archBOSTON ARCHIVE

[Matt]

man....this pisses me off that they're going to ultimately reneg on what was promised (esp. the blue/red line connector)....In the paper edition, there was an 'updated' spider map with some of the new lines (no urban ring, interestingly enough)...and the editors added a spur from the b line to harvard square for the hell of it)


from this week's boston phoenix:

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T-easing pollution
A series of air-clearing public-transit projects, mapped out in the early ?90s, remain controversial ? and incomplete
BY DEIRDRE FULTON



A GREEN LINE train

More

? More on this story

? More cards and cars: what's next for the MBTA. By Deirdre Fulton.
? Our map of the proposed changes, including some we'd like to see.

The T: we love to hate it; we hate to take it; we take it everywhere. The nation?s first subway system has inspired songs ("The MTA Song" [Charlie on the MTA], "T DJ," and "Fuck the T"), Web sites (http://www.badtransit.com/, transportavenger.blogspot.com), and a general appreciation of functioning escalators. Over the next 10 years, the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA) will present us with more to sing about, and more to gripe about ? from operational changes in how we pay our fares and what kinds of trains we ride (See "More Cards and Cars"), to the completion of long-planned system-wide expansions that could increase daily MBTA ridership and help the struggling agency climb out of debt, while improving both our public health and our transit experiences.

Boston?s minority communities suffer disproportionately from asthma, which is aggravated by heavy auto emissions. Congestion in the city, where close to one million commuters drive daily, is just getting worse. Upping T ridership, then, could lead to a healthier city.

But the MBTA ? an independent state agency that serves more than 150 cities and towns in Eastern Massachusetts ? cannot afford new projects. Fare revenues, about $275 million annually, bring in less than half of what is needed to operate the system, and massive debt, incurred through previous expansions, is estimated at around $4 billion.

Changes won?t be implemented by the MBTA alone, therefore, but by the state, which is currently planning expansions that will alter the T?s footprint in Greater Boston. These expansions ? and their supposed benefits ? have been a source of controversy for some 15 years already, and the debate isn?t over yet. The process will require compromise from the MBTA and the state, and realistic expectations all around.

CLEAN-AIR COMPROMISE

In 1990, before breaking ground on the Big Dig, state officials struck a deal with the Boston-based Conservation Law Foundation, environmental advocates who were suing the state over concerns that the Big Dig would bring more cars ? and more air pollution ? to Boston. To comply with the federal Clean Air Act, the state agreed to a series of public-transit upgrades designed to mitigate such adverse environmental effects. These included expanding commuter-rail and parking services throughout the region, building the Silver Line, extending the Green Line into Somerville and Medford, connecting the Red and Blue lines (providing riders from East Boston and the North Shore with easy access to Massachusetts General Hospital and Cambridge), and restoring E-Line service through Jamaica Plain, along Centre and South Streets, all the way to Forest Hills.

The logic was simple: provide more, and more convenient, public transportation, and more people will leave their air-fouling cars at home.

But 15 years, several lawsuits, two Boston mayors, and five Massachusetts governors later, the Big Dig transit-system upgrades are still the source of public consternation and government deliberation. In August, the state?s Executive Office of Transportation (EOT) issued a new set of recommendations dealing with the administration?s remaining transit commitments. The EOT endorsed the Green Line extension that would stretch beyond Lechmere to Somerville?s Union Square (providing more convenient access to a bustling residential neighborhood that?s home to several bars and restaurants, and a Target), and then into Ball Square, Winter Hill, and West Medford. It also put its weight behind 1000 new commuter-rail parking spots and the expansion of the Fairmount, or "Indigo," Line, which would provide more stops and service to high-population areas of Dorchester, Mattapan, and Hyde Park.

But, along with the recommendations, the deadlines for all three projects were pushed back, and the Red-Blue connector and Arborway restoration were left conspicuously off the list entirely.

It seems as if there is still hope for the Red-Blue project, which EOT spokesman John Carlisle calls "a useful transit application to pursue in the future."

