The View From Prospect Hill for March 17

On March 17, 2010, in Latest News, by The News Staff

If
you have lived here for the last 40 plus years, you have seen this city
go through a massive transformation in many different areas, but it's
when weather is absolutely dismal, that the memories of days long gone
by come "flooding" in. Sorry about the pun, but there's a possibility
they will "cascade" through this View.

For the purpose of this
week's View, we will be keeping the memories to within the last 40
years. For those of us who can remember 1970 forward, we remember the
last time we saw the streets ripped up down to pre-1970 times – trolley
tracks, brick and cobblestone streets, ancient walkways and even older
(and typically dead) trees – all being replaced by newer, more
efficient and durable asphalt and granite and concrete.

But not
the sewer system – that was about 100 years old in the 1970s and now
you can tack on another 40 years – age enhances wine, not sewer lines.
And so, for the next decade, into the 1980s, we still had plenty of
streets that would flood out for a number of reasons, most centering
around the inability of the drainage system to handle a larger than
normal rainfall.

In the 1990s and into the 2000s, significant
work was done to improve the drainage and sewer lines, and it came, but
at a slow and steady pace, sometimes discouraging after a heavy
rainstorm. Consistent, long-term and systematic improvements that have
been far more measurable have been made just in the last few years, and
the payoff is finally "flowing" in.

These past few days,
Somerville Avenue didn't turn into Lake Somerville. The intersection of
Medford Street and School Street wasn't a wading pool. Dozens of other
locations across the city didn't flood out roadways for the first time
in many, many years. That's progress.

Sure, Shore Drive, Alewife
Brook Parkway and Mystic Avenue had their problems here and there at
times, but if you think about it – all three of those roadways are
State owned – and may have had the same improvements as other areas
across the city, had they been under city control. To some, these
improvements seem small in comparison to their basements flooding out,
water pouring straight up through the floors and foundations – but
overall, the change is more global, systemic and visual to residents as
well as passersby. That's an excellent thing.