MPO Ad HOc Committee - August 19

 Read all about it! Hot off the presses! Programming Policies Memo and





For a preview of the Fall's show: Ad Hoc Meeting August 19 video! It even has a joyful ending!

Matt Genova, CTPS staff and the Ad Hoc Committee have been engaged in a fast but well thought out dash to set up new MPO policies to be voted on and approved by the MPO Board in mid September.

The details of the new policies are set out in the memo linked above.  What it means to Belmont: upon submission of the 25% design, it won't be automatically accepted.  The design will be evaluated using new criteria including its cost effectiveness. 

The MPO reserves the right to reject a project  if - as Len Diggins humorously put it - the project is a "dog" or if it does not score high enough.  Considering that Sen. Brownsberger seems poised to run the MBTA's safety standards over even if he has to call on Governor Baker to do so, I was glad to hear that the MPO will make sure that "abutters" may have more say on the design which I assume means both us and the MBTA. 

Bottom line: the CPPC's hope that all they had to do is turn in the 25% design and line up for funding has fallen through.  The new scoring will probably lower the 25% design's score making it unlikely to be funded even if money becomes available before the 2027 cycle.

Belmont's and other 4 projects will be studied by the Ad Hoc committee at their next meeting on September 2nd. 

 

 

 


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