Traffic and Parking Committee

Hello everyone, my name is Naima Sait. She, her pronouns, Ward 5 City Councilor and your Traffic and Parking Chair. I would like to call to order today's Traffic and Parking Committee Meeting of the Somerville City Council. First, I will read the legal notice that allows us to have this meeting on Zoom. Pursuant to Chapter 2 of the Act of 2023, this meeting of the City Council Committee will be conducted via remote participation. We will post an audio-video recording transcript. or other comprehensive records of these proceedings as soon as possible after the meeting on the City of Somerville website and local cable access government channels. Clerk, could you please call the roll to establish a quorum?

This is roll call, Councilor Wheeler.

Here.

Councilor Mbah. And Councilor Sait. Here. To Councilors present, we have quorum.

Okay, great. So, can we scroll down? Thank you. We will, we don't have minutes. We will... Take up the first three items together. And I just want to clarify these items were discussed at the last meeting and the committee decided to keep them in committee. So we can hear from other departments, from ISD and SPD. So, Claire, could you please read all the three items?

Agenda Item 1, an order by Councillor Ewen-Campen and Councillor Scott that the Director of Mobility update this Council on the intersection improvements at Webster Avenue and Prospect Street. Agenda Item 2, a public communication from 64 residents submitting comments about parking on Oak. Houghton, Bolton, and Prospect Streets. And agenda item three, an order by Councilor Wheeler that this council review construction-related parking in the area of Oak Street and Bolton Street.

Thank you, clerk. So just very briefly, at the last meeting, we heard from both engineering and the parking department. And from that conversation, we realized that enforcement is, yeah, Director Post away from engineering shared that when it comes to enforcement, we need ISD. So we think today we want to ask all the questions that are related to enforcement to ISD. And then the other component was regarding towing. And just like making sure this area is a priority for the police department. So let's start with that. I want to make sure we don't use today's meeting to repeat what was said.

So if we have questions that were not asked last time that are related to engineering and traffic. We also don't have the directors here today, so please Let's make sure we keep the questions related to ISD and SPD. And with that, can we hear from...

Can we also just note Councilor Mbah has joined the meeting for the record.

Okay, Councilor Mbah, welcome.

Yes, good evening. Elio LaRusso from ISD. I am here along with Floyd Richardson, also from ISD. We've had several communications with... The contract is working in about... Home Street, Oak Street, Bolton Street, and Prospect Streets. And we are aware of the situation, but obviously it's hard for us to... to really enforce what's going on down there. I mean, we've told contractors, please be respectful of the neighborhood. It's a congested area. And I think this past winter was kind of hard because of all the snow that we had and the snow removal. And it was difficult for our contractors to really... Park their vehicles without impeding them.

You know, the neighborhood. They're aware of its situation and they said that they're going to work with the neighborhood to make sure that, you know, they're not upsetting residents in the neighborhood. basically they have you know they get parking Permission from Traffic and Parking. They, you know, and they park their vehicles in and about the area. So hopefully with the better weather, there'll be, you know, They know that there's a situation and they're going to work on resolving it with the neighborhood.

For the record, can you just say your name and title? Thank you so much.

Elio LaRusso, Inspectional Services Building Inspector.

Thank you so much.

Are there any questions from the committee? I see Councilor Wheeler, then Councilor Mbah.

Thank you through the chair and thank you for being here, Mr. LaRusso. I'll call you by your title, Inspector LaRusso. Just to sort of, I'll try to recap without going down the full list of everything we talked about last time about... Thank you so much for joining us. I'm not hearing a sense that these developers or contractors are the enemy by any means. What I feel like I've heard from them and read in what they've submitted, including this podcast, Thank you for having me.

you know feeling frustrated that those patterns aren't sort of being picked up on and proactively addressed that's a word that the residents have used a lot is is looking for proactive solutions It's always easy, I think, for a counselor to sort of say like, ah, we should be doing more, and hard to say exactly what that is. So I really appreciate your expertise, the expertise we've had from people from traffic and parking as well. I'm curious about what you think are some of the sort of opportunities here, either To get some of these contractors and developers in better communication with people on these blocks and to try to look at some of our procedures to make sure that A contract or a developer who's really trying to sort of minimize their footprint and impact on the neighborhood is being appreciated and rewarded and you know getting you know

Getting the permits they need promptly, but someone who might be again and again and again abusing the permissions, sort of taking advantage. that that's something that we're noticing and using what we can to give them a bit of a harder time about it over time.

Right. And if I may, through the chair. So obviously, we have multiple projects on three separate streets. Three to four ongoing construction sites. And you have multiple trades coming in the area. This is not just this area, it's the whole city. and it's difficult at times to find parking spots But you have to also understand that when you have multiple trades there, there's multiple vehicles.

And you have street cleaning.

And then you throw street cleaning into the mix. and makes it harder for you know for for everybody and you know and people people people's patience sometimes not where they should be and um but I think that the contractors are aware that there is a problem and before it escalates they're hoping that They can come to some type of resolution with the neighborhood to lessen the impact and the burden to the neighborhood. Obviously, their thing is, well, you know, when we work in the neighborhood, we go to traffic and parking, the issue was a decal so we could park. Now residents come home, they don't find a place to park, and they get upset. I understand. I feel. I'm a Somerville resident myself. I mean, I have parking in my yard, so I don't have a problem with parking on the street.

But, you know, unfortunately, Oak Street, Bolton Street, I mean... Then you have deliveries. Right, then you have the deliveries that come as well. So I think the biggest problem was that there was a couple of projects on Prospect Street. and the contractors just spilled over onto Oakenholt Street and that's where it escalated out of control. I'm hoping that the contractors are aware that there is a situation and they're going to have to cater to the neighborhood. but also keep in mind that if you know traffic and parking keeps issuing permits to these contractors you're gonna have you're gonna have more vehicles for the next six months, eight months, 10 months, whatever it takes, how long it takes for three family to go up. But there's multiple projects on one street. That is the burden that...

These contractors are having and the burden that the residents are having as well. It's unfortunate that we live in a city where there's construction everywhere. There's roads being dug up. There's sidewalks being dug up. It doesn't make for a pleasant discussion for everybody involved. So hopefully there's some type of resolution to this. I don't know if Floyd wants to add.

Floyd Richardson, local building inspector. The problem with Oak Street is they're finishing up the building at 54 Prospect Street. They're at the end of the job and most of the contractors are parking on Oak Street while they're doing that job. That one should be done within a month or two. The one down on 118 Prospect Street, which is Holtman Street, that job is getting ready to wrap up soon also. The one at 118, that one's a mess and that's going to be like that for a while.

Okay, just on what was shared, thank you both. You said you're hoping the contractors... Understand this issue and we're trying to do things differently. So my question is, you know... I don't want just hopes. He's ISD. Meeting with these contractors to when you I know you meet with contractors developers on a regular basis so during your monthly meetings or whatever Are you discussing these issues, these specific issues that were brought up by the neighbors? If the clerk could please have the letter.

On the screen that was sent to this committee, so it's the attachment 26-0634, so I can't see the whole number here. Yes, so that's my first question. Do we have meetings with those developers? If yes, is this being discussed?

Well, we don't meet with these contractors and developers on a monthly basis. We meet with them when they call, for example, a foundation. um inspection or a um screw inspection or you know a electrical inspection so It's not just us that meets with these contractors. It's plumbing inspectors that meets with them, electrical inspectors that meet with them. But when we've met with them, we've stressed the fact that, hey, you know, Residents are complaining. Try to be more considerate of your neighbors when you're coming to work. Make sure you're not blocking driveways or parking on a sidewalk or parking... at the corner where a truck can now make a turn coming down the street so and they're aware of that um so hopefully um they will you know they will cater to the neighborhood and make sure that they're not upsetting the neighborhood

obviously people are you know there's always going to be one person who's going to be upset because of the disruption that's all this construction is causing on a specific street but hopefully hopefully um They'll be more considerate to the matter.

Yeah, thank you. As I said, I'm trying here to make very specific requests. So what I'm hearing is that there are no monthly meetings or, you know, not monthly, but like regular meetings with these developers. I understand they're contractors, but... developers my understanding is that at least in my ward when we have when you know we have developers you know who are applying for permits and all that It was shared with me that ISD will meet with the developer and discuss the permits but also any concerns that are ISD is getting through 311 tickets, calls, and all that. So if these meet, if... Especially developers, if you have developers on this street and this ISD has not had meetings, my request is to meet with them.

or send them communications specifically about this matter because it's one thing this is coming from a neighbor maybe some of them are interacting with these people Contracts developers, it's another thing when this comes from ISD, from the city that's issuing permits, being very clear that you know reminding them you know of what they committed to we heard from director Postaway at the last meeting that there is a traffic for all those projects there's uh A traffic construction, a traffic construction plan. And if they are not respecting it, I think there should be consequences. So is this something that can happen? Reaching out, requesting a meeting, we're sending communication of like, here's what we're hearing from neighbors.

And Here's what you need to keep doing. Like, it's just, yeah. Like, to me, you just can't just, like, hope that they will just be, start being, you know, thoughtful and good neighbors, you know? This ISD has to initiate this.

