The John Wald Memorial: A Special Place

This address delivered was delivered by Jack Johnson, on behalf of the Massachusetts Bicycle Coalition, at the dedication of the John Wald Memorial on Saturday, Sept. 26, 1998, at the new rest area on the Minuteman Bikeway Extension in East Arlington, Massachusetts

This is a special place, and I'd like to share with you why I believe it's a special place, especially for those of you who might not be familiar with this area.

In terms of where we are .... we are now standing in the Town of Arlington, a place where John once lived and biked around. Across that wooden bridge, over the Alewife Brook, is the City of Cambridge, another place where John also once lived and biked around - and where John also served on the Cambridge Bicycle Committee and attended countless MassBike meetings in a lowly basement office, just outside of Kendall Square. (BCOM might have changed its name, John, but our basement office is still there!) And just across that highway ramp, here is a third community - the Town of Belmont. So, in this area, all three of these communities come together both geographically and transportationally, if that's a word I can use today.

This special place is designed as a rest area, as part of the new extension to the Minuteman Bikeway. The whole project was just completed this summer; hence the reason for the delay with this memorial. But it's here now.

This special place is designed as a rest area, as part of the new extension to the Minuteman Bikeway. The whole project was just completed this summer; hence the reason for the delay with this memorial. But it's here now.

This place is special - very special - because you can get here only by human force: by foot, by wheelchair, by rollerblade, by baby-carriage, and (of course) by bicycle. But not by car or motorcycle. You can even get here by canoe: you'll find a mooring ring waiting for you on those granite steps, which lead down to the Alewife Brook. Knowing John, I think he'd like it here - very much.

This place is also special because it connects two different modes of alternative transportation: the Minuteman Bikeway and the Alewife MBTA Station (that large complex across the brook). Here, each day, hundreds of cyclists, pedestrians, and even rollerbladers now travel on the Minuteman Bikeway to take public transportation into Cambridge, Boston, and beyond. Completed in 1993, the Minuteman Bikeway has become the most popular bike path in America - a very special place indeed.

This place is also special because of its connection with nature. With the Alewife Brook beside us, this place is a natural wetlands. Especially in the early morning, it's teaming with wildlife. Birds are everywhere - ducks, geese, and even herons. And snapping turtles sometimes crawl out of the brook, I think, just to check out what's happening on the bikeway! And the brook is alive with fish - including the alewife herring that give this region its name.

And, finally, this rest area is a special place because, like the popular bikeway that runs beside it, people are now coming here in good numbers. I've recently been to this place on weekday afternoons, after school lets out, and young boys now come rushing down the bikeway - riding in on their BMX bikes, fishing poles in hand. They toss their bikes on the ground here, then they cast their lines into the brook - all in one continuous and determined motion - and wrapped up in their dreams of what they might catch today. (Life on the bikeway doesn't get any better than this, I think.)

... And people are now seeing and responding to MassBike's tribute to John, here in this special place. Just yesterday afternoon, at lunchtime, I rode my bike down here - to make sure the place was ready for today, and I was jotting down a few notes to myself about how I might end my talk today. And then a passerby, taking a walk on his lunch break, stopped to ask me whether I was copying down the quote from the plaque. "It's a really great quote!" he said, wanting to share it with me. "Yeah," I said, "it is a really great quote, isn't it? But I'm not writing it down. Because I already know it. Because I knew John Wald. You see - it was John's favorite quote about bicycling - and if you knew John, well, you knew that quote."

And so - on behalf of the MassBike Board of Directors: We welcome you to this most special place. And we thank you all for coming today - and for sharing in our celebration of this MassBike Memorial for John Wald.

- Jack Johnson
MassBike clerk & newsletter editor
Arlington Bicycle Advisory Committee chair

Photos by Doug Mink, except for the one with him in it