Cambridge Civic Journal Forum

Concerns about Garden Street and environs – a letter from Beth Gamse and Judith Singer

From: Beth Gamse
Date: January 12, 2023
To: City Manager; City Councillors; City Clerk; Dept. of Traffic, Parking and Transportation
Subject: Concerns about Garden Street and environs

January 12, 2023

Dear City Manager,
CC: City Council Members, City Clerk, and Acting Director of the Traffic, Parking and Transportation Department

We write to you to express concerns about the recent changes on Garden Street, which have caused numerous unintended consequences on nearby streets and on the overall system of interconnected streets in western Cambridge. We are residents of one of those nearby streets – Walker Street – and are homeowners, taxpayers, and avid pedestrians.

Over the past year, we have attended all of the informational sessions about changes to Massachusetts Avenue as well as each community meeting about changes to Garden Street, and many City Council meetings at which street safety was a topic. Because our primary mode of transportation is on foot, we are especially interested in pedestrian safety, and we support the City’s commitment to improved safety for its residents and visitors. We appreciate the efforts made by the City, including the City Manager as well as the Traffic, Parking and Transportation (TPT) Department to engage in outreach to the community and conduct research about then-planned, since-implemented changes. However, in our opinion – and those of many of our neighbors on affected streets – the communication efforts and data collection/analyses fall far short of intended goals. Below, we outline specific issues and questions (in bold and italicized) about which we would deeply appreciate a response.

Communication and Participation

TPT engaged in a number of efforts to inform residents about proposed changes, including use of postcards to selected residential/business addresses in the neighborhoods thought to be most likely to experience disruption and posted placards announcing upcoming public meetings. This well-intentioned outreach did not take into account the fact that many people who use Garden Street do not live in the immediate catchment area; rather, they use Garden Street to get somewhere else, and now they use Raymond, Walker, Concord, Bond, Robinson, Madison, Huron, and Walden, among other local streets. From what we understand (based on comments from Representative Decker and other Raymond Street residents at the first and second Listening Sessions in November), Raymond Street residents were not included in the initial outreach about changes to Garden Street even though it [Raymond] is arguably one of the most adversely affected streets. Other than the Listening Sessions and periodic updates on the TPT website, how does the City plan to communicate its decisions about any updates and/or changes in implementation of Garden Street Safety Improvement efforts to ensure that information is available/provided to residents across the city’s system of interconnected streets?

Our understanding of the Garden Street Project is that it is part of a “Quick-Build” approach to make progress toward the Networked Streets and the Cycling Safety Ordinance (CSO). Recently, low concrete curbs were placed on Garden Street between Walker Street and the intersection with Concord Avenue, further narrowing the space available to motorists. Can the City please describe how installing concrete barriers is part of the “Quick Build” solutions? Additionally, how will snowplows navigate when snow renders the barriers less visible?

Project costs are not transparent. As taxpayers, we believe residents should be informed about the City’s budget, and the City should be transparent about how it allocates resources. When residents asked about additional pedestrian crossings across Garden Street at the Listening Sessions, we were told that because curb cuts able to accommodate universal access (e.g., wheelchairs, strollers) would require additional infrastructure costs, no additional crosswalks were possible with incurring capital costs. However, even though the installed bicycle lanes are designed as “quick-build” projects that do not include structural changes, the new concrete barriers clearly represent additional infrastructure costs to install – and plow around. How has the City communicated about planned/expected CSO costs to its citizens? When the CSO was passed by the City Council in 2019, was there a projected budget? How much has been allocated/spent so far?

There is little information about intra-departmental communication with other City agencies, including the Fire, Police, Public Works, School, and local hospital/emergency service providers. Informal communication with a dozen police officers assigned to monitor traffic patterns in the weeks after the Garden Street implementation (on Shepard, Garden, Raymond, Bond) revealed they were blind-sided by the changes, and were dismayed about the increased vehicular speeds on Garden and Raymond in particular, despite the speed alert signs. Walker Street, without the electric speed alert signs, has also seen increased vehicular speeds and volume. We raise this issue because we have observed – on multiple occasions – emergency vehicles blocked from traveling eastward on Garden Street because there is nowhere for cars to pull over. On a related note, the state recently passed a new law governing the minimum distance (4 feet) between cars and those who are “vulnerable,” including pedestrians, cyclists, and those engaged in the provision of emergency services (see the Boston Globe, January 3, 2023): “Pedestrians, cyclists gain protections with new law meant to reduce traffic deaths.” While the separated bike lanes may provide close to the required 4 feet, there is insufficient room to provide that distance to emergency vehicles anywhere on Garden Street between Huron Avenue and Arsenal Street. Can the City please describe pre- and post-implementation communication with other departments to ensure that emergency vehicles have the clearance required to pass traffic on Garden Street?

Listening Sessions both in person and via Zoom have always begun not with listening but with presentations by City staff; attendees have only been allowed to voice comments after City staff presentations. While many attendees of these events have noted that they are city residents, many have reported that they live elsewhere, and traverse Cambridge streets to reach their respective destinations. Despite the fact that the sessions were seemingly designed for residents of the affected neighborhoods – the people whose taxes support our city – too many residents were not even able to speak in thee time allotted for feedback, as individuals from other communities voiced their opinions. Can City officials explain why non-residents have equal speaking priority at meetings for Cambridge residents?

