18 Oak Meadow Rd. — Ann Helmus to Amrite Aniruddha and Prajakta Badri for $1,000,000 (August 1)- 213 Sandy Pond Rd. — Shawn Samuel to Todd and Sara Morneau for $1,250,000 (August 4)
- 170 South Great Rd. — LV Realty LLC to 179 South Great Road LLC for $750,000 (August 9)
- 190 Lincoln Rd. — UMB Bank NA, trustee to Lorraine and Theresa Hanley, trustees, for $1,475,000 (August 11)
- 14C North Commons — Kara Swanson to Alexander Pina and Lu Zhang for $379,9000 (August 18)
- 34 Windingwood Lane — Robert Sutherland to Wayne and Elizabeth Ogden for $651,000 (August 18)
- 41 Todd Pond Road — Page Wasson to Susan Peacock for $419,000 (August 25)
- 120 Lexington Rd. — Lexington Development Limited Partnership to Christopher and Susan Silber for $1,700,000 (August 31)
News acorns
Build a scarecrow for good causes
The Lincoln PTO and the METCO Coordinating Committee, sponsored by Stonegate Gardens, are offering a second opportunity to build scarecrows in preparation for the annual Lincoln Land Conservation Trust Scarecrow Classic 5K on October 15. Visit Stonegate Gardens on Saturday, Oct. 14 from 10 a.m.–3 p.m. for a PTO fundraiser to build a scarecrow for $15. Bring a pillowcase for the head, old clothes (smaller sizes work best) and accessories. Stonegate Gardens will supply stakes, hay, twine and decorations. You can keep your scarecrow or display it in the parade on Ballfield Road. (NOTE: caregiver supervision is required; this is not a drop-off event.)
In preparation for this event, please consider donating colorful clothes (shirts and pants, smaller sizes preferred) and accessories (hats, sunglasses, old costumes) to the community-building scarecrow workshop that will take place on Wednesday, Oct. 11 at the Lincoln School. Please make your clothing donations by Tuesday, Oct. 10 at 4 p.m. Look for the Scarecrow-Building Donation Box at Stonegate Gardens. Your donation will provide kids who have registered for this event with a fun selection of clothing as they build their scarecrows.
Water bottles at Scarecrow Classic
Leading the push for reusable water containers, the Lincoln Land Conservation Trust and the Rural Land Foundation are giving out to the first 500 registrants at the Scarecrow Classic 5K an environmentally friendly Klean Kanteen water bottle with the Scarecrow Classic 5K and LLCT logos. Organizers aim to set a precedent for the use of reusable water containers by asking participants to bring their Scarecrow Classic 5K/Klean Kanteen water bottles to future races, and they will provide the hydration stations. Students in the Environmental Club at Lincoln-Sudbury Regional High School will be filling and helping distribute the bottles for the race. At Lincoln’s 2017 Annual Town Meeting, the students presented a plastic water bottle ban initiative. A vote was not taken, but residents recommended that the students continue to research and draft a proposal to be revisited at the fall State of the Town meeting.
“Courageous women” to speak at GRALTA event
The GRALTA Foundation is partnering with the Tree of Life Educational Fund to present “Courageous Women” at the Lincoln Public Library on Tuesday, Oct. 24 at 1:30 p.m. There is no charge, and light refreshments will be served. Speakers are Fayrouz Sharqawi, a Palestinian citizen of Israel, and Madonna Thunder Hawk, a member of the Oohenumpa band of the Cheyenne River Sioux tribe. Sharqawi is the advocacy coordinator at Grassroots Jerusalem, a platform for Palestinian community-based mobilization, leadership, and advocacy in occupied Jerusalem. Thunder Hawk has a long history of grassroots activism prior to her formative work for Lakota People’s Law Project as a tribal liaison. She is co-founder of Women of All Red Nations as well as the Black Hills Alliance, which prevented uranium mining in the Black Hills.
