Green Line Extension to Medford & Union Sq

[393b40]

Rest of the state is going to see $750M in sunk cost for nothing other than drainage improvements for the hipsters of Somerville and say "Great deal! Such fiscal responsibility!"?

Explain.

Easy.

1. Sell it as a massive savings since the savings > costs. People never remember the historical details. Doesn't matter that $750 million has been spent if you keep saying you're saving $X billion.

2. Run a PR campaign to smear support for the project goals. Tout how useless it is for most the state. Tout the fiscal responsibility of cancellation (doesn't matter if it's actually true).

Done. First maneuver sets the tone of the dialog as savings. Second maneuver sweeps out the oppositions legs.

 

[Arlington]

^ I think you are overlooking F-lines very cogent analysis that Baker cannot win if the Somerville anger causes turnout to skyrocket. Canceling GLX will cause every democrat to lose their primary and Baker to lose in 2018.

So I also endorse F-lines conclusions that you will see delay and a mix of scale trimming and VE'ing but not cancel.

In this it looks A LOT like Maryland' Gov Hogan (R-MD) trimming their Purple Line light rail in ways that didn't cost him his FFGA (didn't impose huge cancellation costs, which loomed) and won't cause the Washington burbs to turn out in anger. For example he lengthened headways to save on vehicles and yards, but not doing any serious damage (and one day they can add it back). His other deal was to force the rich democratic municipalites to pay more (in his case that's Prince George's and Montgomery counties)

You'll see a bewildering mix of tweaks, and probably lean on Somerville for less frills and more TIF, but they will build it.

 

[393b40]

^ I think you are overlooking F-lines very cogent analysis that Baker cannot win if the Somerville anger causes turnout to skyrocket. Canceling GLX will cause every democrat to lose their primary and Baker to lose in 2018.

I just don't see Baker getting hurt by it all that badly. It presumes Somerville will turn out to vote from spite which I don't think is true.

He also doesn't need to cancel it before 2018. Halt work. Start a legal challenge and drag it out for two more years then cancel it in his second term. I don't think Baker is worrying about anything beyond two terms. Guy has presidential candidate in 2024 written all over him.

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

Easy.

1. Sell it as a massive savings since the savings > costs. People never remember the historical details. Doesn't matter that $750 million has been spent if you keep saying you're saving $X billion.

How does "$750M in sunk costs" support that when Joe Short Attention span's head has already exploded at "$750M in sunk costs. . ." way before you get to the second part.

That's not how citizen psychology works re: government spending. Ever. They get pissed at the wasted money, not the money that wasn't wasted on top of what was. If you're not convinced, try reading the Herald for 3 consecutive weeks and come back with one example--any example--of "Well...it could've been worse" succeeding at placating the outrage over misplaced gov't finances or priorities.

(Hint: you won't find a solid real-world example of one.)

2. Run a PR campaign to smear support for the project goals. Tout how useless it is for most the state. Tout the fiscal responsibility of cancellation (doesn't matter if it's actually true).

You can smear the cityfolk all you want, but there's nothing in the fiscal responsibility dept. to upsell it on because of #1. You're right; it doesn't matter if it's actually true, because everyone tuned out at the words "$750M in sunk costs".

Done. First maneuver sets the tone of the dialog as savings. Second maneuver sweeps out the oppositions legs.

No. It horribly backfires because you've lost the mob at the lede without ever having the chance to set a tone--any tone--in service of a purpose. That's how issues of outrage over gov't waste ding the public's medulla oblongata. Always. There is no second pivot move unless it involves telling them they're getting something real salvaged out of the unfavorable price, and stepping them down from the ledge. "You get nothing for a steep price, but at least it's not a steeper price" isn't a pivot, it's pouring lighter fluid on the first-reaction outrage over wasting any money.



If you think there's a way to easily sell this on the uniformed exurbanite, it needs to jibe with Voter Psychology 101. And trying to appeal to voters who hate gov't waste by upselling a gov't waste doesn't jibe with that psychology. None of them care that the waste wasn't worse when they've already turned into spittle sprinklers over the waste being bad in the first place.

 

[Texasian]

^ I think you are overlooking F-lines very cogent analysis that Baker cannot win if the Somerville anger causes turnout to skyrocket. Canceling GLX will cause every democrat to lose their primary and Baker to lose in 2018.

