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© 2021 The Somerville Times. All rights reserved.
— Photo courtesy of Somerville Neighborways
By Cassidy Beek
Somerville community members shared a mix of concerns and appreciation for the city’s Bike Network Plan during a public hearing held by The Somerville City Council Traffic and Parking Committee on Wednesday, May 31.
The finalized plan was published in April and proposes an 88-mile citywide network of protected bicycle lanes and Neighborways for prioritized streets. The plan was developed through a public engagement, research, and analysis process over a one-and-a-half-year period, meeting the city’s Vision Zero, Climate Forward and SomerVision goals.
While focusing on the need to provide safe biking infrastructure and improved connectivity, the goal is to install 40.2 miles by the year 2030 and the completed network to be finished by 2050.
Proceeding the council’s short presentation on the plan, Beatriz Gomez Mouakad, Chair and Ward 5 City Councilor, welcomed the public’s opinions. Many residents of Somerville and current members of the Bicycle Advisory Committee raised concerns about accessibility, public process and implementation.
Adam Nash, a Somerville resident, was the first to speak and strongly urged the committee to rethink their methodology for analysis. He believed the participants involved in the surveying process were heavily slanted towards cyclists, omitting a substantial number of stakeholders involved as according to him, only 3% of Somerville’s population was surveyed.
Susan Jacobucci, a Somerville resident, agreed with Nash and further expressed how the majority of residents are not being heard. She was surprised to find her street is included on the plan as a Neighborway, and claimed that the committee overstepped boundaries by reassigning a private road without gaining any input from the property owners.
Many called for an increase in transparency and public hearings, including Howard Horton, Cochair of SomerVision 2040 and member of the Board of Directors of the Somerville Chamber of Commerce. “We are talking about 90% of the public ways in the city, and I do think that we need to have public hearings on each and every public way that’s going to be changed. We need to bring this process into the sunlight, and we need to notify abutters of every street and get them involved,” said Horton.
Stephen Mackey, a resident of the city and former member of the Chamber of Commerce, also urged the traffic commission to hold public hearings. He claimed there is currently no genuine involvement within the community, and public hearings are critical as a way to bring people together to work through the issues within the plan.
Agreeing with Mackey, Brett Sillari, a Highland Ave. resident, expressed the need for meetings about the bike plan to be held in person and advised public outreach to be done by mail to avoid leaving property owners uninformed. Sillari also outlined that the removal of parking in Davis Sq. will detour visitors, hurt businesses and increase the difficulty of travel for the aging population. “A lot of people are leaving the city because of the lack of parking already. I know right now some people won’t even visit Somerville because Davis Sq. is too difficult to park in,” said Sillari.
Some hoped for handicapped parking to be preserved after implementing more bike lanes, including Katie Talmo, a property owner on Highland Ave. Her biggest concern was for people who have protections under The Americans Disability Act, as she claimed the plan would take away the limited handicapped parking spots in Somerville.
Concerns about the quick-build infrastructure were also raised. C.J. Asserto, a Somerville resident, wants to see the city more focused on permanent infrastructure that is safer for cyclists. “Anyone who rides a bike will tell you a flex post doesn’t do much when there’s a 600-pound truck next to you,” he said.
Asserto, among many, expressed his appreciation for the plan, saying it offers a better traveling experience to drivers as cyclists will have their own space on the road. Others shared their excitement for a future in Somerville where their children can get around independently by utilizing alternative forms of travel.
Mouakad closed the public process and announced that the hearing will remain open until June 14 for written comment. Public comments can be made to the city clerk at cityclerk@somervillema.gov.
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Headline gives a biased perspective considering even the first line acknowledges residents also spoke in favor of the plans and expressed concerns for their safety on the existing infrastructure.
Yup, biased headline – it could day “Somerville residents respond to implementation” instead of implying everyone is against it.
As an East resident, I am tired of having inferior bike and pedestrian infrastructure compared to the West side of town, which also has higher car ownership! A lot of people *want* safer bike infrastructure and for it to be more equitable.