The Arborway trolley, however, seems doomed to be permanently replaced by #39 buses. "We heard overwhelming comments from local public-safety officials that they had very grave concerns about putting a trolley down that corridor," Carlisle says, adding that with new low-emission buses "we can accomplish better transit service with the same air-quality goals."

Now, it falls on the state Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) to evaluate all of the EOT recommendations, solicit public comment (until January 17), and make a decision that could serve as the final word in the long debate over T-expansion plans.

The Conservation Law Foundation, meanwhile, is suing again, claiming that the altered transit plans leave the state in non-compliance with federal Clean Air Act obligations. They want the Arborway Restoration and the Red-Blue connector back on the table, and they advocate raising gas taxes to pay for transit projects.

LINGERING DEBATE

At a late-December public hearing on the proposed projects at the DEP?s Downtown Crossing office, it was clear that time had not tempered the emotions of neighborhood advocates or public officials.

Somerville mayor Joseph Curtatone praised the "warm embrace of the Green Line project," but said that pushing scheduled completion back from 2011 to 2014 led to an "intolerable level of uncertainty" for his constituents.

State senator Jarrett Barrios invoked environmental justice, citing Chelsea, East Somerville, and Medford as places that deserve less pollution and a detailed project timeline. "[These communities] have waited too long for the Green Line extension to become a reality," Barrios wrote in a letter to the DEP commissioner. "These communities ? Somerville in specific ? suffer from extreme rates of air pollution due to I-93 traffic and diesel commuter-rail trains; an additional three years without mitigation is not acceptable."

Several representatives from the Dorchester Bay Economic Development Corporation spoke in support of the Indigo Line; they were happy to see it on the list of recommendations, but irritated by the delay from 2008 to 2011. Indeed, with 15 years of evaluation and re-evaluation, missed deadlines seem irresponsible to many interested parties.

The most passionate speakers at the DEP?s public hearing came from Jamaica Plain, where a vocal coalition sees its hope for restoring the streetcar line fading fast.

In 1985, the MBTA suspended service (supposedly temporarily) in the Arborway Corridor, hoping that riders would switch to the recently revamped Orange Line. "There has not been any significant increase" in Orange Line traffic, said Michael Reiskind, who lives on South Huntington Street. That assertion is supported by MBTA numbers, which show Orange Line ridership hovering around 22,500 per day, and #39 bus ridership steadily declining from more than 27,500 daily in the 1980s (when the bus first replaced the streetcar), to a little more than 14,000 today.

For many, the #39 bus has become an unwelcome stand-in, and the debate over the entire project has become a he-said-she-said argument, with both sides citing surveys and studies that back up their positions.

"The 39 bus is problematic in a number of ways," says Franklyn Salimbene, a JP resident who chairs the Arborway Committee that seeks the trolley?s return. "The only way you can attract people to public transportation is if the service is reliable and if it is run so that it doesn?t require people to make transfers."

The #39 accomplishes neither goal; its schedule is often criticized as erratic, and to take it downtown requires a switch from bus to train. Ridership has dropped significantly on the bus line since it was established, and Salimbene thinks poor service has sent more JP residents to their cars. In the opposite direction, he fears the inconvenience discourages people from visiting JP?s many shops and restaurants.

But arguments against bringing the train back to JP are just as numerous. Business owners have signed petitions fretting about lost parking spaces (parking would be lost completely on one side of the street), residents gripe about increased congestion (which would, incidentally, have negative effects on air quality), and police and fire officials say that cramped traffic flow could impede emergency vehicles.

"Some JP residents think it is a loss, and I understand that," says Jon Truslow, who co-chairs an anti-trolley-restoration group known as Better Transit Without Trolleys. "But we?ve analyzed the situation, and we believe that bringing the trolley back under today?s situation would not improve Jamaica Plain."

In place of a T extension on Centre and South streets, Mayor Thomas Menino?s administration, along with the EOT and many JP residents, advocate an upgrade of the #39 bus service ? including traffic signals that give preference to buses, better-paved roads, cleaner buses that use the latest anti-pollution technology, and GPS systems to streamline the route?s scheduling.

