Sign Our Petition to Support the Green Line to Route 16
http://www.petitiononline.com/…
The Executive Office of Transportation is nearing a decision on its final recommendation for station locations along the Green Line extension to Medford.
While EOT currently proposes stations at Ball Square and at College Avenue, it does not propose a stop at Winthrop Street in Medford Hillside, and is still only considering a terminus station at Route 16 (Mystic Valley Parkway) on the Medford/Somerville line. Over the summer, EOT and its consultants will be collecting and analyzing ridership, air quality, land use, cost effectiveness and other data that will factor into EOT’s final recommendation of station locations, due in September.
The Medford Green Line Neighborhood Alliance strongly believes that Route 16 is the best location for a terminus station, and expects the data to bear this out. This location would:
+ Provide Green Line access to thousands of residents of Medford, Somerville and Arlington living within a 10-minute walk.
+ Be conveniently accessible from two major thoroughfares with existing bus connections, and at the apex of two multipurpose paths being planned along the Mystic River and Alewife Brook.
+ Dramatically increase ridership, reduce auto trips, improve air quality and lower the per-user cost of the project, making it more attractive for federal approval and funding.
+ Serve two large portions of Medford and Somerville designated as Environmental Justice communities – those traditionally underserved by clean mass transit and overburdened by air pollution and other environmental impacts — one of the requirements the project must meet.
In 2006, an MGNA petition to the Secretary of Environmental Affairs helped ensure inclusion of the Route 16 area in the scope of the Environmental Impact Study for the project.
Now at another crucial juncture in the project, the MGNA is circulating another petition, to be submitted to the EOT and local, state and federal officials, supporting the Route 16 area as the best location for a Green Line terminus.
We urge all Green Line proponents to sign the petition – located at http://www.petitiononline.com/… – and to send this notice to your friends and ask them to sign as well.
The Green Line extension represents a historic opportunity to improve the quality of life for area residents for generations to come. Extending the line to Route 16 will ensure that the project achieves its greatest potential.
Thank you.
Medford Green Line Neighborhood Alliance
Since none of the government organizations associated with the Green Line extension project is taking a consumer poll, MGNA’s petition is the best and ONLY vehicle currently available to anyone who wants to record his or her support for the extension to Route 16.
<
p>If you live anywhere near the proposed Route 16 T stop please sign the petition.
<
p>We need to get your support on everyone’s radar screen.
<
p>- Jim
How many residence will be displayed in Medford/Somerville to get to Rt 16? What is the proposed Rt.?
<
p>Will this become an alternative to Alewife for people living west? Can the area handle considerably more traffic during rush hour? How many additional parking spapces will have to be supplied? Will there be a parking Garage? Will there be an increase in crime resulting from the riff raff (homeless, addicts, pervs) that can assemble at end of line?
<
p>Mystic Parkway is part of the Emerald Necklace which is the original urban planning for recreation and natural beauty. Poor urban people need places to go too. You want to put a train station there for transient college students and young adults so they won’t have to take a bus to another train station.
<
p>I don’t like it.
<
p>Send it as far as Tufts.
the above are reasonable questions. Don’t they need to be answered before moving forward?
Trust me, this and more has been brought up by residents.
<
p>The Green line is not going to cross the Mystic River, so it won’t disrupt the environmental and recreational value there. (Some of there early planning had a stop in West Medford, which would have linked the extension with the Com Rail there, but they determined the impacts of crossing the river were too great.)
<
p>The parking situation is one of the things being considered. If you have strong opinions about it, I urge you to attend the meetings.
I asked the questions and our reply is I know the answers but you can go and get them yourself.
<
p>What are you afraid of Marcus?
<
p>Whose homes will be torn down for this project/ What abouyt traffic? What about parking/
<
p>No links Marcus?
In fact they’re hoping to avoid taking any property at all, though it is possible that some people who live right along the tracks will have their yards reduced slightly. I didn’t give more information about parking and traffic, because I don’t know. It’s definitely one of the things they’ve studied though. Most of my information comes from attending the meetings, so I don’t have links. You can learn more about the project here:
http://www.somervillestep.org/…
Were these meetings or dime parties?
Wrong. Emerald necklace goes from the Common down to Franklin Part.
blue hills around greater boston / beaches to north middlesex fells and through to breakhart in Saugus to Lynn
He designed a small part of it which runs through fenway and to arboway etc. But the Emerald Necklace is much larger. A look at the ole MDC pretty much tells the story. Parkways to beaches, Blue Hills, Lakes, and pond, and wooded area throughout graeater boston. Running from Boston outwards.
http://www.emeraldnecklace.org…
http://www.cityofboston.gov/pa…
http://www.boston-online.com/e…
http://www.nps.gov/history/nr/…
and therefore a station stop next to the parkland will improve access to it for “poor urban people”.