...

You'll see a bewildering mix of tweaks, and probably lean on Somerville for less frills and more TIF, but they will build it.

Somervillians are nothing if not outspoken and involved. You can bet your ass that the folks who get burned by a cancellation will turn out in force come voting time, although I'm not sure we'd turn our ire on our reps, given how they've basically all been outspoken advocates for GLX.

I'd be interested to see what happens to Curtatone if Union Square gets curtailed, what with all the land takings for redevelopment. There's no way an employment center on the scale US2 is imagining could be supported without rail transit.

 

[CantabAmager]

Put me in the it's gonna get shit canned column. It's just too easy of a sell to the rest of the state. Nobody is going to care if the hipster elite in Somerville don't get a fancy mile long light-rail extension. Well except Somerville.

I'm kinda amazed that SCR hasn't been brought into the GLX scrap yet. Something's getting built in Somerville, but if it ends being less than promised I could see some real urban electorate anger towards SCR which, let's be honest, is only going to see its costs rise as well. That'd be a nasty political situation to wade into.

 

[bigeman312]

It's insincere to say Somerville is the only stakeholder in this project. It would serve Medford, Cambridge, and has a lot of support throughout the area.

 

[belmont square]

Wouldn't it be more logical to cut the College Ave branch and keep Union? Union is by far the biggest commercial district in the GLX project corridors and it also represents the best place for dense TOD development. When I look at Gilman through College, I just see a lot of moderately dense development with few infill opportunities, one smallish commercial district in Ball Square, only moderately patronized bus routes, and two stations (washington and ball) already within a 10 minute walk of rapid transit.

 

[tangent]

The stronger the perception that cancellation is not an option the less likely new bids will come in meaningfully lower and the more likely it gets cancelled.

 

[bigeman312]

two stations (washington and ball) already within a 10 minute walk of rapid transit.

Honest question: are you an insanely fast speed walker or a liar?

 

[Digital_Islandboy]

Somervillians are nothing if not outspoken and involved. You can bet your ass that the folks who get burned by a cancellation will turn out in force come voting time, although I'm not sure we'd turn our ire on our reps, given how they've basically all been outspoken advocates for GLX.

I'd be interested to see what happens to Curtatone if Union Square gets curtailed, what with all the land takings for redevelopment. There's no way an employment center on the scale US2 is imagining could be supported without rail transit.

Vote out the Democrats and put in whom? Republicans which signed all those sweetheart deals with Wall Street under Mittens and bankrupted the MBTA in the first place? Good way to repeat history. People of Mass. are getting just what they voted for in Mittens... The best thing Mass. could do is shut down green line extension and go pay off those high interest loans and when that's done perhaps consider some excessive spending again. Reckoning has come home to roost like it or not.

--
Occupy Somerville Forum: How Wall Street is Hurting T Riders
March 9th, 2012 · Josh G · Events
http://www.occupyboston.org/2012/03/09/occupy-somerville-forum-wall-street-hurting-riders/

--
The Boston Globe Covers Up for Wall Street, Ignores Swaps Losses in Coverage of MBTA Turmoil Wednesday, 18 February 2015 09:17 By Yves Smith, Naked Capitalism | News Analysis
http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/...97172921211&action=collapse_widget&id=0&data=

(quote)
he Refund Transit study concentrated on local transit systems. Some of its numbers are stunning. The study pegged annual swap losses at the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (Boston area) at $25.8 million and suggested that the MBTA will "lose another $254 million on these swaps" before they lapse. The study added that the MBTA was losing money on swaps even before the [2008] crisis, with total losses running in the "hundreds of millions" of dollars.
And it is not as if the Globe can feign being unaware of the swap losses. It ran this editorial, MBTA needs better terms on interest swaps, in June 2012:
(unquote)

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

I'm kinda amazed that SCR hasn't been brought into the GLX scrap yet. Something's getting built in Somerville, but if it ends being less than promised I could see some real urban electorate anger towards SCR which, let's be honest, is only going to see its costs rise as well. That'd be a nasty political situation to wade into.