Yeah, if that's something that's... We don't charge the traffic. We have to... I mean, maybe we have to bring in traffic and parking also on this matter and see what they can do. to assist um I don't know yeah so we could talk to them as much as we can you know

I mean yeah so one thing is communication at least what's happening in my world when there are projects like that you communicate something you uh It's written and you say, if this keeps happening, then this is when I would like us to talk about what does ISD do when there are repeated... instances of not complying with again traffic construction I'm forgetting the word but like each construction project has like a traffic plan and and if there is no compliance to that, we can see here from the letter, They specifically say no compliance with street closure protocols.

Contractors frequently obstruct or close roads for extended periods without adhering to some of its procedural requirements. Well, yeah.

No, sorry, go ahead.

That's one example.

Right. You bring up street closures. I mean, usually when the street is closed, it's either for digging up to, you know, to do like an electrical service or plumbing service, which... They just can't close up a street. They have to go through the proper protocols, which is notifying the residents that on such and such a date, on May 22nd, the street's going to be closed for an extended period of time. There'll be a police officer there doing a detail, but that's out of our control. That's up to the contractor to know that when he's going to shut down the street, he's going to have to post the street, post the neighborhood. Right, talk to engineering, talk to traffic and parking and get the police involved. I mean, one possible solution would be

To maybe, you know, maybe designate more parking control offices in that area to enforce, give tickets, hand out tickets. As a department, we just can't put a stop order on a project if, you know, if we're there to enforce the building codes. but not the parking but you know we can talk to them or get traffic and parking to assign more PCOs in the area and they can enforce with one stroke of the pen issuing citations. you know maybe that'll be a wake-up call I'm just throwing that out there but that could be a yeah I think what I'm hearing is that um

It would be a good idea to try and for the departments to meet. So parking... Engineering and ISD you know engineering and ISD they you all work a lot together for you know approving permits and um engineering coming up with the traffic plan um but I think from what we heard like traffic you know that they have their you know rules and how to when issuing tickets and they just do that regardless of you know is it a contractor not as a contractor of like I think we heard from director Rinfret that as long as like the the tickets the Violations where the fines are paid, they continue to issue those tickets. So a conversation needs to happen here between all the three departments.

With ISD being the one ISD, you do the enforcement, reaching out to the contractors and the developers reminding them of these things and what will happen if they do not follow that which we'll talk about next so making sure everyone is on the same page and working together is important and if we You all determined that, okay, these folks are not following the rules, right? and maybe that's when you ask the director to stop issuing tickets if that's a possibility. She is not here today, that's why I wanted to have everyone... are here at this meeting so everyone is on the same page and we have like a plan um

And we mentioned just now the SPD and the role here for street closure. I just want to, because Councilor Mbah has his hands up. Is there anything that you want to add that's IST related before we have Lieutenant Holland speak to the SPD? Part of this conversation.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Can you hear me okay?

Yes.

I guess. You know, it is a very distinct privilege for me to sit here and watch the Honorable Elio LaRusso, you know, addresses committee from ISD, you know, for those of you who don't know, you know, Councilor LaRusso Councilor LaRusso was the one city councilor for a number of years. So I've known him as a city councilor. So I was mostly here to listen to him because to ask for suggestion, now that he's on the other side of the table, you know, I first of all wanted to congratulate him for joining the city in this capacity and ask for his advice about how we should So take it away.

The Honorable Russo.

Well, through the chair, thank you for the compliments, Councilor Mbah. Yeah, well, like I said, we're here to work. We're here to help. I think the majority of the problems, the majority of the complaints was from the Prospect Street project because there's no parking on Prospect Street and most of the contractors spilled on to... to Oak Street in Bolton Street. So I think with those couple of projects coming to a conclusion in the next few months, I think you're going to see the burden lessened on Bolton and Oak Street because again,

Prospect Street had a few substantial large projects where contractors couldn't park on Prospect Street so they spilled into another building right there's another building 108 and I think there's one on Webster Street as well if I'm not right correct So, you know... Getting all the parties involved, and especially traffic and parking, I think we can definitely remedy this problem before it hopefully does not get out of control. But then again, we had a bad winter too. So, you know, that didn't help either with all these contractors just spilling into the neighborhoods. It's unfortunate. Every neighborhood has something going on. But that said, I'll turn it back over to the chair.

Thank you, Madam Chair. And Elio, if I hear you complaining online again, because now this is not, you got to solve this problem.

So congratulations for being back.

No more complaining online.

Okay, we're going to keep an eye on you. Okay, thank you.

Okay. So thank you. Thank you, Inspector Louris. So yeah, so you're just rereading what you have shared, which is the action plan is coordinate these efforts with the traffic department. Um... and reaching out to these especially the you know the streets you the street you mentioned um the deboppers on those on that street reminding them you know of these you know rules and what they committed to and um and you know reviewing all the traffic the traffic plan and you know whatever permits you know you issued and um you know the importance of like complying to all those So that's one action plan with ISD.

I always like to leave a meeting with an action plan so it can reach out and ask how it's going. Go talk to the neighbors there and adjust it as we go. And it sounds like right now there's real little communication. with the traffic department. So I'm excited that we're going to be starting that. Councilor Wheeler.

Thank you, Chair. Echoing some of what you were saying before, I think there's real value when different parts of the city government talk to each other. I think getting folks from ISD and folks from traffic and parking talking to each other about what are some of the proactive ways that we can take a look at some of our procedures. and try to figure out you know is there an opportunity at the point where the traffic and parking department is being asked by a contractor or developer for parking permits to, for example, look at the recent history around parking rule compliance. There are different kinds of pieces of the process that it might be that

when city staff are having the chance to talk to each other about this and to brainstorm that might come up. One of the things that one of the residents of this neighborhood suggested to me that I thought was a really interesting point was that there are some different approaches and answers that other cities around us have. It sounds like there's some slight differences in how Boston approaches these questions and also some differences in how Cambridge approaches these questions. Now, we're not Boston and we're not Cambridge, but I want to make sure that as we're thinking through tricky problems like this, and it's tricky, I appreciate your points, Mr. LaRusso, that there's no easy answer here, but I do think it's important for us to be you know talking to our peers and looking at some of the the ways that they've approached things maybe some of the ways they've shifted over time

It sounds like, you know, for example, there's different prices in Cambridge and Boston for some of these contractor parking permits. There's different kinds of limitations and it sounds like Boston often has has much stricter limits on how many of these permits they issue. And that could be a reflection of the greater ease of transportation by public transportation in Boston. But we've got more of that here than we used to. and it may be that you know depending on the location relative to transit we need to take that into account. I know that I'm talking more about parking and traffic aspects then about ISD aspects but you know in the in the spirit of looking at this you know from all perspectives and getting together and putting our heads together thank you chair

I thank you, Councillor Wheeler, Councillor Mbah.

Thank you, Madam Chair. To Councillor LaRusso, I'm going to act also now officially as your colleague or You know, on the other side of the table. I think issuing, I know part of your suggestion was that they should have more enforcement officers to issue more tickets. That doesn't help because for them, paying tickets is part of their business model. So it doesn't really... Help any you know this is just we need to find like an alternative I think and plus one to Councilor Wheeler that they have to be I think the residents are very thoughtful. I consider them as even technocrats because they don't just complain. They provide suggested way to kind of like you know solve the problem and part of it we can see that is gap in communication so that coordinated effort to be able to

you know create the checks and balances making sure that once there's a permit or you know it's are there any violators are there any you know stuff that can you know can trigger You know, withdrawal or something because we can create policies. Yes, we are inspectional services is for building code. But again, that's why we have policies in the books. I don't think that there's any court or any judge that is going to say, oh, you should not have you the city could not issue a stock work order because you know they are not supposed to like because oh you know this is like a whole state mandated rules and regulations so I guess um We gotta find a way to move beyond issuing tickets. Either we add a triple or quadruple the fines for this kind of violation or... We find another way to say first, second, third, and then we need to have some policy in the book.

So I guess I'm thinking now, Councilor Wheeler, I think you and I and Chair Said might think about like a broader policy conversation. you know in terms of like you know some new ordinance or regulation that is going to stop this this is where I'm thinking so that we don't Keep going around a circle and not actually getting some real concrete action, you know, and action that is enforceable that resident can see that, you know, we've actually done something. Thank you, Chip.

Yes, if I may just add through the chair, those are all valid points, Councilor Mamba. I think we've begun a good conversation just tonight alone with the various department heads in As for my STs, you know, speaking to these contractors and hopefully it's a wake up call for them as well. So. We're here to do our part, and if we can all work together on this, I think that we can come up with some type of resolution. Thank you.

Thank you for agreeing to reach out to them and working with the traffic department. in order to address this situation. Now if you're ready to move to questions related to what SPD can do, we have Lieutenant Holland here. Thank you for being here. Please, Inspector LaRusso, stay in the call because there are some questions. Again, maybe we can find a way to work with SPD as well. and uh yeah Lieutenant Holland um so at the last meeting um Director Palsuway shared that um It would be important to have this area as high priority for SPD.

Could you speak to how you determine an area as high priority and was this area... Has this area been a high priority for your department?

