
[Emily O'Brien]: If there are other events that you know about that I have forgotten about.
[Jared Powell]: Oh, just one. And I think it was supposed to be yesterday, but has been postponed due to weather. And it was just an area bike ride that would probably be Good for us to join or anyone who has the time to join. It's supposed to be like 515 for a couple of hours. Meeting at Paul Revere Park in Charlestown, which is right by the locks there. And then kind of exploring on a 12 mile bike ride the paths along the mystic and Malden rivers, which would. take people into Somerville and Medford and Everett and whatnot. It was not just a recreational thing, though, that was part of it, but it was someone from MAPC, the Metropolitan Area Planning Council, that would kind of be leading it and talking to people about some of the paths and infrastructure there. So kind of a policy-oriented, leisurely ride about the path network in the area. probably a good one for us to do either to remind ourselves of paths that exist that maybe we don't really know about or use all that much, and to learn about what's going on in the area in terms of network upgrades.
[MCM00001804_SPEAKER_04]: Jared, how did you find out info for that, specifically that it was canceled?
[Jared Powell]: I just went to the website. I don't think I saw a notification that it was canceled. Yeah. So.
[MCM00001804_SPEAKER_04]: Or rescheduled, I mean. Yeah. Yeah. I tried to go to it too, although then I failed.
[Jared Powell]: Fair enough, yeah.
[Emily O'Brien]: I guess everybody probably did. I was doing something else in Brookline until too late to make it, so I had stopped paying attention and didn't realize, but knowing the weather yesterday, it makes sense that it would have been.
[Jared Powell]: Yes, I was not able to attend due to children, but we'll see about the rescheduling.
[Emily O'Brien]: Well, I hope they do. I think that would be a good thing to go to and to just show the flag as it were,
[MCM00001143_SPEAKER_09]: Yes, it's where the clipper ship connector will connect.
[Emily O'Brien]: Right.
[MCM00001804_SPEAKER_04]: Right. I always have an email list that we can like in case anyone who's not a member of the bike advisory committee wants to come along or know about it.
[Emily O'Brien]: I think the best thing for that that we have currently is the Facebook page. OK. Did you are you and are you an admin of that or do you want to be? or anybody else. Probably could be if I knew how. Well, I mean, it's Facebook, it tells you what to do.
[MCM00001804_SPEAKER_04]: Right, like Peter has login still, I think.
[Emily O'Brien]: Oh, yeah. Well, I can also make you one too, if you're interested, if you think you might do something with it. And the same for you, Kevin.
[MCM00001143_SPEAKER_09]: I'd be interested, yes.
[Emily O'Brien]: Yeah.
[MCM00001804_SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, I mean, all I do is show up, but...
[Emily O'Brien]: Yeah. I mean, having the, for the social media stuff, just having more people who see something potentially of interest and post it or post a picture that's like, Hey, look, I'm biking around Medford or look what I saw while biking around Medford, you know, just the, the, the visibility and the engagement and keeping, keeping it in people's minds that people bike in Medford and You know, and share anything that might be of interest. The more people there are that can kind of do that and then respond to comments or questions that people might have. It's, you know, I know none of us really wants to like spend all day with the social media accounts, but having a bunch of people is helpful. So I will do that. Do we have other upcoming events or announcements?
[MCM00001804_SPEAKER_04]: When is the Bike Fest Day at the Farmer's Market? Is that coming up?
[Emily O'Brien]: I haven't heard anything about it.
[Jared Powell]: Yeah, I haven't either. Do we have a... Well, I guess... The Farmer's Market has a website, but it's really hard to figure out what...
[Emily O'Brien]: If what things are the special events on their website, they seem to like sneak information out on their Instagram or something, but.
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: Tomorrow is the, uh, dog day special.
[MCM00001804_SPEAKER_04]: Uh, oh, like fest, August 24th on there.
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: Uh, so that'll be wait, the, either the, possibly the day after our next meeting or, um, The week before our next meeting, depending on when we actually decide to have our next meeting.
[Emily O'Brien]: Well, theoretically, our meetings are the 4th.
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: Yes, we occasionally move them to 5th when there's a 5th, so we should.
[Emily O'Brien]: Well, we have. We often do it. I guess it just depends on what you know what people's schedules look like. Yeah, so it's the 24th.
[Unidentified]: So unless.
[Emily O'Brien]: I don't have a conflict that week and unless we have, if it looks like we would have quorum the following week and not that week, then we would keep our meeting at the fourth Wednesday. But we have often sometimes canceled the August meeting outright if people are away or whatever.
[Jared Powell]: Yeah, I would suggest keeping the fourth week whenever possible, just because I often use that in pitches to try to get people to come. And it's a lot easier to just say we meet the fourth Wednesday of the month rather than we sometimes do that and then other times don't.
[Emily O'Brien]: I think that's true. So I will contact the farmers market people about that. Do we have people here who might be interested or willing to set up? I probably can.
[MCM00001804_SPEAKER_04]: I'm pretty sure I can come after work. I just have to check my work calendar because I know the market starts at three and I'm not quite sure how early I can get there.
[Emily O'Brien]: Yeah, it is an awkward time.
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: But we can also trade off if someone can come in the afternoon and no one has to be there for all four hours, which is long.
[Emily O'Brien]: Yeah.
[Jared Powell]: Maybe I'll send an email to the email list and just make sure that we can actually cover that before I... Like Leah, I should probably be able to be there on the later side post work, but that's more six or so, which isn't super helpful.
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: I can get there in the afternoon. I can't, it's a little bit hard to guarantee that at this point, but I typically, you know, at least stop by the farmer's market, you know, between three and four before they run out of things. So I can usually manage to get away from work long enough to, you know, maybe stay for a couple hours.
[Emily O'Brien]: Okay, well, we can figure out who's available on the email list and I'll sign us up if it looks like we'll have people available for the whole afternoon. Um, I think that has been a good, that is potentially a good place to meet a lot of people. There have been a lot of people at the farmer's market lately, so that's good.
[Jared Powell]: Yeah. The farmer's market, the concerts, all that stuff. It's, it's like bike central.
[Emily O'Brien]: Yeah.
[Jared Powell]: Like I've gotten to know a lot of people just by admiring their, their awesome cargo bikes.
[Emily O'Brien]: Yeah. It's really cool. How many cargo bikes do you see down there? Yeah. Do we still have stickers? I still have some. There might be some more in the bin of of stuff. Like event stuff.
[Jared Powell]: I've got a pack of those four foot passing stickers, not Medford bike stickers.
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: Well, those are also useful, but we should certainly check if there's anything we want to hand out. We should figure that out. I mean, you know, like this week so we can order it.
[Emily O'Brien]: Well, if it's the I assume that if Ernie still has bike light kits or has earned has or if he is made more than that would be on that list.
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: Yeah.
[Emily O'Brien]: Um, it would be actually a good. The fall events in particular would be a good time to maybe think about making a brief little pamphlet about bike lighting, just because in the fall is when it starts to get darker earlier. Um, so, you know, reminding people that you put the white one in the front and the red one in the back and that you shouldn't use a blinking headlight. And, you know, maybe not a blinking taillight either, but that's a little bit of a harder sell. And I think it's not quite as critical.
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: Maybe depends also on time of day.
[Emily O'Brien]: Yeah. Yeah, but the thing that I always think about is like all of a sudden it's dark when people are coming home and then you see the people with the slow blinking headlights where it sort of, it looks like you turned off around a corner. It looks like you went away and you're actually still there. Or they're like blinding strobe ones and neither of those is really,
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: Yeah, the sort of moderate speed flashing are good at twilight.
[Emily O'Brien]: Yeah.
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: Because it's more noticeable that something is going on and off when the rest of the light level is sort of dim, but not dark.
[Emily O'Brien]: Yeah. I mean, I think we can't get too over the top detailed about it. It just needs to be like,
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: I mean, you could certainly put that, make that simpler in a, you know, in like a bullet, some bullet points, but also it's a lot more important just to have lights at all.
[Emily O'Brien]: Yeah. Have your lights. It's the white one in the front and the red one in the rear. Don't blind people. A flashing headlight is not great.
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: And reflectors.
[Emily O'Brien]: And reflectors. And yeah, so.
[Jared Powell]: The law now is light and reflector in the back. It used to be or, it's both now.
[Emily O'Brien]: But a lot of lights count as a reflector also, I think.
[Jared Powell]: Yeah, yeah. I just wanna make sure I'm accurately describing it to people if they say, I have this, is that okay? Right.
[Emily O'Brien]: So we, and there may be, you know, somebody probably has come up with a, like a really quick bike light guide card, pamphlet, index card kind of size thing. But if somebody wants to come up with something like that, that would be a good thing to order and have. I do not want to commit to trying to do that between now and next month. But if somebody wants to take it on, that would be a good thing to have. Do we have other events?
