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Somerville Transportation Equity Partnership and Livable Streets submitting a letter re: the McGrath Highway's McCarthy Overpass.
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Official Text
NOTE: The Following has been submitted to this Board as a Public Communication. See the attachment for the original correspondence.
June 8, 2012
Frank DePaola,
Administrator Mass DOT Highway Division
Mass DOT Board of Directors
Dear Mr. DePaola and members of the MassDOT Board of Directors:
Since it was not possible for us to participate in the discussion about what MassDOT intends to do moving forward regarding the McCarthy Overpass following your report at the June 6, 2012 Board meeting, we are writing this letter to you and to the Board in response to your comments at the MassDOT Board meeting.
First, we want to thank you for agreeing with the widely shared goal of Somerville residents, elected officials and advocates to remove the overpass. However, let us be consistent. The overpass is functionally deficient for all users. Repairing the structure will waste taxpayer money that MassDOT’s own overpass documents reveal are not immediately necessary because Mass DOT can apply the least costly safety solution by posting truck weight restrictions and netting and planking the structure to assure vehicle and pedestrian safety. Any surface improvement without immediate removal prolongs the suffering of not just these users but the surrounding Environmental Justice neighborhoods. Further, fixing the structure significantly delays reaching the unified goal of the community, elected officials and MassDOT to replace it was something more appropriate and sustainable.
We also want to recognize the comments made by Board members Andrew Whittle and Liz Levin in support of changes to the scope of the existing contract. Both clearly stated the importance of ensuring that such changes must include public participation. Our dissatisfaction with the decision to “temporarily” repair the structure arose because the community was excluded from discussing and weighing in on the impact of the proposed repair to our community. As you stated at the meeting, there has been extensive and robust public participation about grounding McGrath, but not about repairing the structure. Reconsideration of this decision has come about because the community requested it, not because it has been part of the public process. It is apparent that far more can be done, working together to complete and expedite grounding the overpass.
The repair contract should be re-scoped as soon as possible but in the meantime the contractor should not be issued a notice to proceed until the community and the agency have forged a plan. Exclusion of the community from the decision making process to immediately repair the overpass has been an injustice. It also extends Mass Highway’s unfortunate recent record of re-building Somerville bridges twice rather than once within very short time frames, at great expense to the Commonwealth and great disruption to the community, as has happened several times recently with Green Line corridor bridges that will have to be torn apart and re-built simply for lack of foresight. Nevertheless, we are confident that we can work together to achieve a solution that does not endanger or cause concern of the public. We are also confident that by working together we can achieve a grounded street network within the four remaining years of the Accelerated Bridge Program.
The community is now and has been consistently clear and strong that the McCarthy Overpass should not be repaired. We again state in the strongest way possible, do not repair the McCarthy Overpass!
We request that in its leadership capacity that the MassDOT Board take whatever actions is required toward accomplishing these goals, and that Highway Division staff set up a meeting as soon as possible with city and legislative staff and advocates to develop a comprehensive and collaborative plan and time line to reach the goal of grounding McCarthy Overpass as expeditiously as possible. This will enable MassDOT to follow its own directive to potential contractors in the bid advertisement that states "The consultant shall communicate with the locals early in design to avoid conflict."
Sincerely,
Ellin Reisner, STEP
Steven Nutter, Livable Streets Alliance