“Flyovers” Metropolis goals scored by Stoneham resident
Published on July 17th, 2002
STONEHAM, MA - The discontent with the Massachusetts Highway Department's "flyover" concept enveloping Reading, Stoneham and Woburn is spreading.
While the voices of some 100 property owners potentially directly affected by options under consideration for the I-93/I-95 interchange expansion have been raised, residents on the periphery and nearby are now being heard.
Paul DiCrescenzo of Stoneham who lives in a residential neighborhood a quarter-mile away on the easterly side of I-93 is typical.
DiCrescenzo was one of some 1,000 area residents trying to get answers at a meeting held at Reading Memorial High School Tuesday.
DiCrescenzo asked the state - and those in the audience - to go to Houston Texas, "if you want to see how not to do it."
Flyovers, he said, took a very large, urban city and made it worse - a metropolis.
"We should not allow this to happen in this area," insisted DiCrescenzo. "We should learn from the Houston experience."
According to DiCrescenzo, his wife came from Houston and left it all behind. "She came here and we decided on Stoneham because of the suburban atmosphere created in the area," he told the gathering, which was filmed by Boston and local cable television cameras. "In Houston, it just keeps getting worse and worse."
The flyover proposal put forth by MassHighway, he insisted, is not a problemsolver, rather it is "only going to make things worse. We will end up like Houston."
MassHighway's plan, he argued vehemently, would only mark the start of a mega-tropolis. DiCrescenzo said only more structures would follow. Presently, DiCrescenzo lives on Washington Street in Stoneham, but expressed concern for all streets on the westerly side of Stoneham that would be impacted.
Presently, he said, the interstate system is convenient for many in this area, i.e., an easy access to main highways to work or recreation areas. DiCrescenzo pointed out that he's in the publishing business and goes in both directions - north and south. The roadway in this context in a suburban community made sense, he said, and he urged MassHighway officials to revise their grandiose scheme to enlarge the entire area with massive road networks and the dreaded "flyovers"
"We should at best be slowing down the feasibility study," he said to the Stoneham Independent after his impassioned plea. I don't know what is coming down the pike but it's going now in the wrong direction."
While several meetings have now focused on the eminent domain taking of up to 100 homes and businesses in Stoneham, Reading and Woburn, the concern is now widening.
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