Green Line Extension meeting about proposed terminus (Tufts, 24 Nov, 7 pm)

[fefie.livejournal.com]

You are invited to a community meeting on Green Line service for West Somerville and Medford residents.

Monday, November 24, 2008 at 7 PM
Sophia Gordon Hall, Tufts University, 15 Talbot Avenue

Come join Somerville Transportation Equity Partnership (STEP) and Medford Green Line Neighborhood Alliance (MGNA) and discuss the Route 16 area proposed as the location for the last Green Line Extension Station. (Note: Spanish, Haitian Creole & Portuguese interpretation available.)

* To provide the most up-to-date information on the Green Line Extension
* To discuss locating the terminus station at Route 16

Key Issues to be Discussed

- Upcoming announcement of the state Executive Office of Transportation final recommendation for the location of the Green Line terminus at the Dec. 1 Citizen Advisory Group meeting.

- Two locations under consideration: College Avenue and Route 16

- Stopping at College Avenue significantly reduces the number of Somerville and Medford residents who will have convenient access to the
Green Line.

- The Route 16 terminus will serve both Somerville's and Medford's
considerable environmental justice communities.

- There are 10,000 residents in Somerville, Medford, and East Arlington living within a 10-minute walk of Route 16.

Comments from Elected Officials

- Somerville Mayor Joseph Curtatone (confirmed)
- Medford Mayor Michael McGlynn (invited)
- Senator Patricia Jehlen (confirmed)
- Representative Carl Sciortino (confirmed)
- Representative Sean Garballey (invited)

A report prepared by MGNA documents potential ridership around Route 16. The report is available on the MGNA website
http://www.medfordgreenline.org

Comments

[tober.livejournal.com]

I'm a public transportation advocate and, other things being equal, I would like to see the route 16 terminus myself... that said, other things are not equal and I think advocating for the route 16 terminus at this point is something of a folly and may even jeopardize the overall project. To wit:
- I find the comparison of which elected officials are listed as "confirmed" versus "invited" to be rather telling (and I suspect that none of the "invited" will bother to show up)
- The potential route 16 siting will require relatively a lot of land-taking from private parties. The vicinity of College Avenue has more property abutting the RoW that is already either public or owned by Tufts.
- The route 16 siting involves abutters and neighbors who, on average, are rather hostile to the project
- Total costs will be meaningfully lower for the College Ave. location. Given the current macroeconomic situation and financial positions of both the state and the MBTA, I think this is pretty much a death sentence (for now) for the route 16 location.

So... I wish you luck, I guess, but I think the writing is already on the wall in terms of how the EOT recommendation is going to go... and I'd rather see a green line extension built to College Ave in 2015 (with a possibility for future extension) than a proposed extension all the way to route 16 that hasn't been built at all because it's tied up in the courts.

[cold-type.livejournal.com]

Has there been any poll of how residents feel in general between the two towns? Anecdotally, I heard some people in Medford are fighting the project.

[fefie.livejournal.com]

Right, the folks in this organization: http://www.medfordgreenline.org are fighting to get the Green Line to Medford, but Medford generally has been split on the project. (And the residents of West Medford did not want the Green Line extended to The commuter rail stop.)

[m00n.livejournal.com]

Are these the same people who oppose all public transit extensions into their neighborhoods because it will bring the hooligans from other parts of the city into their neighborhoods?

[soong.livejournal.com]

I heard that there were a few noisy Medfordians opposing the green line extension, but a possibly quieter majority were in favor.
I'm in favor. I think all the evidence shows that it is obviously the right thing to do.

[m00n.livejournal.com]

My big question is this: If the line doesn't go all the way to West Medford station, is there going to be any other way to transfer between the Commuter Rail and the Green Line without going all the way to North Station?

[m00n.livejournal.com]

I should qualify this by saying that I work in Woburn, a 5 minute walk from Mishawum station on the Lowell line and I have one co-worker who lives on Cedar Street, only a block away from one of the proposed stations, but he currently drives to work because getting on the Commuter Rail (which runs only a few feet from his apartment building) requires walking to Davis Square and taking the very slow, infrequent, and unreliable 94 bus for a very circuitous ride to West Medford station.

It's very frustrating to hear about people who live across the street from a train to their desired destination who use a car instead because the stations are too far apart. A transfer between the Green Line and the Commuter Rail would definitely solve this problem.

[tober.livejournal.com]

Even if the green line extension winds up going to a terminus at route 16, there would not necessarily be a connection to the West Medford commuter rail station as such. I do not think there is any credible proposal at this time that would have the green line cross the Mystic River - which would be a big expense (either an additional bridge would have to be built for the green line or the existing railroad bridge would have to be replaced with a structure carrying both the railroad and green line tracks). Although it would be a short distance from a proposed route 16 terminus to West Medford station, it would be an unpleasant and somewhat circuitous walk.