Oh, the South Coast votes out its Mayors and reps with a lot more regularity and impatience than inside-128 does. You better believe a lot of pols who staked their careers to SCR and the illusion that it's still proceeding at some level come under heavy fire for the '16 primary + general over an inability to explain why SCR won't be deader than GLX. With carryover of the same to the '17 mayoral races. Given how swingy this region is, thinning out the Baker coalition by electing pols actively hostile to the Administration over the politics of transpo double-crossing deprives him of endorsements and has immediate consequences for his ability to hold that region.

It's a twin killing. You can cancel SCR and build GLX and survive, commit firmly to SCR while canceling GLX and *maybe* survive (but I doubt that since that torches too much exurban "fiscal responsibility" support as collateral damage)...but cancel one while remaining noncommittal to the other is the worst of both worlds. It will knock out too many pols in the '16-'17 cycles amenable to working with Baker and replace them with pols actively hostile to Baker, and turn too many pols amenable to working with Baker into ones actively hostile to him as a survival strategy for reelection. In two different regions--Bristol County and southern Middlesex--where his 2014 over-performance was the literal difference between Gov. Baker and Gov. Coakley.

 

[belmont square]

^ I think you are overlooking F-lines very cogent analysis that Baker cannot win if the Somerville anger causes turnout to skyrocket. Canceling GLX will cause every democrat to lose their primary and Baker to lose in 2018.

Baker got crushed in Somerville in '14 (lost to Coakley by 11,000 votes with 22,000 cast in total). Somerville had 50% turnout in '14.

 

[393b40]

Oh, the South Coast votes out its Mayors and reps with a lot more regularity and impatience than inside-128 does. You better believe a lot of pols who staked their careers to SCR and the illusion that it's still proceeding at some level come under heavy fire for the '16 primary + general over an inability to explain why SCR won't be deader than GLX. With carryover of the same to the '17 mayoral races. Given how swingy this region is, thinning out the Baker coalition by electing pols actively hostile to the Administration over the politics of transpo double-crossing deprives him of endorsements and has immediate consequences for his ability to hold that region.

A lot of this assumes the people who even vote even think about transportation as the defining issue. There's a lot of other crap that captures peoples attention.

 

[George_Apley]

Right now, Baker doesn't have an active enemy in either Curtatone or Capuano. I think he's savvy enough to not want to turn either of them into active enemies... Both the Mayor and the Congressman have spent years and years on this project. Their legacies are tied to it and they won't let the state kill it with mismanagement without making major political noise and burning down those who killed their GLX.

 

[bigeman312]

A lot of this assumes the people who even vote even think about transportation as the defining issue. There's a lot of other crap that captures peoples attention.

Not in Somerville, Medford, and Cambridge if GLX gets canceled.

 

[393b40]

Not in Somerville, Medford, and Cambridge if GLX gets canceled.

Who exactly is this going to anger in Cambridge? Cambridge is already very well served by the T. It's not like Lechmere is going away either. The only people you maybe piss off are people right along the GLX corridor in Somerville and Medford. That's it.

 

[belmont square]

Honest question: are you an insanely fast speed walker or a liar?

I walk with purpose, about a 15 minute mile. Those distance are about 2/3 mile.

It's insincere to say Somerville is the only stakeholder in this project. It would serve Medford, Cambridge

Now I have an honest question. Do you think people in Central Square, Harvard Square, Cambridgeport, North Cambridge and West Cambridge will be served by a light rail line that clips a formerly industrial corner of their city limits miles away from where they live? Do you think people in East Cambridge who will now have to cross Route 28 are uniformly in support of the project?

 

[George_Apley]

Not in Somerville, Medford, and Cambridge if GLX gets canceled.

Right. Lots of people in Cambridge (Lechmere, Inman), Somerville and Medford bought homes in the last decade by being sold on future access to nearby transit. Many of those property values will fall or at least flatten if the project is cancelled. It's not just about transportation. In this case, transportation is intimately linked with thousands of peoples' personal finances. That's not nothing. Even people who don't currently give two shits about the Green Line, but own property along the corridor stand to lose value. That will make them give a shit.

 

[belmont square]

Not in Somerville, Medford, and Cambridge if GLX gets canceled.

Don't forget Everett and Malden voters. Like Cambridge they also derive almost no benefit from the project, but if voters will be motivated by somewhat close-by transit investments being canceled we should add them into the electoral mix as well.