[Editor's note: The following is an opinion piece about the Casey Overpass debate — whether Forest Hills should have a new, lower bridge or a surface traffic arrangement after the hulking Casey Overpass is torn down.]

To some following the Casey Overpass project, there is a disquieting feeling that the decision was already made some time ago to forego any plan to continue to carry east-west regional traffic on an elevated lane.  A hard-to-put-your-finger-on but unshakeable feeling of a clear preference on the part of the project team for the “at-grade” option has been palpable since the earliest meetings. 

Now, the DOT has given us a clear picture of its intent, with its recently published “Frequently Asked Questions” document.  In classic style, this document exemplifies the rubric: “Don’t answer the question you were asked – answer the question you feel like answering.” 

For the record, I am neither a pro-bridge or no-bridge diehard.  Either one is likely – likely – to be a vast improvement over the Casey.  I’d love to see a feasible, realistic solution that doesn’t involve a bridge.  But I think that a large number of important questions are being ignored or glossed over, placing us at risk for an unfixable mess later on.

(Disclaimer: the views satirically presented below are not attributable to actual members of the Casey Overpass project team.  Misgivings with the process and current state of affairs expressed below, with extensive poetic license taken, are not intended as a reflection on the individual professionalism and hard work of each member of the team).

Here, then, is a reader’s response, in the form of Casey Overpass Project -- “Frequently Avoided Questions”:

1. The drawings of the “at-grade” solution sure look  beautiful.  This is a so-called “Michigan left turn” or “Michigan U-turn” – so named because they build them a lot in Michigan.  We’ve never designed and built one here in Massachusetts.  We’ve asked you multiple times, to please check the Michigan design specs and get a traffic professional who is from out there to review these initial plans.  This would have been been very fast and cheap to do. Did you do that?

Answer:  No. No, we did not.

2. Wow, that’s too bad.  So we are just hoping that we get it right the first time, and we’re not even drawing on the experience of peple who have built hundreds of these?

Answer: That is correct.

3.  Well, how about this western U-turn, by the Arboretum?  The whole design depends on it, but it looks pretty tight.  Trucks and buses will need to be able to turn around there, right?

Answer: Right.

4. At the public meeting, the DOT project team was asked whether there was documentation demonstrating that the lanes, plus the median width, were both consistent with the road design specifications in the professional literature and sufficient to accommodate the western U-turn.  The project team promised that information would be made available.  Has it?

Answer: No.  No, it has not.

5. Why not?

Answer:

6. Hello?

Answer: What?

7. I said, why not?

Answer: Look, we have had a lot of meetings.  You are just trying to delay things because your side lost and you don’t like our decision – even though we haven’t even decided yet.

8. No, I’m not – I am just trying to get some important questions answered.  Can we please see that documentation, which you said existed back in October 2011?

Answer: There were a lot of meetings.  You should have come to the meetings.

9. I did!  That’s where I asked for the information!  Anyway – about these WAG meetings.  Did you make sure that the people chosen for the Working Advisory Group were bona fide representatives of the actual community groups they purported to represent?

Answer: No, we just let the loudest voices onto the WAG, and took them at their word.

10. But if there were a lot of single-issue advocates, who don’t even live in the neighborhood, wouldn’t that have skewed the process?  For example, one very outspoken guy on the WAG – who doesn’t live in the neighborhood -- has been quoted as saying: “Traffic is supposed to be bad.  It’s the city.”  Hardly a comforting mindset for us Forest Hills residents!  Another very outspoken WAG member said he was the representative of a JP committee about parking and traffic.  But that so-called committee didn’t even meet a single time during this process, and one of the BTD persons assigned to JP hasn’t even heard of it.   Shouldn’t you have made sure that the WAG was a truly representative body?

Answer: Sour grapes.  You can’t have everything.

11. Oh, fine. Moving on: One aspect of the “at-grade” solution is that to go from Morton Street to the Dogwood or to one of the two new restaurants opening on Hyde Park Ave., a driver will have to travel an extra distance of over one mile, and go through six or more traffic signals.  Leaving aside the idea that one could do this in 60 seconds, is this fair to the businesses that are the lynchpin of efforts to revitalize the Forest Hills neighborhood?

Answer:  I guess we didn’t really focus on that.  We were more concerned with the 12 bicycles per hour that we project will be using our special bike lane by the year 2035.

