administrator great projects and a great leadership regardless of where they are when leadership takes over and i know that she's a little tired of hearing me say this but when secretary pollock first came to mass done she called her senior leadership team together she said something that i think hit all of us she said the transportation is less about what it is bridges roads and tunnels in more about what it does connecting people to our economic opportunity medical appointments family friends and most importantly an indicative of this project today a healthy lifestyle so this project is truly transformative and it takes all of the aspects of a complete streets and rolls it into one very important project and here to tell you a little more about it is a great secretary of transportation for the commonwealth stephanie p things is working in partnership with our cities and towns this project says belmont's project they were really they initiated they were the catalyst for it they did the initial design work they brought the project to us and cities and towns are important partners they actually own eighty five percent of the lane miles of roadways in massachusetts so it's not enough for us to take good care of the fifteen percent that we own at the state we have to help cities and towns with complicated projects on important roads like this the second thing that this project represents is the concept of the complete story and believe me when belmont started the redesign of this complete streets which today everybody loves the idea and everybody is bought in was was a relatively new idea and it's a very simple idea it's an idea that streets have to work for everyone so on this project we have better sidewalks for people who are walking or pushing a baby stroller or in a wheelchair we have a better bicycle lane for people like the senator who choose to bicycle we have better facilities for people who are using our m b t a trolley buses the catenary has been restrung we've got new shelters we've got better parking at the waverly and bta station of course we have a better situation for drivers we also have environmental improvements that may not be as obvious but roads streets aren't just about moving people they're also part of the community so trees and shrubs matter you can't have a street with no trees along in a community as leafy is belmont so we have to plant those trees we have to fix the drainage so that we make sure that the storm water runoff is being properly taken care of so this is a project where all of those elements came together in a partnership between belmont and mast and we could not be happier to be part of the project  project like this gets done without a lot of folks and they'll be a lot of thank yous this morning but i want to make sure to begin by thanking our partners in belmont thanking our partners in the legislature and also thanking the men and women of newport construction and of highway district for a lead by paul stedman who brought this very complicated project to fruition thank you everybody urgency but energy to projects such as this because not only is he an avid cyclist who comes over the longfellow bridge every day and tends to share his experience with me about is his bicycle right although i fell away but he just cares so passionately about things like complete streets that has gone really from a kind of invoke tagline to the way that we do our business and through the lens in which we look at projects such as this so a true partner of us on the transportation realm as well as all transportation advocates everywhere please welcome state senator will brownsburg and i just very grateful for the partnership that we have the great leadership we have and now in the ability to do so many things in this state together i want to take a me a few minutes to talk about a little bit about the history of this project and because something like as big as this th really is big and it really is complicated and there's more decisions building these you know couple of miles of urban road than there are in building one hundred miles of freeway someplace but it goes back to about two thousand two thousand and one when the to some rezoning decisions a whole bunch of vision things but it ultimately kicked off a process to read build repeller road which was something that critically needed to be done it hadn't been done in many years the surface wasn't horrible condition the drainage wasn't woman who was killed going to the dentist here in belmont is trying to get across the street but at that point the traffic advisory committee picked it up and i see i see tommy olson and linda nick get in and i'm going to get t to we're not going to we're going to down to miller soup you and there are others there were a number of the people on the traffic advisory committee at that time and they went through dozens of meetings and that there were citizen groups that came in and pushed different concepts and they wrestled with what is a complicated roadway to varying and with it's got different kinds of neighborhoods and they came up with a treatment of the roadway from end to end the refl group and we're very grateful for the work that p f c group has done and continue to do on this project ultimately we came into so now we're up to two thousand and seven two thousand and eight and we have a project which the consoles are bringing up to a you know twenty five seventy five hundred percent design level we're working to try to get them the process on the project onto the transportation improvement plan and it was always sort of a few years back and that was the time when we were behind in funding because all the big dig  top of the list and it comes back to the work that the traffic advisory committee did comes back to the work with the consulting engineers did this project scored at the top the m p o struggling to decide where to put their money so look we're going to try to could create some kind of object and peer review process here and they went out and did this and this project rose to number one out of one hundred sixty projects in the in the in the funding queue that they had and they said well if we're going to follow our objective process we point of being advertised went out to advertise and it came back way to overbid because they figured out that they need all the bits came in icons the catenary wires were strong and all that all the contractors decided that they had to use special equipment to get i a to go along with taking down the catenary wires problem after problem being solved ultimately the project does go out to bid then you've got the team on site newport bids comes in newport this is you know there's so many problems that are in a job like in the region just extraordinary grateful to all of those people on that long