As many of you probably know, the Draft Environmental Impact Report on the Green Line extension was completed and released a few weeks ago (read it here).  The official public hearing on the DEIR is on November 18.  But in the meantime, do you want to learn more about it and/or give your two cents?  You have a great opportunity this Saturday:

Green Line DEIR Community Meeting

Saturday, Nov 7, 9:30-12:30 pm
VNA Assisted Living Facility (Community Room)
259 Lowell St (map)

STEP is holding a meeting this Saturday for Somerville, Medford an Cambridge residents who want to learn about and share their questions about what is included or omitted from the Draft Environmental Impact Report for the Green Line Extension. The public hearing on the DEIR is scheduled for Wednesday, November 18, 2009 at 6 PM at Somerville High School Auditorium.

We encourage you to join us and forward this message to invite your friends and colleagues. The DEIR is a very large report. What is in it and the issues that the public raise about what is included will determine decisions that will be made for the planning, design, land use decisions and construction of the Green Line Extension.

Please reply to info@somervillestep.org to let us know if you will attend.

Goals
- To provide information to help concerned Somerville, Medford and Cambridge residents for the DEIR Hearing and preparation of comments
- To listen to concerns and questions from Somerville, Medford and Cambridge residents and businesses about next steps for the Green Line and the DEIR process
- To brainstorm best approaches for public involvement in next phases of project and how to convey this in the DEIR comments

Meeting Agenda

Overview presentation (30 minutes)
• Introduction DEIR Process
• Green Line project
• Green Line DEIR Details
Brainstorming (30 minutes)
• Questions, priorities, concerns, ideas
Station Areas & Design (30 minutes)
• Case studies – Lechmere & Route 16 community redesign
• Mitigation issues
• Maintenance Facility Alternatives
• Environmental impacts
Group breakout sessions (40 minutes)
• Detailed discussions by topic
Next steps, Wrap Up (10 Minutes)

Coffee and Refreshments provided

Did anyone catch Nightline last night?  They did a story on a radical initiative in Flint, MI: bulldozing vacant properties, with the intention of eventually returning the land to nature.  Rush Limbaugh, for one - indignant as always - is none too pleased; this is happening in America!  We don't shrink, we grow!

Of course, many of us in the world of planning are familiar with the idea of shrinking cities; last spring some of us UEPers even got to meet, listen to and talk with Frank Popper, who is probably the country's most prolific academic proponent of the concept.  The Nightline report, which addressed the topic as if it was an alien from another universe, is really just the latest in a string of recent shrinking city coverage appearing in big media outlets (eg, Harvard professor Edward Glaeser recently wrote about it in the New York Times: "While there is no evidence that the Obama administration is committed to razing homes, it probably should be").  Though not many politicians are yet willing to hang their hat on physical constriction (listen carefully to Flint's mayor's hedge), there does appear to be a growing shrinking city movement.

We young academics often fall for the conceptual flavor of the week.  Does anyone want to argue for or against this one?

A movement to fulfill some of the McMillan Commission's 1902 visions of DC: McMillan Two.

Still no master plan, but New Orleans is producing some innovative residential architecture. 

Rethinking congestion (thanks to Alex Reisman for the link!).

Today Nicolai Ouroussoff calls for a "bold new urban vision"  in the NY Times, and Globe architecture critic Robert Campbell mulls the future of Boston.  Both are well worth a read.

On Tuesday March 3, 2009, from 6:30-8:30 p.m.*, Rails-to-Trails Conservancy (RTC), the city of Somerville and other communities along the Mystic River will host a town hall meeting at Tufts University in Somerville, Mass. At this meeting we will share exciting plans to make your region a more walkable, bikeable place to live, work and play, and provide you with opportunities to be part of the process.

Somerville is spearheading an effort to engage the Boston region in RTC’s 2010 Campaign for Active Transportation to double the amount of money the federal government invests in walking and biking. Specifically, we are targeting $50 million to each of dozens of communities, including those along the Mystic River, Boston and Cambridge, to build a complete network of safe places to walk and bike more and drive less.

