Ward 6 aldermen Vicki Danberg, Greg Schwartz and Dick Blazar sent this via email last night. The message line read: “Admitting our mistakes takes courage”…
As you probably know by now, we were successful in persuading the Board of Aldermen to approve cutting back the bumpout expansion at Cypress and Centre Streets-thus allowing two lanes of Cypress traffic to merge into Centre Street as had been the situation before the road changes were made in June. In addition, the “yield” sign will go back to the Centre Street side, allowing Cypress traffic to have the right of way where they merge. There will also be some road markings and possibly additional signage at this location.
We feel that going back to what was previously there is a far better choice than the new “improvements”, which caused extensive backups down Cypress and Parker Streets, all the way to Route 9 and even further toward Dedham Street. We also believe that waiting till September, when many residents return from summer vacations, in order to test what happens at the Cypress/Centre Street intersection was not a good idea, as we could see no evidence that anything substantial would change. A lot of good questions were asked at the Board meeting, including why the changes did not work out as forecasted by the traffic engineers who proposed them, why the changes were not tested before the actual work was done, and what can be done to get the traffic moving quicker and safer at this location. We will let you know when we get answers to these important questions. The traffic, pedestrian crossings and bike safety issues will continue to be a concern in the Centre and finding a way to get all these elements in sync will be a challenge.
We know that not everyone will agree on what should be done, but we have done our best to do what we believe was the right option. We appreciate your input, emails, phone-calls, etc. We may not be able to respond individually to every one, but we do read and listen to them all and take them into account in making our decisions.
Enjoy the rest of the summer!
Vicki Danberg, Greg Schwartz and Dick Blazar
When I received this email this morning, I found it helped to read the subject line with Bert Lahr’s voice in my head.
..and fixing them takes competence – and time. I know there are questions and concerns about the money spent/wasted here (and I’m sure people here will continue to helpfully provide an accounting), but I believe in the end getting it right will help prevent other expensive mistakes.
One important point seems to have been lost on the Aldermen. The vast majority of what was built by the MassDOT grant will remain, and while the city may have lost the opportunity to construct an additional traffic signal (who knows, that could have been a disaster in the making also) it’s at least possible that the other construction will be an improvement to traffic flow and safety.
What/who’s list did that go out to? I don’t see the words “we’re sorry for the inconvenience to our constituents and for wasting city time and dollars.”
Paul Levy revisits the topic on his blog.
It is really poor form to attribute courage to one’s own actions. Others should always be the judge of what’s courage and what’s something else.
IMHO, calling this “courage” is a vast overstatement and denigrates the real meaning of the word, as we would usually apply it, e.g., a firefighter rescuing a child from a burning building.
No, taking these kinds of decisions is actually just part of the job of public officials. Let’s just call it making a judgment call–a good one or a bad one–and leave it at that.
@Paul-
Perfectly stated. Thank you.
Thanks, Charlie, I’ve expanded on these points in this blog post: http://runningahospital.blogspot.com/2013/08/this-is-not-courage.html