Graney v. Massachusetts District Commission (MDC)

Affidavit of Michael Graney In Support of Injunctive Relief

I, Michael Graney, do hereby affirm and attest as follows:

1. My name is Michael Graney and I am the plaintiff in this case. In that capacity I have personal knowledge of each of the facts attested to herein.
2. I live in Jamaica Plain, close to the Southwest Corridor Bikepath, and use the bike path regularly as my principle mode of transportation is a bicycle.
3. During the summer of 1996, I was commuting to my job, at the Dogwood Café, where I was employed as a chef, daily by bicycle. As I worked evening hours, I would often return home, along the bike path, in the evening or night, when it is difficult to see obstacles in the travel lane of the bike path.
4. On June 16, 1996, as I bicycled down the bike path on my way home, at about 9:00 pm, I ran into a pile of mulch which I could not see in the dark, which was in the middle of the path, obstructing the lane of travel.
5. The pile was several feet high and as wide as the path, approximately six (6') wide. The pile completely obstructed the path so that I could not have avoided colliding with the obstruction, even had I seen it, without being forced to ride off of the roadway into trees and bushes.
6. I broke both elbows, was out of work for six (6) weeks and permanently damaged my arms at the elbows.
7. After the accident, I notified the Boston Police and the State Police who both patrol the bike path, but the hazardous obstruction, which had been there for perhaps a week before my accident, was not removed.
8. In fact, my accident was not the first to be caused by the obstruction created by the MDC maintenance workers, as I am aware of an ambulance coming to take away a young man who was injured when his bicycle ran into the same obstruction.
9. After that, my lawyer wrote to the MDC, which maintains the bike path, and there were several media stories about my accident, particularly an article in The Ride Magazine, but, even after these additional notices, the MDC did not respond or take any action to clear the obstruction from the roadway. 
10. In fact, it was not until the winter cold caused an end to the landscaping and related maintenance work, that the piles of mulch ceased, temporarily to be placed as obstructions in the middle of the bicycle roadway.
11. This July, I and other bicyclists who commute or otherwise travel on the Southwest Corridor Bikepath, began to observe the return of these piles of mulch, obstructing the roadway by blocking most of the single lane of travel.
12. I photographed these piles of mulch, and my attorney send copies of these photographs to counsel for the MDC in this case, requesting that the MDC remove the piles of the mulch from the center of the bike path roadway, where the piles of mulch constituted a hazardous condition. Copies of the letter and photos are attached hereto.
13. There has been no response from the MDC.
14. More important, the MDC continues to place piles of mulch in the middle of the bike path roadway and at places where the roadway crosses pedestrian walkways, or intersects with other paved ways, and where the bike path curves, as indicated by the photographs.
15. This creates an ongoing hazard to bicyclists using the roadway.
16. Compounding the hazard is the fact that these piles of mulch appear, suddenly and without warning, in places that seem to make no sense, like near a playground where the pile of mulch is in the middle of the intersection of the pedestrian walkway to the playground and the bike path or at the top of stairs that extend the pedestrian path across the bike path.
17. The danger is even more hazardous when the piles of mulch are behind curves in the roadway and thus not readily visible to an approaching bicyclist until the bicyclist comes around the curve and confronts the pile of mulch directly in front of them and especially where the piles are usually and regularly in the center of the roadway and so large as to occupy and obstruct the entire lane of travel.

Signed under the pains and penalties of perjury this 31st day of August, 1999

Michael Graney