Transcript: ROUTE 79
MALE: You’re listening to Environmentally Speaking, a weekly podcast diving into legal matters surrounding the environment, public utilities, energy, zoning, and permitting laws in Rhode Island and the surrounding areas with your host Marisa Desautel.
CLARICE: Hello, everybody. And welcome to this week’s episode of Environmentally Speaking.
MARISA: Hi, everybody. I’m attorney Marisa Desautel. I practice environmental law in Rhode Island and Massachusetts.
CLARICE: And I’m Clarice. I’m coming in with questions, topics, things that have popped up in environmental news. And today’s topic is not necessarily environmental news directly. It has an environmental impact, but I was excited to talk about it anyway because it’s very close to home. We’re talking about Fall River’s Route 79.
MARISA: Route 79. It sounds like it might be scenic or epic in some other fashion; is that right?
CLARICE: No. Lord, no.
MARISA: Okay.
CLARICE: As a Fall River native, I am confident in saying it’s okay. It’s an okay route. So the main issue here with Route 79 is it literally goes along the waterfront. So there’s a tiny sliver – for those of you who haven’t been down this route or by Fall River’s waterfront, Fall River abuts the Taunton River. And right along the edge of the river, there’s tons of activity and businesses. There’s restaurants. There is the Battleship Cove. There’s art spaces. There’s some yoga studios. There’s a place for indoor concerts, breweries. There’s tons of cool little waterfront businesses over there and Route 79 cuts right after those businesses. It’s that little sliver of activity and then it’s an expressway and then it’s the rest of Fall River, so it’s a big divide.
MARISA: Okay. And what’s being planned for it? Is it shutting down completely like they’re going to rip up the concrete – or excuse me – the asphalt and do what?
CLARICE: Yeah. So they are completely ripping up that entire asphalt expressway and what they’re doing instead is extending the street that is right next to what was Route 79. It’s called Davol Street. They’re making that a little bigger and they’re going to be putting in connecting streets so to connect all of those waterfront businesses with the next adjacent street which is Davol. And then in between they’re putting large green spaces which I’m really excited about.
MARISA: And what’s a green space for those of us that aren’t familiar with that term?
[0:03:01] CLARICE: So essentially I would say it’s something that’s low to no development. Think of like a field or a park or some space that’s designated simply just to have, for lack of a better word, greenery. It’s meant to be just a green area in a city. It’s not a plot that’s not yet been bought and developed.
MARISA: Okay. In looking at a map here, Route 79 is pretty long. I mean, it runs – geez, the map I’m looking at it runs all the way to north of Fall River to Assonet, right?
CLARICE: Yeah. Yeah. On one end it connects to 24.
MARISA: Yeah.
CLARICE: So that’s basically the very northern edge of Fall River and then it goes all the way to underneath the Braga Bridge.
MARISA: In Fall River?
CLARICE: Uh-huh.
MARISA: Okay. Are they proposing to get rid of the entire stretch of 79 that hooks up with Route 24?
CLARICE: From what I can see, yes.
MARISA: Wow. That’s a huge undertaking.
CLARICE: Yeah. The project is going to take about four years, they said.
MARISA: Oh, Jesus. I’m saying that because construction is a nightmare especially in this area. I’m not super familiar with it, but I’ve been to The Cove Restaurant & Marina several times and construction in that area is going to be difficult because it’s such a narrow space to begin with.
CLARICE: Yeah. Yeah.
MARISA: Okay.
CLARICE: The good news is the street that they’re planning on routing the majority of the traffic to Davol Street already exists and already has a similar path to the highway, so you can still go in the same direction and get that straight shot. The only difference is they’re going to widen Davol Street first to accommodate the overflow of the people who were on the expressway.
MARISA: And I assume that the speed limit is going to decrease, right?
CLARICE: I would assume so, too, yeah.
MARISA: Once it’s rerouted, yeah.
CLARICE: I’m not sure. Definitely not highway speeds but I don’t know if it would decrease from what Davol’s average street speed would be.
MARISA: Okay.
CLARICE: I’m mostly excited for the idea of – and tell me if you’ve seen this before or how frequent this is, the idea that a city or, you know, some sort of town, place, is removing a highway in favor of more green spaces. To me that was really unique and something I wanted to bring to the podcast today. Is that common?
[0:05:49] MARISA: If it was true I would say, no, it’s not common. But in typical Marisa fashion, I reviewed the article that you sent over associated with the project as well as the Massachusetts Department of Transportation website. And it’s not that they are deconstructing Route 79 to simply and only create more green space. They are also taking down that expressway to access area that can be developed.
