Erick Guerra, Harvard University, Graduate School of Design

Transportation and housing

Working with the City of Somerville’s Office of Strategic Planning & Community Development, I wrote scopes of work to access $1.4 million in federal earmark and did research into funding opportunities, which I prepared for presentations for the City.  As an outsider, I was able to keep from getting swamped by the sheer volume of work that occurs in that office.  I made sure to dedicate half of my time to working on a scope of work for $1 million to hire consultants for the City of Somerville.  When I arrived, there was an idea of how the money was to be spent but I was given a lot of liberty to refine, narrow and even change the scope.  In the end, I focused on three different projects an access road to the Inner Belt District, a study about lowering the McGrath Highway and a study on how to use infrastructure improvements to leverage economic development in Somerville.  While I wrote the scopes of work for all three projects, I became most involved in the Inner Belt Access, made decisions about how to direct the study and prepared a planning document to catalogue my thinking and to provide information to City officials and consultants.

Through this document and the scopes of work, I hope that the City of Somerville is in a better position to move forward with its planning projects and to make good decisions about how to achieve the overarching goal of improving quality of life in Somerville.