Grounding McGrath Highway meeting Thurs 5.31

[somervillesnow.livejournal.com]

Apologies not Davis Square, but important to Somerville's future in general.  It looks like we need a large turnout Thursday 5.31 to tell the state/MASS DOT to convert the elevated portions of McGrath Highway to an at grade boulevard.  Currently they want to spend $10 million in repairs to extend it's life.  This is absurd, as no one wants this ugly piece of concrete in our city.  The money should be spent to deelevate it, rather than wasted.  If it is spent to extend it's life, you can bet it will not be deelevated for a *long* time.  

See STEP website for meeting details and more insight on the issue: http://www.somervillestep.org/2012/05/mccarthy_overpa.html

Comments

[boblothrope.livejournal.com]

Which of these intersections would you rather walk across?

McGrath and Broadway, at grade: http://goo.gl/maps/tDwk
McGrath and Washington, overpass with narrow at-grade roadways: http://goo.gl/maps/rkjd

We can rule out things like http://goo.gl/maps/8wqn , since no urban grade separation that nice is ever going to be built again.

[ron_newman]

Or, perhaps, McGrath and Broadway reduced in size a bit, so it looks more like Route 16 and Broadway (near Johnnie's Foodmaster) ? That's a pretty reasonable intersection to cross on foot, despite its busyness.

[boblothrope.livejournal.com]

They just rebuilt McGrath and Broadway within the last few years. I suspect they'd use a similar design for an at-grade replacement of McGrath and Washington -- more lanes to compensate for time lost waiting for a red light.

I'll have to check the traffic counts, but I suspect Broadway at Route 16 carries a lot less traffic than either Washington or McGrath.