Feds OK stripped down Green Line Extension plan

That's still part of the plan. Lechmere will be relocated to the other side of McGrath (or is it O'Brien there? I can never remember at what point it's called what. Eh, let's just call it 28).

In the latest plan I've seen, they're keeping the path extension from Lowell St to McGrath Highway and dropping the "skyway" portion along/over McGrath. In this image, keeping the red part and dropping the yellow.

However there's a separate plan to "Boulevardize" McGrath which includes a bike path.

The skyway sounds awesome and I would definitely use it, but I can understand why they'd see such an expensive project as less critical if there's a reasonable alternative.

The revised plan for the Community Path has it terminating at Washington St in Somerville.

The portion dropped was from there to Lechmere, which is unfortunate because THAT's the portion of the route that could really benefit from an off-street path. From Davis to Union there are several on-street routes (with bike lanes) that are better cycling routes than a lot of roads around here already, yet that portion will be paralleled by the Community Path extension. Then I guess from Washington St they expect people to switch back to the traditional, harrowing route - McGrath to Medford St, then cut over to Cambridge St. The portion they're keeping doesn't provide any useful missing connection like the cut portion did.

As a Somerville bike commuter, I'm not too bummed out though, because I wasn't that happy with the initial plan, or the Community Path as a whole. There's not enough separation between bikes and pedestrians, which would have been even worse on the narrower, enclosed, concrete thing the GLX proposed. Just take a look at the Dr Paul Dudley White bike path along the Esplanade on a summer day - good luck biking on that! Too crowded with pedestrians to ever go more than a walking speed. The existing Community Path is already very difficult to safely bike on. And even with it going all the way to Lechmere, that still left a gap crossing the Charles. That crossing is always either congested, which results in bikes either lane splitting between cars, stuck in traffic with cars, or riding on the sidewalk, or when it's free-flowing, downright harrowing. No matter how many signs they put up, drivers do not want to respect cyclists' right to the full travel lane, and traffic speeds are uncomfortably high for biking in mixed traffic.

As much as I supported the Community Path, I'm honestly not too upset, because I hope its omission from the plan will prod Boston, Cambridge, and Somerville to work together to fill in the missing link across the Charles some other way, that will quite likely end up a better deal for cyclists in the end (like Boston is eventually doing with the Charlestown Bridge).

Try taking the "amazing" Silver Line from South Station to Dudley Square (SL4) during rush hour--you know that "other" Silver Line that nobody wants to talk about when mentioning how "great" it's been for the City. On the Chinatown end, you can sit through 3+ lights just to make the turn from Essex Street (last/first stop) onto Atlantic Avenue. On the Roxbury end, between cars blowing the red light at Melnea Cass Boulevard, potholes that slow everybody down and general driver stupidity, it can take over ten minutes just to get from Melnea Cass Boulevard Station to Dudley Station. Bus "rapid" transit!