Harvard prides itself on its scenic country roads, and the steady increase of traffic on those roads has caused many a town official and resident over the years to ponder how to keep cars from changing their quality of life. This week, the Board of Selectmen broke the news that it had teamed up with its counterpart in the town of Littleton and filed a complaint against neighboring Boxborough to stem the traffic from Cisco Systems office park on the towns' country roads.

The civil action, filed in Land Court on December 21, charges that the towns are "aggrieved" by a decision by the Boxborough Planning Board to allow cars from an expanded 1.4-million-square-foot office park to enter and exit onto Littleton County Road in Harvard and Whitcomb Avenue in Littleton. Littleton also objects to the size of Cisco's proposed waste water treatment facility which, the town claims, is too small and could lead to the contamination of nearby public drinking water wells.

In the lawsuit, the towns are asking the court to annul the Planning Board's decision to amend Cisco's special permit entirely. But what the towns really seem to want is to bring Cisco and the Boxborough planners to the bargaining table and to keep the traffic flowing out Boxborough's Swanson Road onto Route 111. The towns want Cisco to allow only emergency vehicles to use its back exit, Milly Chandler of Citizens to Protect Residential Harvard explained this week. Chandler, who lives on Littleton County, said that if Cisco's traffic projections "are true, there is no need" for employees to use Littleton County or Whitcomb.

One of the main reasons the towns took such drastic action in the face of Cisco's history of cooperating with them is that the clock was ticking on the appeal period for the Boxborough board's decision, Harvard Selectman Bill Marinelli said this week. The towns had until

December 24 to file, he said.

On December 3, the Boxborough Planning Board granted Cisco's request to add more space to its 900,000-square-foot office park. In addition, Cisco wanted to clusterits buildings and to "increase the restricted open space on the site from 154 to 214.2 acres," which many Littleton County Road residents applauded.

However, the possibility of 1,000 cars a day (Cisco's estimate) on Whitcomb, which is heavily populated with young families and only 18 feet wide, and Littleton County Road, which has a paved surface width in some areas of 16 feet, has neighbors fighting mad. Both roads travel through residentially zoned areas of the two towns. Keith Turner, who with his family runs Friendly Crossways youth hostel, lives directly across from Cisco's proposed roadway onto Littleton County Road. Turner challenges the company's estimate as "optimistic." However,Turner thinks barring Cisco employees front exiting onto Littleton County Road is "unrealistic"; he would opt to have the company limit employee use to "peak hours."

The towns are seeking to limit the use of the roads, because they envision a never-ending need to straighten, widen, and maintain them under heavy use, a costly proposition that alters residents' quality of life. In addition, the towns charge that an increase in traffic will result in a "public safety hazard to residents" and will "impair" the ability of the town's ambulance, fire trucks, and police cars to access residents' homes.

Traffic on Littleton County Road from the office park in Boxborough has been an issue for more than a decade. Recently the Harvard Board of Selectmen withdrew its support from a proposed multi-family development on the road that would be built under the state's affordable housing zoning act, because of the number of cars that would use Littleton County Road.