Cambridge Highlands Neighborhood Association

The following was taken from the Cambridge chronicle. Thanks to whoever sent us the link.

Cambridge – A recently released study offers a depressing finding about cut-through traffic in the neighborhoods near Alewife in Arlington, Belmont, and Cambridge: The traffic does not flow east and west; it flows from everywhere to everywhere.

So, even if we could streamline the east-west corridor — by improving the Alewife intersections or extending the Red Line towards 128 — it probably wouldn’t mean noticeably fewer cars in our neighborhoods.

We need to focus not on radical transit or highway solutions for Alewife, but on changes that will make local traffic more bearable (including changes in vehicles to reduce emissions) and on improvements to pedestrian, bicycle and transit access for our neighborhoods.

The Alewife Brook Parkway by the Fresh Pond Shopping Center is one of the most congested road segments in the state, one of a very few road segments running at or above capacity more than 10 hours per day.

Cars leave the eastbound lanes of Route 2 in the morning at a number of points in Belmont — Winter Street, Park Avenue, Pleasant Street and Lake Street. Many of us tend to assume that these cars are cutting through Belmont to get to Storrow Drive inbound without passing through the congestion at Alewife.
Continue reading Brownsberger: How do we control Route 2 traffic? Very carefully, it seems