City council sees one way forward for Garden Street

After contentious comment and discussion, Cambridge City Council on Monday voted 5-4 in favor of keeping Garden Street a one-way road with bike lanes on either side for the majority of its length. The vote reversed last year’s 5-4 vote to return two-way traffic to the West Cambridge street while making the bike lanes adjacent, a move that would eliminate street parking.

Mayor Sumbul Siddiqui, Vice Mayor Burhan Azeem, and Councillors Marc McGovern and Jivan Sobrinho-Wheeler flipped from the minority to the majority, thanks to new council member Ayah Al-Zubi, who brought the policy order to council. Councillors E. Denise Simmons, Patty Nolan, and Cathie Zusy voted against the change, in line with their votes last year. They were joined in the minority by new Councillor Timothy Flaherty.

Garden Street was converted to a one-way street in 2022. While many bikers and Garden Street residents say they feel safer, residents of nearby streets have lamented increased traffic flow, which they blame on traffic on drivers outbound from Harvard Square needing to find new routes.

A neighborhood divided

A marathon public comment period saw over 70 people speak during Monday’s meeting, with about 60 in favor of keeping Garden Street one-way. Speakers for each side said their preferred configuration was safer.

Speakers in favor of keeping the street one way noted that this was the option suggested by the Department of Transportation in a 2025 report.

“Let’s use engineering judgement, not guesses, to ensure our entire community moves with fluidity and safety,” said Cambridge resident Susan Reed during public comment, supporting the policy order. “This shouldn’t be ‘my street against your street’… this order is a win for everyone because it finally looks at our traffic holistically.”

Senior citizens and family members of those with disabilities also spoke in favor of the current configuration, noting that the design council approved last year would eliminate parking spots and loading zones that they rely on.

“The proposed plan would eliminate the ability of ADA [the Americans with Disabilities Act] vehicles, shuttles and other forms of transportation to safely pick up and drop off my husband or other individuals with disabilities,” said Garden street resident Kathleen Caple. “The current configuration works.”

Among residents who disagreed was Cambridge resident Phyllis Simpkins, who said it was her fifth time speaking in favor of two-way traffic on Garden before council. “Why is Garden Street more special than any of the other streets (in the neighborhood)? All the rest of us are coping with increased traffic.”

Councillor Flaherty said the skew of the public comments toward one-way did not reflect his own canvass of the neighborhood. He said he talked with over 250 people since council’s last meeting on April 13 and “maybe 75 percent preferred two-way traffic.”

DOT options all safe

The Department of Transportation said all the options it put forward were safe. “We would not advance a design we believe to be unsafe,” said Jackie McLaughlin, Department of Transportation communications Manager Jackie McLaughlin told Cambridge Day over email. “That said, maintaining Garden Street as one-way has remained our department’s preferred option.”

While Zusy questioned the department’s study, saying it wasn’t “broad enough,” McLaughlin said that wasn’t the case.

“The analysis was not limited to Garden Street alone. It also considered the surrounding street network to better understand broader safety patterns and potential shifts in travel behavior.”

McLaughlin referenced a 2023 report, which also said that a return to two-way traffic would “likely reduce comfort and safety” for walkers and bikers and could reduce some of the cut-through traffic residents had been complaining of, but “likely not change to the extent that residents hope for,” given traffic increases across the city.

Local groups have done their own analysis, too, though. West Cambridge Neighborhood Coalition leader Daniel Vlock on Friday sent an email to coalition members saying an analysis of the city’s own data revealed an increase in the number of cycling accidents in the area surrounding Garden Street, from eight between 2017-2019 to 30 between 2023-2025. While this number doesn’t adjust for changes in the number of riders over time in the area, Vlock thinks this demonstrates a clear pattern.

“Now that the city [council] has voted I think they need to bear responsibility for what happens next,” Vlock told Cambridge Day over email. “They were all informed about this prior to the vote and so if accidents, unfortunately, continue to occur they can’t say weren’t warned.”

When asked about this analysis, the Department of Transportation said it would be reviewing the data.

“Good governance” debated

Flaherty said “the reversal of a decision that was made last year” was “bad public policy.” This sparked comments from other councillors.

“I respectfully disagree,” said Al-Zubi. She referenced a key campaign promise of Flaherty’s, to reverse zoning policy, and said “From my understanding, to the extent we’re revisiting the multifamily zoning ordinance, I believe we should be able to explore any work that we’ve passed that warrants necessary conversation.”

Councillors in the majority defended their right to reverse this decision. McGovern said the council was responding to the results of the last election, in which the fate of Garden Street was an issue for some voters.

“I certainly hope that if the Democrats take back the House and the Senate and the White House eventually, that they are going to revisit a hell of a lot of policies that have been passed recently and not say, ‘Oh, well, Republicans passed it. We can’t go back and fix it,’” McGovern said.

Simmons presented two motions that would delay any action — one to table the policy order, and another to refer it to the Transportation Committee. Both were voted down, as was a late amendment submitted by Zusy that asked the Transportation Department to do further analysis.

As the council proceeded toward a vote, the last councillor to reveal her vote was Siddiqui. “I want to remain consistent with how I approached this issue last year, and consistent with the professional recommendations of city staff,” she said, as she said she would vote in favor of the order.

She also offered a plea for civility.

“I want to ask my colleagues and public to respect each other’s perspectives. As a body, we represent the whole community, and that means that individual counselors sometimes are going to have differing opinions on what’s in front of us, and we’re going to look at the same set of facts and come to different conclusions about the right forms of action,” Siddiqui said. “That doesn’t make anyone’s views invalid.”

The tenor of the debate on safety disappointed Nolan, who told Cambridge Day it “broke my trust that people weren’t willing to ensure that false narratives were not being promoted.”

She agreed with Flaherty’s critique on council changing its decision a year later without new information.

“Will we be able to get beyond this? I hope so. And yet, I think it’s unfortunate, because I don’t think it was good governance or good policy to do this, and I still maintain my belief that it’s safer and better for the whole city, for us to have reverted Garden Street to two-way.”

Timeline of changes to Garden Street

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