Grounding McGrath: McGrath Boulevard 25% Design Meeting Thoughts

 Background

I was inspired by another Somerville resident to start live-tweeting city meetings. I tend to focus on East Somerville and adjacent, as it tends to have less coverage, and I'm personally invested. I've started doing this on BlueSky instead of Twitter, but also wanted to practice writing longer-form thoughts.

I care deeply about street safety for all road users, valuing safety over speed. I am a Yes-in-my-backyard who believes that gentrification does not have to mean displacement, but I also believe that people will take shortcuts and can make that development process miserable for neighbors and should meet some standards and expectations.

Now onto my meeting thoughts.

Meeting Recap

Why I care about McGrath

McGrath Highway borders East Somerville to the west and to access the rest of Somerville (except Assembly), I need to cross McGrath Highway. McGrath Highway was built in the 1950s, before the I93 viaduct that borders East Somerville to the north, and was supposed to be removed as a highway with the construction of the I93 viaduct. People often say that it's easier to destroy than create, but that absolutely does not seem true when the thing you want to destroy is an old highway.

In 2007, they discovered that one of the bridges of McGrath Highway, the McCarthy Overpass, was structurally deficient and something must be done. So sets off the decades-long planning of grounding McGrath, and turning it into a boulevard.

The McCarthy Overpass is where I interact with McGrath the most, as a bicyclist, as a pedestrian, as a driver, and occasionally as a bus rider. To get to Cambridge or Union Square, Somerville, I walk along Washington St, under the McCarthy Overpass, and into the rest of Somerville. I want to make this experience as safe, and preferably pleasant, as possible.

To learn more about this project from official sources, you can go to the MassDOT page for the project.

The different intersections

Rufo Road/Third St

This is mostly the part of McGrath that is in Cambridge. It has been broken out into a separate project and separate meetings will be held about this. This makes the McGrath Boulevard project completely within Somerville's boundaries. It's good to separate out scope when possible, and Cambridge can have a bit more say about this part of it, though some East Cambridge residents claimed they never got outreach about the McGrath Boulevard project. People will show up to a first meeting, billed as a first meeting, and express outrage that this is the first they've heard about this project. So now all meetings include slides on the type of outreach they've done; I'm not sure it does anything, but at least it's on the record.

Squire's Bridge is going to stay; it goes over the green line extension into Union Square.

Medford Street/Somerville Ave/Poplar St.

Current

25% Design Proposal

This is currently an intersection that is a little funky; MassDOT's proposal to make it more traditional 4-way intersections is a welcome change. I bike or walk along McGrath to Medford Street to go to East Cambridge and I've been honked at for just existing at this intersection. The proposed green space, as presented in the above proposal, does appear to close off two entrances to the Target parking lot. This is apparently not final and up to Somerville, but that parking lot exit and entrance on Medford St has led to bloodshed so I won't miss it.

Crash on July 23, 2025 ~ 1 PM. Driver turning into the Target parking lot officially claims, per police report, they didn't see bicyclist. Picture taken by my husband who was biking by.

The glass shop in the background is getting redeveloped into "life sciences + arts space" but that's currently on hold due to the current market conditions (we built too many life sciences buildings; who could've seen that coming /sarcasm).

It also opens up a new entry for drivers into the Brickbottom neighborhood, but only if you're coming from Medford Street. If you are approaching Brickbottom from the north, left turns have all been eliminated, to the distress of some Brickbottom residents. Currently, they can take a left at Washington St. or at Somerville/Medford. Under this new proposed design, they would need to go all the way past Medford St and take Somerville Ave Ext. (colloquially known as Scary Way).

MassDOT claims that travel pattern is pretty low, and it causes slowdowns. 

