Green Line to come to Somerville!

[ceo]

Today the state announced that the Somerville Green Line extension is a go.

Comments

[hissilliness.livejournal.com]

Fantastic!

Does anyojne have any idea what the timetable is likely to be?

[glowroper.livejournal.com]

Is there a map of the proposed line? Looks like either my rent is going up or I will have to move.
:(

[ceo]

This is a map of Alternative 1c, which I believe is the one they're going to build.

Now, I don't know what other hurdles the project faces at this point (funding, etc). The Union Square stop ought to keep the MVTF folks (and Mayor Curtatone, who has really pushed for it) happy.

[kissoflife.livejournal.com]

Zowwie- it'd use that rail line that seems to run quiet sleepy supply trains at odd hours? Does seem like a hella-cheap idea.

And either door-to-door Ting for pampered me, or vagabond exile from Somerville. *sob* Better start saving my pennies now...

[rmd.livejournal.com]

and with a union square stop, in a few years people can push to get the union square branch extended along that rail right-of-way to the porter square stop and you'll be able to get from somerville to cambridge without going through boston.

[ceo]

I think that would be considered a low-priority project, given as Porter already has a perfectly good T stop. Plus, you'd have to widen the trench east of Porter to make room for it.

[rmd.livejournal.com]

true. i figure this is a fight for 20 - 40 years down the line.

[canongrrl.livejournal.com]

you've just made my night with that map. Not that I live amazingly close to Gilman Square :-) and the commuter rail extension in Uniion is exactly what I need for work

[watercolorblue.livejournal.com]

YEEHAW!
I bet your house value is gonna go up now. If it doesn't, I'll be shocked.

[magid.livejournal.com]

Excellent!

[ruthling.livejournal.com]

Yay!

[chuckm.livejournal.com]

Hurray!

Now if they can just get the red line running at speed again.

[desiringsubject.livejournal.com]

Whoohoo!

[oakenguy.livejournal.com]

Yay!

Now watch the Mystic View Task Force people try to stop it for some reason.

[hauntmeister.livejournal.com]

They already came close to (ahem) derailing it. Many of the MVTF live in Union Square, and they wanted the line to terminate there.

OT

[glowroper.livejournal.com]

Pardon me, Hauntmeister, but that is a very handsome icon pic.

Re: OT

[hauntmeister.livejournal.com]

Thanks. It's the face I have.

[seamraog.livejournal.com]

Yay! We actually won

What a nice change of pace. =)

[shinxy.livejournal.com]

Fucking incredible.
Now Tufts won't even have to run that shuttle anymore!

[surrealestate.livejournal.com]

Well, now, or by 2015 or so. :)

Does Tufts have multiple shuttles? I can't imagine that this would affect the one that stops in Davis Square.

[shinxy.livejournal.com]

Well, I guess the idea behind the shuttle is that the T is a ways away from Tufts. If the Green Line extends to College Ave, there won't be any reason for Tufts to run a shuttle to Davis. And frankly, the Davis shuttle is horribly inefficient. It runs too infrequently, and stops too long at the campus center, to really be useful. You can almost get to Davis faster by walking.

YEAAAAAA!!!

[jmaynardg.livejournal.com]

I own a two-fam in Union Sq. Hate to say this, but whoopie for increasing property values!!! :) --M

[jadelennox]

<unpopular grousing>
The extended green line will make my life easier. But you know what's needed more than this? About a hundred other projects, including the Urban Ring (*man* that would rock); the Blue Line extension to Lynn; improved Silver Line service to the level promised. Somerville can use more coverage, but Lynn could get some serious urban renewal if the blue line went out, which would improve the lives of people in ways more substantial than improved propoerty values and shorter commutes.
</unpopular grousing>

[eclecticavatar.livejournal.com]

Awesome, but isn't it going to cost taxpayers $100 million?

[st-darwin.livejournal.com]

It'll probably cost $400 million or so (http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2005/05/12/state_seen_readying_plans_for_green_line_extension/), but that's less than half of the $1 billion that fixing mistakes cost on the Big Dig - so far.

Massachusetts promised to carry out some public transit initiatives in exchange for the Big Dig. They're now trying to reneg on extending the Green Line, among other projects.

The state kicks in almost $850 million a year for MBTA subsidies (http://www.mbta.com/insidethet/budget.asp) - how much does it kick in for roads? Medford and particularly Somerville lose a lot of their taxable land to highways used mostly by people who don't live or work in those towns. If Boston had spent $10 billion improving public transit in the past 15 years, I'd be riding a bullet train to work.