Broadway neighbor calls plan ‘outrageous waste of money’

This response to the proposal from the Broadway Neighbor Coalition was written by Mark Kaepplein of Palmer Street, a Precinct 9 Town Meeting members. He headlined his letter “Broadway Sanity Coalition,” a name he said he made up “to poke fun at the other group promoting cycling and road changes without any data or justification for the millions of tax dollars to be wasted on what only a few people want.” He directed his comments to the Select Board, which YourArlington has edited:

I just became aware of a letter today [Oct. 9] that falsely claimed support from the Arlington “Broadway Neighbors Coalition.” It was not put to a vote and falsely represents many people, including me. Two of the named signatories are not even abutters of Broadway or the proposed project area (Paul Schlichtman, Catherine Farrell).

I have lived within a block of Broadway for over 30 years and can tell you the conditions have changed little in that time, with very few added housing units or additional residents.

There are a few child-services businesses along Broadway, but no evidence that the locations are owned by those businesses, thus inappropriate for new school speed zones of 20 mph vs. the townwide 25 mph speed limit when these businesses could well be temporary.

There are still no fatalities on Broadway in Arlington and few crashes with injuries. It is one of the safest roads in Arlington for its (moderate) traffic volume.

Proponents of bike lanes have no safety data or traffic volume data to support any of their false claims. Speed tables are not appropriate given the moderate traffic levels, MBTA bus traffic and vital access for fire engines and ambulances. Bump-outs are a costly impediment to important snow clearing with negligible safety value We oppose wasting taxpayer money on streetscape projects lacking demonstrated need while inflating housing prices.

While I support the use of better street lighting and Rectangular Rapid Flashing Beacons (RRFBs) throughout Arlington — noting that other people he knows agree with him — there is no data supporting heightened need outside child-service businesses. These beacons have study data supporting their use, with a nearly 50-percent reduction in crashes. However, since those studies, overuse of them such as on Mill Street has reduced driver response to them.

Bicyclists on the bike path, without the right-of-way at intersections, abuse the signals, activating them despite having stop signs in order to get drivers to yield the right-of-way to them, producing the “crying wolf” consequence of reduced attention to RRFBs.

Replacement of the traffic light at Franklin and Broadway with a four-way stop would reduce cut through traffic on my street, Palmer Street; reduce electric-energy waste and reduce greenhouse gas from idling vehicles at a location lacking traffic volumes to warrant a traffic light.

There is no need for bicycle lanes or bump outs given there is no problem being solved with them — no data to support having a safety problem. These measures have almost no effectiveness in solving problems, just creating them.

While falsely claiming need is the type of fraud the town responds to, I urge due diligence, data gathering and analysis before wasting more taxpayer money to create problems. Getting a grant of $1,116,000.00 from MAPC to redesign a safe road is an outrageous waste of money that could have instead completely funded actual needs of better street lighting and RRFBs on Broadway and beyond.

Read the proposal, including schematic drawings, from the Broadway Neighbors Coalition >>

This proposal was published Tuesday, Oct. 15, 2024, based on information from the Broiadway Neighbors Coalition. Comments welcome. See the Comment window below this post.