LYNN — Mayoral candidate and School Committee member Jared Nicholson spoke with constituents Friday about the city’s infrastructure and what needs to be done to improve it.
In a listening session held at Land of a Thousand Hills Coffee Company, Nicholson invited residents to share which infrastructure issues they would like to see addressed.
“You can drive around and see the needs and conditions of roads and sidewalks,” he said. “In cities like Lynn, there has been over the years … an inability of the city to keep pace with the use of our physical capital.”
Nicholson said that one of his goals is to improve walkability in the city, both to help with accessibility issues and to drive more traffic to local businesses.
He also noted that a big part of infrastructure development and maintenance is affected by climate change, which has caused increased flooding in the coastal area in recent years, and added that Lynn needs to address climate resiliency in order to prepare for that change.
“We want to see infrastructure investments as a way to set the table for growth,” he said. “To unlock the long-term potential of the city by making sure the city does its part to meet the basic needs of the community.”
Nicholson also addressed digital infrastructure, praising the school district for supplying devices to all students during the pandemic to help with remote learning. However, he said that Lynn needs to make sure that these resources last beyond the pandemic.
In addition, he discussed the city’s website, which he said needs major changes to bring it up to date and make sure residents can use it to access important resources and information.
“It’s the city’s digital presence in the community, like City Hall is our physical presence,” he said. “We should make it easy for people to access and easy for groups to share their information. We want this to be a two-way street.”
Regarding transportation, Nicholson said that Lynn should continue pushing for an extension of the MBTA Blue Line, but that, for now, its best bet for rapid transit is the ongoing electrification of the Commuter Rail. Nicholson submitted testimony to the MBTA Fiscal and Management Control Board last month in support of the project.
“We have to continue making the case that that needs to happen,” he said. “It’s an environmental justice issue, it’s an economic development issue and it’s an affordable housing issue, giving people access to good jobs and good homes. It needs to happen as soon as possible.”
Finally, Nicholson addressed the city’s schools, which he said are in need of both improvement and expansion.
“One of the biggest issues we face in the city is the need to upgrade our schools,” he said. “We have schools whose physical conditions are not acceptable and we also need more schools because of the amount of students we have … The current system is not going to allow us to build new schools at the pace we need to satisfy and solve the issue.”