12. Ouch!  Good luck to those guys investing substantial time and money  in our neighborhood, I guess.  I hope their plans and hard work aren’t undone by the dubious wish lists of activists who have no investment at all in the neighborhood. Anyway, one question we asked is whether this convoluted traffic pattern might be limited to morning and evening rush hours.  That would help our local businesses deal with the most negative effects of the plan.  You haven’t addressed that, either directly or in your “Frequently Asked Questions.”  Are you just avoiding that question?

Answer: So it would seem.

13. Speaking of bikes, one of the strongest reasons for supporting the “at-grade” solution is that it comes with a bunch of goodies like protected bike lanes.  Wouldn’t it be possible to have bike lanes and stuff like that with a bridge option too?

Answer: Technically, yes, I guess.  But we didn’t include them in the bridge plan.

14. So why are they included with one option and not the other?

Answer: Because it would cost too much. 

15. For a bike lane?  Seriously?

Answer: Yup.

16. But we just put bike lanes all over JP.  How did we do that if they cost too much?  Also, if the bike lanes on Centre-South are not safe because they are not protected with barriers like the new ones are supposed to be, then why did we put them there?  Why didn’t the Boston Cyclists Union protest those “unsafe” bike lanes?

Answer: That is not our problem.

17. But it doesn’t make any sense!

Answer: Did you have a question?

13. Hmm.  Looks like we are having a hard time getting these simple, important questions answered.  How are we going to be sure that we as a community will have real and enforceable input throughout this lengthy and disruptive process?

Answer: Community input is very important.

14. Great!  So what meaningful, enforceable oversight and participation are we guaranteed?

Answer: Community input is very important.

15.  Uh-oh.  Does that mean “none”?

Answer: Pretty much.

16. Aren’t you guys the same agency that is in charge of the Arborway Yard?  That is one of the premier pieces of real estate available for transit-oriented development in the state, but there is sits, an ugly blight on the neighborhood.  The MBTA got every single thing it wanted from the MOU it entered into with the community, and the community got zero of the promised benefits.  How do you explain that?

Answer: That wasn’t us.  And, we won’t do it this time.  And, we can’t help what the MBTA budget is.

17. But wait!  A big part of this whole plan depends on the MBTA re-routing a passenger exit from Forest Hills, to put it across New Washington Street.  Who is going to pay for that?

Answer: We have no idea.

18.  But you said, in your “Frequently Asked Questions,” that this was a reason why your at-grade solution works and the DCR’s 2008 proposal did not work! That makes it critical.  What happens if this big piece of the plan just goes away because of budget issues, as happened at the Arborway Yard?  Then your plan won’t work either!

Answer: Yes, that will be too bad.  But by that time, the Casey Overpass will have been taken down, so the DOT will be able to say: “We can’t make the MBTA or the legislature budget according to our wishes.  Not our problem.”

19. What will we do then?  Can we re-convene the WAG to work on solutions?

Answer: Sure, go right ahead, if they still live here, and if you can find them. But the role of the WAG is over now, so good luck with that.  The consultants will be gone, too, so we’re not sure who the WAG would talk to at that point.

20. So basically, we have a tantalizing but risky solution that no one has built in Massachusetts before, we are missing promised documentation proving that crucial pieces of it are feasible,  we have allowed a contentious us-versus-them dispute to boil up over the relative merits in which non-resident single-issue activists, unaccountable to the neighborhood, are zealously taking part, and despite the absurdly poor track record of this agency to live up to its commitments to the neighborhood, we have zero guarantee that the plan can be built or of any real community oversight and accountability going forward.  Is this really the best we can do?

Answer: Come to think of it, you’re right.  The only fair thing to do is to provide the engaged members of the Forest Hills area with a real, substantive, enforceable right of participation and oversight going forward, starting now and lasting until the final lines are painted on the new roadway.  That way, when inevitable technical, financial and planning issues arise, the residents will be represented at the table, in a real way, and will be able to hold the project team to its promises and work with it to address any necessary deviations from the plan.  Then, bridge or no bridge, we will truly live up to our promise of making this an exemplary process and we will have the best chance of an excellent and long-lasting solution to a critical neighborhood issue. As for all those other answers, well, no one’s perfect.