By Joseph A. Curtatone

(The opinions and views expressed in the commentaries of The Somerville Times belong solely to the authors of those commentaries and do not reflect the views or opinions of The Somerville Times, its staff or publishers)

Last week we officially cut the ribbon on the second phase of the Community Path extension, bringing it from Cedar Street to Lowell Street. This milestone brings us one step closer to extending the Community Path all the way to the Boston border, which would create a bicycle and pedestrian highway through Somerville to downtown. It would also provide a crucial link between the paths along the Charles River and the 10-mile Minuteman Commuter Bikeway, resulting in a 48-mile continuous path network that would allow bicyclists, runners and walkers to travel between 11 cities and towns in Greater Boston without ever having to share their right-of-way with a car. This is a tremendous milestone and it happened not because of one individual, but because our community has a set of shared values, which includes the importance of making our neighborhoods walkable and bikeable. When we start from our shared values, we can envision and plan for the future we want and achieve goals like the Community Path Extension.

We’ve seen the impact of making Somerville more walkable, bikeable and connected to public transit. We’re improving our environmental well-being, reducing car emissions and improving the quality of the air we breathe, undoing the failed policies of the past that treated our community as a cut-through for cars and led to half of our residents living in environmental justice zones, bearing the impact of car emissions and industry. There is the positive impact on our economic health, with active streetscapes and more foot traffic supporting our local businesses, and on our public health, with these investments making the healthy choice to walk or bike instead of driving the easy choice for residents. And there’s the social connectivity that comes when we create walkable, bikeable neighborhoods. Ultimately, building a neighborhood means creating places where you see familiar faces every day, out on sidewalks and paths walking, pushing strollers and biking.

The health of our planet and ourselves, a strong economy, and a sense of community: This is what we value. So, building this new quarter-mile of the Community Path is more than just an extension of a mixed-use bicycle and pedestrian path. It is a reflection of our community, and our values. We codified those values in SomerVision, a comprehensive plan that is not about what we want to build, but what kind of community we want to be. It’s a shared set of values and goals, including the goal to shift half of all new vehicle trips to biking, walking and transportation. We continue to work at meeting that goal. It’s why Somerville is now the top city in the northeast for bicycle community and fifth in the U.S. overall, per the League of American Bicyclists. It’s why Somerville is now the 7th most walkable city in the nation according to national Walk Score ratings.

This is all because as a community we came together, expressed our values, and then made and advocated for the policies and investments to reflect those values. So around Somerville today, you see more than 40 new miles of bike lanes and sharrows. You see the Community Path extension. You see work underway on the Green Line Extension. And a year ago, you saw the opening of Massachusetts’ first new public rapid transit station in almost three decades at Assembly Square. It’s because we understand the impact that this kind of vision and community planning has on our economic health, our social health, and our environmental well-being.

Projects like this need collaboration. It’s collaboration that has made Somerville so successful over the years. For the Community Path, we need to thank the advocates and activists like the Friends of the Community and the Somerville Transportation Equity Partnership, who relentlessly worked to make sure that not only the Green Line is extended, but that we capitalized on the opportunity to also extend the Community Path to Boston. We need to thank our aldermen, who have continued to advocate and support for the policies to make our shared values a reality, and our state delegation of Sen. Jehlen and Reps. Denise Provost, Christine Barber and Tim Toomey that has done the same. We must thank our partners at the state, from Secretary of Transportation Stephanie Pollock to the staff in MassHighway’s District Four, and our Congressman Mike Capuano who helped secure the funding to bring this project to fruition.

When we are committed and work together, projects like this are possible and we can achieve those shared goals in SomerVision. We rank highly in the nation for walkability, bikeability and public transportation access, but we won’t be satisfied until we are number one. These are not easy goals to reach, but I am confident we will get there, because today, between Cedar Street and Lowell Street, you can see a quarter-mile of pure community determination.