Currently the expressway land area is owned by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. It’s state property, so they’ve got the right and the opportunity to either sell that land for redevelopment or lease it to a private party for redevelopment or figure out some other state property type of project that might go in there. It’s a lovely idea to get rid of an expressway in order to create more green space, to create more access for the neighborhoods and to create just a better aesthetic, but in my opinion and experience that’s not the only intent here.
CLARICE: Yes. I think that’s a great point. I agree. That’s not the driving force of this project. I think the driving force, like you had said, is to create more flow of commerce to that area.
MARISA: Yeah. I agree. It looks like there’s 19 acres of developable land including green space, so they are going to earmark and set aside some of that property for park settings. And it looks like they’ve considered some kind of art installation or some kind of – some art. They’re saying art is going to be happening. I’m not really sure what that means but substantial landscaping.
CLARICE: Yeah. I loved that quote, art happening.
MARISA: Does art happen? Is that the verb that you use when you’re talking about art?
CLARICE: That sounds like a very like urban ‘90s thing.
MARISA: Yeah.
CLARICE: Like art happening.
MARISA: Yeah. I thought art just is. I feel like Gertrude Stein. Art is. Anyway, so the cost of the project is estimated at around $135 million. It’s going to be funded by both the state and federal government and it looks like some of the city – or excuse me. It looks like the city is going to be kicking in some of the funding, as well, because they will have to disrupt existing infrastructure including the city’s combined sewer overflow.
CLARICE: Yeah. And going back, another thing that they had mentioned, too, in the plan was the idea of sustainable landscaping. And it doesn’t go into detail about what that is. Do you have any idea of what that could be?
[0:09:03] MARISA: What’s the phrase again, sustainable what?
CLARICE: Landscaping.
MARISA: Sustainable landscaping. No idea.
CLARICE: The only time that I’ve ever heard of sustainable landscaping were for our more desert and arid states sort of removing that idea of a green front lawn in lieu of like pebbles and cactuses and sort of leaning into the environment. In Arizona it doesn’t necessarily make sense for everybody to have a full lawn and instead do things like that, so I’m wondering what that looks like in a New England setting. We’ll have to keep posted.
MARISA: Okay. I just Googled it because I’ve not heard of this phrase before, but in looking at the definition I am familiar with the concept. Sustainable landscapes are meant to sequester carbon which means that they’re meant to capture carbon, provide some kind of method to improve or clean air and water, increase energy efficiency, restore habitats, and create value.
So it wouldn’t be grass. Grass does not sequester carbon. It doesn’t provide any cleaning properties for air and water and it doesn’t do much in the way of energy efficiency or habitat restoration. So probably if you’re talking about sustainable landscape in this area it’s probably material, plants, maybe shade trees that are native to the area and that existed there prior to 1976 when the expressway was constructed and do work naturally on stormwater, taking out suspended solids, salts, pollutants from vehicles, that kind of thing.
CLARICE: Interesting. All right. Well, as the project progresses I’ll keep an eye out. I’ll see what they start planting.
MARISA: Yeah. I’d be interested to see the stages of it over the next four years starting with the widening of – is it Davol Street? Is that how you say it?
CLARICE: Davol.
MARISA: Okay. I’m a Rhode Islander. What the heck do I know about Massachusetts.
CLARICE: Nice. So in our show notes we will link the article. The article connects to Mass DOT’s page regarding this project as well as include some of the photos and the map illustration of what’s projected to be there so if you want to take a look at it. If for some odd reason your commute takes you through Fall River, something to consider for the next couple years.
MARISA: Yeah. And there’s also a neat video rendering that the Mass DOT put up on their website. It’s informative because if you’re not familiar with the area or you just can’t quite figure out what they’re talking about it’s a good tool.
[0:12:07] CLARICE: Great. So if you guys have any questions, comments, thoughts, other things you’d want us to talk about – are they putting more green space or taking away green space in your town? Let us know. You can reach out to us on all of the socials at Desautel Law. You can send us an e-mail at info@DesautelBrowning.com. And we want to hear your comments, your thoughts. Reach out to us.
MARISA: Thanks, everybody.
MALE: Thank you for listening to this episode of Environmentally Speaking. If you’re in need of an environmental attorney, we are here to help. Call us at 401-477-0023, or visit our website at www.DesautelLaw.com. That’s www.DesautelLaw.com.