More solar open houses on Oct. 22
Lincoln Green Energy will sponsor a second day of Lincoln open houses to see fellow Lincolnites’ solar PV and hot water heaters on Sunday, Oct. 22 from 1–3 p.m. Visit the Lincoln Green Energy website to see locations of open houses. Solarize Mass. Lincoln-Wayland-Sudbury, is also hosting solar open houses at two locations in Wayland on Sunday, Oct. 15. Click here for details on location and time.
Two sessions on school, community center scheduled
Superintendent of Schools Becky McFall and educational planners from two architectural firms will lead two workshop sessions on Tuesday, Oct. 17 at 8 a.m. and 7 p.m. in the Brooks gym, focusing on how architecture and design can support educational goals. They will share the priorities expressed by educators during a September 28 all-day visioning session, show examples of other schools, and engage the community in discussion about specific concepts and educational spaces.
On Wednesday, Oct. 11 at 7 p.m. in the Hartwell Multipurpose Room, the School Building Committee (SBC) and members of the Community Center Preliminary Planning and Design Committee (PPDC) will learn more about community priorities through a series of short presentations from the Historical Commission, Public Safety, the Planning Board, the Green Energy Committee, the Conservation Commission, and the Commission on Disabilities. Added to previous presentations from Parks & Recreation and the Water Commission, these conversations will help the SBC, PPDC, and the community understand the complex series of opportunities and issues that must be balanced as work moves forward.
Dozens of residents came to two September 28 sessions to explore the future of the Ballfield Road campus. The sessions were facilitated by the architectural firm SMMA, which was hired by the SBC in partnership with EwingCole in August. In addition to the design team, members of the SBC and the PPDC were there to listen and learn from the professionals and the community.
Both the morning and evening sessions featured information-sharing and gathering as SMMA used five possible campus configurations to generate discussion and to more deeply understand Lincoln’s collective priorities for a revitalized campus, one that will cohesively accommodate a preK-8 school and possibly a community center on one site. Echoed continuously by both the community and the architects was a commitment to preserving the unique character of our campus, while at the same time defining a forward-looking vision that improves the campus experience for students and Lincolnites of all ages for years to come.
The September 28 evening workshop can be viewed online here.
Five campus possibilities offered at SBC workshop
School Building Committee architects proposed some master planning objectives for the Ballfield Road campus as well as five general options for locating the various aspects of the Lincoln School around that campus at a public workshop on October 3.
Before they even began presenting their thoughts, resident Steve Perlmutter summed up his feelings about the campus that are shared by many of those who rejected the 2012 school design that would have encroached on the central ball field and significantly reconfigured the north side of campus.
“I’m concerned that if we’re not very careful, we could lose much of this special place and with it, a large part of Lincoln’s soul, character, and heritage,” said Perlmutter, noting that he was speaking as a private citizen and not in his capacity as a member of the SBC. The school campus is “stunning and bucolic” and “quintessentially Lincoln,” he said. “We need to keep on asking ourselves if what you propose to do belongs to the land instead of the other way around.”
The ball field is “one for those central gems you would never get back if you developed it, agreed Sandra Farrell, a landscape architect with SMMA Architects, adding that the field and the healthy trees around it are “more or less sacrosanct)
The firm’s planning objectives for a multigenerational, multiprogram campus include developing a healthy network of trees and pathways around school buildings and between community spaces including the tennis courts and the pool. The final plan should also foster educational goals while also creating cohesion between new and old elements and demonstrating stewardship of the land, she said.
Before thinking about what structures should be renovated or replaced, SMMA principal architect Alex Pitkin encouraged residents to think about five configurations—taking into account locations, “adjacencies,” building heights, and even overlap—for four main elements (see below):
- PreK–4
- Grades 5–8
- Common areas that the public could also use outside school hours such as the auditorium, gyms, and cafeteria(s)
- Community center elements including the Council on Aging, the Parks and Recreation Department, and the Lincoln Extended-day Activities Program.
“Sometimes it’s very effective to move functions around a building, whether it’s renovated or rebuilt,” Pitkin said.