[ethanfield.livejournal.com]

Sadly, as far as I know, the West Medford commuter rail terminus for the Green Line has been ruled out for a while now. I think it's a combination of the unpopularity the further out you go, and the huge cost increase involves with renovating the rail bridge over the Mystic. So there'd still be a 0.6 mile walk between the two stations. :(

[m00n.livejournal.com]

What about adding a stop to the Commuter Rail?

[m00n.livejournal.com]

I have to say that if there's one thing the MBTA is worse for than just about any other transit system in the world, it's getting people from one line to another in a quick, easy, and comfortable fashion.

Some examples:

1. (my personal favorite) You get off the Orange Line at North Station and, for no apparent reason that I can figure out, must walk outdoors for 40 feet to get to the lobby of the Commuter Rail station.

2. Getting from Cambridge to the Airport.

3. Getting from Airport to... The actual airport! (a.k.a. why is it that central parking can be located in the middle of the airport and give you a completely sheltered walk from your car to your gate, but the train station is situated such that you must take a shuttle bus that goes onto city streets and stops at city traffic lights to even get onto airport property?)

4. Taking the Boston College or Riverside branches of the Green Line to North Station, with particular regard to the transfer at Government Center. I did this every single weekday for a year, and on all but a handful of occasions, the departing North Station bound trains *did not wait* for the arriving Government Center train to pull into the station and let its passengers out. Of course the right thing to do would be to just have all the trains run to North Station, but I digress.

5. An almost complete failure to consistently post meaningful bus scheduling information in highly visible places at all of the train stations that have bus connections. And not to mention CLOCKS to help you figure out if you are about to miss a bus. This seems like a trivial thing to ask for while systems elsewhere in the world already have signs that automatically alert passengers to arriving busses (something that would be especially handy on the MBTA since none of the busses run on time).

6. The North-South Rail Link. No seriously. I know this would be an enormously expensive multi-billion dollar project. But seriously. The fact that you can take one continuous train line from Florida to Boston but then have to take a cab (or a truck, or the painstakingly slow and antiquated Grand Central Railroad if you're freight), to proceed onward from there is just upsetting. Especially when we *just spent* $11 billion to build a tunnel that goes... from South Station to North Station!

Anyway I digress, and have gotten totally off topic. My point is that useful transfers and connections are *absolutely essential* to the viability of the system as an alternative to driving. For most commuters these things make all of the difference between using their car and using public transit, and they are often very difficult to advocate for before the proposed system is built because you can't just go out on the street and find people trudging through the snow to get from the station on Route 16 to the West Medford commuter rail station until it's too late to do anything about it.

But hey, I'm from Boston. Complaining about the MBTA is what we do here! :-) Now I'll just have to make sure to bring my rant to the meeting while I'm at it.

[ron_newman]

Would any private property have to be taken other than the U-Haul building? I don't see anyone really missing that if it went away.

[ceo]

Well, other than all the people who's stuff is stored in it. :-) I think the building just up the tracks might have to go too, but I'm not sure about that.

And, of course, the problem with taking property is not who'd miss it, but how much it adds to the costs.

It is really a pity that the West Medford terminus got ruled out, as that significantly diminishes the potential usefulness of the project, in terms of both bringing transit to an underserved neighborhood and facilitating outbound commutes on the Lowell Line. The plan is to add a commuter rail stop at one of the Green Line stops (probably Gilman Square or Ball Square), but that has its own problems, as closely-spaced stops cause issues with run time and fuel consumption.

And really, how hard is it to build a frickin' bridge?

[ron_newman]

Another problem with West Medford, as I understand it, is that the railroad right-of-way beyond Route 16 isn't wide enough for two commuter rail tracks and two Green Line tracks. You'd have to take people's backyards and maybe even some houses to widen it.

[boblothrope.livejournal.com]

Why would any land have to be taken? They could build a simple 2-track terminus, which wouldn't take up much land outside the 4-track ROW.

Modern public transit construction is so overbuilt. Just compare the huge empty concourse inside the Courthouse Silver Line station with classic subway stations like Central (and consider which one serves several times as many people as the other).

[rethcir.livejournal.com]

I used to rent in the big residential zone (mostly multi-family housing) between the mystic river and college ave/tufts. This area desperately needs reliable transit to become a more desirable place to live. Waiting for the 80 and 96 busses was just about the most miserable experience of my life during the winter (especially when they don't come for an hour and you're late.. no way I could have succeeded in my job using that as a commute method without getting up at the ass crack of dawn).

The abutters are just noisy, that's all. There are plenty of residents, long and short term, who would benefit massively from access to reliable transit.

[masswich.livejournal.com]

I am in support of the Rt 16 station- in part because there is no Winthrop St. station anymore. People west of Winthrop will be too far from College Ave. to walk, and there's no parking there. While the price is a higher, its not the only factor (for example, look how the Urban Ring added a tunnel in the Longwood medical area, not because the additional ridership justified the cost when the computers looked at it, but just because it makes sense.)

