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Newmarket Square business owners, residents: Violence is out of control, we need help from city and governor - and Quincy needs to knock it off with the legal nonsense over Long Island

Sue Sullivan speaks

Sue Sullivan speaks as residents wearing "Build the Bridge" shirts listen.

It was bad enough when the Long Island Bridge shut and even more drug addicts began congregating in the area of Mass and Cass, Sue Sullivan said. But now, the area has become a haven for drug sellers and people quick to settle a beef with a knife or gun, the head of the Newmarket Business Association says.

Sullivan, local business owners and nearby residents from Roxbury and the South End gathered for a press conference today on Southampton Street, across from the city shelter and Atkinson Street, which have become a vortex for violence, they said. So far this year, Sullivan said, there have been two murders - one outside the shelter, one at Mass and Cass - along with ten stabbings and one shooting.

Sullivan and residents said the neighborhood, where Roxbury, Dorchester and the South End meet just north of the South Bay Mall, is becoming near unlivable - City Council candidate Domingos Darosa said residents now try to drive elsewhere to shop, rather than go to South Bay and residents have to keep close watch on where their children play to make sure they don't get stuck with a discarded needle.

Brian Maloney, owner of Middlesex Truck & Coach, a truck-repair garage on Gerard Street, said he's having growing trouble attracting help because nobody wants to work in the area.

The business owners and residents called on the city to provide short-term answers to drive down the violence and longer-term solutions that would include getting even more housing and help for the addicts. They called on Gov. Baker to get involved as well, in part by using part of the Shattuck Hospital campus in Jamaica Plain for new facilities.

And they said it's time for the city of Quincy to stop trying to halt reconstruction of the bridge to Long Island, so the city can re-open that facility - one that would be available to people who need help from across the Boston area, including Quincy.

Darosa posted video of the press conference.

As the press conference was winding down, police headed onto Southampton Street, where somebody who was very unsteady on his feet wandered from around the corner on Atkinson Street:

Man been aided back onto the sidewalk

They guided him back to the sidewalk, where two EMTs soon arrived to try to help him.

>The view down Atkinson Street:

Atkinson Street
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Comments

If trouble happens outside of a bar or restaurant, they are held accountable.

I realize that methadone clinics, shelters and needle exchanges have a much different mission than bars.

But there still seems to be some parallel that they (or the government agencies that support them) should acknowledge that their location -and clientele- is at the root of the problem for these business owners and area residents.

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It's a completely different situation. Bars and restaurants (well, most of them anyway) are not deliberately inviting the most problematic patrons to their establishment in order to serve them, and when a patron becomes too problematic or unruly they can ask them to leave, and if the bar doesn't manage their patrons we can shut them down and no one is really the worse for wear. None of those things is true here.

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This health crisis needs all cities and towns to email and call the governor’s office for real change to happen. 617-425-4005 or https://www.mass.gov/forms/email-the-governors-office

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And stop shipping your problems up to Boston.

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Why should Quincy house the unwanted? Why not Boston? Why not Cambridge? Why not Milton?

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Quincy wouldn't be housing anything, Long Island is the City of Boston.

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For finally getting this issue back into the public sphere.

And shame on Quincy. Blocking the bridge is even worse than NIMBYism -- there's literally no impact, other than slightly increased traffic, from re-activating the facilities on Long Island.

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A ferry could be operating in a month.

A bridge could be built in 3 - 5 years. Maybe.

Which approach addresses the problem?

"there's literally no impact, other than slightly increased traffic, from re-activating the facilities on Long Island."

I would agree if Boston would limit development to treatment facilities and related development.

Why won't Boston agree to limit development?

The bridge isn't about addiction treatment, it is all about real estate development.

Boston has Long Island designated as an "Opportunity Zone" and would cover the island with luxury condos and hotels.

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doesn’t allow drugs or people under the influence of drugs on watercraft. And any licensed captain would not allow it.

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When it was operational Long Island had a Boston Fire Dept. "brigade" on the island in the event fire broke out. Their primary function was evacuation and rescue and fire suppression, or at least the beginnings of that. Their official designation was Engine 54 but later renamed "Brigade." The function was to be on site and start fire operations until apparatus and help arrived from Quincy. Yes, Quincy would be the first units in with those from Boston following as best as possible.

When the bridge stopped working safety was compromised because apparatus could not get in. So a ferry may get people on and off the island but it does not address evacuation to a hospital or fire fighting operations. So the bridge will be necessary for it to fully reopen.

