Green Line extension project in increasing jeopardy

[keithn.livejournal.com]

There have been two new developments over the last 24 hours, from the Globe:

• Yesterday: State won’t rule out canceling Green Line extension
• Today: Several Green Line extension firms lose T contracts

I'm not seeing much of a reason to be optimistic about the GLX project at this point.

Comments

[keithn.livejournal.com]

There are 243,263 people in those three cities and the US consumes 392 gallons of gasoline per person (probably less in these three cities due to our public transit system). So a generous estimate is that 95,359,096 gallons of gas are consumed by these three cities per year. If it was all bought in these three cities, to raise 1 billion dollars (the current GLX overrun), you would need a gas tax of at least $10.48/gallon over 1 year or $2.10/gallon over 5 years or $1.05/gallon over 10 years. Given that people would just start buying their gas in other cities, this seems like a plan that cannot possibly work.