Federal Grant Will Improve Cambridge Common

More than a hundred years after it was first fenced in and landscaped, the Cambridge Common will soon be undergoing major renovations.

With the help of a $500,000 federal grant, city leaders are taking aim at the muddy fields, rusted trash cans and tired paths that many say have turned one of Cambridge's most prized possessions into an eyesore.

Specific plans have not yet been finalized, but Rosalie Anders, the city's project coordinator, presented several alternatives to community members during a meeting held at the Graduate School of Education on Saturday morning.

Anders said that each of the city's options reflects a simple set of objectives.

"Our goals with the project are to spruce the Common up, to enhance it," she said.

More specifically, Anders said that traffic patterns are one of the city's major concerns.

"When a lot of cyclists and pedestrians share space it can effect the comfort level of both groups," she said.

Each of the city's primary proposals takes a different approach to improving the traffic patterns of the pedestrians and bicyclists who use this park, which once served as a holding ground for Boston's slaughter houses.

Three primary options are:

*Restricting bicycles to the perimeter of the park and creating new paths for pedestrians in the center.

*Creating separate bicycle and foot paths leading from Harvard Law School to the Quad.

*Re-building the current Law School-to-Quad path so that bicycles and pedestrians have separate lanes.

According to Anders, the city is currently studying public reaction to these proposals and will present a more finalized plan later in the winter.

Anders said the city hopes to begin construction sometime in the summer of 1998.