Letter: Casey Arborway is a cheap but bad solution

Regarding the Casey Arborway project, it’s about the money. And don’t forget, the state, at the start, told the Working Advisory Group members this is not about money. So anytime I hear otherwise, I want to pick up my pen.

This is an important bridge. The bridge keeps cross-town traffic out of a neighborhood area that includes the hub of over 15 MBTA bus lines; two major city streets; taxi stands; pick-up and drop-off by commuters at the Forest Hills train and bus station; bicyclists; and a school bus pick-up and drop-off area.

The removal of the bridge and non-replacement by the state will have negative effects on JP and the surrounding communities.

Start with safety. The state is going to put in seven lanes and tell young schoolchildren, adults late for work, and those with disabilities to cross that intersection so that they can catch the MBTA, taxi or school bus.

Seven lanes of traffic. Going to work, going home, trying to make an appointment. Traffic that has no other major egress to this city in the area. Cars that will now have to deal directly with multiple intersections, causing more noise pollution, air pollution and eye pollution.

Will these cars be traveling quickly through, as they would on a bridge? Or is it stop-and-go for them? Whatever the reality is, congestion will be the result.

Congestion will be part of the reality of a new Forest Hills area without a bridge. Congestion, right in the middle of the dream of a Forest Hills as some kind of park without a bridge.

All this is going on here in the city I was born and raised in.

When I tell my friends that the bridge will be no more, the reaction is… Well, I won’t even say. For why should I tell people what my friends say when the state has no interest in the opinions of the people who live and commute in this area?

If the state had put the time, money and effort into a bridge option, as opposed to the no-bridge option, we would have had the best solution.

The state’s only interest is saving money, both in the build and the long-term maintenance—money that they will use towards the many bridges in Massachusetts that are crumbling and in need of repair. The fact that the state has lined up powerful interests to push through its intentions will have one result on those who pay taxes in this area: a lost opportunity to make good a mess.

Support the pro-bridge people.

George Kordan, Jamaica Plain

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