So for certain projects, they get prioritized as far as like detail officers being assigned to them. And that's through the detail office based on the street, the location, what they're going to be doing. It doesn't sound like that's much of the complaint from the letter I was reading. It's more... of the vehicles being blocking driveways and just being in the area, which isn't really a detail officer thing. But if they would... Report the violations to the police department when they just call, when they're going on. We can respond and deal with them. as they go on. We don't normally tow cars for regular permit violations or things like that, but if they're blocking a driveway within 12 feet of an intersection or fire lanes, fire hydrants, things like that.

We can address those when we get there.

Okay, thank you, Lieutenant. So what I'm hearing, if a driveway is blocked, that's when your department can get involved?

Yes, we can, yeah, if someone calls, they can't get in their driveway, they can't get out of their driveway, they can call us, we'll respond, issue a citation, potentially tow the vehicle if we're not able to contact the owner and get it moved.

yeah so how what's the process for that does uh do the neighbor should the neighbors just call uh SPD When that happens or does it go through traffic?

No, they can call right to us. The regular business line 617-625-1212. or 1600 and just speak to a dispatcher or a police officer. Let them know what's going on and we can come out and respond and address the situation.

Okay, thank you, Lieutenant. Okay, we have another commitment. So, neighbors who are listening, going forward, this area is being prioritized. When a neighbor calls SPD about a blocked driveway, SPD will send someone to address that. And the other thing that I see in the letter that I think is also SPD-related is is the deliveries. So when these contractors have deliveries and they're blocking the road and um yeah it's hard for yeah like the traffic you know is not moving um what can SPD do here

So they're not always assigned in details to these jobs. If they're not... Blocking the road if they're just working on their buildings. If they're going to be blocking the road for a period of time, they are supposed to call and let us know in higher detail. even if it's a short time so we can have somebody go and be there as you know we have a lot of projects in the city so a lot some of the jobs don't get officers assigned but if there's an issue on any street Ever. Construction, blocking the road, or any delivery truck. They can just call, and we will have an officer respond immediately. and address see if we can get the truck moved or however get get people in and out however we can okay

So it sounds like same approach here. Neighbors should call when they see that. And since we have ISD here, this is another really good reminder for these contractors and developers is to Thank you so much for joining us. There's no police officer available. That's a different story. But it sounds like if they do it beforehand, SPD has enough time to prepare and make sure there's someone assigned to that, right? Ideally, the developer should do that beforehand.

Yes, yes. And if we find them in violation of that, they're not calling and letting us know. Our detail office calls and deals with the companies on the administrative side. to try and keep them in compliance.

Okay. And my question there, so yeah, when there's no compliance, does ISD and SPD, is there communication that happens between ISD and SPD? Does ISD reach out to you saying, you know, we received the ticket, we received the call, um...

I'm not sure that we kind of deal with two different things. They're more called violations and inspections and things like that. And we're more on the... The outside of the house, you know, the street, public areas.

In terms of the enforcement, right?

Yeah. So there's not really an overlap with us.

Okay. Okay, how do I ask this? So, you know, if, you know, I'm an abatter. of these projects and you don't know who to call and you just put in a 311 because that's what I usually ask constituents to do. 311 road is you know the road is blocked has been blocked whatever for 20-30 minutes uh and there's no you know police officer there directing traffic or whatever Where does that ticket go? To the police? To ISD?

I don't know how 311 handles it. Sometimes they will forward calls to us, but I don't think they forward everyone. But if it's an active block road or anything that's actively going on, I would suggest... To call the police department first. And then they can always file the complaint with 311 so they have it on record and they can address it on their end. But if they're looking to get something... Fixed and handled right away, to call us right away, and we can come home.

Okay, because very often, thank you for mentioning that, Lieutenant, very often we ask constituents to just put in a 3-1-1, but it sounds like in this scenario, it's best to just call the police department, right? You get the call, you have staff, officer available, you send them. It's faster than going through the 3-1-1 process.

Yes.

Okay. Okay, great. And thank you for willing to prioritize this area. And, you know, when a call is received, and especially for the Prospect Street, Now your department, they hope, is aware that this is an area that has been having a lot of these issues to make sure we prioritize it until these two big projects, apparently, according to ISD, has shared our orders. will be finished in a few months okay great we sounds like we have an action plan um Colleagues, do we have any other questions to SPD?

I don't know if you saw my text, you know, just... I know that one of the leaders of this group on Oak Street, they are online. If... You can ask them, whether it's Kate or Serena, whoever wants to weigh in for this conversation. This is their plot. This is their issue. Just so that, you know, maybe they probably have an idea about how... It's just helpful. It's at your discretion, Maranche.

Normally, we give constituents a heads up so they're prepared. And my hope is that we'll use the letter as a way to... Have this conversation. I really appreciate them taking the time to write this and offer suggestions. I think what I will say is if there is anything that is not already in this letter, and if one of the neighbors would like to add something that is not already in the letter, or comment very briefly that would be okay with that. Obviously, my colleagues are okay with it.

Looking at the attendees, again, if you'd like to speak, raise your hand. And similar to what we did last time, maybe just one person. Serena is the neighbor who spoke on behalf of everyone who signed this letter. Clerk, could you please unmute Serena? Good evening.

Yeah, so you know we can hear you. First of all, I just want to say thank you to the ISD and also to Lieutenant Holland for For speaking, I'm actually really encouraged by what I was hearing and I think that it's going to be very important for your teams to work or your departments to work with traffic and parking. I really think this is going to end up being a multi... The solution is going to have to be multi-department, right? So I just want to thank you for your willingness to have this conversation. and then the other piece that I just wanted to touch on is that Really looking for proactive solutions. I think one of the things that's extremely frustrating about this, and I understand all you could call

you could call SPD about this I have called SPD and the response that I got was yeah there's a lot of traffic in your neighborhood right now You know, I think, so I think Lieutenant Holland, having you kind of elevate, if your team does get a call from our department, maybe to take a look. Thank you for watching! and I appreciate the kind of out of the box thinking and if there's an opportunity to have any of these conversations with you further I'd welcome the opportunity to do so. So thank you for letting me add that.

And you just state your name and address for the record, please. Thank you.

Oh, sure. Serena Bodner, 31 Bolton Street.

Thank you, Serena. I appreciate you adding that. It's always great when we get immediate feedback. figure out what's missing so uh and yeah having Lieutenant Holland here flagging this area for his staff I think would hopefully make this situation better and Constance Mbah.

Thank you Madam Chair for indulging me. Thank you Serena for speaking. Just for the record, Lieutenant Holland is one of the finest at SPD, so just wanted to leave that out there. Thank you Madam Chair. Good to see you, Lieutenant. Thank you, Counselor.

Okay, great. I, you know, I love when we are all here brainstorming and, you know, together and finding solution and we will Yeah, feel free to reach out, as Serena said, to the neighbors to see how things are going and if there are any adjustments to be made along the way. Any other questions to... IST, OSPD, before we close these items. Okay, thanks again, Inspector Laruso, for your great suggestion, working together with the, you know, consolidating efforts here, and thanks, Lieutenant Holland, for being here. Madam Clerk, we will mark all three items.

As I made through the show, once again, we're always in the area, so we'll talk to the contractors and we'll hopefully... Drive to them the fact that you have to be respectful to the neighborhood and don't upset the residents and see where it goes. All right, but we'll work on that, okay?

Okay. Thank you. Appreciate your work. Okay, great. So with that, we'll mark item one, two, and three as we're completed.

Chair, we can mark one and two work completed, but three does need a disposition. I assume, you know, you can mark it work approved, Chair. Recommended to be approved.

Yeah, referred for recommendation. Yeah, thank you for pointing that out. So we'll mark item number three as... Okay, before we do that, Councilor Wheeler.

Thank you, Chair. I just wanted to check about item one. I'm not super familiar with the background context of that one, but are there any other... Intersection considerations for Webster and Prospect beyond the spillover problems that residents have been having. I just wasn't sure if there were other improvements that had been motivating Councilor Scott and Councilor Ewen-Campen to bring forward that order.

Yeah, very good point, Councilor Wheeler. Thank you. We have just the person for that, Director Austin, if you are ready. I don't know if councilors reached out to you about this specific item. If there is any other aspect to it that's not related to our discussion today.

Chair, good evening. Brad Rawson, OSPC Mobility Division. Thanks for spotlighting this issue. My understanding was that this council order was actually independent of the construction impact items that we just discussed. So I appreciate Councilor Wheeler just flagging that. And Chair, I know we have a longer form discussion on Safe Streets Ordinance that we were hoping to get to. So if it's okay, may I offer to the committee just a very quick two-minute update on where we're at? with Prospect and Webster in terms of accessibility and safety updates, if that's okay with you.

Okay, and do you suggest that after this update that we keep it in committee for a longer conversation? Will this be addressed with what the counselors are asking?

Chair, staff's intent would be to provide the best information that we have at this time. And then if you all want to speak about this again, my recommendation would be to submit another order in the months ahead.

Okay, all right, let's hear it. Director Rossi.

