Path funds diverted to Somerville Orange Line stop

Friends of the Community Path

A scene on the Community Path last June.

By Danielle Dreilinger, Globe Correspondent

Somerville's twisty road to multimodal transit bliss has taken a seemingly odd turn: The city is transferring $3.5 million of federal transportation funding from the Community Path to the Orange Line stop at Assembly Square.

Does that spell the end of the road for the bike/pedestrian path ever stretching all through Somerville to Boston?

Michael Lambert, city director of transportation and infrastructure, set the map straight. The $3.5 million expires at the end of September. It has to be contracted for. The Orange Line station needs money now; the Community Path doesn't. The new Assembly Square T stop will be put out to bid in the next two months, Lambert said.

The current phase of the path extension doesn't even need $3.5 million, Lambert said. The grant dates back to an earlier time when the city was on the hook for a longer segment.

The Community Path currently runs from Davis Square to Cedar Street. Somerville has committed to extending it about a quarter-mile to Lowell Street. From there, the MBTA has taken over the path design because it must coordinate with the Green Line Extension.

The Cedar-to-Lowell segment will cost about $1.5 million, Lambert said. The Path has $1 million of federal funding that "cannot be used for any other purpose," Lambert said. On March 3, the city applied for $500,000 to finish the job.

Lambert was cautiously optimistic about Somerville's chances. This part of the path could be ready to build by the end of 2011. The city has hired a designer to finish the plans, Lambert said; with public input, they should be done by summer. From there it goes for a four- to five-month state review.

"The City of Somerville's been extremely supportive," said Lynn Weissman of Friends of the Community Path. But she had her eyes on the horizon. The group is urging the Boston Region Metropolitan Planning Organization to put full funding of the rest of the Community Path in its plan for 2015. 

Interested parties should check the organization's Facebook page for information on submitting comments to the MPO, Weissman said.

Learn more at pathfriends.org/scp .