[MCM00001804_SPEAKER_04]: Sorry, I have one more question about the bike fest at the market. I know they've never really done this before, but I've seen them do it for other things where like, they have promos where you can get like $1 off of something at the farmer's market. Would it be possible to like ask and see if they could give a dollar off for like people who arrive by bike? That would be kind of a fun way to encourage people to try getting there by bike. I don't know how to make that happen. Like, is there someone we can email?
[Emily O'Brien]: Yeah, I'll ask about it when I contact them. That's good. And the other, also that reminds me, that would be a good opportunity to organize a ride, leaving Farmers Market or ending up at the Farmers Market or something like that.
[MCM00001804_SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, maybe we can leave from the Farmers Market and go somewhere fun.
[Emily O'Brien]: Yeah, I mean, it is like all of these things, it's a sort of an awkward after work kind of time. And it makes more sense to leave from the farmer's market only in as much as, you know, if you want a ride that people can get to after work. By the time they meet up and go for a ride, the farmer's market will be over. So riding to the farmer's market is a little awkward, but riding from the farmer's market could be good. And it could be just, know if there are adults like maybe we can ride to a brewery or something yeah i mean the obvious thing would be to sort of ride up around the mystic lakes and end up at medford brewing um if the ship connector was done we could there would be a bunch of other breweries we could go to um but uh but those would be That would be a possible thing. It would be kind of nice to keep the route within Medford, but we have possibilities and it doesn't have to be only on bike paths either so.
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: Yeah, there isn't an ice cream vendor. Well, there is. Italian ice, I think. But this year, so you know an ice cream, a ride to ice cream. Yeah, August might be good.
[Emily O'Brien]: Yeah, and for that matter, CB Scoops is conveniently close to Medford Brewing if the ride ends up in Medford. So that's a possibility. We can figure that out based on who has the time and what personnel we have and what we can get together, but that would be a really good thing to do. And that would be something for somebody to do who can't be there for the whole afternoon, for example. Um, so yeah, I will ask them about that and, uh, hopefully all of that will work out.
[Jared Powell]: Anything else on that should advertise it a bunch. That's all.
[Emily O'Brien]: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Once we have something to advertise, share it on Facebook, tell your friends.
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: Yeah, just start the day after the previous farmer's market.
[Emily O'Brien]: Yeah. And next up, the Mystic River Pedestrian Bridge. This came up, I think, about five years ago. And I remember we had discussed it in the bike commission in, I guess, 2018, 2019. Um, when the last time there was any public discussion about this, um, I guess the plan for this was paid for by the casino, but the, then the rest of the project will be built by the state in one form or another. Um, and it will eventually be the responsibility of DCR. Um, and. Carl Alexander from Myra, no, from, yeah, from Myra got together a bunch of people from related nearby interest groups. So Walk Medford and the Friends of the Community Path in Somerville and me and a handful of other people, because there apparently has been some movement on this, which due to the pandemic and other things, there weren't any public meetings about this. The concern the last time we talked about this, which was four or five years ago, was that they were planning on building it 12 feet wide. Which is pretty narrow for two way traffic with bikes and pedestrians and kids and so forth. The project is apparently now at the 75% planning stage, which means, and it's still 12 feet wide, which means that getting it wider would be a significant hurdle possibly involving approval as far as the governor. And this is still I still haven't seen very much actual details on this. I don't think there's a easily accessible publicly available document. But The people that met mostly were kind of of the opinion that it would be worth trying to push for building it wider, even if that goes as far as delaying the project, because basically the planning would have to kind of back way, way, way up to build it wider. The thing that I felt was missing from this meeting is there also wasn't anyone there from Everett and there wasn't anyone there who lives in the Wellington area and there is a concern if you start throwing a monkey wrench into the works, that it slows things down or potentially drags things out or makes things more expensive to the point where something doesn't happen or it just happens much more slowly. And given that this is a pretty needed connection for the people who live, especially on the Everett end of it, I would like to hear from some of them whether they think it's a higher priority to slow down and try to figure out if there's a way to build a wider bridge or if it's more important to just hurry up and build the thing because they would really like to get across the river. And I think there are compelling arguments both ways and I'm so I really am concerned about the width, I think, especially it looked it sounded too narrow. Five years ago, and now, of course, there are more people on ebikes than there were then, and there are more tax incentives and so forth for ebikes. Um, so that's that's an additional concern that there's more likely to be more people going faster in both directions, including in the uphill direction over a bridge and that sort of thing. Um, so I there, uh, the friends of the community path. are using the Somerville Green Line extension as a comparison for saying, this is what it looks like and this is what it feels like when a path is narrower than it should be. The narrowest, the narrow parts of that are 10 feet. So that is narrower than 12. And two feet really feels like a pretty big difference where The, you know, the parts that are 12 feet feel a whole lot more okay than the parts that are 10 feet. So we are talking about 12 feet and not 10 feet. Right. But it is, you know, but that is, that is really a difference. So there's the friends of the community path and some of the other folks are hoping to put whatever pressure they can on the powers that be, including writing to all of the assorted elective offices and reaching out to DCR about this to try to figure out if there's a way to back up and redesign this to be wider. And I said that I would bring it to our meeting and see what the consensus here was before writing any letter like that. I think these really are competing interests in that on one hand, there's consequences for slowing it down, and there's consequences for waiting, and there's a really good argument for building it as fast as possible. And if that means living with the current design, that's what that means. There's also an argument for saying it's a big, expensive project and it should be future-proofed. And if we expect or hope for increased mode share and we expect more people are going to be on e-bikes and so forth, then it makes more sense to build it wider to start with than to regret how narrow it is later. And I think those are both good arguments. I think we probably all agree that it's a really important bridge to have. And it's better to have a 12-foot bridge than not have any bridge. So what are your thoughts or comments?
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: Yeah. So, I mean, so I went to the, um, original public meeting back in 2018. Um, and there were a number of people who spoke up possibly including me, um, saying, you know, 12 feet was not wide enough. Um, and you know, people have been speaking up since then. So it's not too clear how much. room there is to sway them, honestly. A couple of other points. One is that I've been reminded by looking at the Streets blog post about it that there also still isn't a plan for an entrance connecting it to Assembly Square Station. That is, they're not planning to build an entrance on the east side that would go directly towards the bridge. Instead, people would have to exit the station on the west side of the tracks, go north to the underpass, and back. That is... possibly even more significant than the width, honestly, just in terms of, you know, it's like a half mile extra for people to go, which is not a big deal on a bike, but a pretty big deal on foot.
[Emily O'Brien]: But even on a bike, you'd rather not.
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: Even on a bike, you'd rather not, yeah. So that's another thing to advocate for, at least. Yeah. But yeah, I do agree that it should be wider, especially because it's in a position where there aren't any other crossings for a ways around it. It's going to get pretty high traffic. There's just it's not like, you know, the community path, even at least there are side streets and other things that it's not the only way you can go. But especially if you're on foot, but the bridge over the mystic is really the only way you can go unless you want to go much further around.
[Emily O'Brien]: Yeah. Leah, I think I saw your hand up next.
[MCM00001804_SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, so I'm one of those people who live in Wellington. So I thought I'd talk about how I currently get places, which is when I want to go into Boston, I use the path by Draw 7 Park, the one that's currently being rebathed. But kind of on the side of the T. Before that was done, I used the sidewalk on the side of one of the bridges by Sullivan Square. And that bridge is getting replaced quite soon, I believe. They're going design build. They're having bike infrastructure on that bridge also planned. When I go to the northern strand, which is the other reason I'd be using that area currently, I go on the sidewalk of Revere Beach Parkway. I think that's what a lot of people do. And generally I see a lot of people biking in Wellington, even though the roads are really big and they do what they're comfortable with. So they use the sidewalk or they ride in the shoulder or they do what they have to do. Cause it's usually people like, I see a lot of teenagers there on bikes. So it's people who probably don't own a car.
[Emily O'Brien]: Do you have a, since that's, since that would be basically a direct connection to your, between your neighborhood and the other side of the river, do you have a strong feeling about whether it's not, you know, if it did, if it was up to you, would you rather have a 12 foot bridge sooner or a 14 foot bridge later?
[MCM00001804_SPEAKER_04]: For me, a 14 foot bridge later because I have functional ways to go without the bridge, it's just a convenience, not like a necessity.
[MCM00001143_SPEAKER_09]: Yeah, I think that between, I would rather upgrade the Route 28 bridge and the Route 99 bridges as part of a whole network. Because, I mean, this one, it really is the best way to get from Somerville to Costco. But other than that, I mean, I did look it up and the North Bank Bridge is 12 feet wide. And I think it works more than just two feet better than the worst parts of Somerville, because at the worst parts of Somerville, you have chain link on each side, whereas at the North Bank, you have those nice guardrails. And so there's less side friction and you're actually able to use more of the 12 feet. So I think a well-designed 12-foot bridge is going to work better than it sounds if you're using the 10-foot community path pinch points as a comparison. And ultimately, I personally would think that there are other issues closer to home that I care more about, like getting across the Route 28 bridge from Wellington to Assembly directly.