was they got this project on from there and then so thank you to everybody thank you thank you thank you do you know about the project so we all like talking about the numbers and when we talk about things such as complete streets in this is truly staggering so you have two and a half miles or row away but this project also incorporated thirteen symbolise into sections two hundred to catch basins eleven thousand seven hundred new feet of new pipe to address the drainage issues that the senator referred to all of which needs to be coordinated in a very delicate balance you know we talk about doing projects such as this but leaving the roads open it's literally like flying a plane while you're building it and i think in complicated projects some folks who don't get enough credit people like the belmont police department who show up and they move traffic around the keep  you no once again on the theme of partnership because it's truly indicative of this state representative dave rogers who was instrumental in not only securing the funding but pay attention to the projects really at the core level as well as looking out for his constituents while we were outside their shops in their homes trying to do this complicated project reminding us that this is also a community in which people live and it's more than just a work zone so ladies and gentlemen welcome your state representative da good morning everybody it's great to be here and i want to thank the secretary and the senator and the director and you've heard so much about this project i don't have too much to add but i i do want to say that one of the first things i confronted when i got to the legislature was a big vote on transportation funding and it was still to this day the probably the biggest vote we took in when i ca transportation was sort of my centerpiece of my campaign because i think some people look oh it's just a road it's just a street but it's a conduit that connects people to jobs businesses to their consumers  and i don't know if there's much that government does where the are a why the return on investment is bigger than investing in transportation and i've often said if we want to compete with other states and frankly in a global economy with with other countries we have to have a great transportation system it's so important so this is a great day for belmont for the whole region so many people did work so hard on this senator thank many of them and i'd like to as as my colleague thank him for his work on this is amazing i think it one point they needed permission from certain landowner certain homeowners because some of the construction crew would have to use just a foot or two of their front yard and i believe unless i'm wrong the senator went door to door to get consensus from from from homeowners along with other people that's extraordinary public service so and the selectmen have been amazing through all of this so it's a great day and thanks for being here we're in and doing the work in is paramount the important in one of the issues that came about is leave we try to leave all jobs better than than the way we found it in working with the municipal officials it really became obvious that you know folks who are interested in trees and shrubs and trying to really open up some green space because the secretary pollock reminds us that the largest amount of public space is not parks and playgrounds its streets and sidewalks so let's try to do something special with that so this project also includes three hundred fifty new trees shrubs trying to create that green space in really bringing that to the forefront local partners so here to speak on behalf of the belmont board of selectmen is the chair morning everyone it's an honor to be here for this ribbon cutting ceremony just barely made it a lot of traffic in belmont but this is a wonderful example of a partnership between the state and local community to put together and develop a wonderful project  really is it creates hansen's pedestrian safety i think it is it slows down the cars entrepreneur road even though it got a lot of comments about folks wanted to be continued to be a four lane highway well it's not a four lane highway  god our next speaker also from the town of belmont board of selectmen who you know once again i can't stress enough that these projects are only good as the partnerships and i do want to acknowledge as you go through the design process of something like this you know the unsung heroes of a lot of these jobs it's great that we get to come out here and cut ribbons but it's the men and women who live in the communities who take time away from their families their dinners countless and countless of hours going over design and working with us in partnership to better their communities so how about a nice round of applause  all of the volunteers who participated in also in one of those folks who definitely come right to the top of that is thank you all this is truly a tremendous day for belmont i am so proud to be here on behalf of the town it's been such a long and tremendous process just to put it in perspective when this process began senator brown's burger was a selectman in belmont so it's you know it's been a fifteen year long process many people were involved there was a lot of planning a tremendous amount of planning it began with the traffic advisory committee you know again on behalf of the town i do want to recognize them linda nick and dan miller tommy old and soup you are here on behalf of that committee in addition again glenn clancy our community development director many many many words david kale our town administrator tremendous amount of coordination of course our police department and also the construction process was going on i do want to thank secretary pawlik for for her help certainly senator brownsburg our representative rogers as well we also have some friends here from the watertown belmont chamber of commerce is here steve mcgeown town planner of watertown is here to join us as well this was cute this was truly you know we're talking about belmont but it was truly a partnership effort with our neighbors in watertown as well in addition to all of the benefits you've heard about this project all so has helped to beautify two of our major squares in town square and waverly square and even though there was a tremendous amount of inconvenience and sacrifice by our residents commuters and our businesses we are now in a position to reap the benefits of this project for years to come thank you so much so we got this in before the ring came congratulations everybody belmont watertown all involved thank you also very very much this is a great day for both communities it's a great day for the commonwealth now let's cut a ribbon and open this puppy up they go very much have a great