Letter from Linda Moussouris regarding Asking City Council to Demand Full Reporting on the CSO as City Manager Submits 3rd Annual CSO Progress Report 5/1/22-4/30/23

1 Taylor, Bernice From: [email removed] Sent: Monday, May 22, 2023 7:58 PM To: City Council; citymanager@cambridge.gov; City Clerk Cc: rosemous Subject: Asking City Council to Demand Full Reporting on the CSO as City Manager Submits 3rd Annual CSO Progress Report 5/1/22-4/30/23 To: The City Council, City Manager & City Clerk: I am writing this email in response to the Manager's submission at this evening's Council Meeting of the Third Annual CSO Progress Report 5/1/22-4/30/23: thus, I am joining with other community activists who have already written to the Council -- Young Kim and Cambridge Streets for All -- to ask that the Council NOT accept this "perfunctory," incomplete report as written. I concur with the statement of Cambridge Streets for All that given the $50 million included in the proposed 2024 Capital Budget for Mass. Ave. Partial Construction projects, it makes little sense to proceed with such a sizable investment (as nearly 5 miles of roadway are planned in the coming year) without the careful evaluation needed to provide data on the existing impacts of CSO-mandated Quick-Build installation on corridors like N. Mass. Ave. (Dudley-Alewife): where as a resident I have witnessed firsthand the dramatic transformation of our street which occurred in Nov. 2021 with hurried, plainly inadequate community process. My own experience living on N. Mass. Ave. corroborates the concerns voiced in the letter from Cambridge Streets for All to the Council. which clearly states that city officials need to pause in their reconfiguration of some 25 miles of major corridor until a multidimensional CSO evaluation is (at last) conducted, spanning: safety data, comparative rider statistics pre/post CSO implementation; an actual economic impact assessment; an analysis of the neighborhood impacts of redirecting traffic (sometimes in crazy-quilt patterns); plus overall impacts on seniors & the disabled. Thus, I concur with this community group regarding how "intractable the CSO push" from both the City Council & city staff has been as the Ordinance rolls "inexorably..,forward" minus a comprehensive impacts evaluation of existing projects: an outcome I have called for in repeated communications with the Council in the aftermath of the 11/21 installation of Quick-Build on N. Mass. Ave. Indeed, having reviewed the CSO Progress Report myself online, I was dumbfounded to learn that Quick-Build projects such as N. Mass. Ave. (Dudley-Alewife) were framed entirely in terms of speed of implementation, low cost, no demolition of streets -- in exchange for enhanced bike safety (PERIOD!). In fact, there is ZERO mention of reconfiguration of this major corridor: now reduced to a single lane of auto traffic, a bus lane, & dedicated bike lane (separated by rows of bollards) on either side of the barren median strip. Nevertheless, my reading of the CSO Progress Report found NO mention of the drastic reconfiguration of N. Mass. Ave. plus NO mention of the elimination of parking at all until the section devoted to the Porter SQ. Safety Improvement Project (a .41 mile stretch of roadway): where the report in fact acknowledges that collaboration with the MBTA on removing trolley electrical wires above as well as "a section of the median will provide space to retain parking and loading on Mass. Ave." [emphasis mine] Had you not read on into the Porter SQ. section of this report, you would have had no idea that almost all metered parking in the previously installed Quick- Build project on N. Mass.Ave. (Dudley-Alewife) had vanished: with a scattered few spots -- allotted to the disabled (opposite Churchill St.), loading zones (Trolley SQ.) & metered parking scooted onto residential streets. Of course, what occurred on N. Mass. Ave. raises questions about what will

2 ultimately occur on Cambridge St.: also slated for Quick-Build installation along a 2-mile stretch (Oak St.-Second St.) to be installed between 5/24-4/25. Meanwhile, 'construction-only' (not Quick-Build) is slated for short stretches along Holworthy, Main & River Streets (for a total of .84 miles). As Young Kim states, we need to know more about the $50 million in the proposed budget slated for CSO implementation & just how it will be allotted & spent. In his letters to the Council, Young Kim also calls for more detailed information on the implementation (& funding breakdowns) for all CSO projects -- both existing & future projects. For example, I concur with his point that city officials need to document that they are prepared to "modify/replace preinstalled Quick-Build projects with partial roadway improvement capital projects": e.g., add to the "scope of the MassAve4" by appending to the project the following nomenclature -- "Mass.Ave. -- Harvard SQ.--Alewife Brook Parkway (Partial Build)." This potential reconsideration might encompass the existing Quick-Build installation at the very northwest edge of the city: that is, N. Mass. Ave. (Dudley-Alewife), which is plainly unsuited to its current streetscape of largely empty streets & sidewalks juxtaposed with two incongruously clogged single lanes of rush hour traffic (as to the pollution these two single lanes emit?). Such a documented reconsideration of existing Q-B installation -- supported by the analysis called for above by Cambridge Streets for All -- should clarify for those who live & work along the corridor just how they 'fit' into the city's efforts to make our streets safe and inviting for all as well as commercially viable in the aftermath to the pandemic. Thanks for your consideration of what I have written here. Linda Moussouris 2440 Mass. Ave.