Dump the Twin City Rail Trail

As if there weren't enough reasons to stop support for the Twin City Rail Trail lets add this one "Rail trail becomes hangout for men in search of sex" to the list.

Rt 2 Overpass

Today the top story on page one of the S&E is Councilors call for Route 2 overpass The plan may have merit when it's considered that there's no east bound access between the Rt 31 exit and the South St / Merriam Ave exit.
Still it is disturbing that planning infrastructure to support develoment comes after the development. This shows a lack of long range planning or at least of an inability to adapt long range planning to changing needs.

I had initially planned to do an extensive writeup about the article and the process such a project would have to go through but it has gotten a lot of comment (from me as well) on Save Fitchburg Blog. And frankly even though a number of people seemed to be interested in the process I'm skeptical. So I'll leave it at the paragraph below and the new links I've added today.

So let's assume that you want to advance a project similar to the one in the article. To whom would you bring your ideas? Well you could bring it to your congressman and senators as well as your state represenative and state senator, and you should, they love being advocates for this type of stuff, because bringing home the bacon enhances their chances of getting reelecting in November. But ultimately the project has to go through the Regional Planning Organization. In the case of Fitchburg that's the MRPC. I've added two links to the MRPC and one to MassHwy for anyone that wants to do some research.

BTW: If you're truly interested in issues related to roads and traffic, or if this is your first visit here, I strongly recommend visiting the TED TIPs link (all the the TED TIPS apply here in Central Mass). Last but not least check the Roads Gone Wild article, see how good engineering can make roads safer while using few controls.

Winter Parking Ban

I did not attend the last Public Safety Committee meeting or either of the last two City Council Meetings. Still I have been watching.
One of the more interesting event from those meetings and on the agenda for Tuesday 10/17 is the change in the winter parking ban.
Without any apparent public discussion of last winters experiment the new parking ban was on the council agenda for 10/3 and went to first and second readings. The wording for the new ordinance was published in the S&E on 10/06/2006.
Did I miss something? Was there some hugh positive benefit discovered last year during their 90 day experiment?

• Were there fewer illegally parked cars on city streets during snow emergencies last winter?
• Were Fitchburg streets cleared of snow quicker last winter?
• Were the plows able to do a better job of widening the streets after the storm last winter?

You certainly couldn't tell in my neightborhood. I've lived at the same address for 19 years. In that time I've only seen cars ticketed for violating the winter parking ban ONCE, and it certainly wasn't last winter. There were cars parked on the street in my neighborhood through out every snow emergency declared last winter. As often as not the cars were parked on the street for the entire time of the declared emergency. None of these cars were ticketed, none were towed and the city did their usual inadequate job of plowing.

Sorry for the rant but there's no justification for adopting this unless there's clear evidence that the experiment last year resulted in improved public safety by allowing the DPW to do a better job of clearing snow and ice from the roads. Some people may have considered the experimental ban better (because they got fewer tickets) but ticket revenue is not the purpose of the parking ban. This change does nothing to help find scarce off street parking and the lack of ticketing before the snow flies eliminates the incentive for drivers to find it themselves. Shame on any city councilor that supports this ordinance change.

How about you folks in the FSC area or any other neighborhood for that matter. Did you see any improvement in snow clearing in your neighborhood last winter?

Two to nothing - so far

As predicted - MassHwy has failed to compete the takings of the Rt 12 project in September. In fact they didn't vote on the takings until three days ago on 10/11. The taking will not be register until 11/7.

Also as predicted the amount of compensation is below what might be expected considering the appraisal for property taxes.

Two new links

I've added two new link. The first is to theNewspaper.com which has stories related to photo enforcement. The second is to the recently opened blog for the National Motorist Association.

Rail Trail and ROW

Back on March 30 2ndson asked the question.
"If not too much added difficulty, please include in your promised update later today any info on the rail trail/rt 12 easement, i.e. which wins?"
My response at the time,
"I wish I could give you a definitive answer but all inquirys I've made to find out the answer have gone unanswered. It is important to the Twin City Rail Trail that Mass Hwy not get an easement because the rail road ROW has to remain intact for the rail trail to proceed." was less than informative because it wasn't clear at the time.
At the public safety and public works committee meetings back on October 12, I asked for clarification on that. As I recall the response was that MassHwy would be getting an easement on the the RR ROW. I asked if MassHwy had contingency plans in the event the CSX decided to put the rail road line line back in and their response was that they had none. They also indicated that with the developments over the past year, specifically the asking price from CSX, they doubted the viability of the Rail Trail.

The change in design on Water St from the proposed 6 lanes to 4 lanes reduces the width of the easement needed for Rt 12. I beleive this leaves sufficient width for another easement for the rail trail. The new design guidelines released by MassHwy last December suggest that if the rail trail became a reality, the design might have to be modified to force trail users to cross at the Water St. and Bemis Road intersection and not just below the intersection on Bemis Road.

The bottom line is that neither MassHwy nor the Rail Trail proponents have considered the possiblility that CSX could take the land back for an actual rail use. This seems like poor planning on their part or perhaps something else is going on that we're not being kept informed of. Not neccessarily illegal but not being published in the media.

Still related to the rail trail the Sentinel and Enterprise reported that the Fitchburg Planning Board squeezed a $100,000 "donation" for the project from yet another developer.