The next public workshop will focus on educational vision and will take place in two identical sessions on one day: Tuesday, Oct. 14 from 2–4 p.m. and 7–9 p.m. in the Brooks gym. For more information on the history of the project, news and upcoming events, go to lincolnsbc.org.
Click on an image to see larger version:
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News acorns
Public hearings coming up
- The Lincoln Planning Board will hold a public hearing at 7 p.m. on Tuesday, Oct. 10 to review an application for a sign permit. The applicant, Sujit Sitole, proposes to construct a directory sign at 152 Lincoln Rd.
- The Lincoln Historical Commission will hold a public hearing on Tuesday, Oct. 10 at 7:30 p.m. to consider the application of Ventianni, LLC to demolish two garden sheds at 144 Sandy Pond Rd.
DeCordova hosts after-school program, nursery school open house
The deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum is offering a new Art + Nature After School
drop-off program on five Thursdays for kids ages 7–11 from 3:30–5 p.m. starting on October 12 and running through November 9. Join artist and nature educator Ann Wynne this fall as we are inspired by five artists’ processes and visions. We will play, move, build, and see like outdoor sculptors. Click here to see the deCordova’s calendar of fall family programs.
The Lincoln Nursery School (LNS) in deCordova’s grounds will hold an open house on Saturday, Oct. 14 from 9–11 a.m. Tour the studios and play areas on deCordova’s campus and meet LNS faculty. For families with children ages 2.9 to kindergarten.
Open Studio library exhibit reception
There will be an artists’ reception at the Lincoln Public Library on Tuesday, Oct. 12 from 4:30–7 p.m. as part of the Lincoln Open Studio exhibit being shown in library’s main gallery until October 28. Offered through the Lincoln Parks and Recreation Department, Open Studio meets weekly for a five-hour block. The group welcomes newcomers of all skill levels and media (except turpentine-based oils). We meet during the school year on Thursdays from 9:30 a.m.–2:30 p.m. in Hartwell B-10. For more information, call Lincoln Parks and Recreation at 781-259-0784), or email Sarah Chester (schester636@gmail.com) or Joan Seville (joanseville1@gmail.com), and stop by at noon on Thursdays to say hello.
Apply for Lincoln Cultural Council grants
The Lincoln Cultural Council (LCC) invites applications for its 2017-18 grant cycle. Proposals for community-oriented arts, humanities, and science programs are due by Monday, Oct. 16. These grants support artistic projects and activities in Lincoln including exhibits, festivals, field trips, short-term artist residencies, performances in schools, workshops, and lectures. The Lincoln Cultural Council is especially interested in receiving grants to support performances and programs about local history and environmental issues.
The LCC is part of a network of 329 Local Cultural Councils serving 351 cities and towns in the Commonwealth. The state legislature provides an annual appropriation to the Massachusetts Cultural Council, which then allocates funds to each community. This year, the Lincoln Cultural Council will distribute about $4,400 in grants. Application forms and more information are available at www.mass-culture.org. For local guidelines and complete information on the LCC, contact council Chair Julie Dobrow at jdobrow111@gmail.com.
Residents plead for restricted access to Old Winter St.
Old Winter Street area residents showed up in force at a recent selectmen’s meeting to argue for a sign limiting rush-hour access to the road, but the board deferred a decision for a month to gather more data.
At issue is Old Winter Street, which northbound afternoon commuters sometimes use to “jump the queue” and bypass some of the traffic stopped on Winter Street where it meets Trapelo Road. Residents said this is dangerous for several reasons: drivers turning into Old Winter Street drive too fast, the road is very narrow, and cars sometimes back up on the road before it rejoins Winter Street, blocking driveways and creating two lines of stopped cars leading up to Trapelo Road.
The Roadway and Traffic Committee (RTC) made a recommendation to the Board of Selectmen in 2015 and again this summer to put a “No Left Turn 4 to 7 p.m.” sign on Winter Street northbound as it approaches the southern end of Old Winter Street for a six-month trial period. The board declined the request in 2015, saying that the town’s public roads are open to all and expressing concern about setting a precedent for similar situations in Lincoln.