Thank you, Chair. Appreciate it. So as councilors and community members will recall, the intersection of Prospect Street and Webster Street, which actually technically includes a leg with Concord Avenue, is part of the long-term Union Square streetscape and plaza project that has been on the city's capital investment plan for a few years. and that our office led a really terrific community engagement and technical engineering process for several years ago. So it is a multi-phase project stretching all the way from the far side of Bow Street down to Prospect Webster and it's going to take many years and a lot a lot of money. Currently, that entire large neighborhood geography is at its 25% design milestone, Chair. All of the project documentation for that work that took place primarily between 2021 and 2023 is available on the city's website.

Community members can find that documentation just by searching Summer Voice Union Square streetscape. I'll quickly pivot to the phase one project chair because this project area is so large, our project team have recommended breaking that large area into several smaller phases. that can be designed and constructed independently. So the first phase has been focused on Prospect Street as a corridor ranging from Prospect, Webster, Concord Past Somerville Avenue and up to the old post office. We have estimated share that the design budget required to advance that phase one project from its current 25% to construction drawings would take about $1.2 million. City has secured a state grant of a little less than $800,000. Design Services. So that's a great start for the fundraising and building that budget that we need to do the work.

We are currently considering additional options for the remaining funding needed. and we anticipate having more information on that for the council and the community in the summertime chair we have estimated that that phase one streetscape project which includes the big prospect webster intersection would need roughly $11 million for its construction budget. City secured a $1.4 million state grant to help with that last year. So again, that is a great start for the bigger finance plan that we will need to pull together. But I don't want to minimize the challenges ahead. Chair, the council, the community know the challenging fiscal circumstances that Somerville faces right now. We're working really hard with grants, developer mitigation funds, and every funding source possible to continue moving this important work forward.

So if we are able to pull the design and the construction budgets together, our current assumption is that we would restart the community engagement and the technical engineering work. Starting from that 25% level that we achieved in 2023 and advancing it to construction documents. Typically, that would take about 18 months. So that would suggest, Chair, that the earliest that we could start construction on that phase would be spring of 2028. So we're a little ways away. This schedule does have the potential to align well with an upcoming MassDOT bridge replacement project that the Council is aware of. Webster Avenue Bridge will be fully rebuilt in the 2027 construction season. It's going to be hard for all of us to live through that. Many city departments have been working to coordinate with the community and with MassDOT.

but again in this blue sky scenario chair we would finish that work and we would be pivoting into the city's intersection reconstruction for Prospect and Webster consistent with those 25% designs that I've referenced a couple of times. So I realize that that is a very quick and very high level update on this wildly complex and very important project. I hope it's somewhat satisfying to the committee and I'm happy to answer questions you may have.

Yeah, thank you director for this update. It is a lot. Thank you for organizing that. But yeah, it sounds like... you know we're still keeping our goals um you know as as a city and uh but also recognizing you know the current financial situation um but This is the plan for this intersection. And I do not have questions.

My Councilor Wheeler.

Thank you, Chair. I really appreciate this update and appreciate the sense of the scope of this work. This is part of an immense project, and I'm really excited about this project and also appreciative and humble in the face of the depth of the planning work and the implementation work it'll involve. One thing I know that Councilor Ewen-Campen brought up in the council session when he introduced this item was Just wondering about if there's any room for quick build improvements. And I know there's plenty of trade-offs with those. Sometimes it can be easy to think Something like that will improve things. Those can be surprisingly expensive and surprisingly ineffective if not thought through all the way. Not treating that as some sort of panacea, but I'm curious if there's any opportunity for those if

if that's something that your office is considering.

Chair, through you. Thanks for the question, Councilor. Yes, and Councilor Ewen-Campen, Councilor Scott, and others have consistently asked for that type of thinking. It is part of our staff's thinking. We will examine other opportunities for quick build solutions, Councilor. Quick build solutions can work well for some applications. We've had great success in the city with trimming up excessive intersection like turning radius. Using FlexPost, for example, just nearby to this location actually at the corner of Webster and Newton. That was our quick build solution for many years. I hear that advocacy loud and clear. If we can bring that kind of toolkit to the big intersection, we will start to develop those ideas.

There could be signal timing changes, lane assignment changes that could be part of a toolkit as well. And yet, one of the things that I definitely just want to caution council and community members with is we often just have crosswalk lengths that are too long, accessible curb ramps that are too distant from one another. And quick build projects do have an Achilles heel, which is that they generally cannot accommodate Accessibility upgrades. Right. So we've got to get shovels in the ground if we want to relocate a crosswalk landing. And that's been one of the trickiest parts of planning for this intersection.

Through the chair. Thank you, director.

Kansamba.

Thank you, Madam Chair. No, I just wanted to you know Echo you know Councilor Wheeler it seems like you're always a hard act to follow these days but no it's good I mean like it's uh yeah I appreciate you know uh and his work like it's like I was chatting with him this morning just how much we keep banging banging him banging his department and then until you go out there and they realize that wow Like, other municipalities are not even doing half of what we are doing. I'm telling you. This is what I just described. you know like just I was in Miami these folks they are going down here it's like but I could not believe I thought I was gonna go learn something

I was the one telling them, it's like, hey, come to Somerville and learn something. You know, they are crosswalks on walk.

Nobody crosses. It's just it's like a whole it's just a mess. and yet we are here you know we just keep hitting hard you know saying that we don't have enough which of course we always keep asking for more but again I just want to say thank you and I told Deito Rossi to double down on everything he's doing because it's really humbling when you get out of your own bubble and they realize that oh you know you're not so thank you

Chair, through you, Councilor, thank you for the compliments. And we've got a great team across many departments, including mine. So thanks very much. And please don't interpret our commentary as kicking the can down the road towards those capital projects. We will take seriously the... The goal of trying to act sooner. We know that the existing conditions are unsafe, inaccessible, congested, chaotic. And we are actually constantly thinking about folks like MBTA bus riders who are stuck in these intersections and thinking about signalization and other changes that we can perform perhaps earlier and try to get buses through that intersection. So there's plenty of homework assignments for our staff. Thank you.

Yeah, thank you, Director, and thank you for adding the part about the IDEA. Yeah, the quick build projects do not include ADA aspects to it. So we can't achieve ADA compliance. I think it's important to... remind you know also like the public of that because it's something that we're asked um we're often you know when we have to wait our turn and again you know we uh we can't just do a quick build Everywhere. And yeah, I agree with Councilor Mbah, we have the best over here in Somerville. And so with that, we will mark item one.

Lieutenant Holland go ahead yeah I just wanted to add if you can get me a list of the Projects going on that are causing the issues. I have a sergeant who is in charge of details that I can give him the companies and the addresses and he can go by and speak to them also.

Thank you. Thank you, Lieutenant. We lost ISD here. I will make sure after this meeting to connect you and ISD so this list can be shared I'm sure it's something they can do I'm not going to speak for them but I can make that connection after the meeting Thank you, Lieutenant. This is great. So again, just going back to the disposition of the items, we will mark item one as work completed. no further questions from the committee and again for item number two and item item number three um for item number two do you place that on file item two you can also mark work completed

yeah okay we're completed and then for item number three as we said this is approved um and um So just we're done now with the conversation regarding these items. So Lieutenant Holland, if you need to leave. You can certainly do that, but you're also welcome to stay if you'd like. And the next item, Clark, could you please read that?

Agenda item four, a communication from the mayor conveying the 2026 Safe Streets Ordinance Annual Report.

Okay, so we have Director Rawson.

Yes, Chair, thanks again. I really appreciate you and the committee squeezing in time during this busy season to help the administration really spotlight the great work that's been done to implement the ordinance that our council passed, that our community members have demanded. So just as a quick recap before I introduce Justin Schreiber, our senior planner and lead staff person on this work. Just a quick reminder for any community members who haven't been as involved as the council. In 2024, Somerville City Council adopted Somerville's Safe Streets Ordinance. which was intended to help accelerate Safe Streets projects and, crucially, improve public information sharing. This ordinance did build on a 2014 foundation, an ordinance that our predecessors worked on, the 2014 Somerville Complete Streets Ordinance, which was really progressive for its time, and yet the 2024 Safe Streets Ordinance is even better.

City is required under the 2024 ordinance to publish an annual report to the City Council by March 1st of every year. City staff published our first annual report in March of 2025, consistent with the ordinance. and in March of this year, we are happy to publish our second one. So both of these reports chair are available online on the city's Vision Zero program homepage. So an easy internet search of Somerville Vision Zero will bring you to a whole host of resources, including the very clearly labeled Safe Streets Ordinance Annual Reports for 25 and 26. and although many city departments are involved in the day-to-day work of designing, building and operating our safe streets, OSB City Mobility Division does serve as the lead on preparing our annual reports. So with that, I'd love to introduce Justin Schreiber, our amazing senior planner, to provide a short summary presentation, if that's okay with you. And we can make sure that the clerks have that, even though it's already online.

Thank you, Director, and thank you for joining us, Justin.

Thank you. My name is Justin Schreiber. I'm a senior transportation in the mobility division. I do have a brief presentation. If I could share my screen. I just sent that request.