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Yes, planning and foresight would be essential with either a bridge or a ferry.

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Walsh has openly said his only intentions were to build a bridge for the treatment center And that further development would need to be approved by both Quincy and Boston.
Also using a ferry for emergency services is pretty impractical

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Put that in writing.

Why won't Boston agree to that in writing?

Because real estate developers won't make any money

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Are you the guy who shrink wrapped their boat off of Wollaston a few years ago with a Koch sign?

Wouldn't it have been great if Quincy put as much effort into "finding" who killed Chris McCallum as they have fighting this bridge?

I mean, it takes a lot to cover up the names of two guys with familial ties to the QPD even though there were multiple witnesses and everyone knew who they were. Yet somehow the indictments got announced on the afternoon of election day in order to bury the news over 10 months after everyone knew who did it. Funny that.

Quincy isn't your dirtbag little brother, but it sure has a lot of dirtbags in the local government. Quincy is that little dog in the cartoon jumping up and down behind the big dog who is just walking down the street.

https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2019/11/06/two-brothers-pleaded-not-gu...

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Intellectually challenged people seem to revert to name calling because their arguments lack substance.
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Just sayin'.........
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ya know.

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Ya Know.

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I've been called worse,.
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........ and by people who weren't little pukes.

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If housing for the general population was built on Long Island, that would also have the only cost be some increased traffic, although admittedly quite a bit more. We need far more housing in Boston and Quincy, so that everyone who wants to live here can live here. It's not exactly the most connected part of Boston so you'd have to do more to set up public transportation (ironically a ferry would be very useful then, although as a supplement to the bridge), but if more people led to intolerable traffic, people wouldn't move in in the first place.

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If anything, the island should be open to the public, never to be developed for real estate.

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Imm all for moving them but to Shattuck . No way, we already have the halfway house, juvi and the pedophiles that go to the Shattuck for treatment. NO THANKS

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Sue Sullivan and others have been asking for help to no avail. Mayor walsh told the car wash back in 2016 to remove their Welcome to Hamsterdam sign. Yet now we have the huge billboard at Mass and Cass touting cannabis. No one really seems to care except the little people. City government, public health agencies and hospitals just turn a blind eye. Cowards and greedy. The area keeps expanding now stretching from Nubian Sq to Andrew Sq. The police have been told to stand down unless there is murder and mayhem. Keep the pressure on Sue and Domingos

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Cannabis isn't the issue here - not sure why you bring it up. And no - it isn't a gateway drug.

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The closure of Long Island ripples throughout our region.

Sullivan is right, they are a hot spot, but its elsewhere. Now that Long Island isn't open and its now unsafe to hang down in Newmarket Square during the day, they go elsewhere.

Someone last week on here or social media was complained how the T installed bars on the benches inside Davis station. Yeah I agree anti-homeless.. but I know why. I work in the area and Davis square is a very different place during the day these days. Used to be the daytime locals (old people, fixed income people, moms, kids) in the park and in the stores. And at night it would switch to the yuppie/hipsters crowd after they get home from work.

Now.. not so much. The Park right in the square now is a haven for drug us. Overheard 2 drug deals last week, and some woman getting all in a tizzy because she was sold some bunk shit (no joke). They all hang out in the square and inside the T station. Before the bars went up, lots of people were sleeping on the platform the day.

And while its important to be sympathetic to people who are in need, on the same token, I can't help notice this too. (and be annoyed)

And i go to work for refuge because my street in Chelsea has the same issues, except its all the time now. At night, the number of fist fights and screaming matches is pretty much nightly occurrences. The dealers and users seem to come out earlier and earlier. Used to be when the sunset, they came out... now its hours before that. And even during the day.

Went to dunks last week around 2pm to get a coffee, saw a drug deal go down. Got my coffee, walked back the same way, and the girl was all slumped in a corner with gear just out there. She was higher than a kite and couldn't stand.

Call the police you say? HAHAHA I do. After 10 years, they are sick of me, so I don't. The uptick is so much I would call every hour all evening. They don't do anything anyways, I've been able to identify the drug dealer by face (and address!!) for over 2 years and he's still selling so.. yeah they don't wanna fix the problem. And considering Rose N all, they don't care about us only themselves and their "brothers".

So yeah its an everywhere problem.... the closure of Long Island has rippled thru our entire region.

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The closure of Long Island ripples throughout our region.

No, the refusal to replace the services previously provided on Long Island with even adequate services elsewhere ripples through our region.

