Green Line Extension to Medford & Union Sq

Re: Green Line to Medford to start in 2011

anyone know where this is?

http://www.mbta.com/about_the_mbta/news_events/?id=19425&month=&year=

AGREEMENT ON NEW LOCATION FOR GREEN LINE EXTENSION VEHICLE MAINTENANCE FACILITY

Start Date: 5/17/2010
Email: colin.durrant@state.ma.us

The Massachusetts Department of Transportation (MassDOT) today joined Congressman Michael Capuano and Somerville Mayor Joe Curtatone in announcing an agreement on a new preferred site for a maintenance and storage facility needed for the Green Line extension to Somerville and Medford.

Supported by the City of Somerville and elected officials throughout the Green Line Extension corridor, the new site is located in the Inner Belt area of Somerville and is known as 'Option L,' due to its L-shaped configuration. The new location eliminates many of the negative neighborhood impacts associated with the original site proposed by MassDOT, and presents the best opportunities to further long-term planning and development objectives in the area.

The selection of the Option L site is the culmination of a community planning process that engaged community advocates, local residents, business people and elected officials at all levels with MassDOT planners and engineers. MassDOT has received valuable input throughout the planning process and will continue to work with interested individuals and organizations, including municipal officials and staff, on specific design elements of the facility.

"I'd like to thank all those involved in this decision," said Congressman Mike Capuano. "Everyone showed the necessary flexibility and willingness to compromise when it came to locating the maintenance facility. As a result, we continue moving forward on the greater issue - making the Green Line Extension a reality."

"The Green Line Extension is one of our highest-profile projects, and one that offers enormous potential transportation benefits for the communities northwest of Boston," said MassDOT Secretary and CEO Jeffrey Mullan. "The City of Somerville, its municipal officials and local residents, are our partners in the planning process, and their participation has been and will continue to be invaluable as we move forward. The selection of Option L is an example of that partnership."

The Option L site makes possible the future redevelopment of the areas closest to the Green Line Extension corridor, and the creation of long-term transportation connections between the Inner Belt and Brickbottom neighborhoods.

"This is a momentous decision for the City of Somerville," said Somerville Mayor Joseph A. Curtatone. "Not only does the decision about where to locate the Green Line maintenance facility ensure that the Green Line expansion into Somerville remains on its 2014 timeline, the chosen location creates the opportunity for significant redevelopment inside the city's industrial Inner Belt. Best of all, this will help preserve the quality of life for nearby residents, notably those in the Brickbottom artist lofts. Today we're significantly closer to achieving the better, brighter, more connected future we envision for this city."

"We are very happy that MassDOT has chosen Option L as the preferred site for the maintenance facility," said Senator Patricia Jehlen. "As a legislative delegation we convened many meetings with MassDOT and the city to discuss this issue. In the end, however, it was the hard work and determination of the residents themselves who attended one public meeting after another to express their concerns that lead to this decision. The residents of Somerville, the Mayor and the many advocacy groups who have been involved in this process from the beginning deserve tremendous credit for their hard work and determination."

"This decision is reflective of a healthy and vigorous community process and a testament to the sustained involvement of so many community members and elected officials," said Representative Timothy Toomey. "Option L is by far the best alternative for the residents of Brickbottom and for the long-term economic development potential of the Inner Belt area of Somerville, and I'd like to thank Secretary Mullan and Governor Patrick for their commitment to finding the best possible location for the facility."

"I'm pleased that the siting of the maintenance facility has been resolved well away from the Brickbottom/Inner Belt area," said Representative Denise Provost (D-Somerville). "The Green Line extension is a priority for Somerville, and it's time to move the project forward."

"I appreciate MassDOT's willingness to work with our community and their continued responsiveness to our concerns," said Representative Carl M. Sciortino, Jr.

More information about the Green Line Extension project, including information about upcoming public meetings, can be found at http://greenlineextension.eot.state.ma.us/

For transportation news and updates visit MassDOT at our website: www.mass.gov/massdot, blog: www.mass.gov/blog/transportation, or follow MassDOT on twitter at www.twitter.com/massdot.
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Re: Green Line to Medford to start in 2011

Small map of Option L:

SupportFacility_L_120909.jpg



It's also somewhere towards the end here:

https://www.commentmgr.com/Projects...nance Facility Study - Final - 12.09.2009.pdf

^ Along with the other 2 plans that were given much consideration.
 