If you look at a map and map out the ways people get onto McGrath southbound, the main feeders are Highland, Medford (behind the high school), Pearl, Broadway, and Fellsway (basically McGrath Highway north of 93). For good measure, people getting off of 93 at the Sullivan exit might choose to take Broadway to McGrath (but they could have also taken the earlier 93 exit). The two red squiggles indicate the travel pattern they would no longer be able to take, but rather they would have to travel to the straight red arrow labelled Scary Way.

Map of Somerville east of Central St showing approaches to Brickbottom

While I'm not a resident, I'm not sure I understand the concern, as even under the future vision for Brickbottom, I see other non-circuitous routes to approach Brickbottom without using Scary Way. If you insist on avoiding Scary Way, people traveling from West Somerville can make their way down to Washington St eastbound. People north of Broadway/east of Brickbottom can make their way to Washington westbound. This option does assumes that the left at Joy Street is allowed, though, and there are some early speculation that it might be removed. There is a different conversation about potentially putting a crossing connection with Inner Belt, which would alleviate that. However, that crossing would have to cross the MBTA green line and commuter rail tracks.

Washington St.

This is my main interaction point with McGrath, as a resident of East Somerville.

Washington St, current configuration

Washington St, future configuration

The overpass is an eyesore and makes the experience extremely uncomfortable, between the speeding cars and the pigeon flocks, and an occasional storrowing.

Underpasses also create this uncomfortable echo chamber whenever there's a siren, and there's often sirens from Cataldo, which is just a few meters away. Speaking of Cataldo, they recently somehow crashed into the bus shelter below the overpass.

Cataldo van inexplicably many feet past the curb and touching the bus shelter, which looks thankfully and surprisingly intact. Photo from my husband

Google street view of Washington St westbound as you're approaching the McCarthy overpass.

One benefit of the overpass is the traffic is pretty light, as most people passing through use the overpass, and so I only interact with drivers passing through on Washington St or those going on or off McGrath Highway. Those going on or coming off of McGrath Highway are the major safety concerns as their mindset is going fast. As we add the traffic of those continuing on McGrath, it will be important that their interaction with McGrath is that it no longer is a highway, but a city street.

The future design still looks uncomfortably wide, but it is a busy intersection.  This width apparently allows for clearer signals and reduced conflicting signals for the different modes of travel. I'm also excited to see that slip lane onto Washington eastbound be removed. The bike lane marking is worn away from all the drivers who are incapable of staying in their lane when taking that turn.

I don't know that there's much to do here, as the potential compromise-options seem to be removing bus priority, creating travel conflicts, or really throttling the vehicle traffic. I liked someone's suggestion of adding some pedestrian islands when crossing Washington St., which could create a chicane as drivers approach the intersection, slowing drivers down (or making them extremely likely to crash when they don't...so knowing MassDOT's preference for driver safety, I'm not optimistic). I even asked some signal and traffic experts about a roundabout, but the traffic volume is too high. Alas, we could have had a beautiful boulevard with an impressive statue in the middle, a la Arc de Triomphe or something from Spain or Mexico.

I'm curious about the design for the AutoZone loading dock. They currently use extremely large trucks, which jut out dangerously into traffic, forcing pedestrians and bicyclists coming from the community path/green line into oncoming traffic. This is the 25% design, so the exact elements aren't set, and we're just discussing general layout.

Twice now, while helping Somerville with their annual bicyclists and pedestrians count, I watched an AutoZone truck back into the loading doc. It was jutting out past the sidewalk, past the bike lane, and into a vehicle travel lane. A pedestrian is seen walking in the street in front of the truck.

Will that truck continue to just park on the future sidewalk while unloading, forcing pedestrians and bicyclists into Washington St traffic? Before someone goes off about how I don't support companies getting deliveries: AutoZone can use a smaller truck. I've read a variety of reasons for why large trucks are only used, such as so they can hire fewer truck drivers to make more deliveries. Often these trucks are even making trips where the vehicles are not fully loaded.

I have the impression this is the intersection that is being addressed first, but I can't point to anything that supports or detracts from that impression. This is the structurally deficient overpass though...

