Dear Editor,
The Global Gas Station / restaurant project proposed for the corner of Lowell and West Street has unified a neighborhood in opposition.
You only need to drive through the area to see the public demonstration of disapproval with all the houses displaying signs in opposition. As the ground-swell of residents and taxpayers are making their opposition known – Global and its paid advocates are trying to put their better spin on the project.
Global claims to be a good corporate citizen and promises to be a good neighbor – but if their introduction to our community is any indication of how they will treat Wilmington residents – they are off to a rocky start.
As part of the planning board review, Global was required to produce a traffic study for the Town of Wilmington. However, according to an independent peer review done by Green International – their report was filled with deliberate errors and/or omissions.
The biggest issue was with the crash data that they provided – in fact, Global tried to under report the number of crashes by nearly 42%. Green International reports that their “review of the MassDOT crash data from 2010-2014 indicates 74 crashes occurred during the study period, significantly higher than the 43 crashed indicated by“ the Global study. It appears Global is aware of the dangers of this intersection and the surrounding area, but chose to use numbers that made it look safer – putting their development and profit ahead of the the safety of our families and residents.
In addition, Global tried to gloss over the traffic congestion in this area by using outdated data. Again, the peer review states Global used data from 2005 – 2009 which “is not the most current data available” for their traffic volume assessment. Even with the old data, Global has not proposed any traffic improvements from Lucci’s Supermarket to the intersection of West and Lowell Streets. A truthful and accurate review of the traffic volume and accident data would demonstrably show that this the most dangerous and congested area that would need remediation. Again, this is either gross incompetence or deliberately misleading. Trust is earned. Global’s actions during this process have given us little to trust and lead us to believe they do not care about the town or its potential neighbors.
Thankfully some of our town’s leadership is siding with the Wilmington families that oppose Global’s development. Selectman Mike McCoy, at the September 11 Board of Selectman meeting, publicly announced his opposition.
We expect our leaders to not only review the projects – but also to talk with their constituents to understand and represent our concerns. We thank Mr. McCoy and State Representative Jim Miceli for taking such a courageous stand – and promise to stand with them as they face challenges ahead.
We hope that other leaders will continue to scrutinize the project and Global’s approach and join us in our opposition.
Robert Surran
Like Wilmington Apple on Facebook. Follow Wilmington Apple on Twitter. Follow Wilmington Apple on Instagram. Subscribe to Wilmington Apple’s daily email newsletter HERE. Got a comment, question, photo, press release, or news tip? Email wilmingtonapple@gmail.com.
Wilmington Apple 