Re: Green Line to Medford to start in 2011

I love the placeholder Urban Ring BRT bridge with lots of sharp turns. So glad that disaster of a project didn't happen.

I look forward to my great-great grandchildren bringing the project back as a LRT / HRT combo.
 
Re: Green Line to Medford to start in 2011

I'm rooting for a maglev S-Bahn.
 
Re: Green Line to Medford to start in 2011

Boston Globe mytowns section Cambridge
http://www.cambridgeday.com/2010/05/28/linking-green-red-rail-lines-at-porter-draws-interest/


Linking green, red rail lines at Porter draws interest
By Marc Levy
Published: May 28, 2010

There is public interest in the Porter Square red line rail station getting a link to green line rail, a state transportation official says. (Photo: Marc Levy)
A link between green line and red line trains in Porter Square could be in the future, Katherine Fichter, project manager for the Green Line Extension project, said at a Wednesday project update in Cambridge.

The far, far future, she said.

?The extension that we?re building that?s currently going to terminate in Union Square, there could be a future in which that was then extended to make the connection for the red line and commuter rail at Porter. That?s not part of this project,? Fichter said before the meeting at the Kennedy Longfellow School. ?But there?s nothing we?re doing to make it impossible ? we are not doing anything to preclude that.?

There was public interest in exploring the link, she said.

Plans to extend the blue line 1,500 feet to meet the red line at the Charles/MGH stop in Boston are under way, with environmental reviews and final designs to be complete by Dec. 31, 2011.

The Union Square spur off the green line stop at Lechmere in Cambridge has a Dec. 31, 2014, deadline, along with several other new stops through Somerville into Medford.

But the idea of linking the red and green lines at Porter is new ? perhaps because there hasn?t been a Union Square stop from which to link.

The Massachusetts Bay Transit Authority asked for transportation suggestions from the public in 2003, a ?financially unconstrained? exercise that drew about 400 proposals and launched the green line extension.

A proposal to connect the green line to the red line, but at Harvard, didn?t survive, authority spokeswoman Lydia M. Rivera said.

?This idea was raised ? but was screened out,? Rivera said in an e-mail in 2005. ?The MBTA felt that there was not sufficient demand for this service, and other proposed projects in the area would meet any potential demand.?

Not precluding the ?urban ring?

The idea of an ?urban ring? connecting MBTA stations far outside Boston, instead of having riders come into the city to switch lines, has existed at least since the 1970s, but the state acknowledged in January that it doesn?t have the money to pursue the plan.

Fichter?s language in answering whether planning for the green line extension would enable connection with the urban ring, whenever it came about, was similar to her answer on a red line link: ?Again, we?re working hard not to do anything to preclude it,? she said.

Whenever it?s tackled, plans are for the urban ring to be served by buses, not rail.

In explaining why the green line extension is rail instead of buses, Fichter said that switching would mean ?saddling your riders with a change at Lechmere, which is something you always want to avoid. The optimal solution is to continue the existing mode.?

?We have existing green line travel to Lechmere and rail rights of way,? she said. ?East Cambridge, Somerville and to a somewhat lesser extent Medford are already well served by MBTA buses. They don?t operate particularly well in the environment given the corridors, the congestion, the density. So that?s when you begin to think that a different mode would be more appropriate, and in this case we have the rail opportunity.?

?It?s not like we have a mode-specific policy,? she said.
 
Re: Green Line to Medford to start in 2011

It would just be cheaper to build a commuter rail station at Union Sq.
 
Re: Green Line to Medford to start in 2011

That might be a good idea but would not serve the same purpose at all.
 
Re: Green Line to Medford to start in 2011

A Red-Blue connector pipe dream for the 21st century!
 
Re: Green Line to Medford to start in 2011

http://www.boston.com/yourtown/news/somerville/2010/06/_danielle_dreilinger_photos_th.html


By Danielle Dreilinger, Globe Correspondent

In Somerville, everyone's speculating and dreaming about When the Green Line Comes ? just see the real estate ads. In May and June, the Community Corridor Planning coalition put a little reality into the mix by holding open meetings to design the future light-rail stops. Almost 100 people attended, said organizer Ellin Reisner.

Well, not entirely reality: The state has no obligation to put any of the designs into practice. But the results provide an interesting imaginative exercise for the city. Here's a few of the ideas. You can see sketches at the Somerville Transportation Equity Partnership website.

