State transportation officials pledge that a long-sought roadway project seen as a key part of economic development in both Needham and Newton will finally move ahead next year, the Globe’s John Hilliard reports…
The plan calls for wider sidewalks, new bike lanes, upgraded intersections, and other improvements that will help the flow of traffic and make the area safer for drivers, cyclists, and pedestrians, said Thomas Currier, a supervising project manager at the Massachusetts Department of Transportation.
Without digging deep and doing it right as regards the burial of all the ugly overhead utilities this is nothing more than an effort to put a shine on a sneaker,.. and a worn and dirty one at that!
I agree with Bill. I’m disgusted by the money being wasted here to do a half-assed job. City officials should be ashamed of themselves for letting DOT get away with this nonsense.
Send your important comments to [email protected] or call him at 857-368-9348. He states that the utilities can’t be under grounded because Eversource and National Grid want no part of it. Send your comments to Eversource and National Grid if you know who to write to. Also, cc the Mayor’s office and the City Councilors. Each arm wants to pass the buck to the other. There needs to be a facilitator to bring these parties together. I went to the presentation by D.O.T. last week. They have a very good plan, but they are compartmentalized. They said that the utilities won’t play ball. At the Newton Upper Falls Area Council meeting last week, a good point was raised. Mass D.O.T. has to pay to move every utility pole back in each section of the corridor that they are widening the sidewalks or taking easements. We want to know how much does each pole that needs to be moved cost? What do all those moved poles add up to vs. the cost of undergrounding all of the utilities?
Can somebody ask the Federal Highway Administration whether warrants are met for a protected left turn phase southbound on Winchester Street at the intersection of Winchester Street & Needham Street/Dedham Street?
Folks: Undergrounding is a fabulous objective but that train has left the station. Newton and Needham have been fighting for decades for the money for this project and if it doesn’t happen now, it may never happen (especially given that we have no idea where these federal highway funds might be directed under the Trump Administration).
There was never money to underground. There are complexities in the soil under Needham Street that make undergrounding even more expensive than typical. There would be millions in additional costs that would need to be paid by nearly every property owner to bring service to their buildings up to code. Try that and say goodbye to beloved businesses like China Fair/Paper Fair and other small owners because I can’t imagine they’d be able to absorb the costs.
Smart people have looked at this. It’s not like no one thought about this or doesn’t wish it could happen. But it’s not happening no matter how many letters you write to the utility companies, the state or the mayor.
@Blueprint: This is much more than “shine on a sneaker.” We’ll have protected bike lanes. Sidewalks, crosswalks, improved traffic signals, reduced curb cuts, a wider bridge over the Charles, etc.
@Jesse: Can you explain what your question means? And if it’s important why isn’t that “somebody” you?
If we could underground here, is there room for trees?
Greg everything you say is true. It’s far too late now to add undergrounding to the Needham Street project. But when you say “smart people have looked at this” I think that is to say, smart people have looked at the obvious difficulties and high expenses of undergrounding and chose to leave it out of the project. There is no plan for what would be involved. Nobody has thought through the details. If they had, the outcome might have been different. We might be able to include some infrastructure now that would make it possible to underground in the future without digging up our new investments, or perhaps underground some portion of the street or select projects (yes, I know “smart people” keep saying it’s all or nothing, but I find that very hard to believe) Instead, we have no undergrounding plan, hundreds of thousands of dollars in special permit mitigation account unspent, and large new projects being built that may be making undergrounding even more difficult to achieve.
“…complexities under the soil …”????
Give me a break !
When utilities can be under grounded in Italian hill towns and in the city of Rome, I think Needham Street can be dealt with easily enough.
Let’s live with the smelly sneaker and save the money , until the powers that be can be sufficiently embarrassed that they can cough up the courage to do it right.
A copy of MassDOT’s presentation is available here.
I agree with Bill, Adam and others: Let’s do this project right. That means utilities underground AND trees. If the whole project has to be scrapped and redone, so be it.
The climate is changing: why leave utilities susceptible to severe storms?
Why not prioritize shade and carbon-absorbing leaves?
The goal is less/better traffic, so let’s encourage people to walk /bike. I’d love to see multiple access points from the GreenWay to get to restaurants or shops.
Uh, I’m sure they can speak for themselves but I don’t think you can agree with both Adam and Bill because they both said very different things. Certainly, I didn’t read Adam saying the project should be scrapped and redone.
Also, in a world where changing climate also means being more susceptible to flooding, udergrounding wires is hardly a panacea. Just sayin’
Neither did I. Maybe the city should have fought harder for undergrounding earlier in the project. Spending that mitigation money on a study early on might have given us more options. That was my opinion and I advocated for it with Srdj and others, but nobody wanted to rock the boat, the later it got, the harder the argument was to make. Now it’s far too late for this project.
I’d still like to know what to do going forward with that mitigation money, what investments can be made for undergrounding, particularly on large new projects like Northland. Too late for Nexus. In the past, special permits have asked for developers to underground or put money in an account. It seems like they’ve chosen the latter, because there’s no plan to follow.
There is a large body of the citizenry who if a vote were taken today, now that this project is seeing the light of day would mandate for utility undergrounding.
To date there has not been a serious engineering proposal that a $ figure could be placed on. We just hear that it’s too expensive. Utilities will have to be renewed over the entire length of the street just to get the poles out of the proposed sidewalk and bike path. What is that worth as opposed to undergrounding ???
Also numerous concerns have been expressed re the addition of trees and landscape materials. Where??? In the sidewalk??? On the bike path ???
On private property paid for by whom ???
With trees the question of the compatibility of trees and overhead wiring must be brought to light. Just short trees??? Or seriously pruned trees ??? Lovely !!
Deep six this latest effort until all of these issues are addressed and only then until it’s done right.