Replacing McCarthy overpass with ground-level boulevard to undergo environmental review

– Photo by Elizabeth Sheeran

McGrath Highway is one step closer to coming down after the state Department of Transportation (MassDOT) released a final report recommending that a six-lane boulevard design replacing the McCarthy overpass undergo an environmental review. Separately, MassDOT has also agreed review the possibility of a four-lane option.

MassDOT presented a draft recommendation of the six-lane boulevard concept at a meeting at the Argenziano School this past May to solicit feedback from the public. After that meeting, the Somerville Bicycle Advisory Committee, with support from the city, asked MassDOT to also consider a four-lane design that takes into account that McGrath now carries approximately the same level of vehicular traffic as Massachusetts Avenue in Boston and that the area will have two new Green Line stations in Union Square and Brickbottom in three years, which will divert a significant number of vehicle trips in that corridor to public transit. MassDOT has subsequently agreed to undertake the additional analysis of a four-lane option, comparable to the analysis completed for the six-lane option.

“Creating a boulevard is good for our residents’ health and our economic health, and I’m pleased that the state has agreed to study a four-lane concept as well as a six-lane option, which will further the community’s goals to make Somerville the most walkable, bikeable and transit-accessible city in the nation,” Mayor Joseph A. Curtatone said. “There is no bigger barrier to connecting our neighborhoods and unlocking our city’s potential than McGrath Highway. We’ve long dreamed of knitting back together our historic neighborhoods and reclaiming Somerville’s southern gateway through Brickbottom and Inner Belt.”

The six-lane concept includes a 10-foot-wide bicycle facility running the length of McGrath Highway from Medford Street  to the Cambridge line, which would also connect off Washington Street to the proposed extension of the Community Path to Boston that would run parallel to the Green Line extension. The City broke ground in May on an extension of the Community Path from its current end at Cedar Street to Lowell Street, where it will meet the future Lowell Street Green Line station. The boulevard design is conceptual, and the final layout would be decided through subsequent environmental permitting and design process, which includes public feedback.

“Transforming McGrath to a ground-level boulevard will not only give back this roadway to the neighborhood, it will give us our neighborhoods themselves back,” Ward 2 Alderman Maryann Heuston said. “When we reunite Union Square, Boynton Yards, Brickbottom and Inner Belt with a tree-lined boulevard with pedestrian-friendly crossings, world-class bicycle features and easy access to businesses currently bypassed by the overpass, it will drive the return of this area to the thriving neighborhoods and active streets that existed here before the highway and the waste transfer plant drove residents out.”

MassDOT has also begun, at the city’s request, interim improvements to McGrath that will calm traffic and improve bicycle and pedestrian safety. Those improvements include: a new intersection that allows for easier pedestrian access from Medford Street to Somerville Avenue;  a shortened distance across Washington Street; the first green bike markings in Somerville; and bicycle improvements including bike boxes, two phased left turns and a buffered bike lane on Somerville Avenue for greater safety.

Grounding McGrath is identified in SomerVision, the city’s 20-year comprehensive plan, as one of the ways to reduce barriers to commercial growth and mixed-use development, expand the city’s commercial tax base and revitalize and reconnect historic neighborhoods.

This past fall, the city removed one of those barriers by demolishing the former waste transfer station on the east side of McGrath. SomerVision identifies the potential for 2,600 new residential units, 520 of which would be designated as permanently affordable, and 6 million new square feet of commercial space accommodating 16,800 new jobs between Inner Belt and Brickbottom on the east side of McGrath and Boynton Yards and Union Square on the west side.

“Bringing McGrath down will mitigate its deleterious effect on the air we breathe,” Curtatone said. “It will also spur the revitalization of these neighborhoods and support the local businesses currently in the shadow of this eyesore relic.”