BRICKBOTTOM

Now: Residents recently won a battle to keep the Green Line maintenance facility tucked away instead of smack in the middle of things, but this neighborhood still faces a lot of challenges. Light-industrial buildings ? Cataldo Ambulance, Gino's Ornamental Ironworks ? lead down Joy Street to the Brickbottom live-in artists' studios. But the rail bed completely cuts them off from the small shops and restaurants a stone's throw away. With no crossing lights, the people who live across Washington Street hesitate, then run.




Later: Stephen Kaiser, a Cambridge engineer who participated in the design workshops, thought the state's draft design was all wrong: It allowed access only from the Brickbottom side. But "the corridor's there and the people are there," he said.

His team presented several alternatives. One shifts the station closer to Washington Street, taking over the Cataldo storage site. Another lofts the station into the sky, with access to Washington Street on both sides.

If the station stays at its half-hidden proposed location ? a block down Joy Street ? at least the state should cut an underpass through to Caf? Belo. Whatever happens, "It's got to be coordinated with good traffic lights to get people across the street," Kaiser said.

There's also a proposal afoot to move the station to the other side of Washington Street, squarely into an isolated wedge of residential East Somerville. "The key thing to emphasize here is the need for flexibility and to work things out with the locals," he said.

GILMAN SQUARE

Now: It's arguably the least promising spot ? weedy, strewn with debris. The station site, tucked behind the high school, is next to a piano factory and the decrepit, city-owned Homans Building, which officials determined in 2004 was too expensive to renovate. Ed Leathers Park is new, green, and tidy but separated from the future station by Walnut Street. Commercial activity is limited to the Paddock pizzeria and several gas stations. The high school, blotted out by trees and the steep slope, towers above. If you have a taste for urban Gothic, it's actually kind of gorgeous.

Later: In the designers' vision, the Homans becomes "Somerville Center," with community multi-use space, a job center, and a caf? with outdoor seating facing the station. A walkway runs to a new north/south bus on steep School Street ? a useful addition in a city whose buses all run crosstown. Another covered walkway channels visitors directly to the high school, City Hall, and the library uphill on Highland Avenue.

BALL SQUARE

Now: It smells like fried food ? fitting for a commercial strip known for its popular eateries. But Ball Square remains unassuming, perennially hobbled by the 15-minute walk to Davis Square. There's an old bowling alley, an old bank, an old travel agency that's been empty for years, an old ? you get the picture.

Later: The priority was "connectivity," said design group member Jason Zogg, a Cambridge resident and urban planner. "We moved the bus stops to the top of the bridge," he said. "You could basically get off the bus and go directly down an escalator or an elevator to a central platform" and pick up the train. That's especially important for this stop, which is right along Broadway bus lines from the northern Winter Hill area, which gets bupkis from the Green Line extension.

But along with practicality, Zogg's team wanted something spectacular, as unique and striking as Boston's new courthouse or the Charles/MGH stations. Their design has wooden benches, LED light design, public art ? no little Allston Green Line platforms here. "Why shouldn't our transportation systems ? be these really amazing and inspiring public spaces?" he asked rhetorically. They even made a Ball Square logo: a sphere and a cube.



ROUTE 16

Now: If Gilman at least has a run-down sense of place, the possible end of the line ? being designed with the rest of the stations but not currently on the list for funding - has a sense of ... rear parking lot. It takes several minutes of scrambling among U-Haul trucks to locate the rail bed (above, below), tucked behind bland office buildings and cut-rate gyms. The tracks are fenced off and landscaped with neat beds of crushed stone.





Later: In designers' imaginations, this stop that may not happen is the "(Meanest) Greenest" of them all. An overpass would bring pedestrians over to Mystic River parkland; an underpass, to the Medford Whole Foods. A new park would abut Boston Avenue. That said, as befits the end of the line, there's plenty of parking.

Traveling back inbound, the sun breaks out on a cloudy day, gold and gunmetal, and the bright future looks a little more plausible.
 
Re: Green Line to Medford to start in 2011

And the recession claims another victim.

http://www.boston.com/yourtown/news/medford/2010/06/final_impact_report_filed_for.html
 
Re: Green Line to Medford to start in 2011

It's awful how the comments on that story seem to think adding transit options INCREASES traffic. The typical cheap rent, those who want to intentionally keep a neighborhood flawed or otherwise less desirable to keep their rent down, NIMBYs also appear.
 