Earlier this year, the RTC made the recommendation again. Selectmen didn’t make a decision in June pending a new memo from the RTC, but they were reluctant to reverse the decision of the previous board.
“If nothing has changed and we’re getting the same request again, it’s almost akin to judge-shopping or forum-shopping,” Selectman James Craig said at the time. He reiterated that sentiment on September 25, saying, “What’s changed other than the fact that we have three new members here and the neighborhood is hoping to get a different result?”
RTC chair Ken Bassett noted that his group had renewed the request “primarily because this committee tries to help neighborhoods when it can” and that the situation was unique in the sense that restricting access to Old Winter Street would not create a new problem elsewhere. “This is not a part of that network in the sense that it doesn’t take you any place new,” he said.
The issue is not so much one of excessive speed as traffic volume, Police Chief Kevin Kennedy said, adding that recent observations did not reveal a dramatic backup onto Old Winter Street.
But residents were not mollified, saying that police and the town’s traffic engineer had not focused on the southern intersection of the two roads.
Conditions have in fact changed in the last two years, said Mike McLaughlin of 5 Old Winter St. More people are using smartphone apps to find local roads that will help them avoid congestion, and there are also more young children on Old Winter Street.
“People will come flying off Winter Street as soon as they see a backup at that bump. I’ve had a bunch of near-misses. I hope to God my kid doesn’t have to be hit to be a safety issue,” he said.
“I’m kind of wondering what the event has to be. You really don’t want a ghost bike on my street,” said Chris Murphy of 34 Old Winter St.
The RTC has twice been “tasked with studying this thoroughly,” said Steve Atlas of 31 Old Winter St. As far as respect for the process, “I feel like we’ve done that here… If we kick it back a third time, I begin to wonder what this process means.”
“This needs to be looked at in a very careful way,” cautioned Peter Braun, one of the selectmen who voted in 2015 not to authorize the sign. The larger issue is traffic to and from businesses in Waltham. Years ago, the town succeeded in having Winter Street made a one-way street near the intersection with Old County Road, but at the same time, the state also deemed the latter to be a state road, which could come back to haunt the town.
“If we start monkeying around with the fragile beast of handling our volume of traffic, my concern is we’re asking for legal problems,” Braun said.
Traffic in town certainly needs to be considered on a macro level, but selectmen have traditionally deferred to the RTC on road safety and signage, such as the decision earlier this year to install two more stop signs at the intersection of Weston and Silver Hills Roads, observed Tim Christenfeld, who lives at 50 Old Winter St.
“Safety, I think, trumps everything as far as I’m concerned… if it’s a safety issue, we need to consider it, whether it’s been brought before a prior board or not,” Craig said. However, he and the other selectmen opted to ask for more detailed traffic data now that summer is over and decide on the matter at their October 30 meeting.
“Doing due diligence to get fresh information is not kicking the can down the road,” Craig said.
Other neighboring towns have installed no-turn restrictions, including Concord, which prohibits right turns from Route 2 eastbound onto Sandy Pond Road from 7–9 a.m., noted Jay Donnelly of 35 Old Winter Street. “Quite honestly, I’m ashamed that we continue to debate and have an inability to act, and other towns are acting on our behalf,” he said.
“I feel inclined to go forward with the experiment, but if there’s some useful data we can gather in a defined period of time and be very clear about deadline,” it would be acceptable, Selectmen Jennifer Glass said.
News acorns
“Aging in Nature” discussion on Friday
A two-part series titled “Aging in Nature: A Key to Our Well-Being” will begin with a panel discussion on Friday, Oct. 6 at 12:30 p.m. at Bemis Hall. Information about how and why access to nature is beneficial for older adults will be discussed by practitioners who will speak from both research-based and personal experiences. Panelists are Sophie Wadsworth, executive director of The Nature Connection in Concord; John Calabria, a certified wellness educator who teaches mindfulness yoga and spirituality; and Ellie Horwitz, the former chief of information and education at Massachusetts Fisheries & Wildlife for 35 years and a certified wildlife biologist and tai chi instructor.