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: That is also in the works. But I'm not sure what the schedule is on that, but they're treating that entirely separately, basically.
[Emily O'Brien]: Yeah, I mean, all of these things turn into separate projects. Jared?
[Jared Powell]: Yeah, I mean, if I had to prioritize an eastern entrance to the T to be Dan's point versus increasing the width of this bridge, I would choose an eastern entrance to the T. Otherwise, it seems kind of, what does this bridge go to if it just ends at a chain link fence or something? I mean, it needs to go somewhere to be useful. But in terms of the question about would I rather have this or that, well, first of all, those are probably separate buckets of money anyway, so it doesn't really need to be a trade-off of one over the other. But then also the issue of a wider bridge in the future versus a narrow one now, I'm not sure. That's not a particular route that I use all the time, so I wouldn't feel comfortable saying exactly what it needs to be. But in these meetings, was there any discussion of the incremental cost of going from one to the other? Because that seems like the only real question that matters now.
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: They didn't even, they never really entertained the idea at all. Like as far as I can tell, I mean, there was some very early design documents that suggested 14 feet. I think, but like, as soon as they started actually designing it, they went to 12 and they have completely ignored everything.
[Jared Powell]: And he calls for, um, 14 feet after that. So that suggests to me that they know the answer to that question, which is that the incremental cost is quite high and it was very quickly value engineered out. You would think that when you're designing an all new bridge from the start, that surely the difference between like, uh, 12 and 14 or whatever it is, would be a small percentage point difference, but presumably it's much bigger than that otherwise.
[Emily O'Brien]: Well, the other thing is, I think the incremental costs now would probably be much, much higher than it would have been then, because at this point, they've gotten to a 75% design phase and they would be potentially starting, for all we know, it could be starting from scratch. I don't know how much they could tweak a design to make it a little bit wider, but my guess is probably not very easily. So I think the incremental cost would actually be a big deal. There was also some discussion of the angle for trying to get this to happen would be the environmental justice angle by saying, well, they built that bridge over Route 2 on the Bruce Freeman Rail Trail through the wealthy communities, and that's 14 feet, I think. And if Everett and East Somerville are environmental justice communities, then why are they getting shortchanged? My thinking on this is that it might be, if they decide to push that angle, it might actually make more sense to go along with pushing that angle and say, Hey, well, you didn't take their recommendations on the width of the bridge. But here's these other things that we also really, really need. And the connection to the T stop would be kind of high on that list. Improvements to other bridges nearby could be on that list too by saying, even though those are separate projects by saying, you know, this is This project that affects this community was scaled back. This community has all these other needs. You could make it up to us. So that was another thought. Becca?
[Jenny Graham]: Yeah, I kind of agree. I'm torn because I would like it to be wider, but I wasn't involved in those early meetings. And it sounds like that feedback was given and they ignored it. So I like the idea of you know, kind of seeing it as a network with a couple options of pushing some of the other projects to make them. you know, better and making the connection to the T better. I think one thing is I've been biking the Green Line extension community path a bit. And I'm kind of sad about the width. So there's part of me that really wants it to be wider. I was on one of the incline in sections and there was a cyclist who had mechanical error and several people helping and pedestrians and bikes trying to pass. And I'm like, that like extra couple of feet for just a breakdown. to be to pull over and just not feel so obstructive is just nice and there's no like exit like you can't get to a sidewalk or a side street or something to kind of be more out of the way and you know a bridge is kind of similar and also with a bridge you're not going to widen that once it's built um so yeah i think i'm kind of sad and i kind of wish it could be wider but i also don't want to be unrealistic and kind of yeah
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: And the friends of the community path fought really hard to get that to be 12 feet. Yeah. Also failed. So, yeah.
[Jenny Graham]: Yeah. And I think it's a miracle that the path got built. So it's kind of like this mixed bag. It's like, maybe the bridge existing at all could be is, I don't know. Yeah. Yeah, so I like the idea of kind of thinking like holistically for this community and fighting for something, fighting more because they deserve more for all of us. I like that, what we get, what we can get at this point. But yeah, breakdown space and pedestrian passing spaces is ideal. Yeah.
[Emily O'Brien]: So the Carl and the other folks at the meeting, including the friends of the community path are talking about next steps in terms of writing to their writing to the governor's office and various other places to demand additional widths. My sense from this discussion is that I'm probably not gonna write a letter saying that we all think that additional width is the primary concern here. And it seems like, but I think that it might be more productive to say, we agree that this should have been wider. We think it's important to build it, but, from an environmental justice standpoint, if that is the productive angle to pursue, we would like to see these other additional important things, especially the connection with the T station. The extent of the details that I have is This is, for what it's worth, here's the language from the MEPA filing regarding furniture and impacting what's on the bridge, because I had asked about things like benches and guardrails and so forth. Draw 7 Park in Somerville with the Encore Boston Harbor Resort and DCR's Gateway Park in Everett. The bridge will be approximately 12 feet wide, and I don't know what approximately means, 780 feet, five feet long, and 35 feet high between mean high water and the top of the structure. Lighting, signage, and benches will be provided along the entire length of the bridge. Benches will be installed such that they will not reduce or encroach upon the 12-foot wide clear path of the bridge. The alignment will parallel the southeastern side of the existing MBTA railroad bridge and will cross under it to touchdown in Somerville. The project will be constructed by the proponent in coordination with DCR. DCR will own and operate the bridge once constructed. So that still is not as good as seeing an actual plan, but it does indicate to me that if there's a way to put a bench so that it doesn't encroach on the 12 foot widths, then that means there's probably also a way to pull over and fix your flat tire without blocking the whole path. This might be a major assumption, but I think it's good.
[MCM00001143_SPEAKER_09]: I mean, in the chat, I'm a inveterate chatter. I put the most recent post is, or the link is to the architect's site for the whole bridge. But above that, I've put links to the two pictures and the latter one shows how you know, the structure will be wider than 12 feet in order to fit that pair, in order for a bench to overhang it and still keep 12 feet clear. So I think you're right. And I think you did a good job of capturing kind of giving shape to the amorphous consensus on the call.
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: Yeah, I would still be a little bit, cautious about assuming that they'll do it right. Like, one, that the benches will be such that people sitting on the benches also don't go into the 12-foot width, just based on how people typically sit. So this is where we really need to see the actual... Right, exactly. And also, what when they say about 12 feet, what do they mean? They mean 11.5, 12.5 feet. How are they measuring that exactly? Are they actually measuring the width of the solid surface or are they measuring something else? Yeah. Yeah.
[Emily O'Brien]: Yeah, I mean, I, I would really like to, I would really like to see more of these details. But in the meantime, the thing that I that's the most urgent at the moment is I need to either break that letter or not write a letter or write a different letter.
[Jared Powell]: I don't think there's harm in writing a letter expressing support for all the reasons that we talked about.
[Jenny Graham]: Yeah.
[Jared Powell]: Or making it as wide as possible and continuing to pursue options to that effect. It's paid for by the Wynn Resort, right? No. The construction of it is not.
[Emily O'Brien]: Only the planning is paid for?
[Jared Powell]: Sorry, what is?
[Emily O'Brien]: Only the planning.
[Jared Powell]: Ah, okay, all right. Let them plan something better than they're paying for it.
[Emily O'Brien]: Well, they might, they might have submitted their plan and they might be done so that I don't know if that, I don't know.
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: I'm also noticing on the beam projects site that it says status concept design, 75% design 2017, 2019. So I would not assume that this represents anything current.
[Emily O'Brien]: Yeah.
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: Yeah. Dean was appointed to undertake preliminary design studies. I'm not sure this is even anything related to what's actually getting built at this point, honestly.
[Emily O'Brien]: So, I mean, we obviously could use more information on this. I think we should move on for time's sake. But my impression of this discussion is that I don't think we have a lot of appetite for trying to put a monkey wrench in this and slow things down to the point of calling the governor and trying to pressure the governor into starting from scratch to build a wider bridge, which I think is what some of the other folks are You know, talking about attempting and it might not work anyway. It probably wouldn't, but.
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: But what I would love is just to see. An actual design document. Like, yeah. Because there's just, there's nothing.
[Emily O'Brien]: Yeah.
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: There's nothing since, you know, well, 19 and that's right.
[Emily O'Brien]: I agree. I mean, that's, that ultimately is, is, is important. Um, so I think for the time being, I won't, um, I'll come back to, I'll mention what we've discussed to the people that I met with, but I'm not going to write anything official until we have seen more information. if that sounds reasonable. But we should definitely keep an eye out for information on this if we can. Next up is biking to Medford High School and possible connections via Sam Christie, who has joined us tonight. And I know that you bike to work at the high school every day. And we would love for any input you have in getting bike to school events going or connecting with other kids who might be interested in doing that. None of us on the commission has kids at the high school. So I think it's really great if things like that can come from people within the school community. but if you have thoughts or ideas or anything else you'd like us to know about, any other concerns regarding either the Winthrop Street bike lanes or anything else that people biking to the high school need to know that we might not know about yet, go for it.
