Last week, the Cambridge City Council convened a meeting of the Transportation and Public Utilities Committee to discuss the construction of the Grand Junction Bike Path, a mixed use path that runs parallel to the old Grand Junction Railroad from Allston through Kendall Square and up to the Green Line Extension Project. The path is poised to generally improve Greater Boston transportation, if all facets can be undertaken simultaneously, that is.

Here’s the situation: The prospective route runs through five different plots of land, each owned by either the City of Cambridge, Cambridge Redevelopment Authority, Massachusetts Department of Transportation or MIT. Each section differs from the last in size and scope, meaning each owner is charged with evaluating and constructing the path on their land.

One of the overriding issues, therefore, is cohesion – How do they get each clock to strike at the same second?

Representatives from each organization, as well as the public, testified before the committee about where thet currently stand in the project, what their respective needs are and a semblance of a timeline. But despite the fact that construction will differ from spot to spot, the overall agreement is that, assuming seamless synchronization, the Grand Junction Bike Path is a must.

“It’s a weak link bicycle-wise, North to South along this corridor,” remarked Councilor Dennis Carlone, chairman of the committee. “[The project] excited me be because of its logic and because of its need.”

In 2012 the Boston Globe put together this map of metro area bike and mixed-use paths. The Grand Junction Path, labeled in red as no. 9, will cut through a heavy-traffic area with noticeably lacking transit options – save for the traditional – and will bridge multiple transportation terminuses in a high-volume, high-density part of Cambridge.

In fact, one representative from the Community Development Department noted that a quarter of all Cambridge residents live within a quarter mile of the path, with 10 percent of MIT graduate students commuting to campus from Somerville and 75 percent of all MIT students living on or close to the school grounds.

So now, the question remains as to how to connect the dots.

Early design renderings suggest a 40-foot path, 24-feet of which will be designated for rail use possibly by DMU cars and the remaining 16-feet for biking, walking, running and more.

The only problem is, it’s unclear if each section can support a passage of this width, or even the inclusion of a second rail for two-way DMU traffic, the idea of which was mentioned during the meeting. MIT, for example, has only commissioned a feasibility study of its own section of the corridor and isn’t expected to have a report ready until as late as September.

“We’re just starting to develop evaluation criteria so that we’re all talking about the same thing,” said Kelley Brown. And you can’t really blame MIT for its exhaustive analysis. They arguably make the most use of the rail, transporting equipment, substances and even hauling trash along the track.

On the flip side, the CRA said they could have designs for their own slice of the path as early as July and “hopefully construct this section of the trail by Fall of this year,” according to CRA Executive Director Tom Evans. That’s assuming, however, each party involved agrees on a singe rail as opposed to possibly two.

Now you see where things are starting to get a bit convoluted.

MassDOT hasn’t put much focus on examining the mixed-use utilization for its land. In fact Ned Codd, Assistant Secretary for GreenDOT, and Scott Hamwey, of the Office of Transportation Planning, mentioned on behalf of MassDOT, “We’re actually not studying the corridor at this point.” Rather, they’re more interested in the prospect of DMU cars moving along the rail instead.

However, he also offered rather vaguely, “The transit potential is important enough that they don’t want to close transit opportunities.”

The Council concluded that there was little else they could do to forge ahead until each property owner conducted their own analysis and published their own report, and agreed to reconvene in October. Until that time, it’s unclear what exactly will unite these groups into creating a single fluid bike path for all to enjoy.

Perhaps it will be Councilor and Cambridge Vice Mayor Dennis Benzan, who is so passionate and so vigilant about the project that he said in closing, “If I were in a position to finance this and fast track this myself, I would do it.”

Bikers may be in need of your generosity yet, Mr. Vice Mayor.

Image via Friends of the Grand Junction Bike Path