CITY PLANNERS NEVER PROMISED NORTH END RESIDENTS A ROSE GARDEN
(Originally published in the Boston Post Gazette    May 5, 2000)

                                                                                                            By Jay Gillespie

                Traffic in Boston will never be a bed of roses, at least until the underground artery project is finished and urban planners have planted the proverbial garden (which in the language of bureaucrat means parking lot) where there is currently a series of Big Dig headaches. 

                For those of you who are following this ongoing story, the sign dictating that drivers are restricted from taking a left turn from Cooper Street onto North Washington Street has finally been removed by the city.  If you are a southbound commuter, this means that you are no longer forced to take a sightseeing excursion into Charlestown before you can head south on the expressway.  Unless you are a huge fan of the contemporary automobile, you enjoy sitting in traffic, and you get a kick out of being stuck on the Charlestown Bridge, you will not miss it. 

                So what is next?  As of April 29th, the connection between Cooper and North Washington Street had already been blocked off with a barricade, leaving both Cooper and Stillman Street closed off to traffic.  This project, however, lasted only one day.  Perhaps it was only an exercise in futility put into place to test the patience of North End residents.  It appears to be in the planning the Cooper Street will be blocked off, as it was most of the winter, while Stillman is reopened.  But what does this entail?  Will drivers be permitted to take a left turn from Stillman onto North Washington, or must we begin this agonizing process all over again? 

                I attempted to call Tracey Ganiatsos, Public Affairs Coordinator at City Hall.  Ms. Ganiatsos, at that time, was not yet available for comment regarding the matter. 

In an effort to find some definitive answers I took to the streets, namely Cooper and Stillman Streets.  I asked two contractors if they were aware of any immediate plans with regard to reopening Stillman Street and closing off Cooper. 

                “Don’t know anything about it.  We’re not even on this piece.  Cooper and Stillman?  This (referring, I could only assume, to the piece on which they were working) is even worse.  We don’t even know enough to lie,” explained one of the contractors as the two men walked off laughing into the dusty abyss. 

                Obviously unsatisfied and somehow off the mark with regard to the correct “piece”, I traveled about 25 feet up the road to Cooper Street and asked the next Big Dig worker I encountered about future plans to reopen Stillman Street and close Cooper.  The construction worker gasped in frustrated amusement when confronted with such a preposterous question. 

                “Not for a while.  I wouldn’t think.  It’s a mess over there!  The whole thing is a mess!"

                Cleverly provided with the understatement of the new century, I returned home to again place a phone call to Tracey Ganiatsos at City Hall.  Ms. Ganiatsos initially said that she “wouldn’t know” as to the progress of the work being done between Stillman and Cooper Streets, but did offer to place a call to engineering and get back to me.  She soon relayed the following information to me directly from City Hall. 

                “Expect Stillman Street to be closed for another 4 to 6 weeks.  The left turn prohibition has been lifted from Cooper Street as of this morning (5/1).” 

                I consider this a small victory for those who have chosen to violate the law in order to take a simple left turn out of the North End rather than venturing into a sea of unnecessary traffic at the junction of Causeway, North Washington, and Commercial Streets every morning. 

                It might be ironically appropriate that a garden of roses one day covers the area currently being consumed by the Big Dig.  After all, in order, in order to truly see the fruits of the Big Dig’s progress, North End residents are being asked to look into the future through rose colored glasses. 





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