It is not needed. Look at a map.The area has commuter rail. Many buses goiung t Alewife, Davis, Harvard, Wellington, Sullivan Square, Boston. These people do not need another alternative. They can add more energy efficient buses if they want. Somerville Cambridge, Medford and Arlington have more than enough convenient public transportaion alternatives.
<
p>We cannot affored this and you do not need it.
<
p>Davis square is less than a five minute walk from Ball Square.
<
p>Ya lazy kids. Get off ya asses and walk a little for crissake.
<
p>And a bus will never kill you.
If you disagree with putting the terminus at Route 16, where would you have it put and why? Have you put any critical thought into the decision whatsoever?
<
p>Or it that you’re against the Green Line extension altogether? Well, then, you must therefore disagree with the literally decades of studies demonstrating its positive environmental and economic impact to Somerville and west Medford.
<
p>Or maybe, as usual, you haven’t invested an ounce of thought into the matter and you just enjoy being a troll.
Mnay alternbatives there. And many poeple do not work in Boston. What ever happened to the Urban Ring? That is a worthwhile plan? But only poor live along there. Not psuedo urban hipsters from somerville/medford/arlington
You obviously know zero about the demographics this project is targeting or nothing really whatsoever about the project. I apologize to everyone reading this thread for feeding the trolls.
Just persoanl attacks. What about the Urban Ring. Whatr about displacement. Wjhat about cost. Name a place in Somerville of Medford that is inconvemient to take the T to Bosotn?
any part of Somerville that isn’t a 10-minute walk (1/2 mile) from Sullivan, Porter, or Davis station.
which will take yoiu to the T stop or in to Boston
Broadway, Highland Ave, Boston Street, Mass Ave. . Everyone in Somerville is within walking distance to a bus that will take them to subway staion or directly in to boston.
<
p>I disagree, we do not need this
without responding. Ron, do you agree that people in Somevrville have bus lines within walking distance?
I just came into Boston for a meeting and was quite astonished to see a thick layer of smog hanging over the city. Behold the internal combustion engine.
<
p>Presuming your posting was entirely serious (even your statements on what people you’ve never met actually need), I thought I would try to respond to them in some orderly manner.
<
p>- Jim
<
p>Your Comment:
“It [the Green Line extension to Route 16] is not needed. Look at a map.The area has commuter rail. Many buses goiung t Alewife, Davis, Harvard, Wellington, Sullivan Square, Boston. These people do not need another alternative. They can add more energy efficient buses if they want. Somerville Cambridge, Medford and Arlington have more than enough convenient public transportation alternatives.”
<
p>My Reply:
Yes, let’s look at that map. Owing greatly to the volume of traffic clogging the nineteenth-century roads of Medford, the buses servicing our city so we can go to Davis or Alewife or Harvard are consistently stuck in traffic. The problem is particularly acute during the icy-road months of winter, when buses and all other vehicles are spinning their wheels and going nowhere. My answer to the question of why buses around Medford are underused is that they are frequently late, they often never show up at the bus stop and, when the do, they get delayed while en route to their destinations.”
<
p>Traffic projections for Medford (and the metropolitan area generally) over the next 10 years are dire – there is not going to be a leveling off of traffic growth unless reliable public transportation is developed. Your “solution” within the present and future transportation context amounts to this: traffic with more buses equals more late or never-to-arrive connections to Davis, Alewife and Harvard.
<
p>Your Comment:
“We cannot affored this and you do not need it.”
<
p>My Response:
The financing of this project is not entirely figured out. However, public works project always pay for themselves over time. Interestingly, your “solution” would bear a large price tag but have little to no benefit. How would you suggest Medford finance the number and severity of road and infrastructural repairs that would result from traffic increases? What is the cost of increased air pollution to individual Medford families, particularly in light of epidemiological studies that nail air pollution as a primary cause of childhood asthma? What is your price tag?
<
p>I do, in fact, need the Green Line; alternatively, I could take the bus to the T station and arrange with my boss to show up late to work half the time, or perhaps I could continue to risk being run over by another driver while cycling to work in a clearly marked cycling lane.
<
p>Your Comment:
“Davis square is less than a five minute walk from Ball Square. Ya lazy kids. Get off ya asses and walk a little for crissake. And a bus will never kill you. It is not needed. Look at a map.The area has commuter rail.”