At this point, these might be the most realistic hopes for Jamaica Plain transportation advocates.

BUT WILL IT WORK?

Of course, all of these deliberations take for granted the fact that the best way to decrease pollution is through public-transit projects. But in fact, some suggest that such an assumption may be foolhardy.

Train-transit projects, which cost hundreds of millions of dollars and achieve modest air-quality benefits, might be less effective than pushing for higher vehicle-emission standards, better fuel efficiency, and various other clean-energy goals.

To get an idea of the scale of the disparity, consider this comparison from Commonwealth magazine. Last spring, David Luberoff, executive director of the Kennedy School?s Rappaport Institute for Greater Boston wrote: "[I]f the state were instead to target cars that do not meet current emissions standards, it could gain the exact same emissions reductions by finding and fixing fewer than 200 cars now on the road that do not comply with current emissions requirements? In fact, the state probably could identify and replace each of those 200 cars with a Toyota Prius hybrid vehicle for about $5 million, which is less than one percent of the cost of the three transit projects."

And then there?s the problem of "latent demand," which holds that new cars will always fill holes left by drivers who depart for public transit, says former state secretary of environmental affairs John Bewick, who works today as an environmental consultant in Hingham. "If you take a car off the road, another one takes its place," knowing there?s more room on the roads. This neutralizes the environmental advantage that would have been achieved in the first place. In this day and age, Bewick says, it?s almost impossible to avoid this problem. Yet state-planning officials don?t consider it enough, he says. Using the Greenbush commuter-rail station, which he lives near and opposes, as an example, Bewick blasts projects that "just don?t take enough people off the roads ? Noble objectives, with poor analysis, lead to fiscally irresponsible projects."

Another former environmental-affairs secretary ? who was in office when the Central Artery projects to reduce pollution were proposed ? says the benefits should be measured in more than tons of carbon emissions.

"I think those who question the need for, or the value of, mitigation see the picture through a very narrow lens," says John DeVillars. "It?s not simply about air-quality benefits. It?s also about the livability and quality of life in metropolitan Boston ? bringing back neighborhoods, bringing back housing and economic opportunities."

And while DeVillars doesn't mind that state officials are changing some of the recommendations midstream ("what appeared to make sense in 1990 doesn?t necessarily make sense in 2005"), he wishes they would hurry up about it.

"It?s disappointing that they are taking as long as they have to come to fruition," DeVillars says, "And it will be a good while longer until the full measure of those improvements will be realized. There?s no legitimate reason why these projects shouldn?t have begun in the early 1990s. And the fact that we, as a community, are still bickering over them is unfortunate."

Deirdre Fulton can be reached at dfulton@phx.com.

[Vanshnookenraggen]

[Lurker]

I wish they'd stop planning based on pollution reduction given that any change in automotive technology in the next 20 years (about the time all these projects will take) will make the decisions moot. Planing needs to be based on where people need and want to travel.

[Matt]

very well said...it does seem very reactive, versus planning for future transportation needs.

[PaulC]

You also forgot to use the phase 'environmental justice'. That is the current hip phase and may be out of style soon, so please start using it excessively in your postings. I'm not sure if you need to be in a cape and costume in order to use it.

I hope that at least the members have moved past using the phase 'the digital divide'. That's so 2003.

[Lurker]

"Environmental Justice" oh yeah just like "Economic Justice" and "Social Justice" which managed to accomplish the opposite of their intent half the time last century. Half the "activists" out there need to educate themselves in how the real world works (particularly basic economics) and actually take some sort of constructive action. I hate "activists" running around blowing hot air, harboring a better than thou attitude, holding up projects,etc. when they really are clueless.

[dudeursistershot]

[Ron Newman]

If it weren't for Somerville activists, using environmental justice among other arguments, the state wouldn't have put our Green Line extension on its list of required projects.