Cross St

This is not a crossing that exists today, and so I'm excited by this crossing. This location has some different heights on the different sides of McGrath, and to make the crossing ADA compliant, there is a gentle slope in the median to bring pedestrians to the correct height. I'm not sure who will use this crossing, but it connects neighborhoods and breaks up the streets into human-scaled elements, so I support it. Perhaps this is the connection for Prospect Hill residents to access the Community Path entrance at Cross St.

Proposed crossing with ramp in the median. This will connect Cross St in East Somerville to Prospect Hill Ave.

I don't have a picture of a crash at this intersection taken by someone I personally know to show you, but there was a crash from someone coming off of McGrath into a Cross St business, just within the project area.

Highland/Medford

This next intersection is currently a trap...you get trapped in the wrong lane if you aren't in the know! It's almost a T-shaped intersection, but most drivers intend to continue on Highland, so the two left turn lanes quickly turn into a dangerous merge situation as drivers in the right lane discover their mistake.

Current condition

Proposed, with crossings and reducing the current left turn to one lane, which then allows people who intend to travel on Medford St to branch off.

The intersection currently doesn't allow non-vehicle crossing, and I've heard that Somerville High School students jaywalk across it to get to the school, so this new additional crossing will be welcome. If you're a driver, you'll appreciate the less confusing "oh no my lane disappeared on me!" as you turn from McGrath onto Highland Ave. If you are a thoughtful driver, you'll appreciate the lower occurance of "this person is trying to merge into me!" as drivers in the right turn lane try to merge into you. If you are an asshole, well, you still have the middle through lane to make an illegal left turn onto Highland.

Pearl St

Current condition

Proposed design - the entrance to Aldrich and Virginia Streets will be eliminated for vehicles.

This intersection will change a lot as it butts up against the Somerville Western Pearl Reconstruction project, which will happen in the next two years. While I found the lack of two-way bike lanes, backing away from the the Somerville Bike Network plan, disappointing, this change proposed by MassDOT is promising as it makes the Gilman St. Neighborway even nicer. Some of the more aggressive and faster drivers come from McGrath down Aldrich to Gilman St and this change will force them to drive around the block to access Gilman.

I don't have a crash photo to share with you, but this intersection is one that Somerville has listed as a high crash intersection in the past.

Otis St

This proposed intersection is another major point of disagreement. Currently there is a footbridge, in a poor state but a footbridge nonetheless, that allows people to cross from Winter Hill to East Somerville by going over McGrath Highway. MassDOT is proposing removing the footbridge and creating a new crossing, just for pedestrians and bicyclists, instead.

The footbridge was built before the American with Disabilities Act (ADA) was passed, and has a slope steeper than what is required to be ADA-compliant. To bring it up to compliance would require extensive ramps, which would take away space from the abutting properties, one of which is a playground. The presence of a footbridge also reinforces a highway feel, allowing drivers to believe that others will be above the road, instead of sharing space.

MassDOT slide indicating issues with the bridge and opportunities created by creating an intersection instead.

Comparing the footprint of the bridge now, and if rebuilt to be ADA-compliant

I sympathize with the parents who don't trust drivers to respect the speed limits; we've all seen the number of speeding drivers and the lack of personal consequences that could potentially deter this behavior. However, I also don't believe those of us who value safety should willingly cede space that rightfully belongs to all of us, and we definitely should support people using mobility devices to cross safely. Where we should focus our efforts is making this crossing as safe as possible, for all users.

This is where the design is a bit disappointing. According to MassDOT, there are rules that prohibit adding traditional red, yellow, green signals for a crossing with this vehicle volume. I don't know enough about this in specifics, but I know in other states have incorrectly interpreted the law for when it's required to install these signals also as a law against installing the signals when it's not required. To put it another way, if the law says you must install a signal if there have been 4 deaths, it's been interpreted as you may NOT install the signal if there have been fewer than 4 deaths. I don't know if this is the case in Massachusetts, but there were others in the meeting who were questioning along this line. I trust they will determine if that's the case.

