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

RE: dystopia or no? a guessing game!

[dmaze]

People who rely on public transit are the ones suffering here, and they're the same ones that need affordable housing.

From what I've seen in greater Camberville, reasonable-to-good public transit is actually one of the big draws of this corner of the world. Ask a suburban Californian who rides "urban buses", and then ride the 87/88 around here: you see a reasonable slice of technology professionals going to software jobs in East Cambridge, and the T bus clientele is very different from what a suburbanite would expect.

"Affordable housing" is also a technical term. One local mechanism I've seen for getting it is giving developers subsidies in exchange for new units that are deed-restricted to only be sold to people who earn less than 80% of median income. I feel like those units sell for far below market rates: these two units (both between Union and Inman; one 2br/2ba limited to 80% median income, one 1br/1ba limited to 110% median income) are both selling for around $200K, but other properties in the area (according to Zillow) are vastly more than that; even another unit in the 432 Norfolk St. building sold a year ago for $311K.

The short of it is, I think better transit will make the area more expensive, not less, and it will result in even fewer properties being naturally available around that $200K "affordable" price point.