Green Line Extension to Medford & Union Sq

Re: Green Line to Medford to start in 2011

Looks like the state is defining West Medford loosely.

Push for third Green Line stop
Posted July 16, 2009 10:35 AM

By Travis Andersen
Town Correspondent

Transit activists eagerly await a state report on the Green Line Extension, a project that includes two new subway stations in Medford, as well as a possible third station on the line in the city.

Ken Krause, who sits on the pro-transit Medford Green Line Neighborhood Alliance, said the report should come out in August. He also serves on a citizen advisory group working with officials on the project.

The report will assess the project's impact on many neighborhoods, including several in Medford. The state has committed to opening two new Green Line stations in Medford in 2014, in Ball Square and at the intersection of College Avenue and Boston Avenue. Officials are mulling a third station - at the intersection of Route 16 and Boston Avenue - that would require federal funding.

The alliance backs station number three. (For a little history on the Green Line project, see this 2008 article.)

"We definitely support (it), because we think it makes it a much better regional transportation project," Krause said. "It gets people using [public] transit instead of their cars."

An alliance study found that about 9,000 people live within walking distance of the proposed stop on Route 16. But, Krause said, quality of life matters, too. The alliance will only continue supporting all three stops if the state meets several conditions. They include making the stations accessible for cyclists and pedestrians; ensuring no residents lose their homes to eminent domain; taking noise reduction measures to protect those homes; and keeping parking lots out of the mix.

"Parking attracts cars," Krause said. "We don't want people driving to these stations."

Wellington Station, the Medford stop on the Orange Line, has 1,316 parking spaces. The location of the new Green Line station on Route 16 would be about 3.5 miles from Wellington.

Krause added that the state has generally made the right moves so far, and the report will bring the plan into focus. Meanwhile, the alliance has received more than 2,000 signatures on an online petition supporting the Route 16 stop.

"The state calls it a 100-year project," Krause said. "because you only get one chance in 100-years to do a project like this."
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Link

Dear Green Line Extension Advisory Group Members -

Since we last met, EOT and the Green Line Extension project team have been working with our federal and state partners to prepare for the submission of a Draft Environmental Impact Report/Environmental Assessment (DEIR/EA) for the Green Line Extension project. As recently reaffirmed as part of the development of the Regional Transportation Plan for the Boston Region Metropolitan Planning Organization, the Green Line Extension is a top transportation priority of both the Commonwealth and the Patrick Administration. As many of you likely know, the financial realities confronting the Commonwealth's transportation agencies are dire, and we are fortunate to be advancing this project in these tough times. As a number of months have passed since our last meeting, we wanted to update you on several important happenings on the Green Line Extension project:

* We are currently on track to file the DEIR/EA in August. This important milestone will bring to a close the current phase of the project and will allow the project team to focus its efforts on Preliminary Engineering and any additional necessary environmental review.
* Prior to the submission of the DEIR/EA, the project team will convene a conference call - rather than a meeting, in deference to summer vacation schedules - for Advisory Group members and interested members of the public. This call will be an opportunity for the project team to provide an overview of the contents of the DEIR/EA, to explain the submission process, and to answer any questions. We anticipate scheduling the conference call soon.
* Following the submission of the DEIR/EA, the Federal Transit Administration will hold a public hearing to discuss the DEIR/EA. The Massachusetts Environmental Policy Act Office will also hold a public comment period; we anticipate requesting an extended comment period to maximize opportunities for the public to participate.
* Throughout the public comment period, the full text of the DEIR/EA (and all appendices) will be available for download from the Green Line Extension website. It will also be available in printed form at the State Transportation Building and at public libraries and other municipal buildings throughout the project corridor. CD-ROMs of the full text of the document, as well as printed copies of the Executive Summary, will be available for all Advisory Group members and for anyone else who requests them. Upon request, we will make this document available in alternative formats.
* We will notify you about the specific dates for the hearing and the public comment period as soon as we can. These dates will also be posted to the project website and noticed in local newspapers.