Re: Green Line to Medford to start in 2011

Seems like it's time to officially change the title of this thread ("to start in 2011")...

Starts & Stops

Long-awaited Green Line extension to Somerville, Medford delayed again

By Eric Moskowitz
Globe Staff / July 11, 2010

Somerville and Medford residents waiting to swipe their CharlieCards and ride the Green Line must now wait even longer. State officials disclosed Friday that completion of the project ? discussed for decades, put off by a succession of administrations, and planned in earnest for the past five years ? will be delayed again, until at least October 2015.

his Expensive, complex projects get delayed all the time, and this one will run through the state?s most densely populated city (Somerville) and cost an estimated $954 million, 50 percent more than the state predicted just a few years ago.

But this delay means more than disappointing residents in an urban corridor bracketed by elevated highways and suburban-bound commuter rail tracks but served only by buses and cars. The state is legally bound to finishing the Green Line by the end of 2014, because it is part of a list of nonautomobile improvements it pledged to offset environmental impacts of the Big Dig, comply with the federal Clean Air Act, and avoid a lawsuit from the Conservation Law Foundation.

Missing that deadline will make the project more expensive, because the state will need to come up with an air-quality-improving short-term alternative to the Green Line or face legal and community pressure. The project delay was acknowledged in an annual status report that the state Department of Transportation must file with the Department of Environmental Protection to update its progress on the Green Line and other Big Dig mitigation efforts, a list known as the State Implementation Plan. The 2010 report was filed Friday, and transportation officials began calling local leaders and stakeholders to alert them to the delay before the report landed at DEP.

Jeffrey B. Mullan, the state?s transportation secretary and CEO, said supporters should not see this as a lack of commitment to the Green Line or a sign of financial woes.

?This is, if not our top priority, one of our top priorities in the transportation world,?? he said. ?It is a good project, it is a worthy project, and it?s one that we?re committed to.??

Mullan attributed the delay to the year or more the state spent negotiating with the community and investigating alternative locations for a 24-hour, 11-acre service yard for Green Line trains that the state wanted to put squarely amid the Inner Belt, a little-utilized industrial area. That seemed like a suitable location to the state because it?s something of a no man?s land and because part of the property was publicly owned. Locals objected for the same reasons ? arguing that if the Green Line is to fulfill goals of getting people out of cars and encouraging new development around transit, then the Inner Belt should instead be readied for new housing, businesses, and amenities.

The state ultimately agreed in May to relocate the yard, pushing it to the east edge of the Inner Belt, next to an existing 30-acre maintenance yard that serves MBTA commuter rail trains, though the plan would be more expensive and require some eminent domain takings. Officials said previously the maintenance yard debate would not delay the project, but when they prepared their annual report they realized they were wrong, Mullan said.

?I think it?s time well spent, because I think we?ve got a better project than we had,?? Mullan said.

He said the state would work with the community on a short-term environmental alternative, like retrofitting local MBTA buses to use less fuel and release fewer emissions.

?It?s disappointing, because you want the Green Line to happen as soon as possible,?? said Rafael Mares, a Conservation Law Foundation staff attorney for transportation and environmental-justice projects. ?What I think is important is if there?s no way to avoid the delay that at least there?s appropriate mitigation and the community has a say in that.??

Ellin Reisner is president of the Somerville Transportation Equity Partnership, which has spent years engaging the community and trying to hold the state?s feet to the fire. ?On some level I?m not surprised, but I?m disappointed,?? she said. ?As someone who works as an advocate for this, you have to constantly be paying attention to the process to make sure it doesn?t get railroaded.??

The state does not have the money in hand to build the project but is working on an application for the Federal Transit Administration?s New Starts program, to win half the funds. Governor Deval Patrick has said the state will make good on its commitment even if that application does not succeed.

Mullan said that is still the case, and the state is especially optimistic about winning federal money with changes looming for the scoring process. US Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood has said New Starts will be redesigned to value ?livability,?? including economic development potential and sustainability; under the Bush administration, projects won or lost largely on a riders-per-dollar formula.

But advocates of greener transportation worry that the state has not moved fast enough to balance transit and bike projects with highway construction, and that it remains hampered by the massive debt burden from the Big Dig and political wariness over new taxes for transportation.

?The good news is it really appears that Secretary Mullan understands the vision and . . . is actually trying to move the direction of planning and implementation toward what the law requires and logic says is needed for the future,?? said Steven E. Miller, a board member of the transportation advocacy group LivableStreets Alliance. ?[But] it obviously is proving difficult to happen quickly.??