A question-and-answer period will follow the presentations. Light refreshments will be provided by Newbury Court and Deaconess Abundant Life Services, which is co-sponsoring the program along with the Lincoln Land Conservation Trust, the Lincoln Council on Aging, and The Commons in Lincoln.
Part 2 of the program will consist of a series of “noticing” walks hosted by Calabria on three of Lincoln’s trails for adults who are 55+. Walks will take place at 1 p.m. on Tuesdays, Oct. 10, 17, and 24. Selected trails will be rated easy, will have ample parking, and will be posted to the Land Trust’s website at lincolnconservation.org.
Program commemorates Gandhi legacy
The First Parish in Lincoln and the India Discovery Center will cosponsor a panel discussion commemorating the birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi on Sunday, Oct. 15 from 2–4:30 p.m. at the Lincoln Public Library.
Honoring Gandhi and his civic and spiritual legacy of civil disobedience will be panelists C. Gopinath, professor of business management at Suffolk University; Rev. Manish Mishra-Marzetti, senior minister at the First Parish in Lincoln; and poet, educator and social activist Sajed Kamal. For more information, call Bijoy Misra at 781-259-0029.
Farnham replaces Buckland at next LOMA event
Karla Farnham will be the featured performer at the next LOMA (Lincoln Open-Mike Acoustic) on Monday, Oct. 16 from 7–10 p.m. in the Lincoln Public Library. Previously announced performer Eleanor Buckland had a last minute personal commitment.
Board approves study of DPW site
The 2014 study by the Planning Board identified four quadrants in South Lincoln as defined by the railroad tracks and Lincoln Road: (1) Codman Farm, (2) the mall, (3) Ridge Road, and (4) Lewis Street. Parcels in red are town-owned land.
The Board of Selectmen voted unanimously to authorize a study of the Department of Public Works site on Lewis Street that would look at options for repurposing the site as part of a potential South Lincoln rezoning effort.
Before the vote, several residents spoke against the study, fearing that the DPW will eventually be relocated to the transfer station site off Route 2A in North Lincoln.
Objections to the proposal by the South Lincoln Planning and Implementation Committee (SLPIC) first arose publicly over the summer. Residents expressed concern about the cost or cleaning up the DPW site, which is used for trucks, road equipment and school buses, as well as the environmental sensitivity of the transfer station site.
Gary Taylor, a member of SLPIC and the Planning Board, asked selectmen to authorize $9,800 to hire civil engineering firm Weston & Sampson to assess the DPW’s functions and needs as well as potential site consolidation (e.g., leaving the DPW on Lewis Street but shrinking its footprint to repurpose some of the land), opportunities for relocating some or all of its functions to another location, and the potential for combining resources for some DPW functions with neighboring towns or MassPort.
Lincoln’s 2010 master plan reiterates a 1999 recommendation to consider redeveloping the DPW site to support housing and commerce, and to “see if it makes sense to include the DPW site in efforts to rezone, revitalize and redevelop in South Lincoln,” Taylor said. The 2014 South Lincoln study also “identified an opportunity to create additional transportation-oriented housing by redeveloping the existing light industrial properties and relocating DPW garage,” he added.
“I think this is a very necessary due diligence as part of any thoughtful planning. I think you have to take a look at this four-acre parcel and see what all the options are,” said Selectman James Craig.
Oakdale Lane resident Keith Hylton repeated the concerns he voiced to the board in July about possible well water contamination from vehicles at the transfer station site and its proximity to the Minute Man National Historical Park (MMNHP). Weston recently built a new DPW faculty that cost $15 million, he said.
“Whatever site you look at, there’s got to be procedures for meaningful involvement by stakeholders early on,” Hylton added.