Yes, is this already attached to the item? Is it that what that's what it is? Yes. Okay, perfect. Thank you so much. You should be able to present now.

All right. So I'm presenting here from our 2026 annual report. and just I'll briefly review the requirements and then talk about the bike facility installation and then pedestrian transit improvements as well. So just quickly go over the requirements of the report. First is to just report on what was installed in the previous year's construction season in terms of separated bike lanes and then provide a plan for the current year. Construction season of no less than three miles, along with the forecasted expenditure, and then also to provide a multi-year plan for constructing the full priority network by the end of 2030. And there is a one year extension available.

And then finally, it's to also report on the pedestrian and transit infrastructure, sort of what is detailed in the Vision Zero action plan and the ADA transition plan. So just first, a little bit of housekeeping. Shown here is the original party network of protected bike lanes. And... There's just a little bit of housekeeping in terms of what defines that party network that we have to take care of. So flipping to the next slide, there's been some updates to the priority network based on decisions that were made in various project processes. So this slide. Reflects those changes. So first, starting from the top of the table there, the Broadway reconstruction project. Provided two directions of bike facility when only one was required by the plan. That added some mileage.

Pearl Street provided slightly less. Medford Street Quick Build provided slightly more. And then the Elbeacon Connector Just a small section of Beacon Street was added that did not appear on the original priority network. So in summary, that means that we added a little over half a mile. Removed about 0.21 miles, and the net is about an addition of one-third of a mile. So it's approximately the same, but just for clarity and transparency, updating here what the priority network is. And then again, I have exactly the same table that was presented in 2025 with annotations in terms of what actually happened. So this is just providing an overview of each project that we presented to be installed last year.

And... While most of them were completed, some of them were not completed in their entirety, and some were deferred. All together, and in the interest of time, I'm happy to come back to this, but I'm not going to go through each one at this time. And then this next slide is what actually took place last year. So this includes Everything that was on the previous slide that was completed as well as things that were not on the previous slide that we did also complete. I'm happy to provide clarity on that if it's helpful. Next slide, we have the 2026 planned installation. So this includes the Allen Beacon Connector project, as well as a series of annual streets reconstruction projects. The Broadway reconstruction project, the Pearl Street project, and a small section that is part of an intersection project on Washington Street.

Justin, you're muted.

Yeah, you're muted, Justin. Sorry about that.

Can you hear me now? Thank you. So here's the 2027 plan. It includes the annual streets reconstruction project as well as a series of quick builds on Foley Street, Medford Street, Somerville Ag, and Washington Street. and then this last section here is the multi-year plan for the rest of the priority network again I'm happy to talk in more specifics about any of these items but I don't want to go through the whole table right now and Again, in the interest of transparency, just pointing out this note that we've added here that given our current staff resources, we do not anticipate that we'll be able to fully complete this list by the end of 2030. and then here's a summary table I know there's a lot of tables but this presents you know what was constructed pre-2025 and then each year planned you know

actually completed and planned and then the last section being the remaining to construct that's not included in the two plans presented so that represents the 28.79 miles of the priority network Cost estimate. We've provided a cost estimate per quick build mile. So this doesn't include projects that are going to be constructed by capital projects. But approximately, again, it does vary, but on average, how much it costs us for staff and consultants for planning and implementation. Installation and Operations and Maintenance. So DPW staff equipment to maintain the lanes and then also the physical materials that we assume are redone approximately every five years.

and then we've taken that per mile estimate and then just applied it to the mileage totals for each year so you know this this represents the same cost per mile but you're just seeing the summary in total cost per year And we've just done a simple escalation of our 2024 analysis to 2026. So we're not escalating at this point for future years, but as we present these, we'll increase based on what we're experiencing. Lastly, the report piece about pedestrian and transit infrastructure. I promise this is the last table. The left column here is each goal from the Vision Zero plan that has specific infrastructure called out. And then on the right is our 2025 progress. They don't match up perfectly in the years since we published the plan.

The ways and what we construct has changed a lot, so we've tried to match them up in buckets as well as we can across the two. And generally speaking, for the most part, we're meeting the goals that are listed in the Vision Zero plan. and that concludes my presentation I'm happy to go into detail I know that was a lot of information happy to go into detail on anything else that was presented here thank you

Yeah, thanks, Justin. Thanks for... I love this time of year when we get this presentation. Especially at the Trail of Traffic and Parking. Because you... You know, we talk a lot about... you know it just feels good to see that data it's just like this is completed this is happening uh so uh it's it's always great and I have said this to uh the to Director Rossett in the past. Wouldn't it be great if we started every, you know, open house or... You know, the meetings we do to get input and feedback from the community when there's intersection improvements or whatever. and just like start with here's what we accomplished you know because it is it's just like you know uh I think it's easy to forget, right?

Then just to focus on the one project or what didn't work and how we want the thing to be perfect and we didn't get all the things we want and... But yeah, looking at the big picture, this is really great. Thank you, Justin. I see Councilor Mbah's hand raised.

Yeah, no, thank you, Chair. And thank you, Justin. This is enormous amount of work and heavy lifting, so I appreciate the time and the effort and yeah, your commitment to Really building an integrated city. Yeah, I have a lot of questions, but I guess the first quick one I'm wondering is, Go to like, I think slide number five. You know, the updated priority network, you know, increased from like, you know, 28 point, 45 miles to 28.75 miles with some projects redesigned for better connectivity. So I guess, you know, like, how does the city evaluate whether

These changes improve safety and usability for cyclists.

Sure. Perhaps I can offer a quick first response to that question. And, Councilor, you're reading our minds. We struggle with this tension all the time between our adopted citywide Bike Network Plan and our commitment to meaningful local engagement with every single project that we do. and as councilors will remember when the city was preparing our bike network plan back in 21 and 22 and 23, Even community members started to talk about this tension and say, production is the most important thing. The most important thing we can do is build the maximum mileage everywhere. and at staff level, we respectfully pushed back a little bit and said, we think that we can do both things. We can increase our production rates and we can hold ourselves to standards of transparency and engagement street by street.

and so that bike network plan really does commit us to meaningful local engagement typically it takes 15 or 16 months for one of our projects to go through community engagement Flyering, Door Knocking, Open Houses, Pop-Up Events, Surveys, Public Meetings, Specialty Outreach with Priority Populations, which include young people, older adults, communities of color. populations for whom English is a second language. And we have found that that commitment to process is helping us actually with our production targets. But getting to the core of your question, Councilor, in the case of West Broadway, as Justin noted... Folks who were showing up, which was a broad and representative group of West Somerville residents, really did prioritize two directions of safe, separated bike travel, even though our network plan only called for one direction. And so we were responsive.

And we figured out that the street was wide enough to do all the things that we wanted in terms of prioritizing bus movements and getting safe separated bike lanes in two directions. So that's when the mileage goes up. But as Justin could tell you, and maybe I can hand the mic over to him, Chair, we found something different in our local engagement process for the Western Pearl Street project that Justin managed. Maybe Justin, you can summarize that one.

Sure. Yes, you know, Cherith or you, I mean, they're very different streets and a lot of this can be driven just by, you know, how wide the street is itself and On Pearl Street, providing the two directions for the full length would have meant eliminating all curbside access entirely along Pearl Street. And... Through, you know, our first meeting and other forms of outreach, I think we, you know, we saw that that was likely to produce, you know, negative outcomes, even in terms of safety, whether that's people Driving up and parking on the sidewalk or stopping in the middle of the roadway. And we knew there was a lot of different needs for curbside parking, so not just... Not just resident parking, but there's very popular destination restaurants there.

There is the Pearl Street Park Residence, which has a lot of home health care workers that come in and are usually from outside of Somerville. And then, you know, crucially with the street grid itself, we had an opportunity to use... The Gilman Street Neighborway, an existing popular low-stress route which largely parallels Pearl Street to... you know replace part of that connection using those side streets make some improvements on Skilton Ave and at Others Park and you know provide what we felt was a reasonable alternative where you know whereas on Broadway The street network is not quite the same, and there really was not a reasonable alternative that could be provided. And then continuing that connection up to Medford Street, even though it was only called for one direction in the plan.

provides that continuous two-way connection to the section to the bike facility on School Street and really sort of knits together this network around Gilman Square and the Central Campus. Wow. so it's very much project you know this is what we learn when we actually do the work and not we're not just drawing lines on a paper there's a lot more information that comes out yeah absolutely um yeah well thank you it's

So these are like very, very complex, you know, like, and also like boots on the ground, you learn a lot, you know, so when the rubber meets the road, then you see how things change. If you go one slide down, you know. So in 2025, several planned bicycle lane projects, you know, you can see that were not completed. You know, including portions of Medford Street and Washington Street. I guess, what were the main obstacles to completion and how would those lessons inform the 2026 construction season?

Sure, I'm happy to answer that question. So the three towards the top, the yellow on the graph and then the Medford Street, they're all a little bit related because they are. We're talking about McGrath Highway and the frontage roads from McGrath Highway. The first line, McGrath Highway from Roofer Road to Broadway, that was a part of The MassDOT's McGrath Highway resurfacing that I believe began in 2022. And essentially they didn't complete about just over a third of a mile. And that's primarily due to bridge work that's ongoing to this day. So the Squires Bridge that takes McGrath over into Cambridge, and then also the bridge over the Green Line and the Low Line next to Highland Ave. There remains partial closures on those bridges today because of structural issues that are being repaired.