[SPEAKER_06]: Well, yeah, I'd certainly love to get more kids biking to school. It's not a big group right now, I think. I might see a dozen bikes in the racks, if that, every day.
[MCM00001143_SPEAKER_09]: How many can the racks hold?
[SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, the racks, as far as I remember, they aren't great racks either. They're kind of the old style that don't really lock very well. But I think you can probably hold a dozen bikes, a few more. I have seen kids on e-bikes, more e-bikes these days. I think it's a nice, I'm a big fan of e-bikes and I think that's a great sort of a leverage point to get kids on bikes. Well, they don't go too fast. Some of them do. And yeah, I don't know. I mean, I've been there, you know, 10 years biking and I don't, and we, I had one group of students who actually wanted to start sort of a bike group in the school and it didn't really go anywhere, but I think I could probably maybe push that again. One thing I thought about doing, is starting a bike repair night. So I have a new friend who's teaching at the school in metal fabrication. He's actually a bike builder. And we actually just, as an aside, we actually just purchased $10,000 worth of frame making equipment. So at some point, kids can actually build their own frames. But I think more, easier sort of point would be to have a, maybe like a night where kids would come and get their bike, or anyone could come and get their bikes fixed. So, you know, and I'm actually, I mean, there's some ideas I have, I'm open to other ideas, but I'm really happy to really do anything that would help get, I mean, we're just walking, I mean, just anything, I mean, kids, I can't believe how many people drive around the corner to the school. It drives me crazy, but that's my own thing. And I think getting teachers to do that would be great. As for the bike lanes, which I just wrote on today, I was at school today, too late with some students. And they are great that they're there, but there are definitely cars parked in them. And honestly, I can't even tell, there's one area If you're coming down away from the school towards the circle, and you're going past the. It's the American Legion. Yeah, but on the other side that the, it's not a senior home but it's a. I forgot the name of it, but the lane sort of becomes, I can't tell if it's a lane anymore or it's a parking area. And definitely cars parked there. There was one there today. They don't seem to know either whether that's a bike lane or not. And I can't really tell at that point. So that's a little confusing.
[Emily O'Brien]: Is the painting done?
[SPEAKER_06]: I don't think so. Today I looked at the paint. There was some new paint, I thought, but I couldn't tell. So maybe the paint hasn't been done.
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: Yeah, they're out there almost every night. When I went past there this past weekend, it looks like there were some missing pieces, although they had added stuff. So I think they're doing bits and pieces at a time.
[Emily O'Brien]: And you're like, on top of the bike symbols, they're still missing.
[SPEAKER_06]: Right. Right. Okay. Yeah, I'm just saying that part is not really clear at this point. Maybe that'll change. As for the circle, this is the thing, I don't know if you've probably seen the change to Powderhouse Circle, which was a complete sort of the wild west going. I'd been there every year, every day going there, you never really know what was gonna happen. When they made a change, I was kind of like taken aback, like they pushed the bikes way out the outside, but in fact, I think it's been great. I don't know if that's possible, because the circle has a similar issue with lots of cars coming in, trying to navigate. but I think that the powder circle has been a great success. I think it's just really incredible how everyone takes turns. It's very clear when you're going in, how you're supposed to go in. To me, that's been a great design. So I don't know. Again, I think this, I assume that this plan is already put in place and not many changes happening to at this point, but just in the future, I think that was a really good design first. But overall, I'm happy to help with anything that, you know, Anyway, I can get parents, teachers, kids on bikes and be a point person at the school for that. Yeah, I can do it.
[Emily O'Brien]: Well, that's great. We appreciate that. It's great to have that connection. If you do a bike repair night, one possible scheme could be to have a bike repair night and then the following weekend have a bike to school day on a Sunday morning. which is kind of the lowest traffic time, and people can kind of try it out then. And it could be a sort of bike to school and then go and get ice cream kind of ride.
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: You have to have a pretty good incentive to get teenagers to bike to school. Yeah, to school on Sundays.
[Emily O'Brien]: Hey, I'm not saying they have to go in.
[Emily O'Brien]: They just have to ride past and wave. Yeah. and uh you know not too early on a Sunday because they are teenagers but um you know kind of a and then if we coordinate with um Ellery has been doing the bike to school day and really pushing that at the middle school and if we coordinate it with a bike to school day the following week then they've had the bike tune-up night and the kind of try it out on a Sunday ride and then the bike to school day. And that might, between those three events, if those three events kind of happen in that order, that might be a useful way to go about it if we have the volunteers to make all that happen. And we also, the thing that really is key is getting the word out to the, the kids and their parents ahead of time and through the right channels where they'll hear it and listen and know about it and that sort of thing.
[SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, I think even just an incentive If you bike to school, there's some reward, and it could be a great just starting point to get in there. I do know that the kids who want to do, we've got some, there's a bike group. I've seen a couple sort of start, but not really get going. But I think that they were planning to do like just bike rides, just, you know, have kids meet and do fun bike rides, just as a sort of easy entry point. But if there was some incentive for biking, like when you get to school by bike, there was some reward. I think that would be a great way to get some kids motivated, at least. or if they just start charging for parking. I don't understand how they just let so many kids park in that lot and don't charge for it. I don't know.
[Emily O'Brien]: It's always amazing to me. I have checked on the maps of Medford, and I think if you lived in the river's edge, development, it would be four miles to bike to the high school. And other than that one spot, it's three miles from the from like the corner.
[SPEAKER_06]: I bike three or four walk three point one miles. I'm almost 60 years old, so if I can do it, I figure these kids can probably do it.
[Emily O'Brien]: And, you know, if it's three miles from the farthest corner of the city, it's Right. Obviously quite a bit less than that for most places. Yeah. I saw, Leah, I saw your hand up and now you went away.
[MCM00001804_SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, I was wondering if, I know when I was in school, we had like a very reduced bus pass, if there's a similar thing that could be done with a blue bikes pass, or if they have like a student rate, if they could have a student rate.
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: That's a good question. Our blue bike stations are not quite there yet.
[MCM00001804_SPEAKER_04]: It would be a great place for one to be. Yes, certainly.
[Emily O'Brien]: Having a student rate for blue bikes would also be a little bit complicated if we only had one blue bike station at the high school.
[MCM00001804_SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, they'd have to do some manual rebalancing.
[Emily O'Brien]: Yeah. but that is a great thought and it definitely could make, you know, a lot of people have complicated schedules and activities and need to be driven to some things and they can get themselves to other things and their parents are available sometimes and not other times and blue bikes are a great way to be able to make a one-way trip, so. I think at such time as we have Blue Bikes at the school, that would be a good avenue to pursue. Kevin?
[MCM00001143_SPEAKER_09]: Yes, a question for Sam. Sam, to what extent do the voc tech students build amenities, uh, you know, like, you know, you got the electric charger, you got the big, uh, outdoor dining patio. What would it take to build a, you know, is it the, the, the carpentry people building a shed over a bike rack? Is it the, is it the metal folks, uh, welding or installing, you know, uh, um, a metal bike rack to what extent, where does that kind of. you know, supplies budget come from and where does the willpower to organize a project around it come from?
[SPEAKER_06]: Um, well, we can definitely do that. I mean, it's definitely, you know, they've got, uh, metal fabrication, uh, construction, um, and those shops can easily do that kind of stuff. And they do, they build things all the time. So it's not uncommon for us. So building a bike rack would be an easy thing. Could build a pretty cool bike back. And I know that the teacher, uh, Curtis, who's there now would be interested in doing, doing something like that. You know, the metal isn't that expensive for these things. Generally the materials isn't going to cost that much. Um, so, but the answer is, yeah, we can definitely. build things on that scale pretty easily and install them. So that's something we could definitely do. We talked about that a while ago. We're talking about doing bike racks and I don't know where it went.
[Emily O'Brien]: I remember hearing about that but I hadn't heard anything for a while.
[SPEAKER_06]: I think it was Ellery who was talking about that for a while.
[MCM00001654_SPEAKER_16]: I can't remember if I talked about this last meeting or not. And apologies if I did not, but I was in touch with Chad Fallon, the director over there who kind of brought this issue up again and said that he's happy to make these and that they weren't able to do it this year, but that they were interested in doing it in the fall and they had new funding. So I sent him some design guidelines to kind of make sure that what they're building is something that's going to actually be functional. So he asked me to get back in touch in the fall. So hopefully that means it's a priority.
[MCM00001143_SPEAKER_09]: Yeah. And is that like a shelter or I mean, a shelter over a bike rack or like one of the best things I think in Belmont is that, you know, all the bike parking is under an overhang for the school. And so, you know, you don't have to worry about a wet seat and rust and stuff like that. And then you get the pictures of just bikes upon bikes at other high schools. So, I mean, what are they interested in building?