As we have discussed, the DEIR/EA will propose a Full-Build Preferred Alternative of a Green Line Extension that travels from a relocated Lechmere Station to Route 16/Mystic Valley Parkway with a spur to Union Square. As we have also discussed, the decision to recommend that the Green Line be extended to Route 16/Mystic Valley Parkway - beyond the legally-binding requirement that it be extended to Medford Hillside (as represented by the proposed College Avenue station) - was predicated on the availability of funding to support the final segment of the project between Medford Hillside and Route 16/Mystic Valley Parkway.

Because of the constraints placed on us by federal funding requirements and the economic crisis facing our state and nation, at this time we are not able to identify sufficient funding to support the construction of the Medford Hillside to Route 16/Mystic Valley Parkway segment within the 2014 timeframe mandated for the rest of the project by the State Implementation Plan. However, we want to be clear that this does not diminish our support for the Mystic Valley Parkway/Route 16 segment. The Boston Region Metropolitan Planning Organization has voted to 'flex' funding dedicated for highway construction to instead fund the construction of the Medford Hillside to Route 16/Mystic Valley Parkway segment. This decision will allow that portion of the Extension to be constructed shortly after the remainder of the project has been completed.

Accordingly, the DEIR/EA will propose to complete the Green Line Extension in a phased approach, in which Phase I will consist of the legally-mandated segment from a relocated Lechmere Station to College Avenue with a spur to Union Square and Phase II will then extend the Green Line from College Avenue to Route 16/Mystic Valley Parkway.

Please note that the DEIR/EA that will be submitted in August will include analysis for the entirety of the Full-Build Preferred Alternative (from a relocated Lechmere Station to Route 16/Mystic Valley Parkway). This submission will allow EOT to receive environmental approval for the full scope of the project, thereby enabling us to proceed with the two-phased construction approach described here without needing to seek additional environmental approval in the future.

The Patrick Administration remains deeply committed to the entirety of the Green Line Extension Project. Following the filing of the DEIR/EA in the next few months, EOT will continue with an aggressive project schedule in our efforts to meet the goal of bringing transformative public transit service to Somerville and Medford by 2014. Throughout all phases of the project, the passionate support of so many individuals and organizations has and will continue to keep the Green Line Extension project moving.

For more information on the project, please see www.mass.gov/greenlineextension. To contact the project team, please email Kate Fichter (katherine.fichter@eot.state.ma.us). Please share this message with others who may be interested.

Thank you for your interest in and support of the Green Line Extension project.
The Green Line Extension Project Team
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Link
 
Re: Green Line to Medford to start in 2011

"Parking attracts cars," Krause said. "We don't want people driving to these stations."

I think what he meant to say was that he wants stations in Medford to be close enough for everyone to walk. A station on Route 16 might actually be intended as a Park-and-Ride. The terminus of every T line should be a suburban station that people drive to. It keeps the cars out of the center city (of both Medford and Boston).

That said, reading it again, it does sort of sound like he misses the point a little. Parking at and driving to this particular station is exactly what is needed.
 
Re: Green Line to Medford to start in 2011

Green Line extension now to cost $900 million-plus, may be shorter
Email|Link|Comments (2) Posted July 20, 2009 06:55 PM

By Noah Bierman, Globe Staff

The Green Line extension to Somerville and Medford is getting more expensive and potentially shorter. Work on a $1.5 billion bus tunnel underneath Boston Common has been put on hold indefinitely. Seventeen highway projects valued at $870 million are likely being canceled.

New financial realities are forcing state transportation planners to reevaluate scores of projects, large and small, and substantially reduce their ambitions. Even as federal stimulus money has provided a boost in some targeted spots, and the state borrows billions to repair bridges over the next few years, money for many long-term expansion projects is in much shorter supply.

A new document completed late last week lays out Boston-area expansion plans for the next 20 years. The tentative document, called the ??regional transportation plan?? is updated every few years, but projects are not eligible for essential federal matching dollars unless they make the list. Before the next update in two years, many will get put on hold, if not eliminated altogether. The plan, put together by a regional committee led by the state, will be available for public review and revision beginning Aug. 20.

Federal officials have warned the state to limit the projects on its list to those that have an identifiable source of funding, a change from the past when many plans were included to appease political groups, even though they had scant chance of getting built. This time, the panel in charge of the list is expected to add ??illustrative projects?? that have no means of funding, but may come back to life when the economy improves.