Essentially, that resurfacing project was not quite completed by the state, and that's why we're left with a little bit less. And then the other two, the first one, the Medford Street-McGrath Highway ramp. Ross McHilda, Somerville Ave. That's the down ramp from about Highland Ave to Somerville Ave. And then the next line is the frontage road, also called Medford Street from Poplar to Linwood, where the Mercedes-Benz dealership is. And again, one of the reasons why this is not prioritized is because of A lot of the approvals that have to be gained by the state can be fairly difficult and fairly time intensive. And a decision was made probably through the year that given McGrath Boulevard's progress that that

with that project you know expected to break ground hopefully 2027-2028 that we would prioritize focusing on the McGrath Boulevard project versus Trying to convince the state to allow us to remove a lane on that down ramp, which had the potential to have some traffic impacts on Washington Street and focus on a couple other products that appear on the next slide. on the bottom there the Washington Street that that's a construction project that that just didn't make the cut last year and you'll see it does appear on the the next slide I believe drainage work has already been completed so That was just a construction project that couldn't quite get completed in 2025.

That's super helpful. Thank you. I guess, you know, one last question that I have and then, you know, again, I mean, we can keep going around here. There's just a lot of stuff. I'm looking, going through various slides, there's just so much. I guess, Um, the fact that you guys, you know, you've said it here, and it's also like in the report, you know, that, you know, the city will need to extend the timeline for completion. You know, completing the priority network beyond 2030 due to staffing engagement timelines and funding constraints, which, you know, makes sense. But I guess the question I have is like,

What steps or specific steps is the administration taking to avoid delays? and Accelerate Implementation. Because again, this is, we already know that you've said it, but what is like that I just want to understand, you know, what is that plan? You know, because you've already identified like, you know, what the issues are. So what is your plan? to be able to avoid that and accelerate implementation.

Chair, I'm happy to attempt to answer that question. And Councilor, thanks for cutting to the heart of the matter. This is part of what keeps us up at night, is knowing that we established really ambitious community goals through our Visions for Action plan, through our Bicycle Network plan. We codified them in ordinance and they were assuming certain resources could be available. And I do want to identify a couple of things on your question, Councilor. Although everybody focuses on mobility division staff and engineering staff who are responsible for community engagement and design development and construction management, the same logic applies to our operations partners. in parking department, in DPW, in fire, and even in other parts of the city administration. We can encounter bottlenecks in communication, procurement, law, IT, In addition to those street management departments. So I just wanted to paint that broader picture for a moment.

But I will also remind counselors and community members that, you know, this is not a surprise. Mobility Division has used our visibility, our leadership, and our soapbox in partnership with the Council to try to secure additional resources for some of our sister departments. with your support we've been successful we got an extra three laborers at the DPW to try to take care of street sweeping snow fighting flex post replacement We've got an extra staff person at the parking department so we can actually manage our curb spaces more effectively. We work with you all to pursue grant resources to get traffic signal upgrade resources to keep fire engines moving. on our traffic-calmed streets. And so those are just a couple of important examples that it's not always about the fact that mobility wasn't able to expand. And yet to cut back to the original question, Chair, It has been several years since mobility has been able to expand our staff. People are working around the clock.

We all do work more than we ought to and more than most peer agencies would allow their staff to. in order to try to deliver projects. And yet there are so many non-project responsibilities that we have. So I think we're doing a better job, Councilor, of telling those stories in the community than we used to be. If we were to divert all of our resources away from analytics, from coalition building, from program management, development review, then perhaps we could squeeze in a few more hours for staff planners and mobility division to try to lead a design process and prepare designs for another Safe Streets project. But that would not be my recommendation to the mayor or to the council or to our constituents. We think that we've got a really good balance right now for the staff that we have for our community members. In terms of resource constraints, we talked earlier this evening about how we've always needed to pursue external financing Knowing that the city can't pay for everything.

Thank you so much for joining us. So I think we're doing everything that we can in this era of constrained resources to make sure that we've got the funding needed to continue building out these safe streets. But I don't want to shy away from the fact that the belts are tightening right now. and we hope for better days and we hope for stabilization of the international and national and local economies. But yeah, we're not quite as unconstrained as we were just a couple of years ago. And we view the value of this conversation with our partners in the city council as just an important opportunity to be honest about that. We will always partner with our safe streets advocates, our residents who tell us they feel unsafe on our streets, those who are frustrated with what they perceive as slow pace of change, and we will remind them that we're all in this together.

Thank you.

We all hope for better days, Director Rosson, and we all serve at the pleasure of our constituents. Thank you, Madam Chair.

I thank you, Councilor Mbah, Councilor Wheeler.

Thank you, Chair. And thank you, Director Rawson. And sorry, Justin, I didn't catch your title, Senior Transportation... Planner. Oh, Planner.

Oh, great.

Thanks. Thank you, Planner Schreiber. I appreciate so much about your work and about this presentation. One of the things I really appreciate your Focus on the details of what's needed on this street versus this other street by these residents, these abutting businesses and Thank you for joining us. in the past about how important it is to them to be able to have people who might be coming to do caregiving there or who might be visiting people in Pearl Street Park. Thank you so much. I had a couple of questions about the presentation.

Some of them were just my sort of understanding some of the details of what it's communicating. And I wonder if I could ask a few of these. One, Clerk, if you wouldn't mind going to slide six. That I think is the 2025 sort of review. So I was curious about this one about the McGrath miles. Was it Somerville that did those 2.37 miles? Was that MassDOT?

This is the MassDOT project of which the 2.03 is what was completed. The 2.37 is what we estimate the total would have been. It's a mistake project.

Thank you. I appreciate all of the miles that we put in and I'm trying to get a sense of what our sort of practical capacity is for how much we're able to make each year. With the, I think the 2026 projection, is that... The 1.96 priority miles, that's sort of the combined legs of the Elm Beacon Connector, Is that the same kind of linear measurement that sort of anybody would do? Is that counting two different bike lane directions separately?

Chair, three of you. So we measure by bike lane center line mile. So, you know, a bike lane on both sides of the street for one mile is two bike lane center miles.

Thank you. I appreciate that. That helps me understand that number. On slide 14, I'm always excited to see sidewalk and accessible curb ramp construction. I know that's something that you know there's so many different things that we have need for in the city and I appreciate all the balancing that I know that your office is doing and I certainly hear from people especially people who have mobility issues getting around How important sidewalks where, you know, we're resolving cracks, we're resolving holes are. And, you know, for people with other with who may be in wheelchairs or otherwise need Curb Ramps, how important those are. And I was just curious about, you know, if there's some examples of spots in the city where that work was done in 2025.

Chair 3U, yes, so we're primarily not referring to DPW's repair of individual panels and areas. These are Projects that engineering undertakes as a part of the streets package program. So projects that aren't categorized as complete street projects but are just full street reconstructions or just sidewalk reconstructions. I believe, and Brad can correct me if I'm wrong here, but in 2025 that included Otis Street in East Somerville, which was an example of a street that was you know really put back as it as it exists existed previously but with new sidewalks and I believe that that street was paved as well that's the first one that comes to mind thank you so much

One thing I was wondering about sort of in general is, you know, I know with streets where we're planning a much more fundamental you know reworking of the street and here one that comes to mind is Much of Highland Ave, and I know that's on some of these charts as a future project. I'm curious how we approach those in the meantime. I know that we don't have the resources to patch every area of broken asphalt in the city But I notice, and certainly many other people notice and reach out to me about the unusually broken state of... Some stretches of Highland Ave. And I'm just curious how your office balances the sort of

You know, the long-term plans to improve, in which case you don't necessarily want to spend a bunch of money and time sort of patching something that we might be going to tear up again in six months. But, you know... Taking into account, you know, some of the sort of frequency of use, taking into account the time it may be until some of these projects. Just curious how you approach that balance.