[MCM00001654_SPEAKER_16]: So I'm not sure if a covered, like a shelter was within the scope of what they were planning to do, but I think they haven't really figured that out yet. So I know that all of the emails that were kind of on this thread talked about covered shelters. So I'm happy to mention that again and see if that's possible. And if it isn't for whatever stage, actually happens, I think I'll ask if they can at least design something that could be covered later. If they only have the materials and they want to fabricate some racks and it's only the racks, okay, but maybe put them in a place where if we get a grant or something to provide shelters that could be retrofitted later. So I'm not sure, but the possibility is there.
[SPEAKER_06]: I mean, part of that, I think the bike racks, I remember talking to Chad about some of these issues, but I just don't know if the bike racks the lack of by the bike racks that aren't so great are really what's keeping. I mean, I think having nice back racks would be an incentive, but I'm not sure it's overall what's keeping kids from biking. I mean, one thing is that the traffic going to the school is just a mess and everyone knows that and they've tried to deal with that and they've gotten some better plans now, but the cars back up, you can walk faster than you can get in there by car. And now with better lanes, maybe there's some opportunity. But I think the school should set up some incentive to try and get people out of their cars. Because they're dealing with it every year, trying to figure out how to make it work better. And it's not a problem. And also now, when the cars are lined up in a school, they do just go right through the bike lane. They're like, basically, you can't, on the way into school in the morning, you can't get into the bike lane because the cars are lined up in it. If it was separated, obviously that would make a difference, but that's another issue.
[Emily O'Brien]: I know what Ellery has been trying to do at the middle school and elementary school with the bike to school days there particularly is her She talks about that in Belmont, they have programs to get kids biking to school in elementary school and middle school. So you don't have to do much to get them to bike to school in high school if they've already been doing it. And they're already doing it and they're used to it and their parents are used to it. And at that point, it's really easy to convince a high school kid to get around under their own steam, because then they have that freedom and independence when it's already something they're used to doing. It's a little bit of a harder sell when it's kind of a whole big new thing. But I think by having kind of the introductory events as much as we can, that's one thing that we can help with. And we can certainly help publicize any of this stuff or get volunteers or if it comes down to getting people to show up to a bake sale to fund new bike racks or whatever it takes, we definitely can help with that kind of thing. And we certainly are able to coordinate
[MCM00001143_SPEAKER_09]: I'd be willing to make a series of prototype how you get to school by bike maps and put them on the Facebook page and just get those keywords in there. High school, Medford, bike.
[Emily O'Brien]: I actually have a map like that, which I can send you.
[MCM00001143_SPEAKER_09]: Okay.
[Emily O'Brien]: If you put together some graphics and put it out on the Facebook page and share it around, that's great.
[MCM00001143_SPEAKER_09]: I mean, I think I would do from the north, from the south, from the east, from the west kind of a thing. And we'll talk about it later, but I did put in the chat that I think a certain amount of everybody there is going to feel a little more comfortable at certain pinch points being on the sidewalk. And the good news is there are pretty wide sidewalks in that area. and fairly easy to move on and off them. My vegetation trimming thing coming up later is a particular stretch where you want the sidewalk at Lawrence Road and it's currently overhung with junipers or something.
[Emily O'Brien]: Yeah, there was actually there are actually two other things that Lillian know I assume you're here for the duration, so we can shuffle this around since it seems to make sense. The thing that Noam had wanted to talk about, and he's not here, but we can still talk about it, is concerns related to bike lane enforcement. And he was told that there's not actually an ordinance against parking in the bike lane, which kind of makes it a little hard to enforce that. I haven't verified that, but I believe him that that's what he was told. And if that's the case, that's obviously a big problem. If it's not the case, but the police department is under the impression that they can't do anything about people parking in bike lanes, that's also a problem. And that would seem to be a pretty glaring oversight.
[MCM00001654_SPEAKER_16]: So I can speak to that a little bit. That's unfortunate that he was told that Medford doesn't have an ordinance about parking the bike lanes. That's probably true, but I believe it's a state law that people can't park in bike lanes and the issue with with Winthrop Street and any of the other kind of more recent. projects that are still under construction is that they, even though they're almost done they're not completely done and as folks mentioned earlier there's still a few pieces on Winthrop and the symbols that need to go in so the enforcement can't happen until the contractor is completely wrapped up and out of there. However, internally there is a plan to mark and sign the entire length with some no parking signs to make it very very clear for enforcement purposes that this is not like parking in the bike lane is not going to be okay and I think I know the section you were talking about, Sam, on Winthrop down closer to the circle. I've gone through there a few times and also seen cars parked because it does look like a parking lane. We were aware of that and there's definitely plans in place. We've ordered signs and we'll start getting things in motion to put those up, which will be a bit of a coordination between the DPW and police and parking. But we are aware and we certainly have a plan for that. But it is a little frustrating in the interim.
[SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, that's great. That's great. Great to hear.
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: I also want to say about. You know, kids biking to high school like we're talking about a lot of things that are. You know, aside aside from like the bike lanes on Winthrop Street, which are major, most of the things are not going to make kids feel safe. Biking like. The Windsor Street lanes are good. but they still have to get to Winthrop Street. You know, maybe they've been biking since middle school, but the middle school is on the bike path. The high school is not. It's a different, you know, wherever they are biking from, they're biking in a different direction across other streets, across larger, busier intersections. None of those intersections are protected, like there's a limited amount that we can do. Like, you know, we can maybe, you know, fix some small barriers, but like, you know, say it's only three miles. Well, yes, it's three miles, but it's three miles across, you know, five different major intersections at rush hour.
[Emily O'Brien]: So I think part of this is having the bike to school groups and getting some kids in caravans who can bike together, that helps. The other thing is there are some places where there are certain streets and certain intersections that you really, really can't avoid. But there are also a lot of places where you really can take a backstreet route that avoids the worst of the stuff. And it might be a very non-intuitive and complicated route that you have to take, but it isn't necessarily that much longer or slower, and it does exist if you have a little bit of help finding it. And I know that, for example, since I go to Somerville every day, I know that there is a way to get from Governors have into Somerville, basically without ever having to be on a major street or a major going through some of the worst intersections. You don't actually have to go through Medford Square. There's a lot of places you can avoid, but it literally has 30 turns in order to do that. And by the time you've done it a couple of times, you know how it goes. And you can help people use their phones to navigate at first and so forth. There are some areas where you really don't have those options, Fulton Heights being the main one, where there just is not a way to get in and out without using major roads. And the people who bike there with kids do it on the sidewalk. But for a lot of places, there actually are good possibilities if we can help people find them. And I think that's where some of the caravans and publishing the routes can really help. A lot of these places really can be bypassed. This is a total tangent, but just because I think about this from time to time and we haven't. talked about it in a while. I do occasionally think for all of the time and energy we put into helping people come up with the ways to get around the worst streets and the worst intersections, that has the effect of essentially keeping all the cyclists away from all of the business districts, because all of the business districts are the places that people don't want to bike through. And it makes me think, well, gee, if I owned a cafe on Main Street and all the bikers are looking for places to not be on Main Street, look at all those customers who are not biking past my business. And there's places on Main Street that I don't think about going to because I avoid going there. Anyway, that's a tangent. At some point, I don't have a good way of figuring out what we should do about that, but I think it's something we should think about sometimes. So, yeah, and Kevin mentioned also some of these potential Lawrence estate cutthroughs. Some of those, I assume that those like local traffic only things, don't apply to bikes and cyclists certainly use those plenty and I have no problem with telling people to use them. I think there could be good opportunities for contra flow lanes in more places that would help make some of these connections easier. some of the places where it's a maze of one-way streets. And if you could bike the wrong way, you could go much more, it would be much more straightforward. And you could have, for example, the same route in both directions instead of now it's a separate whole complicated route going to school and then going home. I think some of those, you know, South Medford has a lot of that. A lot of areas have that I can think of between like, Lawrence and Winthrop and Medford Square, High Street, there's, you know, there's like that one little stretch that's one way. So going to school that way would work, but going home wouldn't, unless you went the wrong way. There are a bunch of other places that, especially now that we have the Contra Flow lane on South Street, where some of those connections could be improved with Contra Flow.
[SPEAKER_06]: Is there a master plan for expanding bike lanes in Medford? Sort of.
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: There's a bike master plan. It is currently under revision, so there's not a complete master plan. Does it?
[SPEAKER_06]: Does it have any, is there any, I mean, enforcement for it going forward or is it just a plan that's put out there and hey.
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: So, is there's an enforcement, but generally, they, the traffic department tries to implement things that are on the plan, when they reconstruct streets that are on the plan.
[SPEAKER_06]: Because in Cambridge, there was a master plan that wasn't being implemented. And then we got the council to vote on a timeline to enforce it. And I think it's not a bad thing to do if you can, but just another idea.