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Southie needs to get in this fight too. Where is everyone? The transients and drugs flow over the bridge into Andrew Square, and scatter themselves throughout the neighborhood. Don't think it won't reach City Point if nobody speaks up and supports Andrew Square, South End, Roxbury.
That means Charlie Baker and the state reps, not only City Council and Mayor need to answer for this. Who decided that whole neighborhoods in Boston were OK to double as a dumping ground for the state's drug addiction problem?

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The methadone mile is the fastest growing neighborhood in the city. MBTA trains and stations have become a moving asylum and ridership will never return. Quincy will not let the bridge be built so either ship the worst of the worst south on the red line or commandeer the empty commuter boats and ship those who need services to Long Island which is safer and easier to police.

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Maybe if the city of Quincy would prefer not to have the bus traffic through their neighborhood streets they could instead open a facility of their own rather than sticking Boston with the entire burden.

Just a thought...

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The Commonwealth can stop ignoring the problem and build the damn the bridge. It should be a state construction program and the state should take any municipal land needed to get the bridge built.

This isn't a City of Boston problem. It's an Eastern Massachusetts problem.

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I entirely agree. Eastern MA is constantly unable to solve the most basic issues due to the fragmentation of geography into fairly small municipalities who refuse to cooperate.

Housing affordability, homelessness, etc. It's so maddening that we can't get anything done to improve life for all because each municipality wants to pass responsibility to literally anyone else.

We need to fundamentally re-think our governance structure.

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They have a facility it’s called Fr. Bill’s. People can take the Red Line there.

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How many people does it serve?

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85 to 100+ nightly. There are also a number of treatment facilities including AdCare and VOA in the downtown Quincy area, Salvation Army, Northeast Addicts Treatment Center,. . . .

https://helpfbms.org/

To say Quincy isn't doing its part is just ignorance but I guess if people insist on being a tool for real estate developers you can't stop them.

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I was going to post these. They have not stepped in the city of Quincy lately. Even before the bridge went down, Quincy Center was filled with homelessness

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Father Bill's is seriously underfunded, and a true drug rehab site. Source: Have worked with them for years.

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To say people can take the Red Line to Father Bill's is about as accurate as saying people can take the Red or Orange lines to Newmarket.

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Directions:

From the MBTA. About .8 miles or 7 minutes on the bus, 15 minutes walking.

Quincy Center (view alert)
Connect to the Bus
Take the 214/216 Outbound towards Houghs Neck via Germantown 1:53 PM
Coddington St @ Southern Artery1:57 PM
Depart onto Coddington Street
Right onto Southern Artery
Left onto service road
Left onto Broad Street
Father Bills, Broad Street, Quincy, MA, USA2:00 PM

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The statement, genius, was that people could take rapid transit (the Red Line) to Father Bill's.
Since you don't seem to grasp my reply, I'll explain it - They can't. The Red Line doesn't go to Father Bill's.
Yes, people can walk the intervening kilometer from Quincy Center Station or take a local bus to get them very close, which is NOT THE SAME THING.
As comparison, the Red and Orange Lines don't go to Methadone Mile, but people can walk or take a nearby bus the 1 kilometer from Andrew Square Station to Methadone Mile or 1.5 km from Mass Ave Station to Methadone Mile.

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Quincy has a shelter too

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I have a hard time seeing how maintaining a large, expensive bridge, that the state and city already failed to maintain once is the most reasonable solution to this problem.

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And you do realize that every bridge needs maintenance. Should we just go back to fording rivers?

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Building the infrastructure on the mainland. Bridges that do not exist do not need maintenance.

Building a bridge to Long Island because 5,000 people now live there? Sure go for it if the tax revenue from the property can make it happen. Building a bridge to facilitate addiction treatment when the bridge dollars can be spent on get this, treatment, doesn't make much sense. It is a waste of treatment money.

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Am I going to see you down at the statehouse lobbying for this money to be spent on mental health and drug treatment facilities on the mainland?

Are you going to fight off the NIMBY contingent in your town when it comes to siting that facility?

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We already have treatment facilities here in my neighborhood.

$100 million can pay for a whole lot of treatment.

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And are the public or private? Fully accessible or country club?

The reality is that we need public treatment facilities in every community. Barring that, we need a facility like Long Island - accessible, but reasonably set away so people can get clean enough to stay clean.

Nice theory that you have that this can all be done "somewhere" other than Long Island. Identify the location already. Put in the lobbying time.

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Nice theory that you have that paying $100 million for a bridge is somehow the best way to spend treatment money.

You do you I guess.

