From: Carol O'Hare [mailto:
Sent: Monday, February 08, 2010 12:23 PM
To: Boundy, Stephanie (DOT)
Cc: Alice Wolf; Martha M. Walz; City Council; City Manager; Rubenstein, Beth; Clippinger, Sue; Peterson, Lisa
Subject: Notices & Locations of DOT Meetings re River St./Western Ave. Bridges Rehab Project
Stephanie Boundy
Public Outreach Coordinator
Massachusetts Department of Transportation, Accelerated Bridge Program
Re:DOT/DCR's Accelerated River Street/Western. Ave. Bridge Rehabilitation Project
Dear Stephanie,
Thanks for your speedy and informative reply to my February 3 email (both below) and, in particular,your invitation to add names and addresses to DOT's "project contact list" for its Accelerated Bridge Rehabilitation Project so as"to increase MassDOT's outreach efforts."
First, assuming from your email that all Cambridge State Representative and Senators and City Councilors are already on your project contact list, I suggest that you add to your contact list the following people and entitiesif they're not already on it:
(i) the following City officials whose email addresses appear in the Cc section of this email: Cambridge's City Manager, Robert W. Healy; Assistant City Manager in charge of the Community Development Department*, Beth Rubenstein; Director of the Traffic, Parking and Transportation Department, Susan E. Clippinger; Manager of Traffic Operations and Engineering; and Director of the Public Works Department, Lisa Peterson;
(ii) those Cambridge residents, organizations, institutions,businesses who would be specially affected by DOT's project, e.g., those who reside, conduct business or otherwise operate in the Riverside andCambridgeport neighborhoods; and
(iii) the actual-paper and the on-line editions of the respective local newspapers in Allston and in Cambridge, which, for Cambridge,are the Cambridge Chronicle and
*I gathered from Jeff Rosenblum of the City's Community Development Department, who spokeat DOT's Feb. 3 public meeting, that City and DOT representatives arealready in the process of coordinating their plans in connection with the City's planned Western Ave. Reconstruction project and DOT's planned bridge projects.
Second, as you know, DOT's Feb. 3 Preliminary or Public Information Meeting for the Bridge Rehabilitation Project at the Honan-Allston Branch Library, 300 North Harvard Street in Allston, 6 - 8 p.m.,drew only 20 or so Cambridge peopleof the 100 or so attendees. Perhaps even some of those 20 were there primarily as bicycling, boating and walking enthusiasts, not necessarily because they have a primary interest in the effect of the project, both during and after construction, on the surrounding neighborhoods. At that meeting, the mostly-nonCambridge public had an opportunity to see and hear DOT's excellent, informative and "crisp"presentation and to have their questions answered and their concerns, objections and suggestions heard and noted by DOT and other attendees.
That is precisely why notice needs to be given more broadly and, as was forcefully andconvincingly requested at the meeting byCambridge City CouncilorHenrietta Davis (and, I gather, in the days before the meeting, by State RepresentativesAlice Wolf and Marty Walz), at each stage DOT's public meetings should be held in both Allston and in Cambridge at times and in places that are convenient for residents of each community. And, one obvious additional reason for scheduling duplicate meetings is thatgetting to the meetings across the River (in either direction) via the major thoroughfares and bridges during the post-work rush hour is invariably bound to be grueling, as it was on February 3 driving from Cambridge to Allston to make a 6 p.m. start-time.
So, in short, all that I and others are suggesting is thatthere be duplicate, well-noticedpublic meetings scheduled at conveniently and easily accessiblelocations at each stage(Preliminary/Public Information, Conceptual Design, 25% Design, Coordination, Final Pre-Construction and any others) inboth Allston and in Cambridge, starting with a "Second" Preliminary or Public Information Meeting in Cambridge; and thereafter, DOT should schedule duplicate public meetings at each of the subsequent meeting stages.
Please forward this email to Frank Tramontozzi, the Director of DOT's Accelerated Bridge Program andto Mark Gravallese, who conducted the Feb. 3 First Preliminary Meeting.
Sincerely,
Carol O'Hare
Cambridge
(617) 354-1397
----- Original Message -----
From:Boundy, Stephanie (DOT)
To:Carol O'Hare
Cc: ; ; ; ; Henrietta Davis ; Peters, Penny ; ; Walter McDonald
Sent: Wednesday, February 03, 2010 4:14 PM
Subject: RE: Who got Notice of MassDOT Meeting re River Street Bridge/Western Avenue Bridge Rehabilitation Project- 2/3/10?
Dear Carol,
I received your email and wanted to take this opportunity to get back to you regarding MassDOT's outreach efforts for the River Street Bridge/Western Avenue Bridge Rehabilitation project.
The meeting flier was sentor emailed toover a500 person database that MassDOT has compiled from meetings previously held in the Charles River Basin area. In addition, the meeting notice was sent to the appropriate newspapers and media outlets. A media advisory was also issued and the meeting was promoted on the MassDOT website, the transportation blog and the MassDOT twitter account. This meeting is currently listed in the Community Calendar on the Cambridge ChronicleCalendar website as well.
