The
participants had plenty to be concerned about. Urban Planners from the
city of Somerville provided statistics and data about the swelling
transportation needs of Somerville residents and addressed many of the
challenges that the city is facing or anticipates facing in the next
several years. Data was also provided about transportation history and
infrastructure, roads, bridges, the recently completed public tree
inventory, sewers, and water use.

Perhaps the most staggering
statistic provided throughout the two hour meeting was that Somerville
currently has 11,674 registered cars per square mile, more than double
the amount of registered vehicles in Boston, Cambridge or any of the
major surrounding communities. Somerville also has more land devoted to
roads than any other community in Middlesex County. Data also showed
that average commute times of Somerville residents, regardless of mode
of transportation, has increased significantly over the last twenty
years. The Davis Square T Stop is the 12th busiest of the 63 stops on
the MBTA subway lines due to the number of boarders each day, and
nearly 37,000 people ride buses in Somerville each day.

The
topic of parking, which elicited boos from the audience when the
subject was mentioned, is another area of concern particularly with the
impending Green Line expansion on the horizon and the increased need
for parking that will result from it. Several possible solutions were
suggested, including the creation of a Somerville Parking Pass, however
city planners were unable to provide information about the city's
parking, such as the number of legal parking spaces and the number of
meters in the city as well as the number of homes with and without off
street parking.

Toward the end of the presentation and
discussion about the myriad of collected data, an audience member
pointed out that none of the information provided information about
land use in Somerville, which will ultimately be an enormous factor in
future planning for the city. Monica Lamboy, the head of the City of
Somerville's Office of Strategic Planning and Community Development
quickly addressed this concern by stating that the city has been and is
currently still taking "careful inventory of the city's land use over
the last two years," and will provide that cumulative information as
the "last piece of the city inventory" in order to begin discussing
what steps will be taken in the future.