It sure is too bad the city and state were such negligent stewards of the existing bridge.

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The bridge is only unnecessary if you have a better idea where such comprehensive treatment facilities should go.

Which you do not. All you have offered here is that "my neighborhood does enough already", which sounds like those people in Weston who didn't want a bike trail because "we already let people from other towns drive on our roads".

And that, my friend, is the problem: nobody wants to pay for a bridge, but everybody rejects the idea of having these facilities located anywhere else.

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A ferry could be operating in a few weeks and Quincy had offered to pay for half.

Even if Quincy dropped opposition to the bridge, it wouldn't be built for 3-5 years.

Is 3-5 years for a solution good enough for you?

A ferry would work in a month.

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And it isn't a ferry, for reasons that have been stated over and again.

Listen next time this is explained to you - a ferry isn't going to work.

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No one has been able to give a reasonable answer as to why a ferry won't work. They run them all over the world including the Scandinavian countries, northern Russia, and Canada.

Yes you might miss a day occasionally and you need to plan ahead for medical emergencies.

Ferry - Running in a month

Bridge - 3-5 years maybe if it is built.

To go with the bridge shows a complete lack of care for the victims of addiction and the neighborhoods impacted.

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Would a ferry solve 100% of the problems for 100% of the people 100% of the time? No. Is the status quo OK? No. Can we wait 3 to 5 years? No.

The ferry is very good. While everyone waits for the "perfect" bridge, let's get Long Island back open with perfectly OK ferries.

(I am not "G", even though we both are taking the same position.)

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We are going to take people already on the far side of the moon from a mental health point for the most part and stick them on a rocking ocean going vessel?

Good luck with that. Have you ever been on the Hingham Ferry on a windy winter evening? The EMTs would run out of tranq darts before it ever left the dock.

Also, Norway builds infrastructure for things like this. They have tunnels that go to rural islands with a few dozen people on them. Don't drag Norway into your Nimbyism.

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Cape Hatteras to Ocracoke Island, North Carolina
Tacoma to Vashon Island, Washington
Manhattan to Staten Island, New York
Alaska Marine Highways
Jamestown to Scotland Wharf, Virginia

Just a few other places outside of Norway where ferries are used extensively.

All in the Good Ole USA!

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Just to widen Dorchester Street in Squantum to six lanes and put up enough concrete along the side to give every Allston street artist a mandated graffiti area from Ayers Collision all the way to the Moon Island guardhouse.

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What real estate interest do you work for John?

Just curious.

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I can be convinced that the bridge is a reasonable expenditure. I cannot be convinced that it is a reasonable expenditure for the exclusive use of a treatment facility.

Use it to open up the island to development and reopening the treatment facilities? Go for it. Use it to connect Quincy and Winthrop with a bus/bike route (and another bridge), I'm intrigued, lets look at it.

Using 100m for one exclusive use? No, its ridiculous.

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"Use it to open up the island to development and reopening the treatment facilities?"

That is what Quincy is opposing. They don't want a RESIDENTIAL neighborhood ruined to make millions for Marty's Real Estate Development friends.

Limit development to treatment facilities and turn the rest of the island into parkland available to ALL.

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I agree, they shouldn't develop long island, but there's a Marina a few blocks from the bridge. The "RESIDENTIAL" neighborhood is a busy waterfront residential neighborhood. It's also the same neighborhood that had the working bridge attached to it 7 years ago.

You have a reasonable request (ensure it is a treatment facility). Don't dilute it by pretending that the poor people of Squantum will be ruined if anything else happens.

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Development? Absolutely not. Part of the BHI’s cannot be developed.

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Long Island is not part of the National Park System and is available for development.

For that matter, the COB has actively encouraged development and has Long Island designated as an "Opportunity Zone".

It is zoned B-1, general business.

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Genuine question, why can't facilities be built out in Western Mass? You still get that isolation factor, so people aren't going to treatment, walking outside, and getting accosted by their dealer immediately. Seems like Metro Boston, including Quincy, gets to be the dumping ground for the whole goddamn state and most of VT/NH/ME too. Maybe some of the rural areas could volunteer so these people have a calm, peaceful, away from it all area to get clean.

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Remember when people complained about Operation Clean Sweep?

Pepperidge Farm remembers

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It is ENTIRELY possible to oppose the fundamentally ineffective brutalizing of people without anywhere else to go and without any defense against their ineffective brutalization and still demand that something EFFECTIVE be done about the problem.

I know that might be hard for a mere demon to process, but please do try.

