CambridgeToday received the following letter to the editor from reader Thomas Smith on the future of Mill Race Park.
Mill Race Park is an important and significant part of the city’s open space system and historically important as one of the first projects to incorporate flood protection into its design.
In the day, the Riverbank Advisory Committee and City Council thought it was worthwhile to invest significant funding to start integrating public open space in conjunction with flood protection being implemented by the GRCA. Not to mention keeping a significant portion of the industrial buildings to teach us about the past uses on the site.
Council took on the responsibility of maintaining what they built when they approved its construction. Do what is necessary to replace those bridges as close to the original design as can be. Doing anything less would be a shame.
As a city staff person, I oversaw the construction of Mill Race Park and worked with the Riverbank Development Advisory Committee to Create the “Living Levee” Riverbank master plan. Many of the concepts in that plan have been implemented. Look what that work has done for the Galt core.
Not maintaining what you have built is the wrong thing to do.
Thomas Smith