T ridership up; increases for 3 months registered
MBTA ridership numbers are in for May, and they show a weekday average of 1,262,000 daily one-way trips on all modes, a 3 percent increase over May 2009. The April numbers were up 2.5 percent over April 2009, and the March numbers were up 3 percent. That?s the first time the T has posted three straight months of year-over-year growth since fall 2008, when gas was just beginning to fall from $4 a gallon and the Great Recession had not exacted its greatest toll on employment.

Here?s how individual modes in May compared with May ?09: Buses up 6.7 percent, heavy rail (subway) up 3 percent, light rail (Green Line) up 5.7 percent, commuter rail down 10.7 percent.

The T is traditionally a lagging indicator, not a leading indicator, of economic recovery, said Brian Kane, budget and policy analyst for the MBTA Advisory Board, which represents the cities and towns served by the T. The drop in commuter rail ridership is the surest sign the economy is not back yet, he said.

What to make of the increases to other categories?

The T itself touted the bus increase as a sign that people appreciate its investment in new hybrid buses for a couple of routes (purchased with federal stimulus funds) and the release of real-time data to help riders catch the bus on select routes.

But what, then, do we make of the subway increases, despite a pattern of service-related delays on the Red Line and other problems afflicting an aging and financially burdened system?

?What this indicates to me is that we?ve had some good months of tourism,?? Kane said. ?We?ve had a couple of conventions in town, and the Sox have had a lot of homestands.??


Rest assured, Concord Rotary delays only temporary
Glenn in Littleton e-mailed to ask about traffic tie-ups on Route 2, which he uses for his early-morning commute to Wellesley.

Every ride for the past two weeks has crawled to a halt at the Concord Rotary and remained stop-and-go to the intersection of Route 2 and Route 62, about 1 1/2 miles east, he reported.

The good news, according to Department of Transportation spokesman Richard Nangle, is that the delays are temporary and should improve by the end of July. The state has engaged in a series of separately bid projects to repave stretches of Route 2, paid for with federal stimulus funds.

Although Route 2 opens up in other places, the Concord stretch of the highway is dotted with traffic lights, and the milling of the road for repavement meant destroying the ?loop detection devices?? ? the wires buried in the pavement that tell the traffic lights when cars are waiting.

As a result, the lights have been changing to allow for traffic to cross Route 2 from side streets, even when no one is waiting to do so.

The delays should not be as bad during peak commuting times ? 6:30 to 9:30 a.m. and 3:30 to 7 p.m. ? because that is when the lights are coordinated for traffic flow and not activated by the loop detectors, which will be replaced with the final repaving, Nangle said.
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Quick observation: the article notes that CR ridership is down 10%, and yet it's the CR that keeps getting capital allocations for extensions. Does anyone in government actually want the green line extension, or are they much more happy to see each and every suburb, further and further out, get one or two choo-choos a day (that serve what, an additional thousand or so people)?
 
Re: Green Line to Medford to start in 2011

They draw all the wrong conclusions. Read what they said: people are riding the bus more because they appreciate the investment in hybrid vehicles and because there have been conventions? What the fuck environmentalist drove instead of riding the bus before because it wasn't hybrid? What kind of other person wouldn't have taken the bus before it was hybrid? And what conventioneer would ever take a bus (unless they're counting the Silver Line, which wouldn't surprise me that they do when it's convenient).
 
Re: Green Line to Medford to start in 2011

Agreed. The increase probably has more to do with the spread of real time bus data. It helps when you can see when the next three buses are coming to any given stop.

I will say the hybrids may have triggered a small ridership spike on the #39 as the new fleet of articulated buses suddenly appeared and took over from the Neoplans. People were generally impressed with the prospect of something new and shiny. They're gone now though - all reassigned to the #28, and the Neoplans are back.
 
Re: Green Line to Medford to start in 2011

The state does not have the money in hand to build the project
Click to expand...

Cut the shit and stop using the New Bedford/Fall River commuter rail project to gain a few votes with a lot of cash.
 
Re: Green Line to Medford to start in 2011

That an MBTA budget analyst doesn't understand that the Red Sox play the same number of home games every year seems indicative of the MBTA's understanding of the city's transit environment and needs in general.

Thanks for saying it, UrbEx; Cut the shit, indeed...
 
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