By Hongyu Liu

At their latest regular meeting, the Somerville City Council approved an order requesting that the Director of Mobility and Director of Infrastructure and Asset Management collaborate in writing responses to their questions regarding the Spring Hill separation project.

The Spring Hill Separation Project is aimed at mitigating flooding, reducing waterway pollution, and upgrading infrastructure throughout Somerville through the repairing and replacing of old drainpipes, improvement of road features in the community, and the construction of protected bike lanes in the Spring Hill area.

The Second Community Meeting regarding the project was held on December 14, 2020.

The sponsor of the order, Ward 7 City Councilor Katjana Ballantyne, explained that she brought up this order because she heard a lot of dialog and received emails regarding the Spring Hill Plan.

Ballantyne said most of the complaints are from the biking community, who are not satisfied with the plan by the administration to put off discussion of the dedicated bike path.

Questions regarding the project range from its schedule of finishing the design, to the plan for reallocating parking spots, and the estimated construction time of protected bicycle lanes.

Ballantyne said that her questions aim to “try to ascertain in more detail the thinking and thought behind delaying any decisions for the protected bike lane.”

Ballantyne believes this order is crucial for the advocacy groups to think about the future planning of the city. “This is the only time that the pedestrian, transit advocacy groups, the bike group can try to think into the future, be really forward thinking,” she said. “We’re always hampered with how things are working in the infrastructure project. I think it’s very important that we unpack those a little bit. And we have a conversation at both ends and really try to drive the future planning.”

The Council order passed with 11 votes.