??We need to get more ? for lack of a better word ? real,?? said David Mohler, the deputy transportation secretary who oversees planning.

The Green Line expansion, estimated to cost $600 million in recent years, is now listed by the Patrick Administration at $934 million, with hopes that the federal government will pay half the costs. And that money will build tracks and stations only to Union Square and Tufts University by 2014, a legal deadline set to meet clean air requirements.

The state had previously announced that by that time it would expand to Route 16, which would draw more riders and relieve more road congestion.

Mohler said the commitment remains, but the state does not have the $130 million available for the final link and will not set a timeline for finishing it. Mohler said he expects the second pot of money will be available between 2016 and 2020.

??The completion date obviously still stands like a moving target,?? said Ken Krause, a Medford representative on the Green Line project advisory group. ??Nothing gets less expensive to build.??

Despite the setback and some concern among supporters, the Green Line expansion is one of the few public transit projects that remains a priority in the plan. Three projects included in the past ? the Urban Ring, the Silver Line bus tunnel, and the Blue Line extension to Lynn ? have all been excluded from the group of projects eligible for federal funding.

Mohler said the state will continue to spend money on planning for several of these projects. But they will need to be put back in the plan before they can get federal funding, which is almost always essential to getting built.

??It?s not necessarily a setback, in terms of project development, but it is a sense from people that it?s not as firm as it once had been,?? Mohler said.

The Urban Ring is a $2.6 billion project that would link the MBTA?s existing system of spokes, making it possible to get, for example, between places like Cambridge and Brookline without riding into downtown Boston for a subway transfer. The Blue Line expansion would add two stations past the existing Wonderland station.

The Silver Line bus tunnel, though further along in development than the other two projects, is in more danger. It would connect, via tunnel, the existing bus line on Washington Street with another existing bus tunnel that goes from South Station to Logan International Airport and the South Boston waterfront.

That project was already put in doubt when the federal government told the MBTA late last year that it would not be eligible for federal matching dollars until the debt-ridden transit agency could prove it had enough money for its share.

MBTA General Manager Daniel A. Grabauskas said Monday that he recently stopped all engineering work on the Silver Line after state transportation secretary James A. Aloisi Jr. told him the project would not be included in the long-term plan any more. Grabauskas said the T would have to spend money on engineering that may never get reimbursed by the federal government.

Aloisi, meanwhile, announced plans earlier this year to use federal stimulus money to connect the two existing Silver Lines without building a tunnel. Advocates for the project say the alternative project is not a substitute. The transit access provided by the tunnel is essential to the continued development of the South Boston waterfront, said Richard A. Dimino, president of A Better City, a business group that has been pushing for the project.

In addition to the high profile transit projects, the plan drops roadway improvement projects around the region, including a $228 million project to widen Route 3 South between Weymouth and Duxbury and $63 million for a new I-93/Mystic Avenue interchange in Somerville.

??I?m very sorry to see the state we?re in,?? said Marc Draisen, executive director of the Metropolitan Area Planning Council and vice chair of the committee that crafted the long-term plan. ??For the past 20 years, the way we?ve dealt with that is to take out the state?s credit card.??

The state can no longer keep borrowing, Draisen said.
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http://www.boston.com/yourtown/news/medford/2009/07/green_line_expansion_now_to_co.html
 
Re: Green Line to Medford to start in 2011

With money tight, the project could be built in phases. Construct the branch to Union Square first, then the branch to Tufts or West Medford later. If only the Union Square Branch is built initially, then there would probably be enough funding left to cover the new Lechmere station, to make up for the disappearance of private funding from the floundering North Point development.
 
