A Bridge to Somewhere

City Councilors Jody Joseph and Dean Tran are refloating the idea of creating a real-life exit/entrance to Route 2 in both directions off Mt. Elam Road. Currently, you can get an on and off from the westbound side, but the eastbound side has no access to Fitchburg.

This idea has come up in the past, and the folks on Mt. Elam Road are, obviously, opposed. Traffic would increase -- but by how much? Coming off the highway, we can't imagine too much from the eastbound side, and the westbound side already has access. Certainly in the morning, traffic going to Route 2 would increase exponentially.

We're not sure this would help create a "connector" to downtown, there's a lot of residential to slog through to get to downtown from Mt. Elam, even though the ride is less than 10 minutes. It most definitely would be a convenience for those who live in the area. Driving around to South Street from the Rollstone/Mt. Elam area can be a pain, especially in the morning commute. This is a project that would benefit hundreds, if not thousands, of residents of the area (Tran lives in the vicinity, and it would certainly improve my morning commute).

However, considering all the rest of the wants and needs of the city, how much of a priority should this be? This is something that would be funded by the state or feds (more likely the state), and there's only so many times you can go to the well. If they say yes to this multi-million project, what do they say no to in the future? Although if all signs point to other stuff getting trashed, you might as well grab the cash for this one.

While the South Street situation is something of hang up, it's not particularly brutal for us (although, admittedly, we're hitting it at 6:30 in the morning, and things are just revving up), and if things were so bad, we'd take Oak Hill to Route 2 and spin back around at Route 31 (which often happened during the South Street bridge reconstruction).

So, we think this is a good idea, but can think of other good ideas that we think are more important (preserving Route 12 and URP money, getting commuter rail faster).