Some residents wondered why the amount requested was just under the $10,000 threshold that requires the town to solicit competitive bids. Meanwhile, others including MMNHP Resources Program Manager Margie Coffin Brown speculated that $9,800 might not be enough to do a thorough study of the DPW and alternative sites.
The study “really is all about whether or not the land could be put to better use and whether or not it’s feasible to relocate it or consolidate,” Taylor said. Any future rezoning proposal would come only after “a lot of further study” on costs and impacts, and would not occur for at least five to seven years, since the town faces major school and community center projects in the near future, he added.
Mother of driver in bike accident protests ‘ghost bike’
The mother of a teenage driver involved in one of two fatal bike accidents in 2016 vehemently protested plans last week to install a “ghost bike” at the Public Safety building.
Julie Lynch spoke a the Board of Selectmen meeting on September 25 about the pain that both families have gone through since the accident at the intersection of Bedford and Virginia Roads claimed the life of Westford resident Mark Himelfarb in August 2016. Details of the accident were not released while it was being investigated by local and state police and the district attorney’s office—a process that took 13 months before the DA’s office announced on September 12 that no charges would be filed.
The cyclist, while riding north on Virginia Road, “crossed over the yellow centerline deviating from the marked lanes of northbound travel and encroached upon the motorist’s path of travel,” according to the release, adding that the collision occurred in the southbound side of the road.
Shortly after the accident, Concord resident and cyclist Erik Limpaecher installed a “ghost bike” on his own initiative near the accident with a placard saying “M. Himelfarb, father of 2, 8-17-2016, Come to Full Stop,” according to an August 23, 2016 Globe article. Lincoln officials immediately removed the object because it was a safety hazard but also out of respect for the feelings of the driver, who was not at fault.
In June 2017, the family of the victim in the other 2016 accident, Eugene Thornberg, said they would create and donate a ghost bike to remind both motorists and bicyclists about the need to safely share the road. The monument will include a plaque with wording that is not specific to either accident.
But Lynch, the mother of the Virginia Road accident driver, tearfully protested to selectmen that ghost bikes serve to memorialize the bicyclists who are killed and neglect the feelings of the driver and his or her family, especially since the driver is often not at fault. (The Squirrel has also published this letter to the editor she originally submitted on September 23.)
“A middle-aged bicyclist broke the law” by crossing over the center line and striking the side of her daughter’s car, Lynch said. “It was traumatic, it was awful. My child performed CPR.”
Her daughter’s license was suspended while the investigation was ongoing, “and she spent her entire senior year making up excuses to her friends about why she couldn’t drive” because the family was told not to discuss the accident, Lynch added. “They treated her like a criminal for 13 months.
“From the information I’ve seen, most of the serious bike accidents are caused by the bicyclists, not the operators,” Lynch added. “We’re memorializing cyclist error.”
Lincoln “has really gone out of our way as a town and a police department” to be sensitive to all parties involved, Town Administrator Tim Higgins said. The ghost bike “is not meant as an editorial comment, it’s not meant as a memorial to any individual—it’s helping to educate the motoring public and the cycling public about the importance of safety.”
Lynch also objected to locating the ghost bike at the Lincoln Public Safety Building. When Higgins said that he had made sure the first ghost bike was quickly removed from the accident site, she cried, “She won’t drive that street any more—it doesn’t matter! But she does drive by the police station… Nobody talked to me about how she would feel about seeing a ghost bike but I think she deserved to be asked.”
“Your summary of the facts [of the accident] is spot on,” Higgins told Lynch. “We struggled with this issue to get the information out to the community. While the investigation was going on, we were not at liberty to reveal some of the details.”
The investigation into the Thornberg accident revealed that motorist was also not at fault. The bicyclist had pulled up alongside a row of traffic at a stoplight; just as the light turned green, he fell off his bike under the wheel of an stopped truck next to him and was killed when the truck moved forward.
Letter to the editor: driver and families are also victims in bike accidents
(Editor’s note: this letter was submitted to the Squirrel on September 23, two days before the writer spoke about the issue at a Board of Selectmen meeting.)