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Blasting through and cracking skulls almost never works especially when nothing is different afterward.

Clean Sweep was the BPD lashing out in a childish way to show they were superior to a group of people that doesn't care if the police are superior or not. It was like punching a child for peeing their pants.

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at Marty’s confirmation hearing?

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So if the US pays for the new bridge are we cool Quincy?

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Building the bridge was never about treating addicts. Marty wanted the bridge rebuilt to help his real estate developer supporters. Long Island is listed as an "Opportunity Zone". Marty's supporters had visions of luxury condos and luxury hotels, after the Olympics fell through.

A ferry could be operating in a few weeks and Quincy has offered to pay for half. Why is there no response from Boston?

Why won't Boston agree to limit development to addiction treatment and mental health facilities so that a RESIDENTIAL neighborhood in Squantum won't be overrun with traffic. Because real estate developers can't make money with that.

MARTY"S METHADONE MILE
is not Quincy's fault.

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A handfull of buses a day that ran for decades BEFORE the bridge closed = "overrun with traffic".

Are you going to demand that schools remain closed to in-person attendance because all those kids on buses will cause a traffic apocolypse?

Get the smelling salts, and the fainting couch. Poor poor poor "g" has the vapors!

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If the island were developed, there would be a lot more traffic. Many people living there would drive.

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"A ferry could be operating in a few weeks and Quincy has offered to pay for half. Why is there no response from Boston?"

Wow , if this is true , it needs to happen now. Marty's gone. What do you say, Mayor Janey?

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Marty is gone.

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But his "Mile" will never be forgotten.

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It was there before him, it just got worse.

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As of December, Quincy was still denying permits on environmental grounds.

Methadone Mile is not Quincy's fault, but they are doing everything they can to help make it worse.

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Agree to limit development to treatment facilities and have the rest of the island as parkland and the bridge will be built, . . . . . .'bout 7 years ago.

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I really hate all the traffic that clogs up RESIDENTIAL streets of Dorchester coming from the south. I think we should tear it, the Granite Ave and Lower Mills bridges down so that all those people creating traffic on our surface roads have to drive across Quincy to Milton and get on the expressway. Of course that's only a stopgap measure, I don't like highway traffic either so I'm going to get that shut down next and you can take a ferry into Boston if you need to.

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Careful what you wish for,. . . . . . . . . you might get it.

You may not have noticed how empty most of the downtown and many neighborhoods have been lately.

There is a word that businesses use for all of those people.

Customers.

Without them, city services can't be paid for and your taxes will go through the roof.

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These issues aren't going anywhere. I've worked in human services for 21 years, and as a public health social worker since 2012. I'm in recovery myself, spending the mid-00s in and out of treatment, living with my parents, and ultimately on the street. My last episode of treatment was from November 4, 2008-June 1st of 2009. I went through the detox, TSS, halflway house continuum, before finding a get well job, subletting a room in an apartment, and then ultimately going back to school. I couldn't have done any of that if I was ensnared in this quagmire of bureaucracy and a fundamental lack of people in recovery having a major voice as to how we approach supporting folks in recovering from addiction, mental health, and homelessness. I frankly don't understand how anyone is able to "get back on their feet" once ending up on Mass/Cass.

Rebuilding the bridge to long island has some benefits (to everyone except people who have moved to Quincy/Squantum, and who would have to deal with the return of drug dealing/crime/ODs that impacted Quincy up until 2014) - we remove a major concentration of active users, street pharmacy entrepreneurs, and potential victims of violence/robbery, as well as alleviating some of triggers to relapse that shelter-based individuals must deal with should they be working to maintain abstinence. It certainly benefits residents of the surrounding neighborhoods, and likely has a positive impact on connected communities that are dealing with the kinds of overflow that @cybah mentioned in a prior comment.

It is not nearly enough.

The currently identified locations:
Long Island
Shattuck

Both good options, to start certainly. They're both in desperate need of renovation, and would probably be deemed brownfield/superfund sites if they were demo'd. The amount of asbestos in the tunnels under Long Island and contained within vacant parts of the Shattuck would need to be dealt with. That said, they're publicly owned and have served these purposes before. Both have some degree of removal from immediate urban core and remove some of the burden on residential neighborhoods, without being too far away from transportation options.

In identifying other locations to offer services, a few ideas come to mind:

1) Vacant Hotels impacted by CoVID

2) Vacant properties - I'm certainly not an expert on buildings, but there may be possible options located within the city limits https://www.boston.gov/sites/default/files/embed/d/distressedbuildings_p...

