A fascinating timeline of Massachusetts Avenue in Cambridge
1775: Then known as the Great Road, Mass Ave was the path used by militias and British soldiers in the battles of Lexington and Concord.
1840s: Railroads were extended from the Boston Wharfs to harvest ice from Fresh Pond for shipment worldwide. The strong farmers' lobby forced the railroad to build below-grade with a bridge at Porter Square for cattle drives coming down the Great Road into marketing pens in North Cambridge.
1850s: A single track connection between the Lowell rail line in Somerville was made to the Fitchburg tracks, crossing Mass Ave at Cameron Street.1956 … Streetcars were replaced by trolleybus service.
1890s: Dual streetcar tracks were laid down in the middle of Mass Avenue extending into Arlington and Lexington.
1952 to 1956: Harry and Mable Rand donated a large estate fronting on Porter Square to the City of Cambridge. Overlapping Orchard Street and extending to Elm Street in Somerville the Rands hoped their estate would be preserved. Instead, the City sold it to a private developer who built what has become the Porter Square Shopping Center.
1958: Mass Avenue was entirely rebuilt as an urban arterial road with a five-foot concrete median, trolley poles and wires for trolley-bus operation which ran from 1958 to 2022.
1960 to 1967: North Cambridge resident and Congressman Tip O’Neill successfully stopped the Inner Belt expressway from being built through Cambridgeport and East Cambridge.
1985: Construction was completed on the Red Line extension to Davis Square and Alewife. Today it is the route for the Minuteman bikeway and Community Path. (with the Red Line tunnel underneath).
1995: The shopping center was given a special phase in the traffic lights at Porter Square to eliminate the need to make U-turns on Mass Avenue.
2000 to 2005: An initial effort to locate bike lanes on Mass Avenue was attempted and defeated by massive resident opposition.
2015: A city-wide bicycle plan was developed, primarily through Community Development, updated in 2020.
2016: The City Council passed Vision Zero, with the goal of reducing transportation injuries and fatalities to zero. It sought to increase “safe, healthy, equitable mobility to all” in all modes of travel using “the collaborative framework” needed to meet this goal.
2017: A design session was held under the sponsorship of NACTO, the National Association of City Transportation Officials. Planners from across the nation came with the goal of making Cambridge one of four “Transit Accelerator Cities” in the nation. Mass Avenue was envisioned with bus lanes and other transit services, including pedestrians and bike lanes. From this NACTO design North Mass Avenue was eventually transformed from a transit project into a bike safety program.
2017: Participatory Budgeting played a major role in starting bike lane programs through suggestions to create a network of bike lanes in the city. Consultant Kleinfelder took over further work and submitted a proposal to the city, to be done initially under Community Development supervision and later Traffic & Parking. Quick-Build became the preferred non-traditional design method, to be combined with the NACTO Plan. Tasks excluded from consideration under the Kleinfelder work included: ADA compliance … “Collecting traffic volumes” … “Evaluating transit performance” … “Observing traffic compliance” … “Collecting speed data” … “Conducting crash analysis” … “Evaluating winter maintenance” … “Evaluating retail access with a survey” … “Evaluating retail success. ” All of these omissions became criticisms of the Quick-Build process.
2018: Contract amendments expanded number of Quick-Builds.
2018: Vision Zero Action Plan was announced. A 20-mph speed limit was established for many Cambridge streets.
2019: The Cycling Safety Ordinance was passed by the City Council, establishing goals of separated bicycle lanes and Quick-Build methods. Unlike Vision Zero, which required focus on all modes of transport, the CSO focused primarily on bike lanes.
2020: The CSO amended to specify implementation deadlines.
2021: The North Mass Ave Quick Build prompted vociferous protests from businesses experiencing severe revenue losses due to parking removal and from residents whose streets were endangered by new traffic patterns funneling commercial traffic through narrow residential areas.
2022: New designs for construction between Porter and Harvard Squares were presented. Removal of the median and the trolley wires complicated plans and protests from businesses and local residents continued in the face of implementation.
2022: Cambridge Streets for All was formed as a 501c3