As Harvard citizens prepare for Town Meeting, one of the town’s most important civic events of the year, it’s striking to find two stories on page 1 of this week’s Press that concern developments beyond its borders.
West of town, at Devens, more than 73 residents living in the new Emerson Green neighborhood—representing nearly three-quarters of the households there—have petitioned MassDevelopment and the Devens Enterprise Commission to reroute truck traffic and take other measures to make Grant Road, the area’s main thoroughfare, safer for pedestrians. It’s ironic that as Massachusetts celebrates Patriots’ Day, some of its citizens lack the representative government promised by the Massachusetts constitution and must petition the state to redress a local problem.
Meanwhile, to the east, a proposed massive new development in Boxborough is raising environmental concerns not only for Boxborough residents but for adjacent Harvard property owners and town conservation officials responsible for protecting Harvard’s nearby wetlands and wildlife areas. A traffic study cited in this week’s Press story forecasts that activity and commuter trips in and out of the three-building research and light manufacturing campus could increase traffic on Mass. Ave. by more than 6,300 trips a day, some of which would inevitably spill onto Harvard’s roads.
Job one at the Press is to provide our readers with the information they need to make informed decisions and participate in governance of the town. But some issues beyond Harvard’s formal boundaries cannot be ignored. If Harvard were to resume jurisdiction of its historical land at Devens, for example, Emerson Green’s traffic problems would become the town’s. And the development in Boxborough has the potential to affect the quality of life of Harvard’s residents. Like it or not, as regional issues become local, we all must nurture a situational awareness of developments beyond the town’s borders as we decide together how to preserve what’s best about Harvard in a time of change.
