Cambridge Council Orders Garden Street Two-Way Traffic Study by April 2025

CAMBRIDGE — December 9, 2024 — Cambridge City Council votes 9-0 to study restoring Garden Street to two-way automobile traffic. The unanimous December 9 vote amended a policy order sponsored by Councilor Paul Toner, who said he had spent nearly two years hearing consistent complaints that the 2022 one-way conversion had pushed traffic from Garden Street onto narrow residential side streets including Raymond, Buckingham, and Appleton. More than 50 of 83 registered public speakers urged restoration; City Manager Yi-An Huang warned of trade-offs including the loss of roughly half of the street's current 32 parking spaces and longer signal cycles at the Garden-Huron-Sherman intersection. As amended, the order directs the city to return with analysis and implementation options "as soon as possible but no later than April 1, 2025" — the earliest season for permanent lane markings in any case. The council also voted 9-0 to reaffirm Cambridge's sanctuary city status ahead of the incoming Trump administration, with Vice Mayor Marc McGovern warning that the president-elect was "talking about birthright citizenship" and deporting entire mixed-status families, and unanimously passed a resolution congratulating 230 Cambridge Health Alliance physicians and clinicians on filing for union certification with SHARE/AFSCME.