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Claim: No Boundaries for MassDOT
If the Extension is voted through, the Town will cede all control to Mass DOT. Quoting Bedford DPW staff, "The Town may not dictate means nor methods for the project." We have no oversight, and no input to alter or change any part of the plan you see on the Town website.
Bedford initiated this project, Bedford designed this project, and Bedford will be an active participant during construction. As with all large scale projects, the Town will hire its own inspector to monitor construction activities and conformance with the plans that we designed. It is true on any Town, State, or Federal project that contractors cannot be told how to build the Project (dictate the “means and methods”). That is why the bid package and contract contains a multitude of standards the contractor is required to follow.
MassDOT, the Metropolitan Planning Organization, and other agencies are staffed by people. They live and work alongside us and share the same needs and concerns as all of us: safe, attractive places to raise families and enjoy life. There is no reason to think that they will be heartless or unreasonable, nor to think they will not work with residents to make this a beautiful, usable, sustainable project. For proof, we need only to look at how MassDOT has managed the construction and maintenance of the Bruce Freeman Rail Trail that runs from Lowell through Concord and Acton all the way to Framingham. That trail has been welcomed by all the communities it runs through.
Claim: Plans show PROPOSED clearing and grubbing areas, and PROPOSED construction easements. These are not boundaries, they are estimates. This means there are no limits to where Mass DOT bulldozers may go.
The use of the word “Proposed” is industry standard in design plans. It does not mean that MassDOT and/or the contractor can do what they please. Easements in this case are “proposed”, because they haven’t been paid for and recorded at the Registry of Deeds yet.