Chair, I'm happy to answer that question as best we can. And our apologies that Director of Engineering, Brian Postolate, who's been a critical partner in this work, could not be here this evening with you. He sent his regrets. So Brian's team manages the city's pavement management program. And kind of a quick nutshell, Councilor, as you may be familiar, is every year, Bryan's staff and consultant team survey approximately one-third of the entire city's street miles and sidewalk condition. and we use that data to make sure that we're calibrating our programmed spending to upgrade those sidewalks and those streets. But asset management is not the only factor in that calculation and that multi-year investment plan. You acknowledge street usage.

and many more. as other important components of evaluating if you have two streets that are identical in their pavement condition, identical in their sidewalk condition, but one of them is likely to serve Greater volumes of multimodal users. We will likely prioritize that one. So just painting a quick picture on the methods. Island Avenue is one of many streets that has been evaluated and had been identified for larger scale capital upgrades for quite some time. We were anticipating full sewer separation. Water Service Upgrades, etc. as part of the Spring Hill project a couple of years ago. I know that one of Brian's current workflows

Re-evaluate inputs Then it's really important that the city is honest about the pros and cons of investing certain amounts of money in the short term. But in our perfect workflow, which I would identify Western Washington Street as a great example near the Argenziano School. Our engineering division was able to get ahead of that asset management equation. We knew that this pavement was approaching these depreciation curves where it was going to start failing. We knew that the sidewalks were crumbling. We knew that from a land use and a demographic standpoint, it was a priority network. And so we got ahead of things. We worked with Eversource Gas and said, please accelerate this on your investment list. We worked with city water and sewer departments to say,

Let's investigate and start to plan out upgrades to the water system. Community Design Process that ultimately produced the fun stuff. The widened sidewalks, the floating bus stops, the separated bike lanes, and the fresh coat of asphalt to kind of top it all off. And so whether we are able to deliver that kind of integrated toolkit on some of our crumbling streets, you know, parts of Summer Street come to mind. It's not just Highland Avenue, even though that's one that many of us talk about because we experience it. There are so many other corridors that I know Brian and his team are trying to juggle. If it's okay, Chair, my recommendation would be that we speak about that with the subject matter experts in the engineering division. I don't want to get too far ahead of them on specific streets.

Chair, if it's okay, I just wanted to add that, you know, for more standalone repairs, DPW can and does, you know, repair sidewalk panels. In fact, I saw them from the bus on Highland Ave. just a couple weeks ago in front of the Butcher near Lowell Street. So that's a good place for directing those sort of one-offs, no matter on what street they appear on.

Thank you, Planner and Director, and through the Chair, if I could ask just a few more questions. The same family of questions. One thing, and this also relates to the next item on the agenda, one thing I've been interested in is the question of how How we are approaching signaling around bicycles. And for example, I've noticed that coming south on McGrath and reaching Pearl Street, There's a signal that's intended just for bicycles. I don't know if that's administered by MassDOT or by us. Personally, I find it a bit confusing. It seems like a red light that applies to cars. I'm curious about... I know there's lots of different ways that signaling to communicate to bicycles can work.

I'm wondering if there is sort of a specific approach that we are taking or converging on? We're trying a variety of different approaches to signaling.

Chair 3, I'm happy to take the question. And that's a very good example of that bicycle signal of how All due respect to the state of how not to do bicycle signals. And one of the limitations we have is with any TCD, which is the manual on uniform traffic control devices, which really... Insurers Uniformity on the streets all around the country. And a new version of that was published within the last year and really significantly tamped down on the use of those signals. You will notice that that signal is only green when it is the only thing that is green and that is one of the requirements of the new MUTCD which is that there can be no conflicts with a bike if you're going to use a bicycle signal face and that um

and so on. Some of those cases can be When we're able to offer protected concurrent signaling. So folks may be familiar with concurrent in the form of pedestrian signals where If you're going straight, pedestrians are also going allowed to cross the street at the same time. It's very common in the city of Cambridge. We have a couple of those as well. One of the ways we're able to improve upon that is if we do have a right turn lane, we can hold those right turns with a red light.

allow pedestrians, bicyclists, and vehicles to travel straight through an intersection all at the same time without having that conflict so that's a very good example of good use of a bike signal and if anyone has done Some looking at what Mastodon is proposing for the McGrath Boulevard project, you'll notice there are in fact a number of right turn lanes. And that's exactly what they intend to do is use bicycle signals in a way that makes the intersection work a little more efficiently. When we don't have space for that, our recommendation for math side is generally to not use those signals. There are some cases where a short bike signal makes sense. In many cases what you will see is very, very poor compliance with that sort of signal system. mainly because you're forcing people on bike to wait multiple minutes and then giving them, you know, under 10 seconds to get through an intersection.

So we're a little restricted by the federal guidelines and, you know, the engineers that design our street need to conform to that. So we're focused on using them really only where they add value and otherwise foregoing the use of them.

Thank you, Planner. And just on the subject of the McGrath redesign, following up on a conversation that we had. Some meetings ago, I just really appreciate your office's communication with MassDOT about those plans and advocacy for sensible and safe design. It's very encouraging and reassuring to know that you're having those conversations with them. Just if I could, just as two more little ones. One, and this is something that Director Ross and I have chatted with you in the past about. I'm curious about the wide variety of speed hump height. I know there are places where there's some deliberateness around the variety. And I know there have been in the past sometimes that contractors have not quite matched what our intention was.

I'm curious in particular, you know, when I think of some of the most dramatic bumps, for example, on Morrison Street, I'm just not always sure. Was that a deliberate decision? We've got to have really, really aggressive bumps here. For example, it's near a school. Or is that more of a result of some leeway on the part of contractors?

Chair, through you. Thanks, Councilor. And if it's okay, Justin or Maddie, it might be helpful to bring up the final slide of the Safe Streets Ordinance presentation. which deals with traffic calming commitments in the city's vision zero action plan. So while that comes up, Councilor, yeah, it's a good question. You and I have spoken about it and many community members have as well. The city built our first speed humps in kind of 2019, 2020. and at the time we didn't have a ton of experience. However, we did have a legitimate problem to solve. Three residents on our streets were killed crossing the street in marked crosswalks by speeding drivers and hit and run collisions. and we took those losses very very seriously as an administration and as a community and we've been experimenting and scaling our physical traffic calming program from there

As with any new intervention, Councilor, we were going to get certain things right and certain things wrong with those first couple of efforts. And the first generation of speed humps that you're describing typically were a little bit larger. and the later generations. And we did notice that our contractors were also having some quality control issues. and in locations where after consultation with some of our operations partners including the fire department we were anticipating smaller profiles we were getting larger profiles or vice versa. Working with local residents and ward councillors, we were expecting larger speed-ups and getting smaller ones. Slowly but surely, Councilor, we have been able to improve quality control and start to get better consistency with both the height and the shape.

I want to be very clear, Chair, the design intent for the city's traffic calming program is to achieve a slow, safe, consistent 18 to 20 mile per hour driving speed. Posted speed limits on most of our neighborhood streets and even many of our intermediate volume streets is 20 miles per hour. And that can be achieved with certain speed hump frequency and certain speed hump shape and profile. Think about the difference, Councilor, between Western Powder House Boulevard, where Allison Donovan was killed on the front steps of the West Underwood Neighborhood School in 2019, versus the east side, closer to the community gardens, Tufts Campus, and Doherty's Funeral Home. Thank you for watching. On the east side, closest to Doherty's and the Circle.

On the west side, closest to the school, you do have certain temptations for people to step on the gas and then mash on the brakes. and we do hear from constituents who say that the noise impacts of automing out vehicles is a burden and a nuisance. So I'm happy that we've been able to get better with the planning. Specifications, coordination with our operations teams at DPW and FIRE over the years. We've been able to get better with the coordination with our contractors. But the last story I'll tell on this topic, Councilor, just to illustrate our commitment to doing this work right. Just last year, in 2025, our contractor was constructing speed humps on Dane Street. and Gaines Street had been specifically identified by our partners in the fire department as an important response route and as a result, the plan was for smaller, lower profile speed humps that would allow for slightly higher drive speeds.

contractor goofed up in the field we learned about it that day called the fire department officials that day and we said this is not intentional our contractor will correct this error they were directed to do something different Within another 24 hours, contractor was bowed back. They were not particularly happy about it, and we had to pay for this mistake. But they removed those incorrect speed humps. and then seven days later we got the asphalt crew back they came back they built them properly and so I hope that those anecdotes chair are helpful for the committee and for our community members to understand The intent of our Speed Hump program, and I do want to end by kind of reiterating, Speed Humps save lives. There's no question. Somerville has celebrated three consecutive years without a fatal crash on our streets all of 2020. 5, all 24 and all 23.

and the rapid scaling but the responsible scaling of our physical traffic quality program really is the dominant theme here it's not about enforcement it's not about education it's not about individual behavior it's about designing and building streets that really limit the opportunities for dangerous spitting behavior.

Thank you so much, Director. I'll stop there with a lot of appreciation and just as a callback. I'm sure you remember the very first time you and I met was at a community meeting where I shared with you that my daughter had been hit by a car. Thankfully, she was okay and she is okay, but that was... on the community path crossing Cedar Street. And I live closer to another stretch of the community path near to Sycamore in school. And I think the speed humps that are on Sycamore make a big difference in the safety of people crossing the community path there. So thanks so much for all your work.

Yeah, yeah, thank you, Councilor Wheeler. And indeed, thank you, Director Rawson and all your team for your hard work. And that's exactly where I... tell you know constituents um you know who are like sometimes you know frustrated with like the very high you know actually I had no idea this was very very informative so it now it all makes sense that yeah like so we used to construct them like We used to have higher, construct higher speed humps, but yeah, we are... So now there's more analysis and checking with different departments to make sure we construct the speed hump that will meet the needs of the street. Great. But yeah, just to say, like, I use the data.

Like, that's what the data is showing. It means that it works. Yeah, and I was going to ask a question about Highland Ave, and thank you for speaking to that. Also for adding that Director Postoway is the person to have for this conversation. Fortunately, he's not here tonight. But maybe you can put in a different order to discuss it. I will say that now that the construction season has started, everyone is asking about Highland Ave. So it's important to have the, to hear from mobility. I think hearing also from the actual, from engineering would be very helpful here. I think now they've been on the council for like the third year now. I understand the challenges.

