Platform at Park Street Station. Photo: takomabibelot@flickr

“Watch the doors. Doors are closing. There is more service immediately behind this train. Please wait for the next train. Doors are closing.”

I find I am hearing this message more and more on the MBTA. So when the transit agency announced yesterday that average weekday ridership topped 400 million trips in FY2012, setting a new record, I was not the least bit surprised. Ridership was up 5.7% over last year and June 2012 marked the 17th consecutive month of growth as compared to the same month in the previous year.

Ridership increased across all modes, with the biggest increase in trolley ridership, up by 8% followed by buses up by 5.9% and then subway, up by 5.2%.

MBTA general manager Jonathan Davis credited the record ridership to various factors including a growing state economy, lower state unemployment rates, increased availability of real-time information for riders and an overall improvement of MBTA reliability. To me, the reasons for the increased ridership are less important than the bigger, general trend: more and more people are relying on the Commonwealth’s transit system. This is great news for people and the environment because it means less air pollution and fewer greenhouse gas emissions. Choosing transit instead of driving alone produces half the greenhouse gas emissions per mile.  For this we can all breathe easier, whether you use public transit or not.

Unfortunately, last January, the MBTA announced a budget deficit of $159 million. Just a month ago, on July 1, fares went up 23% to raise an additional $84 million a year for the agency. The rest of the deficit was closed by a combination of service changes, administrative efficiencies, and one-time revenues. Already, the MBTA has projected a new operating budget gap of close to $90 million for next year. That means that it’s a guarantee we’ll be having the same conversation again soon and fare increases and service cuts will be on the table once again if we do not come up with a long-term solution and balance the MBTA’s budget for good. The numbers are clear. People want a healthy transit system and the time to invest is now.

The St. Croix River (Photo credit: NOAA Photo Library)

•  Tuesday, June 5 – “Taking Stock of New England Fish: Part 3” – TalkingFish.org interviews Mike Palmer, Research Fisheries Biologist in the Population Dynamics Branch of the Northeast Fisheries Science Center. In this post, Mike Palmer explains how uncertainty comes into play in stock assessments and how it is accounted for.

• Thursday, June 7 – “CLF Lawsuit to Protect Alewives in Maine” – Last week, CLF filed a lawsuit against the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in an effort to overturn a Maine law that has prevented the alewife, a key forage fish, from accessing its native habitat in the St. Croix River in Maine.

• Friday, June 8 – “Fish Talk in the News – Friday, June 7” – Interesting stories this week: bad grades for ocean policy, mermaids, yeast research, and environmental and health risks of imported shrimp.

The Gulf of Maine (Northern) shrimp season ends today (Photo credit: Aldric D'Eon, courtsey of the NEFSC).

• February 13: “A behind the scenes peek at the Gulf of Maine cod stock assessments” - What really happened to Gulf of Maine cod? Heather Goldstone of Climatide investigated last week by talking to Liz Brooks and Mike Palmer, two of the scientists at the Northeast Fisheries Science Center who were involved in producing the 2011 Gulf of Maine cod stock assessment.

• February 14: “To help GOM cod, NMFS should not touch closed areas” - It’s been widely reported that at its February meeting, the New England Fishery Management Council voted to ask the National Marine Fisheries Service to take emergency action on Gulf of Maine cod for the 2012 fishing year. The measures proposed, including a mere 3-13% reduction in the catch limit, were notable largely for their failure to address the condition of the depleted cod stock. But there is an aspect of the proposed package that has received little attention, which is troubling, because it would have NMFS open up five of the six existing areas currently closed to groundfishing.

• February 17: “Fish Talk in the News” - A weekly roundup of stories we think will interest readers. This week: news and opinion on Gulf of Maine cod regulations and fisheries science, the end of this year’s Gulf of Maine shrimp season.

Photo Credit: zeldablue/flickr

The MBTA is broke – and, for that matter, broken. According to the MBTA, it is facing a $161 million dollar budget gap. So bad is the MBTA’s financial situation that, last year, it resorted to using hairnets to protect subway motors.

Last week, the MBTA demonstrated its commitment to addressing a chronic lack of funding for public transportation by proposing two scenarios that are as narrow as they are unfair. In its attempt to close its funding gap, the MBTA has painted a bleak future for transportation users – especially bus riders. The public is justifiably upset by this news. Not only is the agency proposing to increase fares, but cut service all around.

One scenario, dubbed Scenario 2, proposes a fare increase of 35% (compared to 43% in Scenario 1) and is accompanied by drastic service cuts to all modes of transportation. (Scenario 1 also involves service cuts, though less drastic.) All ferry routes will be eliminated. Commuter rail service after 10 pm and weekend service will be eliminated. The E line (on the Green line) and Mattapan Trolley will both cease to run on the weekends. The most severe cuts, however, affect bus services.