[Emily O'Brien]: Lily, since that's your project.
[MCM00001654_SPEAKER_16]: Sure, and I apologize. I there's occasional times when my Internet is unstable, so I'm getting I'm kind of dropping out a bit. We are the city itself is is updating the 2016 bike master plan and we kind of are a little bit on pause. We lost our wonderful traffic engineer Amy, who is, you know, really instrumental in getting a lot of stuff done. But we do have kind of a draft that we're trying to Kind of start a public process for but Todd has been really focused on trying to get infrastructure on the ground during construction season so I'm hoping to pick stuff up a little bit more. In the early fall and try to get something out there for public consumption and kind of comment and feedback, but it is going to represent a vision and. basically a roadmap for where we're looking to implement infrastructure next. Not like a rigid, obviously, if we see other opportunities, we will, but basically a vision that we're hoping to build. Great.
[Emily O'Brien]: And speaking of enforcement, I guess what I had been thinking was maybe make sense was I think a few years ago, we maybe had a meeting with the police chief to sort of discuss some of our concerns. And this would definitely be one. But maybe it makes sense actually to wait to ask for a meeting like that. I think it would be good to have another meeting like that. It's been a while, and we have a bunch of new members since, in any case. But it maybe makes sense to wait before asking for that meeting until all of the paint in these couple of places is actually finished and we see what the enforcement situation really looks like once Once it's actually up and running, even though it certainly is frustrating now. So that's, I think that's my thinking on that.
[MCM00001143_SPEAKER_09]: If anybody has comments or... There was also a lieutenant who was into the, he was in traffic and I can't, all right.
[Emily O'Brien]: Can I think so?
[MCM00001143_SPEAKER_09]: Is he still around?
[Emily O'Brien]: As far as I know, alright. Yeah, I yeah, I think we I think we really should have a meeting like that, but it probably should wait until. These facilities are completely finished and have been for, you know, long enough to really see what it. What it looks like when it's officially. done. As far as clearing vegetation, Kevin?
[MCM00001143_SPEAKER_09]: Yes. I mean, to me, this as much as a walking thing, but where biking on the sidewalks is permitted, cyclists are tall, right? And in particular, I think I had a link for it. Unfortunately, I should have taken a picture this morning. But basically, as you're coming down the hill from the high school, so this is really a question. Of, you know, state versus tree warden versus code enforcement, where, where does the authority and the action to trim bushes that are impinging on the sidewalk come from, in particular. In the map link I just posted, this house's evergreens and bush and now weeds are all leaning over the sidewalk. So they're reducing headroom and they're reducing the effective width of the path. And before I resort to tactical urbanism, I'm wondering whether there's a, an official way that vegetation gets beaten back off sidewalks. And again, this is important because the bike lane goes away for this block and it works really well to go up on the sidewalk and ride down to the intersection. And usually the light is favorable and you can get right back into the bike lane. So this is a good example of, you know, Like if it was a tree, I'd be the tree warden, but this is not a tree. It's a bush. How, in general, does that work? And if it's the DCR, I know to call my state rep and then,
[MCM00001654_SPEAKER_16]: Just a quick question, are you talking about on Winthrop Street, like the map in your chat or?
[MCM00001143_SPEAKER_09]: Yeah.
[MCM00001654_SPEAKER_16]: Okay, so I think, I believe you're correct that code enforcement, if it's on private property and it's somebody's bush or tree that's impeding the public way, i.e. the sidewalk, then calling it in or reporting it to SeeClickFix as a code enforcement issue is the right course of action because I think somebody from, I don't know if that's the building department or DPW would come out and kind of address that directly with the homeowner. If it was something on the public, if it was a public like street tree or something that was impeding it, I think they may send that to the tree warden. But I would. Sorry. Go ahead. Sometimes C-Click Fix is the most effective way to report that because if you're not sure exactly who to send it to internally, the city will figure out which department it goes to and check with them and then send it to the right place.
[Emily O'Brien]: Along those lines, is there something we can do to put a little bit more pressure on DCR to trim back the vegetation and the overhanging tree branches on the DCR pathways. I'm thinking of the, you know, especially the paths along Route 16 where we had that walk and talk meeting, you know, a while back. even since then there have been a handful of times when I've been biking on some of those paths and I was carrying bulky stuff on my back and I couldn't crouch low enough on my bike to keep the stuff on my back from getting hung up on tree limbs and stuff um and you know the especially when the branches are wet they hang lower and then you know it's it's harder to get under them or you can't see what's on the other side because your view is blocked by a tree limb.
[Jenny Graham]: There's also some precarious dangling branches that are pretty heavy after the latest round of storms and I've had trouble figuring out how to report those because they don't seem to have a way to do that and you know Medford's Equal Express would just say not us with no other avenue. But yeah, there's a big kind of scary hanging branch right in Benford Square on the path right now.
[MCM00001143_SPEAKER_09]: Is it on a tree?
[Jenny Graham]: It's part of the branch that fell and got caught, so it's kind of hanging. So it hasn't quite come crashing down, but the path is right below it.
[Emily O'Brien]: So every time- It used to be on a tree.
[Jenny Graham]: It used to be on a tree, but it's like hot and it's- Yeah. Yeah, so it's one of those things where it's going to come down at some point, but the question is who's going to be under it.
[Jared Powell]: Yeah, I just posted a photo to your point, Becca, from the Alewife Brook path that was this morning. And I had a similarly difficult time reporting it on CClickFix because the jurisdiction was unclear, I suppose. I'm pretty sure that was on CCR, unfortunately. No, I mean like CClickFix didn't work for it. Sorry, I wasn't clear there.
[Emily O'Brien]: There wasn't an appropriate category for it, you mean?
[Jared Powell]: Yeah, I don't know. The location function or whatever didn't work. It said you're not in Medford, sorry. I see. But I managed to get through with my box bag, which was a bit of a challenge, but I couldn't figure out how to report it. I'm afraid.
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: Yeah. I mean, TCR doesn't really have a way to report things, I don't think.
[MCM00001143_SPEAKER_09]: Right. So I mean, just... Now that we're in the just tips and tricks category, I mean, MassDOT District 4 has a public relations officer and they are technically the ones who have the crews. And I've had- Not for GCR stuff though. Well, I've had good luck with them turning sewer grates into the non-tire eater direction. things directly on the highway. And then for me, it's Sean Gribali. You go to Sean Gribali, Sean Gribali then figures out who exactly the person is at DCR and 70% successful. It's a little ridiculous, but they State reps are set up to change DCR's behavior is my observation. But I will take it up with code enforcement, the overhanging stuff on the sidewalk there.
[MCM00001654_SPEAKER_16]: That's also an issue because it's an accessibility concern as well. So that's maybe something to mention as well to help kind of boost the visibility there. Okay.
[Emily O'Brien]: Um, shall we go on to, um, infrastructure updates?
[MCM00001654_SPEAKER_16]: Sure, that sounds good. Um, I had a couple follow-ups also from last meeting. Um, Folks were asking about bike racks. There was a rumor that there were some additional bike racks in storage, and I did a little digging. And unfortunately, there aren't any in storage, because all of the bike racks that were purchased from the last round of purchasing have been deployed. However, Amy wrote a grant in December of last year to get more. And we don't know the outcome yet, but we're hoping to hear this summer whether we've been awarded, I think it was a community connections grant for additional bike racks. So that's kind of still up in the air, but that's sort of where things stand on that. You guys also had a question about Riverside Ave, since there will be repaving work happening in a couple of weeks. Unfortunately, that's actually only for a very small portion of Riverside Ave, Commercial Street to Middlesex Ave. But the bike lane designs that I think somebody had shared, maybe even Todd had shared in a prior meeting, we do still have some concept plans for that, some full designs. They have not been passed in front of traffic commission yet. So they're not approved. We hope to pass them in front of traffic commission in the near future, and that would be for the whole corridor. Um so that's kind of where things stand.
[Emily O'Brien]: Is there any um is there any idea of when some of the other parts of it might be repaved too? I know there's the potholes are pretty bad for a pretty long stretch and um I had gone back and forth with Todd and Amy I think last fall about a pothole that I knew of three people who had like crashed into this specific pothole and either broken things or gone to the hospital, one of whom was reported on C-Click Fix-It. They were in the hospital and a driver reported it too, because they saw them. And that pothole, they did fill, people had been reporting it for months. There's another one that looks just like it, like 50 feet, up the road from where that one was I mean there's there's kind of you know that one pothole was particularly bad but it's part of a pattern of potholes in that area. The whole stretch really needs to be redone.
[MCM00001654_SPEAKER_16]: you're right that it is in really bad shape I don't know when. the plan is to repave the entire corridor, but I'll see if there is a time estimate. So far, all I know is that it's in the future, but I'll see if I can get a better idea of time.
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: Is that, do you know if it's in the future like this year or just more distant future?
