But 15 years, several lawsuits, two Boston mayors, and five Massachusetts governors later, the Big Dig transit-system upgrades are still the source of public consternation and government deliberation. In August, the state’s Executive Office of Transportation (EOT) issued a new set of recommendations dealing with the administration’s remaining transit commitments. The EOT endorsed the Green Line extension that would stretch beyond Lechmere to Somerville’s Union Square (providing more convenient access to a bustling residential neighborhood that’s home to several bars and restaurants, and a Target), and then into Ball Square, Winter Hill, and West Medford. It also put its weight behind 1000 new commuter-rail parking spots and the expansion of the Fairmount, or “Indigo,” Line, which would provide more stops and service to high-population areas of Dorchester, Mattapan, and Hyde Park.
But, along with the recommendations, the deadlines for all three projects were pushed back, and the Red-Blue connector and Arborway restoration were left conspicuously off the list entirely.
It seems as if there is still hope for the Red-Blue project, which EOT spokesman John Carlisle calls “a useful transit application to pursue in the future.”
The Arborway trolley, however, seems doomed to be permanently replaced by #39 buses. “We heard overwhelming comments from local public-safety officials that they had very grave concerns about putting a trolley down that corridor,” Carlisle says, adding that with new low-emission buses “we can accomplish better transit service with the same air-quality goals."
Now, it falls on the state Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) to evaluate all of the EOT recommendations, solicit public comment (until January 17), and make a decision that could serve as the final word in the long debate over T-expansion plans.
The Conservation Law Foundation, meanwhile, is suing again, claiming that the altered transit plans leave the state in non-compliance with federal Clean Air Act obligations. They want the Arborway Restoration and the Red-Blue connector back on the table, and they advocate raising gas taxes to pay for transit projects.
Lingering debate
At a late-December public hearing on the proposed projects at the DEP’s Downtown Crossing office, it was clear that time had not tempered the emotions of neighborhood advocates or public officials.
Somerville mayor Joseph Curtatone praised the “warm embrace of the Green Line project,” but said that pushing scheduled completion back from 2011 to 2014 led to an “intolerable level of uncertainty” for his constituents.
State senator Jarrett Barrios invoked environmental justice, citing Chelsea, East Somerville, and Medford as places that deserve less pollution and a detailed project timeline. “[These communities] have waited too long for the Green Line extension to become a reality,” Barrios wrote in a letter to the DEP commissioner. “These communities — Somerville in specific — suffer from extreme rates of air pollution due to I-93 traffic and diesel commuter-rail trains; an additional three years without mitigation is not acceptable.”
Several representatives from the Dorchester Bay Economic Development Corporation spoke in support of the Indigo Line; they were happy to see it on the list of recommendations, but irritated by the delay from 2008 to 2011. Indeed, with 15 years of evaluation and re-evaluation, missed deadlines seem irresponsible to many interested parties.