<
p>My Reply:
You really should look at that map. The Davis Square stop is connected to Park Street in Boston; it does not run through the many neighborhoods between Medford and Boston in which students (AND 10s of thousand of residents) live. The Red Line, I’m afraid, does not service any of them. The commuter rail does not either; in fact, West Medford is the last commuter-rail stop before North Station, where people have to switch in order ride the Green Line. There are no more commuter-rail stops after West Medford in great part because our heavy-rail system (the commuter rail) cannot make more frequent stops without releasing even more diesel smoke into the neighborhoods surrounding the rail corridor.
<
p>Your Comment:
“These people do not need another alternative. They can add more energy efficient buses if they want. Somerville Cambridge, Medford and Arlington have more than enough convenient public transportaion alternatives.”
<
p>My Reply:
Nothing is going to make any bus more efficient – except decreased traffic. Enter Green Line.
and it is not about getting people iun and out of boston like it use to be.
<
p>What about the Urban Ring??
Unfortunately it’s going to cost even more than the Green Line. Maybe by 2040.
More info here.
The Urban Ring is folly. Similar to the silver bus line they want to build a tunnel taller and wider so they can put a bus in it, only to put rail in it later. Rail requires less height/width because they are on fixed tracks while a bus driver needs a steering wheel.
<
p>Building in this fashion costs millions more up front with a result of “we don’t have any money to buy trains now.”
<
p>That is, of course, just one of the reasons the urban ring is a silly waste of money.
Thanks, Jim. Ernie, unfortunately, doesn’t care what the merits of the project might be. His intention here is to be a troll — to make ignorant comments intended to provoke and annoy, not contribute to the dialogue.
my intention is toi ask why we need more transit to downtown Bosotn from Somerville. What about the urban ring? That p[roject is more important. Will this be taking valuable resources away?
<
p>Also, you didn’t answer about the land takings for teh job.
<
p>What you call trolling I call reasonable questions Greg.
<
p>What about the coal powered electric plants needed to run these trains?
<
p>The GreenLine to Medford will undo the heat wave Jimmy?
I can assure you that it takes significantly longer than 5 minutes to walk to Ball Square. You cherry picked the point where the two lines would be the closest and even there it’s still a 15 – 20 minute walk. Somerville and Medford have reasonable bus service in terms of the route coverage, but the service is rather infrequent on many of the routes. Somerville has the highest population density of any city in New England, but most of the major transit (I-93, 28, and the Lowell and Fitchburg lines) just bring traffic through our city rather than serving the residents. At a time when gas prices are soaring, we need better transit alternatives to serve all of Somerville and not just the Davis Square area.
The tax payers should not foot the bill to make your life easier. Somerville is not Brighton. Buses all over the place taking people from Somerville to Boston and T stops.
<
p>Take the bus. If you live in Davis Square why are you going to Ball Square. If you lived in Ball Square you have a bus to take you to Sullivan.
<
p>What is it you want, your very own private T?
Ball Square has plenty of reasons to go there. And when the Green Line is built I’ll still walk, so no, it isn’t my “own private T”.
Why Why Why does Ball Square need it. A bus goes right by there to wherever you want.
but since you’re a Republican I will stereotype and assume you live in Billerica.
<
p>Why why why do you need Route 3? 3a already provides adequate service just take it up to Lowell and hop on 495 or down to Burlington and catch 95. You also have route 129 and Route 4 is not far away, really that’s more than enough roads for anyone. Why should the tax payer maintain that superfluous highway just to make your life easier. You really want your very own private highway don’t you. We certainly cannot afford to maintain it. 190 is much bigger priority and you’re stealing money from more deserving highways.
it does not matter that I am a Democrat.
<
p>Of couse you haven’t answered mine Ed Quinn’s or my questions.
<
p>Why do “you people” believe you need to be able to walk to a green line stop rather than walk to a conveniently located bus stop and take a bus ride to Boston or Sullivan Station, or Leachmere, or Alewife, or Davis Square, or Porter Square, or Wellington Station. If you deserve one then shouldn’t we have lines going to Chelsea and Everett and other parts of Malden and Revere. Shouldn’t we extend the Orange Line into Dedham? The Red Line to Brockton? The Blue Line to Lynn? Oh wait. Chelsea, Everett, Lynn, Revere, Hyde Park aren’t cool places like Somerville.