Re: Green Line to Medford to start in 2011

That said, reading it again, it does sort of sound like he misses the point a little. Parking at and driving to this particular station is exactly what is needed.
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I don't think he misses the point at all. His point is that the terminus station at Route 16 should not be a park and ride because it would attract traffic to an already rather congested area. Instead people should walk, bike, or take the bus to the station. I would guess that quite a few bus routes from the suburbs will be rerouted to connect to the Route 16 station. Note that the B and C lines both do not have parking at their terminus stations
 
Re: Green Line to Medford to start in 2011

Boston.com - July 21, 2009
Green Line extension funding in question
Planners stalling many projects

By Noah Bierman, Globe Staff | July 21, 2009

The Green Line extension to Somerville and Medford is getting more expensive and potentially shorter. Work on a $1.5 billion bus tunnel underneath Boston Common has been put on hold indefinitely. Seventeen highway projects valued at $870 million are probably being canceled.

New financial realities are forcing state transportation planners to reevaluate scores of projects, large and small, and substantially reduce their ambitions. Even as federal stimulus money has provided a boost in some targeted spots, and the state borrows billions to repair bridges over the next few years, money for many long-term expansion projects is in much shorter supply.

A new document completed late last week lays out Boston-area expansion plans for the next 20 years. The tentative document, called the ?regional transportation plan?? is updated every few years, but projects are not eligible for essential federal matching dollars unless they make the list. Before the next update in two years, many will get put on hold, if not eliminated altogether. The plan, put together by a regional committee led by the state, will be available for public review and revision beginning Aug. 20.

Federal officials have warned the state to limit the projects on its list to those that have an identifiable source of funding, a change from the past when many plans were included to appease political groups, even though they had scant chance of getting built. This time, the panel in charge of the list is expected to add ?illustrative projects?? that have no means of funding, but may come back to life when the economy improves.

?We need to get more - for lack of a better word - real,?? said David Mohler, the deputy transportation secretary who oversees planning.

The Green Line expansion, estimated to cost $600 million in recent years, is now listed by the Patrick administration at $934 million, with hopes that the federal government will pay half the costs. And that money will build tracks and stations only to Union Square and Tufts University by 2014, a legal deadline set to meet clean air requirements.

The state had previously announced that by that time it would expand to Route 16, which would draw more riders and relieve more road congestion.

Mohler said the commitment remains, but the state does not have the $130 million available for the final link and will not set a timeline for finishing it. Mohler said he expects the second pot of money will be available between 2016 and 2020.

?The completion date obviously still stands like a moving target,?? said Ken Krause, a Medford representative on the Green Line project advisory group. ?Nothing gets less expensive to build.??

Despite the setback and some concern among supporters, the Green Line expansion is one of the few public transit projects that remains a priority in the plan. Three projects included in the past - the Urban Ring, the Silver Line bus tunnel, and the Blue Line extension to Lynn - have all been excluded from the group of projects eligible for federal funding.

Mohler said the state will continue to spend money on planning for several of these projects. But they will need to be put back in the plan before they can get federal funding for design and construction, which is almost always essential to getting built.

?It?s not necessarily a setback, in terms of project development, but it is a sense from people that it?s not as firm as it once had been,?? Mohler said.

The Urban Ring is a $2.6 billion project that would link the MBTA?s existing system of spokes, making it possible to get, for example, between places like Cambridge and Brookline without riding into downtown Boston for a subway transfer. The Blue Line expansion would add two stations past the existing Wonderland station.

The Silver Line bus tunnel, though further along in development than the other two projects, is in more danger. It would connect, via tunnel, the existing bus line on Washington Street with another existing bus tunnel that goes from South Station to Logan International Airport and the South Boston waterfront.

That project was already put in doubt when the federal government told the MBTA late last year that it would not be eligible for federal matching dollars until the debt-ridden transit agency could prove it had enough money for its share.

MBTA General Manager Daniel A. Grabauskas said yesterday that he recently stopped all engineering work on the Silver Line after state transportation secretary James A. Aloisi Jr. told him the project would not be included in the long-term plan any more. Grabauskas said the T would have to spend money on engineering that may never get reimbursed by the federal government.

Aloisi, meanwhile, announced plans earlier this year to use federal stimulus money to connect the two existing Silver Lines without building a tunnel. Advocates for the project say the alternative project is not a substitute. The transit access provided by the tunnel is essential to the continued development of the South Boston waterfront, said Richard A. Dimino, president of A Better City, a business group that has been pushing for the project.

