Sides reflect differing
views just before election

The East Arlington Concerned Citizens Committee (EACCC) says that the state has sent Arlington's plan for Mass. Ave. back to the drawing boards, but a town representative says the state's request for more information is simply part of the process as the project proposal moves toward one-quarter completion.

The focus of the difference in viewpoint is a March 22 meeting at Mass. Highway's District 4 office in Arlington. A lawyer representing the EACCC has filed a public-records request for documents that spell out what the state wants Arlington to do.

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Related links to Mass. Ave. project:

Advocate, Aug. 6, 2009 | YourArlington, August meeting | Adam Auster's blog | E. Arlington Concerned Citizens (Part 2) | Livable Streets Coalition | Town project information

The issue is timely because Maria Romano, a Bates Road resident running for selectman, is identified as leading an effort to question the project. In a statement, the EACCC said Selectman Kevin Greeley, her opponent, "refused to listen" to those objecting to the project. 

"We have received no report from that meeting," Laura Wiener, town housing director who has been a point person for the Mass. Ave. project, said in an interview April 8.

Determined at that meeting, she said, were that project engineers Faye, Spofford & Thorndike must provide traffic data for related side streets, retain signals at Teel and Lynnwood, and provide traffic projections 20 years instead of 10.

The $5.7 million project, to be paid for with federal and state funds, aims to revamp Arlington's main thoroughfare from Pond Lane to Alewife.

Eric Berger, representing EACCC, provided a statement from the group that provides a different focus:

The group, he wrote in an e-mail April 9, has learned "from reliable sources ... [that] the Town's Mass. Avenue Corridor Project was rejected by the Mass. Highway Division of the Mass. Department of Transportation about two weeks ago.

"Furthermore, that Division will not conduct a hearing on the project as submitted by the Town. The specifics regarding why the Project was rejected are contained in a document. 

"On Tuesday, April 6, 2010, that document and any other relevant communication records and documents between Mass. Highway Division and the Town of Arlington between January 1, 2010 and the present regarding this project have been requested from the Town and the Mass Highway Division via  written public records requests in line with the Freedom of Information Act. The Town has ten days to respond in writing."

Berger wrote that the town's project was rejected, based at least, on the following:

• "A number of engineering inconsistencies pertaining mainly, but not exclusively, to manual and electronic traffic count data

• "The nonexistence of any data regarding the impact the project will have on the many side streets

• "An insufficient amount of information on the implications of the project's proposed creation of bumpouts on Mass. Ave.

• "Projections regarding the impact of the project were much too short range."

The statement says:

"The EACCC, under the strong and principled leadership of Maria Romano, and representing almost 2,000 residents who signed petitions opposing the project, recommended many times that the selectmen not submit its project until a first rate study was done of the side street implications of its project.

"Maria in particular spoke forcefully of the need not to rush the project but, instead, get it right. The selectmen, however, under the leadership of Kevin Greeley, refused to listen, and, in a 4-1 vote, submitted its plan in September 2009 to the Mass. Highway Division without any knowledge of the project's impact on the many side streets where so many resident live.

"The EACCC applauds the Mass Highway Division for rejecting the selectmen's project. We are confident when a first rate, careful, thorough, and in depth study is made of the side street implications of the project, the selectmen will enhance public safety by changing significantly their project's roadway design of the travel lanes on the one mile portion of Mass Ave from Pond Lane to the Alewife Brook Parkway."

The statement says that if the selectmen want to make another submission of its project, they "must do at least the following:

• Clear up all engineering inconsistencies.

• Submit traffic counts for the side streets that are part of a close, thorough and careful analysis and study of the project's impact on the side streets.

• Based on a close, thorough, and careful analysis and study, more information on the implications of the bumpouts must be submitted.

• Longer, careful, and comprehensive projections regarding the impact of the project, extending at least to twenty years, must be submitted

A spokesman for Mass. Highway has been asked to comment about what occurred at the March 22 meeting.

This story was first published Friday, April 9, 2010.