CRWA quoted in Harvard Crimson Re: I-90 Project

Earlier this month CRWA Senior Climate Resilience Associate, Dira Johanif, was quoted in the Harvard Crimson about Allston residents’ reactions to MassDOT’s controversial I-90 Multimodal Project. “Dira Johanif, who works on climate resilience issues for the CRWA, said the designs from the Massachusetts Department of Transportation “show risk of flooding for 2050 and 2070,” and in the event of a storm event, part of the I-90 will get flooded.”  The article noted that CRWA also believes the current design will lead to increased polluted stormwater runoff, heat island, and insufficient parkland.

The project is currently on hold awaiting federal funding, and community members have strong feelings about the designs. CRWA has long advocated for lane reduction and other creative ideas to reduce negative impacts on the Charles River from this project. Dira was able to reiterate that MassDOT’s designs do not appropriately address flood risks and that in a storm event, part of I-90 will be flooded.

Our 2022 comment letter to the Massachusetts EPA office goes into more detail about our analysis and our concerns about the current design’s failure to prevent excess stormwater runoff and what that means for river pollution.