In addition, theelected officials from the cities of Cambridgeand Boston were notified by MassDOT government affairs staff and they were invited to a briefingon the project held at the State House on Feb, 1, 2010.
Please feel free to send me any additional names and addresses to add to the project contact list. I always appreciate having input on how to increase MassDOT's outreach efforts.
-Stephanie
Stephanie Boundy
Public Outreach Coordinator
Massachusetts Department of Transportation, Accelerated Bridge Program
office: (617) 973-8049 | cell: (617) 851-1231
For news and updates check out our website blog at follow us on twitter at
From: Carol O'Hare [mailto:
Sent: Wednesday, February 03, 2010 10:44 AM
To: Boundy, Stephanie (DOT)
Cc: ; ; ; ; Henrietta Davis; Peters, Penny; ; Walter McDonald
Subject: Who got Notice of MassDOT Meeting re River Street Bridge/Western Avenue Bridge Rehabilitation Project- 2/3/10?
Stephanie Boundy
Public Outreach Coordinator
Massachusetts Department of Transportation, Accelerated Bridge Program
Re:Notice of Tonight's "Information" Meeting re DOT/DCR's Accelerated River Street/Western. Ave. Bridge Rehab Project?
Dear Ms. Boundy:
I'm writing to ask whether DCR/MassDOT's notice of tonight's "Information" meeting about the River Street/Western Avenue Accelerated Bridge Program's Rehab Project was sent to the Cambridge Community Development Department, Traffic, Parking & TransportationDepartment and/or City Councilfor their further distribution to potentially interested Cambridge residents, organizations, institutionsand businesses. I also wonder whether DCR/DOT took the simple step of publishing notice of tonight's meeting in theCambridge Chronicle. I believe that the Cambridgeport Neighborhood Association received notice of the meeting.
I ask my questions because, as you may know, DCR's last year's notices topotentially interested Cambridge (and, I gather,Brookline parties)of the planned rehab of the B.U. Bridge wereminimal, at best. It was only after a story about that project was published in February 2009 in the Boston Globe that even a smattering of those with Cambridge-focused interestsbecame aware of the potential impacts of the project. By that time, I believe that there was only one more public meeting, on June 30, 2009,before the project's start. So, by the time of the June meeting, the fast-tracked project had been pretty much finalized. At the meeting, only a handful of Cambridge attendees (including City Councilor Henrietta Davis) and one Brookline couple expressed dismay about DCR's minimal notice's leaving potentially affected people no occasion for meaningful input. (When I knocked on my Cambridgeport neighbors' doors to alert them to the meeting during the weekend before June 30, practically none of them knew anything about the project.)
By comparison, others, especially those representing the interests ofthe Greater Boston bicycling community, were involved and had input from the time of the initial public meeting, which occurredin the fall of 2008. Undoubtedly, their interests are much more focused and unified. So, presumably they attracted their large contingent of meeting attendees from their already organized bicycling network. (By the way, both Walter McDonald, my partner,and Ihave benign feelings about bicyclers; he regularly commutes from Cambridgeport to Boston's North End and back, weather permitting.
Shortly after DCR's June 2009 meeting, I phoned Jonathan Gulliver, who had been DCR's lead presenter of the B.U. Bridge project. I learned that he had since then been assigned broader supervisory job responsibilities and was referred instead with DCR's B.U. Bridge Project Director, Mark Gravallese. I suggested to Mark that, if and whenDCR schedules future meetings for such projects with potentially high-impact during- and/or post-construction, they should "task" Cambridge's Community Development and/or Traffic Departments with giving broad notice to the potentially affected and interested Cambridge community. Also, as Councilor Davis suggested at the June 30 meeting, in such cases, DCR should give the Cambridge City Councilors such notice, so that they can give or arrange to give such broader notice.
For efficiency's sake, would you send please I'd appreciate it if you would copy all of the cc's of my email on your answer.
As a last aside, I'll observe that traffic at the B.U. Bridge rotary during heavy commuting periods is horrible, orders of magnitude worse than it was on the worst days before the reduction from four to three lanes.
Thank you in advance for your time.
Carol O'Hare
Cambridgeport
----- Original Message -----
From:Boundy, Stephanie (DOT)
To:Boundy, Stephanie (DOT)
Sent: Thursday, January 28, 2010 5:13 PM
Subject: MassDOT Meeting Reminder: River Street Bridge/Western Avenue Bridge Rehabilitation Project- February 3, 2010
Attached please find notice of an upcomingMassDOT Highway DivisionPublic Information Meetingfor theRiver Street Bridge/Western Avenue Bridge Rehabilitation Project. The meeting has been scheduled for February 3, 2010 at the Honan-Allston Branch Library, 300 North Harvard Street in Allston from 6 PM to 8 PM.
We would appreciate your help in publicizing this meeting. Please feel free to post the information on your organization’s website or forward this email to anyone you think might have an interest in the project.
Thank you for your interest and participation in this important project.
-Stephanie
Stephanie Boundy
Public Outreach Coordinator
Massachusetts Department of Transportation, Accelerated Bridge Program
office: (617) 973-8049 | cell: (617) 851-1231
For news and updates check out our website blog at follow us on twitter at