In addition to the high-profile transit projects, the plan drops roadway improvement projects around the region, including a $228 million project to widen Route 3 South between Weymouth and Duxbury and $63 million for a new I-93/Mystic Avenue interchange in Somerville.

?I?m very sorry to see the state we?re in,?? said Marc Draisen, executive director of the Metropolitan Area Planning Council and vice chair of the committee that crafted the long-term plan. ?For the past 20 years, the way we?ve dealt with that is to take out the state?s credit card.??

The state can no longer keep borrowing, Draisen said.

Noah Bierman can be reached at nbierman@globe.com.
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Re: Green Line to Medford to start in 2011

cden4 said:
people should walk, bike, or take the bus to the station.
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In that case, let's save the $900M. I'm not sure what country you live in, but Americans don't walk, bike or take the bus to T stations. If you are going to make taking the T so difficult then people will opt to not take it. This $1.8B investment ($900M doubled by the Massachusetts Pork Factor) would be better spent on widening the highways and building two massive parking garages at South Station and North Station.
 
Re: Green Line to Medford to start in 2011

pelhamhall, are you serious? Your post is simply laughable. Clearly no one walks to the T. Those hundreds of people filling the trains every morning whom I walk to the T with. They're just my imagination. Oh and those new bike cages at Alewife that are full every day? Yeah no one uses those.
 
Re: Green Line to Medford to start in 2011

Last time I checked, I have walked to a Green Line station as a commuter. Many times. I'm also American. So, what the hell are you going on about?

Obviously this is a separate issue from whether the Rt 16 terminal in particular should have parking spaces. If it ever comes into existence in the first place.
 
Re: Green Line to Medford to start in 2011

Does anyone have any idea what the 17 highway and road projects that are canceled were?
 
Re: Green Line to Medford to start in 2011

Let me clerify - people in the suburbs do not walk, bike or take a bus to the T. People in the city most certainly do. People in the suburbs do not.

I believe this debate is over whether or not to make this a local, urban T stop, or a regional, suburban T station.

I over-generalized, and should have made the above distinction.

I still believe two gigantic 2,000-3,000 car parking garages at North and South Station with direct I-93 highway access would be a greater improvement to our transportation needs, but I am a heretic when it comes to this stuff and clearly should be burned at the stake.
 
Re: Green Line to Medford to start in 2011

Building parking garages just encourages people to drive more. Parking inside the city should be at a minimum while parking out in the suburbs should be increased, according to your assessment of urban/suburban transportation choices, pelhamhall.

pelhamhall said:
I believe this debate is over whether or not to make this a local, urban T stop, or a regional, suburban T station.
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Just to put this into perspective, what really killed the Red Line extension into Arlington in the 1980s was that the town didn't want two huge hulking parking garages in the centers of town (it would have looked like Quincy). I don't blame people in Somerville and Medford for not wanting giant garages.
 
Re: Green Line to Medford to start in 2011

Wherever this Green Line extension ends, it should have ample parking for people in the surrounding communities. I don't think this extension plan is very well thought out. Stopping at Rt. 16 in that area will be a real problem, it's already traffic hell there. What we need is a big dense TOD to hide the needed parking garage. The Green Line should bend out at Rt 16 and end in the wasteland around I-93 in that area - plenty of dead space, parking lots and strip malls. Good spot for a Station Landing 2.0.
 
Re: Green Line to Medford to start in 2011

pelhamhall said:
The Green Line should bend out at Rt 16 and end in the wasteland around I-93 in that area - plenty of dead space, parking lots and strip malls. Good spot for a Station Landing 2.0.
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I know exactly the area you speak of and I think this would be better served by an Orange Line branch, but that is a whole 'nother can o' worms.
 
Re: Green Line to Medford to start in 2011

pelhamhall said:
Let me clerify - people in the suburbs do not walk, bike or take a bus to the T. People in the city most certainly do. People in the suburbs do not.
.
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Who uses Alewife?

Answer: people in the suburbs.

Go ahead and visit the station on a weekday. Youll find over 200 bikes parked there, and many, many people being dropped off.


However, I do agree that the garage should be bigger. It was built for 2 more floors, lets go ahead and finish them.
 