3) Vacant properties - state owned - If I'm not mistaken, some currently unoccupied properties which formerly housed psychiatric hospitals/developmental schools/etc.
-Fernald State School - Waltham
-Medfield State Hospital
-Westborough State Hospital (This may be in development, it's been a bit since I've been out to it, and i know that many of the remaining structures were being demolished)
-Belchertown State School
-Grafton State Hospital (currently has job core in a couple of the buildings, remainder I believe are still disused)
-Taunton State Hospital (inactive parts) and/or Paul Dever State School grounds (also mostly demo'd, though unclear what the property was ultimately converted to if at all)
-North Truro Naval Air Station - Much of it is disused, some programming for cape cod center for the arts takes place out there, though lots of crumbling officers housing and other buildings formerly used by the military
-Southfield/Weymouth Air Station - large swaths of this property remain unusued (except when Markie Mark was shooting Patriots Day) - there is already an existing residential program run by Bay Cove called New Hope that houses 60 people in 1 of the former officers barracks
-Malden Hospital
-New England Regional Medical Center in Stoneham

Additionally, as the motion picture industry is adjusting to life following covid, potentially looking at unused movie theatres or shopping malls as we continue to see the inevitable death of the American retail experience.

Once you get out past 495, there are a whole mess of disused commercial lots with little interest in development.

-I believe you need long-term residential treatment programming, that is outside of the urban core, and that incorporates elements of traditional recovery/12-step programming, Maintenance therapies such as methadone/buprenorphine/naltrexone, vocational rehabilitation programming, and community focused initiatives aimed at creating local partnerships with municipalities where people who are in recovery can become contributing members of those towns.

This MUST be a Massachusetts issue, not a Boston issue. While the city has responsibility to address this issue, there are plenty of people down at Mass and Cass who have never called Boston their city of residence. People get shipped down there from all parts of the state, or end up there because of the lack of treatment programs elsewhere.

Further, there must be a review of how things like Section 35 can be used in the 21st century. As it currently stands, it's woefully challenging for treatment providers to utilize, and the option to use is tied to the courts/criminal justice system. It's an antiquated solution from a time long before fentanyl and, really, before homelessness. Up until the closure of the state hospitals, homelessness was negligible. By the 1980s, it started to attract attention due to the increasing numbers of unhoused individuals, particularly those with mental health and addictions issues. As those folks left the hospitals that were closed throughout the later part of the 20th century (by BOTH liberals and conservatives), the only system left to pick up the pieces was the prison system. This creates a cycle that becomes almost impossible to extract ones self from.

People need hope, and they need well funded programs. Residents and businesses deserve to feel safe in their neighborhoods, to not have to clean up where the city/state have fallen short. That said, it's an incredibly complex issue, with a simple solution: pathways to recovery that people actually want to utilize, that give people a clear path out of the hopelessness. We aren't even close to offering that to nearly enough people.

TLDR: Utilize vacant property across the state, convert into modern residential treatment programming, teach people how to become members of the community again. Stop the cycle of trauma, and it's impact on our communities.

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My brother has been in and out of psych wards for the last ten years ( not Drug or alcohol related) and he always ends up back in the hospital since there isn't a program for him to go to after he leaves the hospital. It's scary how overflowing our emergency rooms are right now with various mental health patients ( my brother is currently at Faulkner with 10-20 others in the ER that have been there for over a week). We should really consider a new " state hospital" system to house and treat patients with a strategy other than Pharmaceuticals. This is one of the largest and most negative impacts on our country :(

I'm in support of raising taxes to help pay for more public services as this issue will likely get worse before it gets better and cost lots of businesses to lose money.

A new bridge to an island facility is only addressing a small fraction of the issue that's multiplied exponentially due to Covid.

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I live near Andrew Square and I see the addicts everyday. I think the biggest (and legitimate) fear on Quincy's part is the potential for high end development on Long Island. The reality of it is that once a bridge is built and a treatment facility is up and running; how long would it be before developers come in and make a play for building some kind of luxury resort?
We all know it would just be a matter of time and then the reemergence of "The Methadone Mile" would make itself known. Probably back in the Newmarket/Mass & Cass area. The reality is a ferry would be alright for a crowd that wasn't battling drug abuse. I don't see that being a safe and viable option for people looking for treatment.
I don't know what the answer is or what the outcome will be. But I'll hazard a guess that in the end the moneyed interests will prevail.

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Why don’t they put the bridge on the ballot like they did with that encore monstrosity

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