That's something as a council we've always pushed for which is coordinating all these projects. It makes sense financially but also you know we can't be you know digging up the street over and over and over um so again that's uh we will make sure to have that conversation with director post away A later time, Councilor Mbah.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I know the hour is late. I just wanted to Double down on the expression that speed home saves lives. Because I... I've heard that a lot and I've also had people criticizing that. And so I feel like we should have like a billboard in Davis Square. So welcome to Speed. Baum City, you know, something just, you know, we got to celebrate something, you know, because it's something that we have to be proud of. You know, I know somebody in my own neighborhood came and knocked on my door and said, like, when are we going to change Somerville to Speed Home City or something? Like, I don't know. I wasn't sure if I should take that as a compliment or something. You know, it's like sometimes

I'm never like so I try not to ask and then I say oh thank you for bringing to my attention and then I kind of because you can tell I can tell that you know they don't bike or something like I'm not sure, like, don't quote me, but the question I wanted to ask is, did you get signed up from the firefighters, you know, when you're building these speed humps?

Chair, through you, I think there's a longer conversation coming, and I'm happy to provide just a very quick answer on this important topic. The quick answer is that the city works through all of its departments on interdepartmental review for all of our street designs. That coordination work occurs with relevant department heads and division heads from many departments, including fire, DPW, parking, engineering, and others. and I did not mention it in my answer previously, Chair, but I will quickly note that there are streets where city staff have evaluated traffic data and speeds and constituent complaints and concerns and recommended and more. It is not the intent of city staff from one department to make another department's life harder.

It is the intent of mobility division, engineering division, and all of us to save lives in all of our own ways and respect how hard everybody's job is in this process. So again, we look forward to those longer conversations, but we approach them with humility.

Understood. Thank you. And I thought so too. I'll leave it there. Thank you, Director Olson.

Yeah, thank you, director. Are there any other questions before we mark this work as we're completed?

Okay, seeing none, we will mark this item as work completed.

Thanks to you and the committee. That discussion got heavy and deep. And if anybody wants to find some of the happier statistics, again, that's the Vision Zero webpage has crash statistics, speed statistics, engagement statistics.

Thank you, as always, for your partnership on this committee to help us do this work.

A resolution by Councillor Ewen-Campen that the Director of Mobility pilot the installation of dedicated bicycle yield signals to operate during the walk cycle at several intersections throughout the city, including Washington Street and Somerville Avenue. and Prospect Street and Somerville Avenue.

Chair, through you, Justin answered this question a little bit in our last discussion after one of Councilor Wheeler's questions. So just to reiterate, the city does follow federal guidelines. Those federal guidelines changed recently. and the federal guidelines really make it hard for staff engineers or consulting engineers to formally sign off on this specific project. Signal Pattern that this council order requests. As a result, city staff from engineering, from mobility, are looking at other ways to try to provide better mobility at intersections for people biking. But at this time, we do not anticipate a path forward to pursue this type of signal strategy.

Okay. Are there any questions?

Thank you, Chair.

I just feel the awareness sometimes of not knowing enough to be able to ask a good question. This is something where I'm not familiar with what these yield signals would be like exactly. So I'm appreciating the answer that you both, director and planner, I'm just curious to know a little bit more and not knowing quite what questions to ask about this. If there are yield signals like the one that Councilor Ewen-Campen described that are anywhere else in the Boston area, Sorry, I don't have a better question to ask.

No, no, please, through you, Chair. We are always looking at our peer cities to figure out where creative solutions can be brought to the table even if federal guidance is less progressive or just a little out of step with what we're all trying to achieve. I do not know any examples, Councilor, of that specific type of application. I think we have all seen lots of behavior in Somerville and elsewhere where people biking. Sometimes come to a complete stop and then advance cautiously and respectfully during a pedestrian walk phase. We understand this order to be requesting the installation of an extra signal head that specifically says that bike riders may proceed with while yielding to pedestrians. But again, that is the type of signal that is prohibited under current federal guidance.

Thanks. And if you don't mind a sort of connected question, I know we've also chatted in the past about the sort of delicate question of the minority of e-bikes. on the community path that go... Dangerously fast relative to the density of other people walking on the path. I'm just curious to hear if you have any thoughts on Any signaling sort of in the spirit of this resolution that could or couldn't be useful?

Chair, if it's okay, I guess I would respectfully recommend that we tackle this question in the context of one of the other orders that this committee has in the box at a future meeting related to sharing the path.

I was just going to say that, Director, yeah. Yeah, we actually have an item in committee where we get updates from the mobility team. Division regarding the improvements on the community path. So I think it's a different conversation. It's not, you know... It's related obviously, but I think just looking at the time, I'm happy to try and schedule it before we go on recess so we can update on that.

And Chair, and we will make sure to have another one of our amazing senior planners in the mobility division, Viola Augustine, who's been leading a team working on community path safety improvements. So not trying to avoid your question, Councilor. I'm just hoping to have it in a longer form. Thanks.

Yeah, we always like when city staff come prepared and You know, ready for us to ask questions. So that's the format we use. All right. So with that, we'll mark. Oh, I see concern back.

Thank you, Manager. I think this is going to be much more of a broader conversation down the road because I just want also, I mean, to ask Director Ross, I mean, for the longest time, I've just been wondering the concept of us of like this unit flow with cars and bikes in one direction and just how dangerous it could be that you're biking and you're trying to look around put your hand this way instead of biking in the opposite direction where you can see a car and kind of like really know how to A bit of an accident. So is that something for a future consideration for us to start thinking about what is the appropriate safe way Just remember when we were kids, you don't bike in front of cars.

Chair, through you, yes, that does also sound like a... Thank you so much for joining us. That's one example of that. Another example, as the counselor and I were speaking about at school drop-off this morning, was time-restricted one-way conversions that several of our streets have. to try to organize traffic and reduce conflicts with kiddos who are walking or biking or scooting or driving and getting dropped off to schools. So again, longer conversation and we'd love to be able to have that with you all.

All right, great. Thanks, Director.

So with that, we'll mark this item as we're completed. And that brings us to our last item, item number six. Clerk, could you please read the item?

Yes, Agenda Item 6, a resolution by Councillor Clayton that the Director of Mobility evaluate opportunities for improved pedestrian safety at the intersection of Broadway and Main Street.

Chair, thank you. This is something that Councilor Clingan and I and other Councilors at Lourdes have spoken about many times over the years. We definitely appreciate the order. We definitely feel residents' pain. In terms of some of these bigger intersections on higher volume, higher speed streets like Broadway, as many of you know, that is a really unique and challenging intersection in part because of the angle at which Main Street hits Broadway. In recent months, our work has actually focused on improving safety through small-scale traffic signal tweaks and operations and equipment upgrades. that would actually reduce the wait times one of the things that we have identified at that location is that there has been an excessively long signal cycle partly because there is a private driveway for an apartment building that enters into the middle of the intersection and we get triggered every time even if nobody was using it.

when long signal cycles exist you can create incentives for motorists to run red lights to take illegal right turns on red which are particularly dangerous and uncomfortable at an elongated intersection like this one and you can create incentives for people walking and wheeling pedestrians to cross against a signal. So I'm really happy to report chair that just a couple of months ago Our engineering and mobility staff were able to work with our DPW teams, spend a little bit of money, upgrade some of our equipment at this intersection and change out that operation so that driveway no longer gets called every cycle which shortens the entire thing. So small but meaningful improvement in safety and accessibility and congestion relief at that neighborhood. But I don't want to avoid talking about the longer term challenges. We are interested in more substantial redesigns at this intersection. and many more.

Thank you. But there's a long engineering process and a construction budget needed to do so. So this section of Broadway, Chair, is part of the city's five-year street and sidewalk reconstruction plan that we mentioned earlier. There is a great website that Brian's team maintains for that five-year street sidewalk plan where folks can look interactively at streets all over the city. And you'll see Broadway around Main Street listed on there. We do not have a specific timeline within that five year plan for when that work would be scheduled, but it is our hope to get to that section of Broadway after we finish the current one, which is focused on that Magoon Square up to Central Street section. So we will keep this location on our evaluation list.

If opportunities to pursue changes sooner rather than later develop, we can update Councilor Clingan and the whole council. But again, just wanted to quickly respond to the order and set expectations for the time being. So happy to answer any questions. Thanks.

Okay. Thanks, Director. Any questions from my colleagues? Alright, thanks director for reaching out to the councilor. See if he has any questions after this update. All right, I see no questions. We'll mark this item as we're completed. That brings us to the end of the agenda.

Care if I may just before you adjourn we do need a roll call on agenda item three.

Okay so can we do a roll call for to approve item three and adjourn at the same time?

Absolutely. So on approval for agenda item three that this council review construction related parking in the area of Oak Street and Bolton Street and on adjournment, Councilor Wheeler?

Yes.

Councilor Mbah? Yes. Councilor Sait?

yes we are adjourned all right thanks everyone thank you all much appreciated yep