Letter: Path needs to strike a balance
Wed Nov 12, 2008, 08:05 AM EST
Cambridge -

For many years, bikers in Cambridge, Arlington and Belmont have pressed the city towns and Department of Conservation and Recreation for path upgrades between Belmont's Blanchard Road (Brighten Street) and Cambridge's Alewife T stop to improve commutes, recreation, safety speed, and winter and nighttime passage — conditions not present now.

While we hikers, walkers, birders, classroom learners and family strollers are sympathetic toward bikers and want cars off the road, and want some of the improvements, we also require conservation conditions for community interests and needs, and those of the nonhuman diverse inhabitants who have made the wetlands and marshes their homes.

Recently, after FAR presentation, Cambridge Bike Committee's meeting voted porous. The present path is stone dust surface, and underneath is the old solid Fitchburg railroad bed. FAR has kept the path trimmed and widened for the bikers over the years until this past because of Ecology Camp involvement.

We appeal to MassHighway for a more appropriate environmental porous surface slowing bikers coming through this unique wildlife refuge. Nature observers will not have to dodge fast-moving bikes. The near one-mile petroleum-based asphalt path, 10 feet wide, will penetrate the cooling and protected Alewife Reservation. Asphalt everywhere changes climate, and the reservation would be no exception. Other dangers are to families, wildlife observers and walkers, because bikers will reach high speeds. The Wetlands Protection Act requires asphalt to be a distance of 50 feet from the wetlands, which is not the case in various places.

FAR says leave the path "as is," even bikers, who say it is the only natural stone pathway through marsh and woodland area over which they travel.

In preparation for the permitting process, Nov. 17, FAR feels the public process has been violated. Users have not been asked about the asphalt pathway, much less what they want. We reject the agency avoidance of discussion and discrimination against environmental-minded people. We ask for a public meeting before a permit should be issued. If both bikers and multipurpose users can be accommodated, we welcome the effort. We do not want to lose possible improvements because of the timing of the project. MassHighway is strict with project lineup process. No one can be permitted to steamroll over our voices and our rare open space reservation.

Call Friends of Alewife Reservation at 617-415-1884 for more information.

ELLEN MASS
President
Friends of the Alewife Reservation