In the long run, land use-wise, it just makes sense for the line to end at Route 16.

[ron_newman]

Why was the Winthrop Street station removed?

Route 16 terminus - Green Line

[sienacat.livejournal.com]

The only reason there would be significant land taking at Route 16 would be if the MBTA built a parking facility. This was not wanted by either community and was not in the certificate issued by the Secretary of Environmental Affairs for the DEIR.

There are a few loud people in Medford who do not want the Green Line extension but the Medford Green Line Neighborhood Alliance (MGNA)is an active group that does advocate for the Green Line. This group has done a study of the demographics of the Route 16 area that reveals that about 10,000 people from Somerville, Medford and East Arlington live within one half of a mile from the station location.

If the terminus is built at College Avenue, Medford will see major traffic increases there and a lot of people in Medford Hillside, West medford, Somerville and East Arlington will not have convenient access to the Green Line.

Lastly, MGNA has a petition on its website for people to show support for the Green Line extension to Route 16. I do not know the current number of signers but it is well over 1000.

The original plan for the Green Line extension was to go to West Medford and that would have enabled a transfer to Commuter Rail. But this plan was killed because West Medford did not want it -- it was like the reaction in Arlington in the mid-eighties to having the Red Line extended there. Now Arlington residents wish they had a Red Line stop.

Re: Route 16 terminus - Green Line

[fefie.livejournal.com]

And East Arlington is another community that would benefit greatly from the Rte 16 terminus. (Arlington supports the Route 16 terminus.)

So far MGNA's petition supporting the Green Line Route 16 terminus has 1891 signatures. If you have not signed it yet, and you support the Rte 16 terminus, you can sign it here:
http://www.medfordgreenline.org/?page_id=73

One big difference between Somerville's and Medford's stance on the Green Line extension is that Somerville's city officials fully and publicly support the Extention project and the Route 16 Terminus, but it's a different situation with Medford's city officials. The public position of the Medford's mayor and most of the city council is they are "waiting for the study" [EOT's Environmental Review] before supporting or not supporting anything. One city councilor, Robert Maiocco, is on record as saying the line should stop at Tufts. Regarding the comment upstream about whether Medford invited officials would attend the meeting on Monday, as of yesterday, none of the "inviteds" from Medford confirmed they would or would not attend.

A few other points:

It's unclear what the incremental cost would be or what land takings would be required at Route 16 because EOT has not presented a meaningful plan or analysis for the station there. Back in June they simply presented a station drawing on the U-Haul site.

The cost effectiveness of the terminus at this location is not just the capital costs of going the additional mile or so beyond College Ave. but takes into account additional riders (again, drawing from 3 communities) and user benefit of going to Rte. 16, as well as air quality improvements, environmental justice communities served, and so on.

For more info about the project:

EOT's official Green Line Extension project website:
http://www.greenlineextension.org/
(click on Reference Material to get all the maps, drawings of proposed station locations, reports, meeting notes etc)

Somerville Transportation Equity Partnership (Somerville's community advocacy for the Green Line Extension, Orange Line Assembly Sq. stop, and more)
http://www.somervillestep.org/

Medford Green Line Neighborhood Alliance (Advocating for stops on the Green Line Extension in Medford)
http://www.medfordgreenline.org/

[antimony.livejournal.com]

Anyone know if there's a specific email address or paper address to send comments to if we can't make this meeting? I'll already have left for Thanksgiving, but I've been trying to make it to as many of these as I can.

[fefie.livejournal.com]

You can email:
MGNA at info (at) medfordgreenline.org
STEP at info (at) somervillestep.org

You can fill out a form to send comments to EOT here:
http://www.greenlineextension.org/ (click on Get Involved)

[antimony.livejournal.com]

Last one of these specifically had the organizer/committee email -- though maybe they handed it out at the meeting. I've already sent comments in ages back -- it was registering presence I was looking for.

[on-reserve.livejournal.com]

Except that playgrounds and other neighborhood improvements don't generally drive rents up at the same level/rate that proximity to the T definitely does.

Like I said, I have mixed feelings. I *know* that increased access to the T is great for many people but I also worry about being forced out of my apartment due to increased rent since I'm in no position to be able to buy anytime soon.

I was just trying to say that some people do "oppose" the T (though I wouldn't say I officially oppose it -- I would not actively try to fight it, I just worry about my own situation) for reasons other than NIMBYism/oh-no-the-hooligans.

[kalimba21.livejournal.com]

People really think this is going to happen? It's a ploy to keep activists busy for a few years.

This is one of 2 big dig mitigation projects where the fine print says "an equivalent project may be substituted."

I think if we got a somerville stop on the lowell line commuter rail, along with better service to harvard square from Broadway, mid city, our community would be served almost as well, maybe even better. There's no way I'll be taking a somerville green line to enter the system at lechmere or north station, even though my work destination is right on the green line, at Cleveland Circle. Thinking honestly, will you?