Re: Green Line to Medford to start in 2011

If they finished the planning for this, or at very least the new Lechmere station, they could probably get stimulus money.
 
Re: Green Line to Medford to start in 2011

I was unclear, I guess, in my initial point. I think that having parking at local neighborhood stations is a bad idea. Taking my own town of Newton, for example: Eliot and Waban have parking, and it congests local neighborhood streets in the peak hours. Do the people who drive to these stations live far enough away to justify driving? I'm not certain, but probably not. Having those parking lots only encourages additional short trips while cluttering space around the stations with cars, space that in Waban's case could definitely house some nice local businesses (insert comment about current economy here...)

That said, the terminal station should be considered the embarkation point for those with legit claims to drive to the station, in that they live miles away and aren't on a connecting bus route (taking two or more busses to light rail makes no sense). This is easier, to be sure, at Riverside, Braintree or Alewife (or Wellington if we include intermediate stops), but even BC and Cleveland Circle are large commercial centers with ample parking. Cleveland Circle's terminus effect is killed a bit by the adjacent and faster Riverside Branch, but Boston College is still drivable from neighboring towns, if not as easily.

I'm not certain if the area around the proposed station can handle the car traffic and parking facilities (a quick glance on Google Maps shows a promising commercial lot next door), but that would, to me, be the ideal situation, surrounding TOD or not.
 
Re: Green Line to Medford to start in 2011

Really the two biggest considerations for whether to build parking around a terminus station is (1) can the roads handle (or do we want) the new car trips to and from the station, and (2) is it a wise use of scarce transportation funding (since structured parking is quite expensive to build)?

There's also the question of whether we want to encourage growth near the stations where riders can walk, bike, or take transit to the station, or within driving distance as well?

By not providing parking, we are doing the former. The incentive is for new development to happen around and near all the stations (including the terminus) where the riders will walk, bike, or take other transit to get to the station. If we take parking at the station off the table altogether, we ensure that any new demand for driving to the station is minimized. In the case of Route 16, a "kiss and ride" certainly makes sense, as do improving the pedestrian, bicycle, and bus connections to the station, but building parking will only entice people to drive to the station, bringing more automobile congestion to already-busy streets, and spending scarce funds on a facility that serves relatively few people at quite a large expense.

(I'm not aware of any MBTA parking facility that pays for itself, in the sense that the users of the facility pay the true cost of parking there. If that were the case, I might be a little more supportive of the concept. However, the new car trips still remain an issue.)
 
Re: Green Line to Medford to start in 2011

By Danielle Dreilinger, Globe Correspondent

Most people in Somerville look forward to raising a glass of champagne to the Green Line extension. But as of June, the state Executive Office of Transportation was poised to drop some bitter into the sweet: Planning to put a big, honking MBTA maintenance facility in southeast Somerville.

The city?s mayor, aldermen, business groups, and transit advocates protested. Loudly. Where the state saw a garage, they envisioned a gleaming office park. They were in a stare-down.

The state blinked first. On Oct. 15, the EOT filed a draft environmental impact report that offered not one but two alternatives to the original plan, potentially freeing the 160-acre Brickbottom/Inner Belt to become another Kendall Square.

City officials were quietly negotiating behind the scenes all along, said Michael Lambert, Somerville director of transportation and infrastructure.

....

City planners are drumming their fingers awaiting the go-ahead for an economic opportunity study, which has already been paid for by federal community development block grant stimulus funds. In fact, once the Green Line stop arrives and road access issues are solved, Lambert thought interest from developers would ?take care of itself.? (Though possibly not from the New England Revolution, which considered the area for a stadium. The details never got far, and Lambert said the mayor hasn?t spoken to the Revs in a good year.)
....

More at
http://www.boston.com/yourtown/news/somerville/2009/10/most_people_in_somerville_look.html

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Re: Green Line to Medford to start in 2011

Did anyone else notice the brutal honestly of this article in equating Kendall Square with an office park?

Brickbottom is a tremendous area. You can fit a large swath of the Back Bay grid in there. Why are office parks or train yards the only alternatives? Why doesn't anyone think in terms of actual new neighborhoods?
 
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