Latest proposed design, without a red, yellow, green signal, but rather an unspecified "overhead pedestrian signal".

Instead, MassDOT will install some other sort of signal with a raised crosswalk, yet to be determined. I, and many others, hope it will not be a HAWK light, due to the low compliance and high driver confusion (require re-taking the written driver's test when renewing licenses WHEN?!). I'm conflicted; I want to believe there is a world where the new McGrath Boulevard is a place where a simple pedestrian signal is respected, and a red, yellow, green signal is not. One only needs to go check out the speed bumps in Mexico to realize it's not unthinkable you could have no signals at all, and we're just asking MassDOT for the courage to install anything even slightly resembling those monstrosities.

But we also suspect that MassDOT does not possess that courage, and they are still designing all of McGrath to accommodate higher speed so that drivers are less likely to hurt themselves. So in order of preference:

1. EXTREMELY HIGH SPEED HUMP/TABLE
2. Red, Yellow, Green Stoplight
3. Flashing lights (Rectangular Rapid Flashing Beacons)
4. HAWK Signal

I do wonder if adding a second speed hump before the crosswalk would do the trick. If our road designers believed in iterations, that's what I would try. I also encourage them to try something temporary now, to try to simulate what McGrath might feel like when it's no longer a highway. Put some concrete barriers to narrow the road now. Add the regulation-height speed humps now to see how fast drivers actually take them. Show people that you can create a safe crossing there.

Broadway

The final intersection is Broadway, which was added to the scope of this project since the last meeting. This is a welcome addition, as the intersection with Broadway needs some major improvements, is very wide, and is the connection between this project and the other project to the north that's underway now.

Current condition, including many lanes and a slip lane

Proposed design, creating a continuous connection for bicyclists, and eliminating the slip lane that's a menace for pedestrians.

I would guess this is probably the largest intersection in all of Somerville (I didn't look this up). I volunteered to count bicyclists and pedestrians at this intersection one year and it was such a miserable experience. The noise and pollution was just unbearable. Yet, there were people who were biking and walking through this intersections.

Again, the justification for this large intersection to continue existing is that it allows for dedicated signals for all modes of travel. I don't know that there's much I would request to change here.

Noteworthy Q&A

One common theme besides Otis Footbridge and Brickbottom access was the median/green space. The current McGrath Highway takes up a lot of space. MassDOT will repurpose all that space as either paved travel lanes or green space. The green space is divided in three parts, alongside the road and the median. Consolidating this space could lead to some more useful space, such as a park for leisure or development. This seems off the table, which is such a shame, but it probably has to do with how to deal with that space. MassDOT is probably not well equipped to build parks or build developments, and probably also not well-equipped to pass off that land without it taking a long time (remember how long it took to pass off the Community Path Extension to Somerville). Doing so probably jeopardizes the timeline and therefore the funding. Pushing this issue will probably lead them to shelving this project for a bit, after they re-develop Rutherford Ave.

I rolled my eyes so hard at someone asking for elevators to be installed at Otis Street since they do it at subway stations, including the new green line stations, and yelled "YOU ARE NOT SERIOUS PEOPLE", but upon reflection, this is very unfair of me. I probably know more than the average person that the MBTA struggles to maintain those elevators in good working order, not to say anything about cleanliness. And they're not the only ones; elevator repair and inspection seems to be a common struggle. MassDOT representatives, much more diplomatically than me yelling in my room, said as much and also said they don't have a single elevator anywhere across the state. Anyway, so if you also instinctively thought "elevators!", maybe not.

It's also great that there are familiar people who speak at these meetings, people who care a lot about seeing this project happen, but also want to make sure that we get a McGrath Boulevard that is much more pleasant, healthy, and safe.