No backing off the Green Line extension

If state leaders have to back off any transit projects, the Green Line extension won’t be one of them.

Secretary of Transportation Jeffrey Mullan again reaffirmed support for the project Tuesday at a Joint Committee on Transportation oversight hearing.

Rep. Denise Provost, a Somerville Democrat, had asked Mullan to outline his opinions on suggestions that the Conservation Law Foundation should be approached to get the organization “to back off this commitment” by renegotiating it or pursuing some other, as yet unspecified, course of action.

The secretary said that he disagreed with a strategy that would see officials go back to the CLF to seek alternative solutions. Citing the commitment to the people of Somerville to extend the Green Line and to making federally mandated air quality improvements, Mullan told lawmakers  that “going to something else would only confuse matters” on the current project.

After the hearing, the Somerville Democrat said her question was prompted in part by the D’Alessandro report, which recommended "slow expansion" in the MBTA system until maintenance and safety issues could be addressed. Provost, who supports the extension to Somerville and Medford, said that further delays could place the state, which is already out of compliance with certain federal air quality standards, at risk of further sanctions from Washington.

Central Artery Transit commitments like the Green Line extension come up frequently when the conversation turns to projects the MBTA and the state would be better off without.  But there’s no going back to the drawing board for the Green Line. The state is legally obligated to build it by 2014.

The Conservation Law Foundation filed suit against the state to force compliance with transit commitments designed offset pollution from Big Dig-generated increases in traffic. The parties reached a settlement in 2007. The Green Line extension is just one of those commitments.

CLF staff attorney Rafael Mares says Massachusetts included those projects in the state’s implementation plan under the Clean Air Act. If the state doesn’t comply with those commitments, it risks losing federal highway money.

Moreover, Mares adds the D’Alessandro report doesn’t say anything about the Big Dig commitments.  “The point is there is no rapid expansion going on,” he says. “The only expansion that is happening is under legal requirements like the Green Line expansion.”

There’s no way to slow the Green Line project down, he argues. “Because if you slow it down, then you would run into the legal problems that I was describing or it would cost the Commonwealth more money than it would possibly save.”

Comments

[Bob Nesson]

The Green Line route to Union Square should be extended to Porter Square to link with the Red Line and commuter rail at that station.

My preferred option would be to place it directly down Somerville Avenue, where it would provide connectivity and convenience for thousands of people living along that densely populated right of way. The visibility and accessability of a true streetcar, running frequently and providing reasonably fast connections with the rest of the system would be a strong draw to get people out of their cars.

Further, this routing would provide an economic stimulus to the businesses along this highly travelled route. People living in adjacent neighborhoods would naturally flow down to Somerville Avenue, with the incentive the streetcar provides.

One has only to study the success of the existing Green Line routes down Beacon Street and Commonwealth Avenue to see how the model works -- or look to cities like Portland or Denver to see how with a little vision you could have a first class transportation system.

A spur line that merely shuttles back and forth between Lechmere and Union Square is a start, but makes little sense in the long term and would be hard to justify except as better than nothing, perhaps.

[jajjguy]

Agreed, Bob, though I would rather see it run along the Fitchburg line right of way, with stops at Dane, Park, and Sacramento.