No Access

If you are at the Cape, or the Lake, I hope you're having fun.  You can find me stuck in traffic somewhere along Beaver or Lexington Street.  I've been spending so much time there of late, around 9AM and again around 4PM that I am worried that we will be assessed extra taxes for a mobile residence.

Why the traffic?  One word: Camps.  For those of us who work in the private sector, February is the time to begin to painstakingly piece the complicated camp schedule together.  And then summer arrives and the kids are off to camp.  Most of the camps in Waltham are held at Prospect Hill, Kennedy Middle School, or at Waltham High.  Chapel Hill-Chauncy Hall also runs a camp.  For most of the summer, our kids are at the Waltham Y.  What do all of these places have in common, other than providing a fun and safe place for kids for the summer?  They are all along that Beaver Street to Lexington Street stretch otherwise known as the Highway to Hell for anyone traveling from the east on weekday mornings.

What's the solution?  Well, one idea might be to open the access road to the High School.  You know: the one with the permanent sign that says "Access Road Closed".  Why have an access road if you can't use it?  Opening the road on weekday camp mornings would give anyone who has a kid at camp at WHS or at Kennedy a way to get to camp without adding to traffic.  

Both of my kids are very good and safe bicycle riders, so that would be an option, too, except that there is nothing remotely resembling a bike lane and no safe way to cross Lexington Street.  I think of Arlington, and how the Minuteman Bike Trail crosses right through the center of town and across Mass Ave.  Arlington's solution is an ingenious set of pedestrian crossing lights and marked bike lanes that allow walkers and cyclists to safely cross without risking death.

Of course, we could always walk the 2 miles or so.  Except that there aren't sidewalks for most of the route and that we would still need to cross Lexington Street to get to Prospect Hill.  The issue with the lack of sidewalks begins very close to home: there is a wooden bridge that is out of repair and no sidewalk on the eastbound side of Beaver Street.  It's been like that for the fourteen years we've lived here.  Walking with my kids to Waltham Fields or even to Cornelia Warren field becomes another death-defying experience.

Speaking of Beaver Street, what will it take to get a light at the corner of Beaver and Warren?  I would hate to think that it would take a pedestrian car accident, however, the daily half-mile long back-up lasting from 5PM until after 6PM hasn't done anything.

The traffic congestion in Waltham is epic, especially at certain times of the year and times of the day.  It's not getting better, as we add more housing and more businesses to the city.  The easiest way to decrease traffic congestion is to get cars off of the road.  Even with existing ways to do this, with access roads or sidewalk repairs, it's not getting done.