Upper Falls Greenway project to be discussed Feb. 12

February 08, 2012|Your Town, Globe Staff

The following was submitted by the Upper Falls Greenway project. For earlier coverage, including links to letters objecting to the project, go to the village14 blog.

A public meeting will be held on Feb 12 to gauge citizen and neighborhood support for the Greenway. The meeting is at 3PM on Sunday Feb12th at the Emerson Community Centre on Pettee St in Upper Falls and will be hosted by the Upper Falls Area Council. This will be a crucial meeting. It will be a chance for the public to voice support or opposition to the project. Representatives from the Newton Bicycle/Pedestrian Task Force will describe the project in detail, and representives from various city departments will be on hand to answer questions about public safety, maintenance, planning, etc.

After the meeting the Area Council, as the official voice of the neighborhood, will vote on whether or not to support the project. Almost certainly there will be a few opponents in attendance so it is extremely important that we have as many supporters there to make sure that the city knows that the public is overwhelmingly in favor of the Greenway. So please put it on your calendar and tell a friend or two. Bring your friends, bring your kids, bring your mother - lets's pack the hall with all of you Greenway supporters.

Avalon - We've knocked on every abutter's door at least once ... except the folks at the Avalon apartments on Needham St. Avalon abuts the railroad line so this is a very large and important group of abutters we'd like to contact. This week Avalon's management enthusiastically agreed to distribute an information letter about the Greenway to all 259 Avalon apartments as well as put the petition in the lobby. We have high hopes that we can gather a lot of support from Avalon between now and the Feb 12th meeting.

The Petition - We continue to collect signatures in support of the Greenway via our on-line petition ( http://www.upperfallsgreenway.org/get-involved/petition) in addition to our paper and pen petition. Please forward the petition link or this whole email to any Newton residents that you think might be interested in helping us. In the last few weeks we've had a great uptick in signatures due to many of you forwarding the info to friends. We're up to approximately 650 signatures at the moment and the more we can collect between now and the public meeting on Feb 12th, the bigger effect it will have.

Greenway Flyers - Jim Lerner put together a double sided, 8x11, color flyer for the Greenway that contains a general description of the project, frequently asked questions, and a trail map. Jan Huffman's taken care of doing color duplication of the flyers for the meeting on Feb 12th. In the meantime, if any of you would like a copy of the flyer, email info@UpperFallsGreenway.org and we'll email you the PDF.