What: "Active Transportation in the Boston Region"
Where: Tufts University (Barnum Hall, Room 104), College Avenue, Somerville/Medford, Mass. Maps and directions are here.
When: Tuesday, March 3, 6:30-8:30 p.m.*
Why: To learn about and coordinate efforts to make the Mystic Valley and the Boston region a better place to live, work and play through more walking and biking.

* Light snacks and beverages will be served during a brief networking period at 6 p.m. The program will start at 6:30.

RSVP here.

The Globe took an interesting angle on their coverage of the most recent design for the BU bridge:

"BU bridge plans could spur road rage"

Subtitle: "Some fear closing lane will choke traffic"

Really?  Hold on.  When I bike to campus I use the BU Bridge to cross the Charles, often during the morning or evening rush hour.  How often is traffic backed up just to get on the bridge?  Almost all the time, especially from Comm Ave.  And how many times have I had to contest with slow moving, bumper to bumper traffic on the bridge?  Zero.  Zero times.  Even with two lanes closed for construction, traffic absolutely flies over that thing.  Which is really what makes it frightening experience from a cyclist's perspective -- you're taking up a lane with fast moving trucks bearing down on your rear wheel.

And they're worried about the threat of road rage if they don't designate even more bridge lanes to motorists than they do during construction?  As DCR commish Sullivan says, "It's really the entrance points that are the constraining points that are keeping traffic from flowing." If it's auto commute time you're worried about, fix those and your cars and trucks will move just fine.  In the meantime, it would be nice if you gave the rest of us a little room to breathe.

There is some news regarding the long, slow process to extend the Green Line through Somerville.  The state has recommended that the extension go beyond the Tufts campus to the Mystic River (right; image borrowed from the Boston Globe), complying with what InsideMedford.com calls "extensive public support".

I know that some UEPers have been following this much, much more closely than I have.  It would be good to hear their takes.  What is the state's word worth here?  Are we within a couple decades of this finally happening or what?

I'm stealing this from Gabe's blog, TransitMiami.  It's too good.  Maybe you've seen it before, but I hadn't.

Reminds me of Sheller & Urry's "The City and the Car"¹:

Automobility is a complex amalgam of interlocking machines, social practices and ways of dwelling, not in a stationary home, but in a mobile, semi-privatized and hugely dangerous capsule. [...] As people dwell in and socially interact through their cars, they become hyphenated car-drivers: at home in movement, transcending distance to complete series of activities within fragmented moments of time. The car is thus not simply an extension of each individual; automobility is not simply an act of consumption since it reconfigures the modes of especially urban sociality. [...] Most importantly, there is an implicit underlying threat that is barely addressed by theorists of civil society: that the very freedom of mobility necessary to publicity somehow also holds the potential to disrupt public space, to interfere with the more stable associational life and to undermine proper politics. Mobility is the enemy of civility.

_{1. Sheller & Urry, 2000.  International Journal of Urban and Regional Research Vol. 24.4: 737-757.}

Today Universalhub.com alerts us that the Boston Public Library has put a bunch of photos from its collection on Flickr.  Check them out.  Very cool stuff.

I find it especially interesting to consider which landmarks the city has been proud of enough to put on postcards.  For instance, they seemed to like having roadways along the Charles.  Do they still make postcards of North Station?  The Mystic River Bridge (right)?

Welcome back!  We hope your break was full of friends, family, relaxation, and as many instances of excessive eating as you could have possibly hoped for.  Mine certainly was.  

But now it's back to the grind.  To start this semester off, I'll briefly mention some recent stories in the Globe that you may have missed.  The first centers around a report by the Harvard Institute of Economic Research suggesting that attempts at stimulating local economies won't get very far without making the place a desirable place to live in (and in fact, livability often leads to economic stimulus).  The report actually dates back to 2000 (it's here, if you feel like reading through it), but I'm sure most of us will find that its findings are no less relevant now than they were nine years ago.

The second article presents an interesting perspective on how cities might affect us psychologically.  The gist is that cities slowly drive us nuts, and we have to mitigate their harmful effects on our psyches by regularly exposing ourselves to"nature" (loosely defined).  Not terribly groundbreaking on its face, but there is some interesting discussion regarding how we respond differently to different natural features.

The third piece notes that Gov. Patrick signed into law a Bicyclists' Bill of Rights, which the state's bicycle lobby has pushed for years.  Kudos to all involved.