<
p>But years from now when you move out to the suburbs you can reminisce about the great times you had when you were younger living in “cool” Somerville. “We could walk down the street and take the green line right to the Red Sox game”
The public transportation that I want for my city will transform people. Importantly it will serve those of limited means, but it will also serve many of those who love their set of wheels and currently can’t imagine leaving them behind. One day these people will wonder how they ever managed without the Green Line.
<
p>Public transportation at its best takes people out of their cars because it provides a better experience and a better way of life. Transformative public transportation gets people where they want to go faster and with less anxiety than a personal automobile can; people give it a try and are converted.
<
p>Committed car-free people like me are devoted to public transportation out of ideology. We will endure a one hour journey by a mixture of bus, train, and/or subway even though an automobile could bring us to work in half of the time. But most people require incentives. Four dollar gasoline provides some incentive. Ten dollar gas will provide even more. I want a positive incentive for my neighbors to free themselves from their metal cages on wheels. Then when I walk to the Green Line, I hope to see them walking too.
<
p>
I’ll try to speak your language here:
Why should my tax dolllars subsidize your personal automobile transportation?
<
p>
And because an obligate user of public transportation would not dismissively speak of “these people” who should be content to ride buses.
<
p>(Stephanie, not Stephen — not that it matters, I suppose.)
<
p>Because they instead get to take the subway direct into Boston rather than taking a bus down Broadway to Sullivan Square then a 5 minute subway ride to downtown Boston?
<
p>The urban ring will allow people in East Boston/Roxbury/Chelsea/Everett/Somerville/Cambridge/ Dorchester/South Boston travel bewteen those places much easier. Therefore easier acces to jobs. Not everyone works in Bosotn.
It has commuter trains that pass through, but none of them stop in Somerville.
Much cheaper
<
p>Like the Russians using a pencil in space and not a million dollar pen.
The Green line will provide much more frequent service then Commuter Rail will on won’t involve changing modes in North station and will allow people to go to and from different place in Somerville and Medford rather than just into Boston. Adding more Commuter Rail stops was studied as an alternative in the “Beyond Lechmere” planning (as was increasing bus service) but both were rejected in favor of the Green Line. (See http://www.ci.somerville.ma.us… ) While costs are obviously an important issue there are other considerations as well.
<
p>By the way, there used to be a Commuter Rail stop in Ball Square many years ago, I’m not sure when they got rid of it or why.
and you people are bullying for it when you do not need it.
It would be a luxury, not a necessity. Take the bus.
Ernie – there is no “big dig mitigation money.” Promises to spend money but no money in hand.
May I suggest the Ernie may be correct in some of his questions even if he losses points in his delivery.
<
p>First I agree with his point that we need to look at the people this project displaces and the impact on those left close by to an LRV line and facility the impact in my opinion has not been fully vetted.
<
p>Second the question of a Rte 16 terminus is one that needs many more answers Lets agree it would be true in that it will serve a large segment of the population but at what impact to the neighborhood it is located in. Take a hard look at Alewife Station it is located in a a heavy commercial area which had contamination issues that need large sums of money to resolve the MBTA and the state helped that process along by sighting the station there. I do not see the same level of issues in the area surrounding the rte 16 site instead this is a limited commercial with a heavy R-1 R-2 zone.
<
p>Rte 16 was as Ernie stated is a key Parkway around Boston which was established as a pleasure way not a commuters link as a result of the expansion of automobiles used as a commuter vehicle it was never laid out to handle the traffic it does currently what impact would a station at the Uhaul building have on the intersection which currently is rated a D or D- from the last study I saw.
<
p>Another point is the corridor itself those right of way for the commuter tracks are narrow and to crowd 2 more rail lines and overhead wires may be a great commuter benefit but what cost to that community.
<
p>Last Item not mentioned and I think a key one to ad to the discussion, lets look at how the MBTA powers the commuter rail system. yes the cars are relatively green in their emissions but why is that???? It is because it runs on electricity, which is generated miles away and out of sight of the commuters. Point in fact the MBTA buys a lot of Electricity from the coal-fired plants here in Massachusetts and buys almost zero from green alternatives. For a major user of Electricity why not a major supporter of green generation alternatives? Are we just shifting a pollution burden onto another community that is totally unaware of it? In my view the point is to reduce not shift pollution this should never be a NIMBY issue .
<
p>This is a very complicated issue and Ernie brings up some valid points and there are other points yet to be resolved I think to rush into an issue this complex is just like our rush into the Big Dig and we know how that went.
<
p>A site we all may want to take a look at
<
p> http://www.btwt.org/claims.htm
<
p>As Usual Just my Opinions
Go Tanners!