[MCM00001654_SPEAKER_16]: To be honest, it probably won't be this construction season, but I'm going to talk to Todd and see if he has a better idea, just because there are so many other ongoing and more imminent sort of things.
[Emily O'Brien]: And that is one of those places that unless we get a lot more contraflow lanes or unless we get the clipper ship connector, You can't avoid it. You really can't get around it. But Leah, I see your hand up.
[MCM00001804_SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, and related to the timing of projects, I was wondering, I think in 2021, Medford had a CIP. Do they plan to update that? It seemed like when I was looking at it, I was like, I'm not sure if some of these things really happened or not.
[MCM00001654_SPEAKER_16]: That's a great question. And I actually don't, I don't know. But I will find out because I'm sure the office of planning would know about that. So I'm just going to make a little note to see if I can find out. I feel like I heard about something recently with that, but I'm not sure. So don't quote me on it. I think I'm going to have to, find out and get back to you. Yeah, that would be a great way to know which streets are supposedly getting repaved in the next couple years. You know, I think I found something on there on the website that maybe. OK, wait a minute. I think I'll try to link to this. This may be. This may be what you're looking for. I don't know if I can link it. Well, I might have to do a little more digging and send by email. I found something on Medford's website. Oh, here we go. And if you go all the way, let's see. Oops. If you scroll all the way to the bottom of that link, there is an updated capital improvement plan. Yes, 20, right. Huh, I did not know that was there. So this is kind of new for me too.
[MCM00001804_SPEAKER_04]: Presented April 26th, no idea.
[MCM00001654_SPEAKER_16]: I knew I'd seen some kind of email about that or something, but if it doesn't immediately have a transportation impact, sometimes I just put that in the, I will read that later kind of file. In terms of other infrastructure related things. So as I mentioned before, Winthrop Street, not quite done. Eversource is hoping to wrap that up in the next couple of weeks. Mystic Ave also is mostly done. There are a few additional markings and symbols that are still pending, as well as South Street. South Street's almost done. There will be flex posts on South Street. I don't remember if I've kind of talked about this before probably but before yeah yeah and so we really want to treat south street is kind of like a test case for these flex posts to kind of put them in use the small snow plow maintain them well kind of have that be the flagship kind of example of using flex posts in medford it's like it's a pretty important connector it's a contra flow but it's not like a huge, high volume, heavily trafficked street. So we're hoping that will be a good way to sort of introduce FlexPost to Medford. Of course, there's buffers for the space for FlexPost in places on Winthrop, but we don't have the actual inventory of FlexPost to put them in, but that's something we hope to do in future phases. But South Street will kind of really be the flagship and kind of introduction there. Todd also did some pre markings on Main Street kind of coming out of the South and Main intersection going uphill into South Medford. So that is kind of next on the list for permanent pavement markings. We don't really have a time estimate, but Todd did kind of officially put in the request for our pavement marking contractor. The uphill bike lane to the high school also is kind of the next on the list. And, you know, George Street and College Ave are still, we haven't even done the pre-markings yet, but we're hoping to get that done soon.
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: Did we, is there a design for George Street?
[MCM00001654_SPEAKER_16]: I believe we talked about Georgia, but like, yeah, let me see if I can find it.
[Emily O'Brien]: I think, yeah, there was that, there was the, um, the, it was the like Medford square to the green line extension station route kind of.
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: Just the, um, it was, it was not all of Georgia most like just, just from Maine to, um, college.
[Jenny Graham]: That's right. It's kind of like the GLX. Yep. Oh, sorry, Lee.
[MCM00001654_SPEAKER_16]: I'm just seeing your note that that's just a presentation about the capital improvement plan. Okay.
[MCM00001804_SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, it seems to imply that like there might be one though. Yeah, well, that's good news.
[Emily O'Brien]: So I don't suppose there's anything new on the Clippership Connector.
[MCM00001654_SPEAKER_16]: The other non-infrastructure related topic is that I've reached out to Blue Bikes and officially invited them to come to Harvest Your Energy Festival. So hopefully they will come and also exhibit and bring bikes and engage with residents. You know, we really, I tried to just emphasize how important it was to kind of connect with people who maybe don't bike and introduce this as a mode of transportation. So hopefully they will agree to come and be an exhibitor.
[Emily O'Brien]: Is there anything on the clipper ship connector?
[MCM00001654_SPEAKER_16]: Unfortunately, I have no updates aside from the last update from the mayor, which I believe said that a contractor has been picked, but that's as far as I know. Jared.
[Jared Powell]: I've asked about this before, but you just mentioned that, Lily, that section of George Street that you were talking about adding the lanes to between Main and College, it's gotten pretty rough in the recent years. So I assume bike lanes are not just going to get dropped on it in its current state. Do you have a sense of if there's any improvements coming for that or if the need for that is postponing the installation of lanes?
[MCM00001654_SPEAKER_16]: I think you're absolutely right. So I've talked to Todd about this a couple times. And the sense is that we're really going to try to have that paved and then put the bike lane in. If it seems like it's going to take a really long time to get it repaved, we may try to put a bike lane in. But I think really what we want to do is pave it, put the bike lane in, do it in the proper order. But there's just been very difficult to get the huge backlog of sort of paving and marking done. DPW is fairly short staffed, so we're trying to make sure we're using them efficiently. But unfortunately, that one's kind of gotten pushed out a little bit.
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: If it's a choice between markings but no paving and paving but no markings, I would say that paving is probably more useful there. Yeah, putting a bike lane with a giant pothole in the middle of it to start with is kind of like... I know that I tend to sort of weave a bit when I take that section of George Street to try to not fall over, so... Right, it's pretty horrible.
[MCM00001804_SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, and people tend to get a little snarky when they see the bike lane markings without the paved road. Right. It's true.
[Emily O'Brien]: Do we have anything else?
[Jared Powell]: I'm curious about the... Lily, you mentioned the Contraflow lane on South Street and the flex posts there. I ride that a fair amount and I like it. I think it works well, but most of the time when I've been riding eastbound, cars do use that the north lane to pass, which works fine. I mean, for me personally, like it doesn't feel that strange. And sometimes I know people on bikes can feel a bit uncomfortable if it feels like they're clogging a lane and causing traffic to build up behind them. I wonder if using lanes on, using, Using the flex posts on South Street might end up making eastbound bike traffic feel a little more uncomfortable because they are going to be slowing down cars that might pull up behind them a bit.
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: Yeah, but I think that if we don't do that, cars are going to pass without looking for bikes in the oncoming lane.
[Emily O'Brien]: I mean, that is a, people, there are a lot of places I can think of where people, I feel like people come, people are all of a, I'm all of a sudden have some car coming straight at me because they were passing somebody on the other side of the road and they didn't. I'm also curious how people will, behave in that spot once the bike markings are finally there. There have been a couple of threads on Facebook where people are kind of freaking out and like, what are these random green boxes? Why are they putting fake grass on the ground? And there's been like green boxes for a pretty long time with no bike symbol in them. And I know that's coming, but the random green boxes are really confusing to people. And I'm And I'm trying to reserve judgment until they actually have a bike symbol in them. And then it becomes more clear that no, no, you bike in this direction on the lane and you bike in the bike lane going the other direction. But that's not a separated two way bike lane that's separated from the. Car lane, it's there's bike are allowed in both directions. Cars are only allowed in one direction.
[MCM00001654_SPEAKER_16]: Right. No, I totally hear you. And Jared, I really do, I know what you're talking about. I also use South Street in the non-contraflow direction. And I've noticed a couple of times people have passed me by crossing that yellow line. And the thought has occurred to me, you know, the same thought that had occurred to you, but I think, what the city can do is really just see how things work and be responsive. And if we're finding that there's a high level of discomfort there, and this is where feedback from you guys and anybody, you know, that uses it really, really helps us. If we find that it's not working, we can kind of go back and reevaluate whether flex posts are a good idea in that situation. I think ideally, you know, cars get used to having bikes there and are following at a respectful distance because it's not super long of a street. But I think that is important feedback to hear. And we'll definitely keep that in mind as the facility, you know, as we roll things out with the flex posts.
[Jared Powell]: Yeah, thank you. I appreciate its effectiveness as a traffic calming measure for sure. I just have heard like people feel some discomfort there with It's like, oh, well, I don't care if they pass me, but I really don't like feeling like there's someone just like getting impatient right on my rear wheel. It can just cause some discomfort there. So just something to be on the lookout for.
[MCM00001143_SPEAKER_09]: Kevin Lily, what is the official like city policy about the movable crosswalk furniture. In other words, the white flex posts on on the big on the hexagonal mats like. I'm constantly sort of pushing them back towards the center line. And like, is that what you're hoping for? And, you know, how's that going?
[MCM00001654_SPEAKER_16]: That's a great question. I don't know that we have an official policy on that, but we have observed that people often do move those things. And, you know, if Todd or I or somebody else that kind of pays attention to these things are out and about and we find them in the wrong place, we will put them back. And if you choose to do that, I think, you know, I don't think we have an official policy on that. That sounds fine to me.