The environmental justice argument in our case is pretty straightforward. The state pushed I-93 through the city, adding to our air pollution and walling neighborhoods off from each other (and from the Mystic River). Also, lots of diesel-powered commuter trains pass through our city without stopping anywhere in it. The Green Line extension is mitigation for these burdens.

Stop dissing local community activists -- we serve an important function.

[garbribre]

I'm back, and not too far off topic for my first post in weeks

Unfortunately, Ron, for every positive compromise, I have seen too many negative ones that 'well-meaning' activists have wrought. As Lurker and others say, pollution removal, environmental concerns, etc. will balance out with time, especially if more of these public/alternative transportation projects are implemented. And most activists seem to blather on incoherently at meetings I attend, generally because they are really not all that concerned about whatever they are using as their 'environmental' concern. It's usually to disguise some unrelated self-interest for their opposition.

Whatever the methods used for arguing the merits/demerits of a public transportation project, Boston is certainly not alone in needing to determine where the population densities are that must be served the most.

It's got to be all about giving people the most options and the best, convenient access. If this isn't the determinant, all the remaining reasons for and against are bulldorky.

Below is an entire article, but especially read the content bolded and underlined for perspective as to what stymies so many transportation projects that seem like no-brainers, all in relation to some of the comments above.

In Los Angeles, Hope Revived for Subway
By MICHAEL R. BLOOD, Associated Press Writer
Sat Jan 7, 1:56 PM ET

They call it the "subway to the sea," although so far it exists only on paper.

For years, transit planners dreamed of a subterranean train along Wilshire Boulevard from the skyscrapers of downtown to the beaches of Santa Monica, a 15-mile line that could free at least some commuters from the inevitable freeway gridlock.

The ambitious idea died years ago, leaving a stunted line that dead-ends just a few miles from downtown. But as streets and highways grow increasingly clotted, there is renewed talk of completing it.

The proposed line, envisioned decades ago by then-Mayor Tom Bradley and now embraced by Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, would cut through an area with the region's densest concentration of jobs and people.

It's the most obvious route for a subway in the country and would be crowded from the day it opened, said Brian Taylor, director of the Institute of Transportation Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles.

"If you were going to build rail, the first place you would build it is down Wilshire," he said.

The project is getting another look following an about-face by Rep. Henry Waxman, a former opponent who pushed through a 1986 federal prohibition on tunneling through the area.

At the time, he feared construction could cause an explosion of naturally occurring methane gas. But new research has convinced the Los Angeles Democrat that tunneling can be done safely and he has introduced legislation to lift the ban.

"We need a transit system. We have to alleviate the congestion," he said.

The project is far from leaving the drawing board. And even if plans are approved, transit officials would have to find an estimated $4 billion, or more, to build it.

But a Wilshire line could be a key link in the city's subway system ? known as the Red Line ? that now covers a meager 17 miles from downtown to the San Fernando Valley.

In a county of 10 million people, the entire 73-mile light rail system carries just 232,000 people on an average weekday. Taylor said ridership suffers in part because rail routes were parceled out by "symbolic politics" rather than the practical needs of commuters.

"The one place you find that would be a good investment in rail doesn't have it," he said, referring to the Wilshire corridor.

Still, with the county's population continuing to grow, Taylor and other transit experts say even the subway to the sea would do little to improve the region's clogged roadways.

"Any major metropolitan area ? you pick it around the world ? are all congested," said Genevieve Giuliano, director of the Metrans Transportation Center, a joint research center of the University of Southern California and California State University, Long Beach.

"In a place as large as Los Angeles, we cannot build enough subways," she said.

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(Addendum: Wilshire Blvd. has always been my 'secret' auto shortcut route between Santa Monica and DTLA. Have been using it forever, especially when The 10 is plugged and when it rains--which causes LA drivers spazz out. It's quite fast when you can time the traffic light sequence. Though I noticed recently that others have discovered this route--probably all those New England expatriates who'll drive extra miles just to stay off the highways, like all my SShore friends who find alternate routes in order to avoid the SEX'way. )

[Ron Newman]

The Wilshire subway is obviously needed, and was even when I lived in Santa Monica 22 years ago. I hope I live long enough to see it built.