Has some legitimate points, and I am undecided on the E-line extension, but it is a different project (considering the E-line is actually a streetcar in the true sense of the word, whereas this extension is not.)
<
p>First:
<
p>”lets look at how the MBTA powers the commuter rail system. yes the cars are relatively green in their emissions but why is that???? It is because it runs on electricity”
<
p>The “commuter rail system” does not run on electricity. The locomotives use fuel. The only part of the system electrified is the Providence Line, and only Amtrak uses the overhead wires.
<
p>The green line does. It is more efficient to generate energy off-site than on a bus: this is why plug-in cars are the most efficient. This is why trolleybuses are environmentally better: a power plant is more efficient than an internal combustion engine. In addition, it can spew emissions away from urban areas.
<
p>Basically, an internal combustion engine is less efficient than a power plant. To illustrate this basic principle:
<
p>http://www.slate.com/id/217960…
<
p>Second:
<
p>”Another point is the corridor itself those right of way for the commuter tracks are narrow and to crowd 2 more rail lines and overhead wires may be a great commuter benefit but what cost to that community.”
<
p>The answer to “what cost” is “a few backyards.”
http://www.wickedlocal.com/som…
I have been participating in the Massachusetts area planning council vision process for the last 3 and a half years and the final plans are moving forward so I have had a lot of information to process and to look at the broad picture and dear say plans for Metropolitan Boston. This green line extension issue is one I have given some time to considering and reading about since I grew up in West Medford and know the area extremely well.
<
p>I also will give credit to Ernie for making me look at it in a different slant then I previously had as a result I have come to some conclusions.
<
p>First this plan was a throw in to help push the Big Dig funding through not a huge amount of local talk was held prior to it being thrown on the table like a side of beef which human instinct proves again was pounced on and devoured. Big mistake but in the list of evil deeds maybe a necessary one.
<
p>Second I want to ask people what is the vision for West Medford and the area around the green line, because right now what I see coming is what I see when I drive through New York red brick and hot top everywhere with apartments stacked like cord wood and workers trying to make into the metropolis daily in one crush of humanity. Can you see it single family homes becoming 2 family, 2 family becoming 3-4 units, a block being bought up to put 300 unit high rises, because of the MBTA ‘spokes of the wheel’scheme of development. Anyone remember the old westerns about land spec because of the railroad History does tend to repeat
<
p>Lets kick in the idea, use your imagination, that gas goes to $8.00 a gallon and a plane flight to New York cost $3,000 one way but you get clipper service and can put your feet up after lift off.
<
p>Maybe I am a dinosaur like I sometimes think Ernie is because I look at Medford and Boston and Massachusetts as nothing like New York it is a ring of Towns and villages that have their own identity and issues not just a bedroom to the board room and the devil may care what happens down the street just so long as the trains not late.
<
p>The Green line has many attractions especially with $4.00 a gallon gas and because you can see a little green when you return home after a long day. Yet that may not be the case in the future
<
p>It’s time to think long and hard and ask the tough questions this is a big step, a knee jerk reaction may produce a result your unwilling to live with and maybe even unintended. So sign on to the partition no I think their needs to be more questions and some straight forward answers first.
<
p>I want to add one other point when you sign the petition I wish you could also write down how long you have been here and how long your planning to stay. If this is just a stepping stone stop in a career and your not vested in the community do you have a right to impose your will for today since your not going to be around to see the results? Also one other key question If your home is not on the list to be taken, if that need arises, I want you to be willing to sell your 2000 sq.ft. to the person who just got bought out of their home of 2000sq.ft. for what the city accessed it was worth. So if they get $245,000 that’s what you have to sell your home for to them no questions asked because that’s all they got for their home to put in the green line. Now no substituting what you think yours is worth you must take what the Accessor says it’s worth. If your comfortable with agreeing to that then by all means call for land taking to put the rails in just realize the potential. It maybe you out hunting for a new family home with what they told you it was worth.
<
p>Complicated issue and gas isn’t getting cheaper and Coal isn’t getting any cleaner. I still have not heard or read and straight talk.
<
p>Best to All
<
p>As Usual just my Opinions
<
p>
(I posted these comments on Ernie’s thread, but I figured I may as well do it here to give you a chance to respond)
<
p>I don’t see the problem with increased density in urban areas, which is one of the most environmentally friendly forms of growth. Could you elaborate on that?
<
p> I also don’t totally see where you are going with “The Green line has many attractions especially with $4.00 a gallon gas and because you can see a little green when you return home after a long day. Yet that may not be the case in the future”, particularly when he notes later that “gas isn’t getting cheaper.