[MCM00001143_SPEAKER_09]: hypothesis about where I think they would go better than where I tend to find them. Oh, I see.
[MCM00001654_SPEAKER_16]: In that case, you should probably email me or Todd and we can figure this out. We kind of want to keep them where we've placed them. But what I'm saying is sometimes people move them either out of the road because they don't like them, or we have had instances of people taking them so that they can use them for their own personal purposes.
[MCM00001143_SPEAKER_09]: It was both true. sort of when the speed bump had just gone in on Winthrop Street at Playstead, and they were clearly there to keep people from going around the speed bump. And they were slowly getting picked off. I felt it was my job to re-soldier them as best as the remaining ranks could be deployed. And same thing at Boston and High and the other ones that I'm in a lot where, you know, there's no longer an official marking on the ground, you know, that Todd would have. And there are no longer as many as there originally were, but they still can fill their role of saying this is a crosswalk, you know, don't speed on the curb, kind of.
[MCM00001654_SPEAKER_16]: Yeah, I would say if you're putting them back where they are, you know, supposed to be that's that's great and we appreciate it. We can't catch them all or kind of retrieve every single one. If you have suggestions of where you think we should put them that somewhere else all together or that you think it would be more effective just email me or Todd and we'll take a look. We have seen you go walking around.
[Emily O'Brien]: I'm looking at the ones on Summer Street and Walnut Street, and I'm usually, I'm like, at the point when I pass them, I'm like almost home. And most of the time I don't feel like stopping to put them back, but occasionally I do. And they have also, you know, kind of gradually dwindled in number and have gotten less and less three-dimensional looking.
[MCM00001143_SPEAKER_09]: Are they officially a consumable in the city's budget? Are they a capital or are they operating?
[MCM00001654_SPEAKER_16]: That's a great question. I'm not sure, but we definitely need as many of them as we can get. So we do try to preserve the limited assets that we have.
[Emily O'Brien]: Well, they definitely seem to get consumed.
[Jared Powell]: Sorry, we're talking about those movable bollard flex post things, not the indications that you have to stop for. Those I know where they go.
[MCM00001143_SPEAKER_09]: It's the white flex posts. I'll also say that the fact that you've deployed the full water-filled temporary Jersey barriers at Placedead and Winthrop is clearly the right solution there. Because the little flex posts were just getting creamed. Or thrown into the woods.
[Jared Powell]: Yeah, those changes have caused a lot of whining from what I can tell from the general public and that sort of thing. try to remind people that like there are growing pains associated with any change, even if it was to add five more lanes of traffic for the benefit of people in cars, you know, like any, any change is going to be problematic and any change that isn't fully resolved yet right all the markings aren't there the signage isn't all there it's going to come with some confusion so like some patience is probably necessary and the fact that everything isn't perfect right at the beginning is not a sign of abject failure.
[Emily O'Brien]: Yeah, I think along those lines, it's worth reminding everybody, every time that if you have it in you to go on Facebook or next door or any of those places where people flip out about whatever new thing painted on the road that they don't like. Sometimes people just don't understand why things are done the way that they're done or that there's a process and it's really helpful to have kind of since you're here, you probably know more about the process than most people. So just to show up and be a voice of reason in those places, even if it's just to say, Hey, look, this is temporary and it's not finished yet. Or this is, you know, this is temporary because X, Y, Z, or these are the considerations. These are the constraints. Yeah, it's, you know, there's, this thing that you think they should have done and they were stupid for not doing this thing. The reason they didn't do it is that the road is not physically wide enough to do that. And it's not because they're idiots. It's because they know something that you don't. I think it is helpful to have, you know, just be the counter to the people freaking out about every new thing.
[MCM00001143_SPEAKER_09]: The other thing I want to say, the city, I think, or something is working on Winthrop Street, too, because I can identify, well, first, I recommend to others, I have been purposely changing my routine of where I bike for fun and exercise, and every other day, I am on Winthrop Street, and sometimes twice a morning. Lupin, just to tell people that there are cyclists now in these lanes. But I have also seen that people who used to park in front of their house in the bike lane have gotten the message from somebody somewhere that they should pull into their driveway. And there was another one who was always parking in the crosswalk right across from the synagogue. And now that car is out of the crosswalk. And like, that's, I'm just going to leave a note, didn't have to, I mean, it's working. It's taking. And My other hero was the father who was leading his young son in the bike lane and they took the lane and they made the left into Victory Park, which is, that's ambitious. But it should work. But anyway, I just want to thank the city. You know, I'm it's work. And I think that trimming back those bushes as a code enforcement and that is 36 inches. Leah.
[MCM00001804_SPEAKER_04]: For going around an obstruction, that's the. minimum width.
[MCM00001143_SPEAKER_09]: Kind of the ADA minimum. And if the overhang is, is, is.
[MCM00001804_SPEAKER_04]: The overhang I'm not sure about actually. I've just seen sidewalk stuff.
[nqVIJ3wsDWg_SPEAKER_13]: I know I've seen something that's a guideline for overhangs too at some point. I'm pretty sure there is one in some code, but I don't remember where.
[MCM00001143_SPEAKER_09]: The standard, like, um, um, The US highway standard is eight feet off the sidewalk and 15 feet off the street or something like that. And that's what the tree warden generally does if they're on site.
[MCM00001804_SPEAKER_04]: If you really want to dig into Massachusetts specifics, it's the Architectural Access Board and Massachusetts 521 CMR that govern like street ADA stuff.
[Emily O'Brien]: I think it's getting to be time. I'm getting messages that dinner is ready. And, but I, I hope that, I mean, I will say if it is actually obstructing the pathway enough that it's bothering anybody, then it probably is in violation of any ADA standard. But the fact that it's in the way is proof enough that it needs to get turned back. And I hope that that can happen. Do we have anything else before we go?
[MCM00001804_SPEAKER_04]: I hate to be the person who's talking when it's nine o'clock, but back on the subject of grumpy people on Facebook, I feel like I don't... My general quibble with a lot of construction projects is that sometimes I feel like people have no way of... knowing about them beforehand. So it's kind of a foregone conclusion that they're going to get mad about it. And like, if there was somehow the amount of resources to do like the outreach level that the big sweep does, like everyone knows about the big sweep.
[Emily O'Brien]: Yeah, it does.
[Jared Powell]: That's a good point.
[Emily O'Brien]: Some of the people, it does seem like a lot of those conversations start out with, well, how come nobody knew about it? How come I didn't know about it? And some of them are kind of like, well, I knew about it. So the fact that you didn't know about it is- I knew about it, but I had to really pay attention to know about it. Right. And that's true. And at the same time though, I don't think it's totally an unreasonable expectation that if you really wanna know about those things that you have to pay closer than average attention. Like there's only so many things that you can get through to people. And the big sweep is a kind of that rises to that level. But it seems like, I don't know, every single road project, every single paving project, if they don't knock on your door specifically and explain it to you before they do it, I mean, did you really think they were going to do that?
[MCM00001143_SPEAKER_09]: It is why I'd be I'd be happy to to try and do more work on the commission's Facebook page. Just, you know, kind of a block at a time, which is you're going to see be seeing more cyclists on Century Street going to the high school. You're going to be seeing more on Whittier Street going to the high school. Just just that level of of I mean, some of those like does
[Emily O'Brien]: You know, if lots of people started biking down Whittier Street, is anybody on Whittier Street likely to complain? Maybe they would, but I don't know.
[MCM00001143_SPEAKER_09]: But in other words, then at least we'll also have a record of communication to point to.
[Unidentified]: Yeah.
[Jared Powell]: Yeah, nothing gets responses on an engagement on social media like discussion about infrastructure, for sure. That's what people like to see. And for all the whining that we see on, whining may be a pejorative term. I should perhaps use something else. The dissatisfaction with infrastructure changes that gets vocalized on social media is a, For every comment that you see like that, and there's a lot of them, it does appear to be kind of a vocal-ish minority of people. There's an awful lot of voices in favor of these sorts of things. And sometimes it is a handful of people like kind of commenting a lot, but like, if you look at the engagement with those posts, those get an awful lot of positive attention, which is always like kind of a comforting sign, you know? I think people do actually want these things. They may not know where to look for them, but when they see them, they like them. And God, look at the families with cargo bikes at the farmer's market. People are riding their bikes there and bringing their families. That is a win.
[Emily O'Brien]: Do we have a motion to adjourn?
[Jared Powell]: So moved. So moved.
[Emily O'Brien]: Thanks, everyone. All right. All in favor?
[Unidentified]: Aye.
[Emily O'Brien]: Aye.
[Unidentified]: Thank you, Sam.
[Emily O'Brien]: Meeting adjourned. Thank you for coming.
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total time: 2.72 minutes total words: 278 |
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