To the editor:
Last week as I was returning from driving my child to soccer, two middle-aged men drove their bicycles through the stop sign on Sandy Pond road into the five-way intersection. Before these bicyclists arrived at the intersection, I had stopped at the sign and began to proceed straight on Lincoln Road. Fortunately, I had been driving quite slowly and was able to stop again quickly so there was no collision. My child, who was in the car with me, yelled out the window, “There was a stop sign there.” Our family is intimately and painfully aware of the chaos, loss, and trauma bicycle collisions cause.
Last year, a bicyclist drove through a stop sign at a 90-degree intersection. He veered into the opposite side of the road, crossed the yellow line, lost control of his bicycle, and collided with the side of the car. Despite efforts to save him, he died immediately.
There were two families who were victims of this tragic accident: the bicyclist’s wife and children, and my family. I did not know this bicyclist, but over the past year, I have had many conversations with him in my mind. I wanted to be angry at him and tell him that what he did was unfair and irresponsible. I wanted to tell him that whatever joy he obtained from bicycling was not worth the enormous pain and loss he caused our families. When I have these thoughts, sadness and grief quickly overcome anger. From what I have read about the bicyclist, he was a very good human being, a responsible, loving, supportive father and husband. He simply made a mistake.
For several weeks after the accident, I walked to that turn and videotaped numerous bicyclists per hour drive through that stop sign, taking a wide turn and crossing the yellow line in the same manner that the bicyclist who died did.
I commend the Thornberg family for creating the ghost bicycle memorial. However, these memorials never recognize the pain and trauma that car drivers experience with such collisions.
Involvement in a fatal accident is traumatizing. Performing chest compressions on a person who has experienced blunt force trauma to his head is terrifying. You want so much for the person to live. When he doesn’t and when you learn that he left behind children who were the exact same ages as children in your family, it is extremely painful. These images are repeated in your head. You wake up in the middle of the night crying and screaming. You repeatedly ask yourself whether there was anything you could have done to save him.
The psychological trauma is made worse by the evening news, which had a headline, “Bicyclist Struck, Killed by SUV in Massachusetts.” Initial statements from the media and district attorney’s office lacked any knowledge of the facts and immediately sought to assign blame to the driver of the car.
In addition to the psychological trauma, there is the chaos that such accidents impose on the driver’s life and her family members. In accidents that involve a fatality, the driver’s car is automatically impounded and the driver’s license is suspended until the state police can complete the accident reconstruction report, which usually takes at least 10 months. In our family’s case, it took 13 months for the district attorney’s office to notify us that the state police accident reconstruction report clearly found that the car driver was not at fault and no charges would be pursued.
I have spoken to bicyclists about this tragedy and our family’s trauma. They have explained that quite often, the state of mind of the cyclist is to minimize events that cause them to lose speed or momentum—which clearly, obeying stop signs does. Evidence from the speedometer that the bicyclist was wearing indicated that his average speed was 14 miles per hour and maximum speed was 31 miles per hour, which was the same approximate speed that cars drive on the road where the accident occurred. Yet bicycle drivers are not required to be licensed or insured.
If bicyclists who died were here today, I wonder what they would say or do to change the number of families who are traumatized by fatal bicycle collisions. The eyes of the bicyclist who died last year will forever be in the mind of the person who tried to save his life.
I ask the families of deceased bicyclists, the Lincoln community, and current bicyclists to expand their concept of ghost bicycle memorials to include two children, to represent the family who lose their parent to fatal bicycle collisions, and another figure to represent the person who tries to save the bicyclist’s life. Often, this will be the driver of the car. Such recognition may make the ghost bicycle memorial less traumatizing for the driver of the car.
Sincerely,
Julie Lynch
5B South Commons
Letters to the editor must be signed with the writer’s name and street address and sent via email to lincolnsquirrelnews@gmail.com. Letters will be edited for punctuation, spelling, style, etc., and will be published at the discretion of the editor. Letters containing personal attacks, errors of fact or other inappropriate material will not be published.