Well, you know, concerns may have been expressed by both those in favor of the bike plan and those who are opposed to it. So, no problemo, amigos! Right? lol
I have reviewed the Public Hearing on the Somerville Bike Network Plan and attended the May 31st public hearing where I was able to present some of my concerns. The hearing, which started more than 10 minutes late, did not present sufficient opportunities for any detailed concerns, objections to be presented, or debate. It was apparent that the decision to move forward with the plan was already made, without regard to any public comments that were to be made.
The plan presented is deeply flawed as it does not encompass a holistic overview of the Somerville streets and the overall Somerville population. The plan’s objective was to develop a plan that is ideal only for bicyclists while neglecting the overall community that uses the roads. More than 90% of the overall road usage is performed by motorists and their passengers and their needs were not even considered in developing the plan. This narrow focus leads to significant flaws in the development of the plan.
1. The initial public engagements performed “cherry-picked” outreach to audiences in selected locations such as bike paths where the surveys would only include bicyclists. Only a selected demographic was surveyed rather than an expanded survey from all road stakeholders. From the information presented, there does not appear to be any outreach made to motorists to obtain a more representative survey of road users. I do not see any public engagements being conducted at car washes, gas stations or parking lots. Other opportunities to collect feedback from motorists during parking permit renewals or when sending out excise tax bill were never utilized. Essentially the deck was stacked from the beginning.
2. For the next stage of public engagements, street pop-ups and community events were staged at locations that favored bicyclists being at those locations rather than motorists.
3. The overall engagements appear to have engaged 90, 164 and 200+ participants. It is uncertain as to how many participants are counted multiple time. With approximately 80,000 Somerville residents (2021 data), it appears that less than 0.5 percent of the overall population participated.
4. The goal of the plan is to have 15% of all commuting done by bike by 2050 yet there was no assessment performed on how this will impact the other 85% of commuters.
5. There is no motorist representation on the committee.
6. For the streets that would be impacted by the proposed changes there was never any outreach made to the residents of those streets. In at least one instance, a private road was included in the plans.
7. Transparency was severely lacking. For a plan such as this, that will have a major impact across the entire city, it was often buried on the Somerville web site. The Bicycle Committee, Traffic Commission, and Traffic Board web pages have no mention of this plan.
8. There were no impact assessments made at the street level to determine the impact of these changes. Each street assessment should have included the following:
a. How many vehicles would be impacted and what steps could be taken to mitigate the loss of parking spaces.
b. What percentage of the residents on the street are elderly or have disabilities that require the usage of a vehicle.
c. For the streets not listed for changes in the plan, what will be the impact for those streets? Will traffic increase? Will parking availability change as impacted residents from other streets seek out new locations to park.
9. Funding, not just for implementation but also for maintenance is not clearly defined. Will bicyclists be asked to pay for their fair share of road usage?
10. The assumption is made that we have a reliable mass transit system. The reality is that we do not and most likely will not for the next several years or even decades.
11. Civil Defense impacts were never considered. There should have been at least a minimal impact analysis conducted to determine how this would affect the ability to conduct an evacuation in the event of a disaster.
12. The plan appears to make the assumption that commuters are inbound to Boston and back. It does not take into account that many people commute outbound from Boston and back.
13. The plan does not list assumptions made in developing the plan.
14. The plan does not appear to capture any lessons learned from rollouts done to date. This is concerning as bicycle death have increased since the rollout of dedicated bike lanes.
15. The plan does not appear to consider how post implementation assessments, if any will be made.
I ask the committee to conduct more public hearings, extend your outreach to all road stakeholders, make the plan more visible on the Somerville web site, develop a more inclusive and holistic plan, and to be more willing to respect the views of those who do not agree with your opinions.
Same old. Zzzzzzzzzz…
To confirm this coverage is biased with evidence from the city council notes for the Traffic and Parking Committee on 5/31 (you can check that yourself): “There were thirty individuals who offered comments during the public hearing, with 33% of them expressing opposition to some aspect of the plan.” This means that 67% spoke in favor and that corresponds to my impression listening to the meeting myself. This coverage does not accurately reflect what happened and gives a biased perspective as a result.