And I don't see what's wrong with Somerville asserting 'self-interest' in trying to get a line built through our city, which after all is the densest municipality in New England.

[garbribre]

I wasn't condemning Somerville's activists regarding the green line extension, which I've always considered necessary, moreso the generalities presented by everyone above. Yeah, it's a case by case basis. But one group's perspective about what is right and just will always find another to oppose it, for whatever reasons each may have. Humans. Eeech!

[dudeursistershot]

[Lurker]

Engineering has reduced emissions per vehicle over the years and now that the economics behind developing new clean energy sources is favorable compared to the use of fossil fuels, the market will be driven towards clean vehicles. Thus in a few years cars won't be producing air pollution anymore and the focus will be on how to reduce the number of cars on the road, simply because it's too difficult to keep widening roads in developed areas. Everyone will still probably own cars, but due to traffic, it will be desirable to have an alternate means of transportation when the cargo space, or privacy, of a private vehicle is not needed.

[statler]

A T delay, and square is fuming
Angered advocates seek relief from auto exhaust

By Patrick Gerard Healy, Globe Correspondent | January 8, 2006

Local politicians and community members are continuing to push to keep the MBTA's planned Green Line extension beyond Lechmere into Union Square and West Medford on track. A proposal to push the project back three years drew adamant opposition from about 40 speakers at a recent public hearing before the Department of Environmental Protection.

''The fear is death by a thousand delays," said state Senator Jarrett Barrios in an interview after the hearing late last month, noting that the project was originally committed to in 1990 to offset Big Dig pollution, only to be stalled under five different administrations.

''What the delay means is not just a dream deferred, but an extension of the troubling pattern of bait and switch by the administration," he said.

Under the current proposal, made by the Executive Office of Transportation, construction of the extension would not be completed until 2014, a revision of the 2011 end date estimated by the state last spring.

Barrios also criticized the Department of Environmental Protection for the time and place of the hearing, which took place in Downtown Crossing on Dec. 21.

''Holding a single hearing, especially one so close to the holidays, minimizes resident participation from a diverse range of viewpoints," he said.

That was also the complaint of Peter Varga, a Union Square resident and active supporter of the Green Line extension.

''I haven't heard any of my Portuguese neighbors here speaking at this podium," he said. ''I can only imagine trying to do this if English is not your first language, and these are the people who really need this."

Varga said he couldn't wait an additional three years for relief from exhaust fumes that he believes the rail extension would provide. He said he can't open his windows in the summertime because his living room fills with fumes from traffic below.

Five bus lines run through Union Square, and traffic often backs up at the stoplights leading to the expressway.

Resident Steve Mulder shared Varga's concern, saying the quality of life in Union Square is overwhelmed by traffic.

''My cat has asthma. I'm not worried about my cat, but I'm very worried about the kids that I see playing around my neighborhood" who inhale fumes ''caused by dead-stopped traffic at Union Square," he said.

James McGinnis, who also lives in Union Square, said, ''I'm not convinced that the completion by 2011 is not possible."

Barrios said he understands his constituents' doubts.

''People are rightfully skeptical about the T's commitment to the Green Line when it comes with qualifications, because qualifications and delays have been what have been used to kill this and other projects since 1990."

Public comment is open on the matter until Jan. 17, and the Department of Environmental Protection will make its recommendations to the state in early spring, said Ed Coletta, spokesman for the department.
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[DarkFenX]

I think whatever they say is pretty useless. The MBTA never listens to anyone anways.

[statler]

T reaps millions from sales of land
But agency wrestles with deficit, $4.9b debt

By Mac Daniel, Globe Staff | January 13, 2006

The MBTA is unloading surplus property at a record rate, with about $95 million in land sold, put under contract to be sold, or leased long term in the past two years and $29.5 million more under negotiation or being prepared for sale or lease, T officials said yesterday.

