By William Tauro

I constantly drive around Somerville everyday just to find a better route for people, and to find out where traffic problems begin and where they end with a clogged ending in traffic jams citywide.

Let’s take for instance, one day this past week, I traveled from Assembly Row in Somerville to Andy’s Diner that’s located on Massachusetts Avenue on the Cambridge/Somervillle line. I left Assembly Row at about 7:00AM for an early meeting that morning and it took me almost 48 minutes to reach my destination on Massachusetts Avenue.

One of the main reasons why traffic becomes so congested and backed up for miles is due to the recent, senseless closure of the McGrath Highway Overpass offramp that’s located by the Target department store and John’s Auto Sales at the intersection of Somerville Avenue and Medford Street/Rear McGrath Highway.

If elected I will reopen the overpass offramp immediately to unclog traffic as far back as from Mystic Avenue to relieve and unclog McGrath Highway as well as for traffic on Broadway and multiple side streets that desire to enter Broadway then entering McGrath Highway from Broadway that has now has forced motorists to exit at the Washington Street exit at the top of the hill on McGrath Highway.

Accomplishing this will also relieve traffic congestion leading to Union Square and let some of the traffic relief get off where it was originally designed to do to exit off at the offramp at John’s Auto Sales and Target.

This change in the traffic pattern will also actually relieve traffic in Union Square because it won’t force everybody to get off at the top of the ramp when they can take the second alternative ramp afterwards at Somerville Avenue. Not to mention it will help the Ward Two business district tremendously with consumers, who wish to shop Union Square and Ward Two. When you help our Somerville businesses thrive, it creates a better tax base in the city as well as it takes more of the tax burden off of the homeowners which will ultimately trickle down to the tenants rent. It’s called common sense!

On another safety topic that’s concerning me throughout Somerville is that as a pedestrian. I won’t put my life in the hands of any drivers. I’ll always look both ways before crossing any street as I was tought as a child. That’s also called simple common sense!

“When just ok, just isn’t good enough!”