Somerville residents and neighboring commuters are gritting their teeth and girding themselves for the tough times ahead following the Broadway Bridge closure.

By Jim Clark

With the recent announcement of motor vehicle and pedestrian detours as a result of the year-long Broadway Bridge closure, many area residents and those who commute through the area on a daily basis are expressing fear and anger at what is being regarded as an imminent disaster in the making.

But according to Ward 5 Alderman Mark Niedergang, options are being considered that may alleviate some of the anticipated disarray, particularly in the Ball Square area.

“The GLX team has put out proposals for three different kinds of detours for the pedestrian/bike detours, for the bus detours, and for the motor vehicle detours,” said Niedergang. “They put out proposals for the three of those and invited comments on them from the public. There actually is quite a bit of, I would say, extremely expensive – maybe unprecedented – outreach being done, at least in Somerville on these. There’s these kind of informal Q&A sessions at community events.”

Niedergang says that the ward aldermen have been talking to constituents. “There are Green Line Extension community representatives for each of the stations, and they are out there going to block parties and holding meetings and talking to people about them. And the administration is communicating about this as well. So there’s a lot of consultation and discussion going on, and everything now is still a draft, basically,”

As for the GLX planners, “They’re absolutely listening, I don’t know if they’re going to do what we want them to do.”

On Tuesday of this week, the Green Line Extension Project Community Working Group – about a dozen representatives from Somerville, Medford, and Cambridge who represent the areas around the station stops – met with the Green Line Extension team leaders to talk about issues and get information back to the community reps so they can spread it throughout the community.

“One thing the agenda was a proposed Broadway pedestrian bridge on top of the utility bridge,” according to Niedergang. “So one of the biggest and strongest pushes from the community has been if you have to close the Broadway Bridge completely to motor vehicles, at least have a pedestrian and bike crossing, which then a lot of people could use. Because the proposed pedestrian/bike detour is about three-quarters of a mile long. For older people or people who are not able physically that’s ridiculous. They’re just not able to do it. It’s just not viable. So one of the ways to deal with that is with this pedestrian bridge. They’re response has been, ‘Well, we can’t do that, it’s technically very challenging, if we’re going to keep the project on time and on budget we just can’t do these types of things.’ But they haven’t said an absolute flat no, so they put that on the agenda.”

Another proposal which came from Jim Silva, of the South Medford Residents organization, one of the representatives for the College Ave. station, is to have an at grade crossing over the tracks that would go from Boston Ave. in Somerville to Granville Ave. in Medford. “If it’s technically feasible and safe, it would be a much, much shorter pedestrian detour than the one that they’ve proposed,” said Niedergang. “Probably an eighth of a mile instead of three quarters of a mile.”

On the whole, the Ward 5 alderman remains hopeful. “So they’re listening, but as far as I know, no decisions have been made. I know that people in the administration are meeting, talking, analyzing, discussing, and trying to figure out what’s best.”

In spite of their best efforts, however, it will still be tumultuous process over the next year, according to Niedergang. “To be honest, all the options are terrible. There’s no good options for the detours. It’s going to be a horrible mess no matter what, but we’re going to make it the least bad mess that we possibly can. I think that’s an important message to convey to people. But it’s going to be very painful for a year while this bridge is closed.”

As for quelling the fears of local and neighboring residents, Niedergang maintains a positive outlook. “A lot of people say it will be a year and a half. And that’s a completely reasonable expectation. It’s not my belief, because this new team under John Dalton, the head of the Green Line project, has done everything as promised, on time, on schedule or ahead of schedule. So I’m a believer now, but I understand that other people aren’t, given the history of this project.”

Niedergang says he, too, can feel the pain. “Can you imagine being stuck in traffic for an hour for something that normally takes you five or ten minutes? People are going to be tremendously upset, and I understand that. There’s no way around it and people’s concerns are absolutely justified.”

“And given that no decisions have been made, there’s a lot of ideas bouncing around, that’s an environment in which I think people can fear the worst,” said Niedergang. “So I don’t blame people for being upset, angry and concerned about it.”

Keeping people informed is also important, according to Niedergang. “We are going to have this big community meeting at the end of August, and there ought to be another community meeting in September, and hopefully those will help. To give people information and hear people’s concerns.”

“I’m going to be out walking Ball Square with the Ward 5 Community Police Officer on Tuesday, August 21, in the late afternoon, and then again on Wednesday morning, just to talk to all the business owners,” said Niedergang. “I think there has been a lot of outreach to the business owners by the Ball Square Green Line representative and also by city staff and the Economic Development Dept. But you can’t do too much to make sure that people are aware, especially business owners, and that they’re as prepared as they can be. I think it’s just going to be awful for them. It’s going to be a tough year for businesses in Ball Square.”

But the alderman sees light at the end of the long and twisted tunnel. “The good news is that in 2021, I truly believe there’s going to be a Green Line station right in Ball Square. If the businesses can survive that long, they’re going to get a whole lot more business when that happens.”