It is not clear that feedback provided at the Listening Sessions registers with the City. TPT personnel have described minor and incremental changes while indicating that the overwhelming majority of comments have been in favor of the current arrangement on Garden Street. The two in-person November listening sessions we attended at the Graham and Parks School were overwhelmingly dominated by residents who are concerned about the unintended consequences and whose questions to TPT remain unanswered; the January 4 Zoom session included both those who applaud the Garden Street Safety Project and those who asked the City to reconsider the Garden Street Safety Project, whether in part or whole. Additionally, the recent TPT report indicated that there is strong support for the changes to Garden Street, yet did not acknowledge the substantial community concerns raised at the Listening Sessions. As a result, it is not clear that the City is indeed listening to residents’ concerns. Can the City Manager, TPT, and the City Council please indicate whether any aspects of the project will be reconsidered, and when?

Nomenclature and word choice matter. The name “Garden Street Safety Project” does not communicate the nature of the project clearly or effectively. This project is exclusively driven by the Cycling Safety Ordinance, and while there have been some mentions of pedestrian safety in TPT presentations, they are clearly secondary. It is MORE challenging now than before October 28, 2022, to be a pedestrian on Walker Street, Raymond Street, Shepard Street, and Garden Street, because cars AND bicycles travel too fast, do not heed traffic light signals, stop or yield signs. Ironically, the 2023 parking permits for the City include a sticker for car owners to place on side view mirrors about checking for bikes, but there is no such sticker about checking for pedestrians. Sadly, in the most recent year, approximately 10 times as many pedestrians died in car-related accidents than cyclists in our state (99 and 10, respectively). As long as this project continues, can the City consider renaming this project to indicate what it is – a protected bicycle lane project – rather than (mis)representing it as creating safety for all, which it is not?

The majority of bicyclists and scooterists are using the lanes as intended. Unfortunately, those who do not risk endangering themselves as well as pedestrians, other cyclists, and drivers when traveling outside the designated lanes whether in the street or on sidewalks, in the wrong direction, and when ignoring traffic signs. We have had to jump out of harm’s way too many times to count when using crosswalks or “Walk” signs on Mass Ave, Garden, Shepard, Raymond, Linnaean, and Follen Streets, because cyclists/scooterists neither stop nor yield. What are the City’s plans for communicating with bicyclists and scooterists about respecting pedestrian safety and heeding traffic signs?

Notably, only a handful of City Councillors have attended some of the in-person “listening sessions,” and our City Manager has not; it is not possible to discern who attends the Zoom sessions as a listener. The recent TPT report includes a statement to residents from City Manager Yi-An Huang, including the following:

The reality is that many people feel unheard, and there is a broader challenge about how we make decisions when people disagree….For the City’s part, I recognize that there is work to do to improve our communication, transparency, and responsiveness, and this is a priority for me.

Can the City Manager, in particular, describe his efforts to improve communication, transparency, and responsiveness about the Garden Street Safety Project?

• The City’s commitment to the CSO and the Vision Zero initiatives are laudable, yet the City’s decisions to proceed have not all been transparent nor have been shared in a manner that invites public participation in decision-making. Cambridge residents have not voted directly on either of these initiatives, for example, but instead have voted for City Council candidates who share their broad philosophies and vision for the City. Can the City use a process like a ballot question or the Participatory Budgeting to ask residents about their priorities with respect to these two initiatives? In the most recent round of Participatory Budgeting, for example, we find it telling that none of the selected projects was focused on bicycle safety but instead on other priorities for residents.

Data collection/analysis

• The recent TPT report indicates the TPT Department recognizes that the process could have been improved. It also indicates that the City will continue to collect data about implementation. Because so much of the city population adheres to an academic calendar, data collection from mid-December through the end of January is unlikely to be sufficient to provide a clear understanding of the impacts of the traffic changes. Can the City describe the planned data collection for the future? Will the City ensure that sufficient data are collected – on a range of days, times of day and times of year – to demonstrate to residents that their lived experiences of the effects of these changes are represented validly and reliably? We live on an affected street and are out-and-about several times a day most days of the year. There is great variation over time that does not appear to have been captured by the measurements to date.
• The report presented information about average speeds on affected streets. However, information about averages alone is not sufficient – the distribution is also important to know because averages mask variation. The major speed issue isn’t about “average speed,” it’s about the faster speeds that many motorists – and frankly cyclists/scooterists, especially those with motorized devices – are achieving. As you consider expanding the amount of data collection over multiple days and times of day, please collect information on the entire distribution of speeds.
• Selection of independent third-party urban planning/traffic management organization to collect/analyze data given talent in Cambridge. Governments are wise to contract with independent consultants to evaluate the effects of policy changes. Having the same people who implement the policy evaluate its effects does not provide the level of arms-length assessment needed given the felt impacts of these changes on residents. Will the city commit to a quality independent assessment of the impact of these changes?

Beth Gamse, bethgamse@gmail.com, 617-448-4860
Judith D. Singer, Judith_singer@harvard.edu, 617-999-4701
14 Walker St, Cambridge, MA 02138