Here is the complete statement about a Mass. Ave. ballot question presented to the Board of Selectmen on Monday, Dec. 4, by Eric Berger:
Thank you for this opportunity. I speak tonight on behalf of the East Arlington Concerned Citizen’s Committee. When I complete my remarks, I respectfully request that Mr. Kaepplein be given the opportunity to make a very few additional remarks as well.
Regarding the Mass Ave Corridor Project, I request that the Selectmen place on the April 6, 2013 Town election ballot the following non-binding question:
Shall the Town have four travel lanes on Massachusetts Avenue in East Arlington as now practiced? Yes___ No___
Those who want to keep the four travel lanes would vote yes. Those who want to remove one of the four travel lanes and replace it with two bike lanes, for example, would vote no. It is very important to bring this question before our voters.
Some say there’s no need for this ballot question. They say Arlington’s registered voters have had many opportunities to express their opinions from the very beginning of the Mass. Ave. Corridor Project development process in 2002 and every step along the way. These people have been grievously misinformed.
Our Town’s public involvement and participation process for the Corridor Project has been very ineffective from day one. Our Town relied initially in 2002 on three very poorly advertised and poorly attended public meetings in East Arlington. The average attendance was less than 30 people and some of those attending were town employees. For the next six years…from 2002 until October 2008…our Town’s registered voters were shut out of the public involvement and participation process, sealed off from providing any input into the corridor roadway design.
The evidence for this complete lack of public involvement and participation from 2002-2008 is overwhelming. This evidence includes our Town’s own timeline of the Mass. Ave. Corridor Project posted on our Town’s website. That timeline references the three public meetings in East Arlington in 2002. The next reference on that timeline to any type of public meeting is 6 years later in 2008 with this entry: “Begin Public Outreach for Phase 1 Design.”
This beginning of public outreach in 2008, 6 years after the 3 public meetings of 2002, consisted of three required MassDOT public hearings starting in October, 2008. These hearings were poorly advertised by the Town and attended only by an average of approximately 60 people at each hearing. At these hearings our Town violated a fundamental MassDOT and Federal Highway Administration principle about effective public involvement and participation for roadway transportation projects. Our Town failed to present several roadway design alternatives for public comment and review. The SAFETEA-LU legislation that provides the source for the $5,000,000 of federal funding for this project states in no uncertain terms that the public must be involved in the development of alternative roadway designs. The public must also be given the opportunity to provide input into the alternatives and must be notified in writing about the opportunities to provide such input. Our Town did none of this.
That failure to provide roadway design alternatives occurred because the Town had directed its design engineers years before 2008 to put bike lanes on the Mass. Ave. Corridor and design a roadway around them. That roadway design requirement to remove travel lanes to make room for bike lanes was not only set in stone long before 2008, it was never shared with the public at any point in all the years it was being developed into a roadway design, a direct violation of the mandates of SAFETEA-LU legislation and MassDOT guidelines. It was not until the very end, not until the last of the three required DOT hearings, not until that hearing held in February, 2009, seven years after the Mass. Ave. Corridor Project development process began in 2002, that the public, consisting of the approximately 60 people attending that hearing, learned that the roadway design being proposed would remove travel lanes on the Mass. Ave. Corridor to make room for bike lanes. No amount of public opposition at that poorly advertised and poorly attended hearing would change that roadway design. None did.
Regarding tax dollars, we have always wanted our Town to receive the money available to improve the corridor. For example, we agree that improving the corridor’s lighting and traffic signals makes sense. So too does paving the corridor roadway and striping its four travel lanes so motorists know exactly where each of the four travel lanes begins and ends.
Above all, we want to get our corridor roadway design right so that travel on it is safe and efficient for the many thousands of its daily users, including the 98% who travel on it in automobiles, transit buses, and trucks. The corridor is the main roadway through the heart of our town. Travel on it effects every resident. The corridor is lined with approximately 100 businesses. There are three bus routes serving thousands on that corridor with 16 bus stops. There are 17 single-lane driveways on this one-mile stretch in which the homeowners, their tenants, and business customers will be forced to back out into a single bike lane multiple times per day. This one factor alone is so dangerous that the existence of single lane driveways along this roadway ought to eliminate adding bike lanes to this roadway in and of itself.
Some say that our Town must include bike lanes in its corridor roadway design because MassDOT, the Federal Highway Administration, and the law require that bike lanes be included to receive State and Federal tax dollars. These people have been grievously misinformed. Bicycle lanes are not mandatory. The Town could produce no document of any law or regulation of any agency supporting that contention in response to a Freedom of Information Act letter. There is no such law or regulation.
Some say that MassDOT requirements prevent striping our corridor to provide four travel lanes that includes two shared travel lanes used by bicyclists and motorists. These people say that Mass DOT requires that such shared travel lanes must be at least 15 feet wide, and therefore our corridor is not wide enough to include two shared travel lanes, one heading west and one heading east. These people have been grievously misinformed.
MassDOT states that a shared travel lane, which is the travel lane closest to the parked car lane, should be at least 14 feet wide. MassDOT also states that a travel lane, which is the lane next to a shared travel lane, should be in the range of 10-12 feet wide. Mass DOT further states that a parallel on-street parking lane for roadways with high parking turnover, truck loading, and bus stops should be 8 feet wide. The existing Mass. Ave Corridor in East Arlington is 66 feet wide at its narrowest point. This 66 foot width provides room for two 14 foot shared travel lanes for a total of 28 feet plus two 11 foot travel lanes for a total of 22 feet plus two 8 foot parallel on-street parking lanes for a total of 16 feet. When one adds 28 feet plus 22 feet plus 16 feet, one gets a total of 66 feet, the current width of the Mass. Ave Corridor at its narrowest point. All our Town has to do to create these lanes on the Mass. Ave. Corridor is to stripe them.
These DOT requirements for roadway width for four travel lanes and two parallel on-street parking lanes are stated on Pages 23, 29, and 30 of Chapter 5 of the DOT’s Project Development and Design Guide.
Regarding 14-foot wide shared travel lanes, I want to remind the Board of Selectmen that it approved this year the “Arlington Safe Travel Project” for Arlington Center at Pleasant Street, a portion of which features 14-Foot wide shared travel lanes on Mass. Ave. Rather than present the Town with only one roadway design like it did with the Corridor project , however, this time the town presented five roadway design options for public review and discussion for this project before the Selectmen selected one of them.
We have enough time to change the Mass. Ave. Corridor Project design to keep four travel lanes without losing state and federal money. Bike lanes are not mandatory.
Thank you for considering my request to give, at long last, our tens of thousands of registered voters a chance to exercise their democratic right by placing on the ballot of the April 6, 2013 Town elections the non-binding question, Shall the town have four travel lanes on Massachusetts Avenue in East Arlington as currently practiced?
And now I’d like Mr. Kaepplein to give his very brief remarks.
Oct. 28: Critics collecting signatures | Dec. 2:Patience, persistence preceded presentation
This story was published Tuesday, Dec. 4, 2012.