The financially strapped T brought in $19.5 million from real estate sales, mostly to private developers, in the fiscal year that ended June 30, up from $5.4 million a decade ago. The agency could quadruple its fiscal 2005 real estate income over the next two years if all the planned deals happen, officials said.

The Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority is the second-largest landholder in the Commonwealth, behind only the state. It holds about 6,500 acres of property, equal to about 1 1/2 times the land area of Cambridge. Much of the land is unused property near T stations and other facilities.

The T is also trying to pay off some of its $4.9 billion in debt, the most of any transit agency in the country. At the same time, the T is facing a budget deficit caused by shortfalls in state sales tax, a portion of which goes to the T, plus declines in advertising revenue, increases in fuel costs, and falling ridership. The $340 million in payments on that debt in fiscal 2005 exceeded the $319 million it collected from passengers.

''It's not surprising that they're trying to fill the gap with properties," said Paul Regan, executive director of the MBTA Advisory Board, which represents cities and towns that are served by the T and that are the site of most of the property being sold or leased. ''They have a gap to cross, a huge gap, and it's been growing over the last couple of years."

The jump in real estate revenue will not alter plans for a fare increase in January 2007, Daniel A. Grabauskas, the T's general manager, said yesterday. Federal rules require that about half of the expected real estate income be spent on construction and building projects, he said; the remaining real estate receipts will not be enough to offset the T's budget woes.

The last fare hike, in January 2004, raised the base subway fare from $1 to $1.25 and also increased other fares. T fares still remain among the lowest in the nation. T officials have not said how much the 2007 increase will be.

The real estate transactions include the recent sale of land at the former Mishawum station off Route 128-Interstate 95 in Woburn for $7.2 million; the sale of air rights over Nashua Street in Boston for $3.4 million; and $35 million in air rights over the commuter tracks at South Station. The T only gets $1 million cash from that deal, and the remaining $34 million goes to expanding South Station's bus terminal, officials said.

One of the most profitable deals is the long-term lease to build atop T properties on Canal Street in the Bulfinch Triangle, which is expected to bring the agency nearly $28 million in cash and infrastructure improvements that will benefit the T, according to a list provided by the T.

Property now out for bid to private developers and others includes 2.4 acres at the Mattapan Square station, which could bring in at least $3.7 million; land near the Braintree and Weymouth town line near the soon-to-be completed Greenbush commuter rail line; and air rights above the JFK-UMass station on the Red Line in Dorchester.

The T is also preparing to sell what could be lucrative land, building, and air rights in the heart of Harvard Square, at Mount Auburn and Bennett streets atop the bus turnaround and former conductor's building, according to documents from Transit Realty Associates, a private company founded in 1996 to help the T manage its vast real estate holdings. The company gets a 10 percent commission of all sales and leases up to $2.75 million and a declining percentage of amounts in excess of that, said T spokesman Joe Pesaturo.

As well as generating cash, the majority of the sales or lease agreements are designed to encourage transit-oriented development. Governor Mitt Romney's administration supports the move, hoping to slow suburban sprawl and cut traffic congestion by mixing residences and businesses atop or near transit hubs. But local officials and residents, including some who oppose such development plans, will have a strong say through zoning and other regulations.

If the effort to build transit hubs succeeds, it could increase the T's ridership, which in the first half of last year hit its lowest level this decade. Weekday boardings averaged 1.12 million, down 8 percent from the recent high point in the second half of 2000.

The flurry of land sales and leases is also a way for the T to reactivate unused property. For example, the T reduced its services at Mishawum station on the Lowell commuter rail line in 2001 after opening the nearby Anderson Regional Transportation Center. The deal to develop the Mishawum site, probably as an office tower, brings a chance to increase transit service to the station, which now serves as a near-empty parking lot.

T officials said the sale of hundreds of acres will not hurt the agency's expansion plans, because all T departments are asked whether property could be needed in the future, before it is put on the market.

Mac Daniel can be reached at mdaniel@globe.com.
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