Candidate’s Diary: Week 18 (Aug. 31-Sept. 6)

Olivia on her first day of preschool (1996)

This week I’ll be marking my last back-to-school season with the youngest of my three children, Olivia, who is entering her senior year at Princeton. Each of the past three Septembers we’ve driven to New Jersey together, and I’ve helped her get settled in her dorm room, and then driven home alone. This Friday we’ll load up the car and set off together for our last back-to-school trip. Technically I’m excess baggage, as she’s keeping the car on campus and, at 21, she doesn’t really need a co-pilot. But the Princeton experience is something we share, 35 years apart, and she’s indulging me the annual walk down memory lane. Adding to my nostalgia, she’ll be living in the same dorm where I spent my senior year. While much has changed in both the “orange bubble” and the wider world since 1980, she’ll scale all the same emotional peaks and valleys of senior year, a yearlong journey of “lasts” leading up to the “commencement” of Real Life.

We’ll be driving through New York City on the 14th anniversary of 9/11. In 2001 Olivia was 7 and had just begun second grade at a new school (Shady Hill). While her teachers and I put on brave faces that day, later that fall, as the magnitude of the tragedy became impossible to hide, she must have sensed, too soon, the false bravado of adults’ promises to always keep her safe. This summer we visited the 9/11 Memorial together, and though the 35 years between us shaped our individual experiences of the tragedy, the sight and sound of the inverted twin tower fountains flowing into the abyss was transcendent: we humans let go and start anew, in perpetuity.

This is also the first September in several years that I haven’t been starting a new school year myself as a staff member. Ten years ago I relaunched my career in marketing communications by accepting a position as director of communications at Beaver Country Day School. In September 2012 I started in a similar role (director of external relations) at Community Charter School of Cambridge. In most respects the two campuses and their student bodies could not have been more different, but my experiences at each school underscored what defines a successful learning community: adults (teachers, administrators, and parent-guardians) who put students’ needs first, hold every student to high expectations, and offer each the academic and socio-emotional support he or she needs to succeed. Last Monday night I was the only person who showed up for the open meeting with the consultants overseeing the search for our new school superintendent. Our next superintendent must ensure that every school in the district meets this standard of  success.

I’m girding myself for the onslaught of back-to-school traffic. This summer I’ve enjoyed riding my campaign trike through relatively empty streets (fewer cars makes navigating the many construction detours in my neighborhood easier for all modes). Last week I co-authored a letter published in Cambridge Day in support of Vision Zero, an initiative advocated by the LivableStreets Alliance, to reengineer our streets to better protect cyclists and pedestrians from preventable crashes. We wrote this days before Jeff Jacoby’s anti-cyclist screed in the Globe. The text is below.

Letter to Cambridge Day (9/1/15):
Councillors, candidates call on city to adopt Vision Zero plan to engineer safer streets

Cambridge resident Dr. Anita Kurmann died Aug. 9 while biking to work at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. Her tragic death was no “accident.” Kurmann was struck at an intersection long known to be lethal for cyclists and pedestrians, and it is only a matter of time before another preventable tragedy happens at one of several equally dangerous intersections in Cambridge. Instead of blaming either the drivers or the victims, we must admit that many of our streets are accidents waiting to happen. We must summon the political will to implement multidisciplinary strategies to prevent fatalities and severe injuries on our streets.

A first step would be the adoption of Vision Zero, a program first enacted by New York Mayor Bill De Blasio. Most recently, Vision Zero has been adopted by Boston, Seattle, San Diego and Washington, D.C., and is under consideration in Chicago, Denver, Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. As Cambridge city councillors and candidates, we advocate that Cambridge join the growing list of Vision Zero cities.

Implementing Vision Zero requires city agencies and stakeholders to collaborate on what Cambridge-based advocacy group LivableStreets calls the six Es: education, enforcement, engineering, encouragement, equity and evaluation.

We believe engineering is primary, as no amount of education or enforcement can increase the safety of a street whose design is inherently unsafe for people who walk and bike to share with people who drive. We also believe the default speed limit should be reduced from 30 miles per hour to 25 citywide, and select travel lanes should be narrowed to deter speeding and create more space for protected bike lanes. Safer streets will encourage more people of all ages to walk and cycle more often, reducing auto congestion, emissions and the potential for fatal crashes.

This year alone, Cambridge lost two talented women to bike accidents. (In addition to Kurmann, songwriter and activist Marcia Diehl was struck by a truck on Putnam Avenue in March.) Until we face up to our collective responsibility and demand that our leaders implement safety measures that have become standard in more forward-thinking cities and countries, we will have only ourselves to blame the next time a tragic accident takes place here. Adoption of Vision Zero is a first, yet important, step for Cambridge to demonstrate its commitment to greater street safety for everyone, whether they choose to walk, bike or drive.

Signed:

City Councillors Nadeem Mazen and Dennis Carlone
City Council candidates Jan Devereux, Mariko Davidson and John Sanzone

I stopped by Pooh’s House to ask for his #1 vote.

Eddie and I stopped by Joan Lorentz Park one morning for coffee with CDD & Animal Control staff. The park now offers shared use from 8-10 AM.