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Wednesday, May 25, 2011

Community Members, Designers, and City Officials Come Together To Talk About Community Path Extension (Cedar to Lowell)

On May 19th, Community Members, Designers, and City Officials met in the third floor Community Room of the VNA to discuss the Community Path extension from Cedar to Lowell Streets slated to begin in the fall of 2012.

The meeting began with a gathering at the Lowell Stree bridge just above the section of the path that runs adjacent to the Maxwell Green development and included representatives from the Office of Strategic Planning and Community Development (OSPCD), Ward 5 Alderman Sean O'Donovan, and members of the Friends of the Community Path group that has intensely advocated for the extension of the Community Path to run all the way to Boston.

After a brief overview, the meeting convened in the Community Room where a pictorial was presented by the Weston-Samson Design Team that displayed areas of the path from Cedar to just beyond the Lowell Street bridge. The plan, at this point, is to have 25% of the design completed by mid-June with 75-100% by the end of the year. One member of the design team is a Somerville resident and frequent user of the path.

The design, being closely coordinated with MassDot, will focus on the path itself and especially on the space between the path and abutters. It is the hope of the design team that abutters will remove fencing and allow the path to become flush with their backyard living space. A raised crosswalk at Cedar Street (per the covenant with the developers of MaxWell Green) will lead path users into the extension where, ideally, they will be greeted with artistic remnants of the previous rail line that once occupied the space. A cul-de-sac style turnaround just beyond the Lowell Stree bridge with a ramp leading up to the sidewalk were the topics of break-away groups that met after the presentation.

The design team also unveiled a website dedicated to the project where viewers can mark different areas and include information on a Google Map of the 1/4 mile long stretch of Community Path: WWW.CommunityWalk.Com/SomervilleCommunityPath.

The design team will meet with the developers of MaxWell Green to discuss the specifics of both projects and how they can work in conjunction with MassDot to complete both timely and efficiently.

2 comments:

Teddy S. said...

Is this some kind of joke? The "design team" wants me to remove the fence separating my backyard from the path? Or am I misreading something? Regardless, my fence is going nowhere.

Todd H. said...

Asking Princeton St. residents to remove their fences borders on ludicrous.

I would have liked to have been around to see this happen - I hope it doesn't become a trainwreck like the "Maxwell Green" tenement buildings.