Richard Davey, Secretary of MassDOT, explains that they “are looking at some underutilized service. [They] have some suburban bus carriers that are not well utilized.” In reality, however, Scenario 2 completely eliminates 101 bus routes. Not just during off-peak hours. These bus routes will cease to exist!

I’m not sure “some” is the best word to describe 101 bus routes, listed and illustrated on the map here from a CTPS Report produced for the MBTA. The routes depicted in red will no longer be served if Scenario 2 is passed. The blue routes, which are sparse in comparison, will be maintained. The bus routes to be eliminated are urban and suburban.

I am shocked to see how many bus routes are proposed to be cut and how pervasive the cuts are.

To be fair, the MBTA’s situation is difficult. As CLF and Transportation for Massachusetts said in a statement last week, “any fare increase should be part of a comprehensive financial plan that addresses not only the MBTA’s operating deficit for at least the next several years, but also provides the funds needed to address the T’s maintenance and capital needs without further driving up debt service costs.” Last year, CLF convened a group of national and local transportation finance experts and they came up with a menu of solutions, the Governor and the Legislature could pick from. We need a plan that solves the whole problem, not one that makes it impossible for people to get to work, school, or the doctor.

Under the current proposals, millions of riders will be forced to drive to work or drive to the nearest transit stop. Others who depend on the bus may be less fortunate. Scenario 2 is predicted to impact 38.1 million riders. Will you be one of them?

On April 14 U.S. District Court Judge William G. Young issued a final judgment in CLF’s favor in our suit against the MassHighway Department, bringing to a close nearly five years of litigation to push the department to manage stormwater runoff from state roads that was polluting nearby waterbodies. The court found that MassDOT (which now includes MassHighway) is finally, sufficiently carrying out its obligations. As a result of CLF’s suit, MassHighway has now built new stormwater treatment measures at the three sites that were contributing to discharges that cause on occasion instream exceedance of water quality standards. In addition, it submitted a revised Storm Water Management Plan that addressed the numerous deficiencies in the original plan which the court approved. The court noted, however, that MassHighway has more work to do. MassHighway has committed to assess its storwmater impacts on over 600 locations over a five-year schedule and to install new treatment if necessary.  MassHighway will have to submit two more reports to the Court detailing its activities throughout 2011.

When CLF filed suit in 2006, MassHighway had not even obtained permit coverage for its stormwater from EPA as required under the Clean Water Act. Two years later, in 2008, Mass Highway had done nothing to comply with the federal court order to clean up three sites in Milford, Franklin and Lancaster, Massachusetts, and had not revised its statewide cleanup plan for degraded waters.  CLF took MassHighway back to court, and at a hearing in May, 2010, Judge Young called MassHighway to the mat for non-compliance with federal law and issued an order to begin the cleanup immediately. (For a more detailed history of the case click here.)

At long last, the Judge issued a final judgment in CLF’s favor. This lawsuit sets a precedent for how stormwater is managed, on MassHighway’s remaining 2,500 miles of roadways in Massachusetts and the 600+ locations throughout the state where stormwater is being dumped into degraded rivers, lakes, and streams. The true measure of our success, however, is cleaner water. One important thing to note is that Judge Young, in the court’s final judgment, explicitly said this does not preclude suits for future violations so you can be sure CLF will be closely monitoring MassHighway for years to come. Until next time…

Charles River on a sunny day. Photo Credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/nostri-imago/

In times of economic woes, environmental concerns are often pitted against fiscal concerns. Take the recent attacks on the EPA’s power to enforce the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act, for example. Republicans in Congress argue that the US cannot handle the economic costs necessary to comply with regulations and that the alleged “job-killing” regulations threaten our economic recovery. However, recent studies are testimony to the inaccuracy of these claims.

In one instance, a $2 million one-time investment in a bike path along the Little Miami River in Cincinnati resulted in $6 million – per year – in economic benefits to the local community. In addition, another $2 million per year is generated from canoe and kayak rentals. So in one year alone, all of the initial investment costs are returned and then some!

But what about restoring a river? Do the high costs associated with such projects also make sense? Another study found that restoring Mill Creek, which runs through a heavily industrialized section of Cincinnati, would result in $100 million increase in property values, a $3.5 million annual increase in recreational use and a $5.5 million increase in property tax revenue. There is now a $1 million investment per year to restore Mill Creek. (You can read more about these studies and others here.)

This research confirms what we learned from cleaning up Boston Harbor and other waterways in New England. Clean rivers are essential to a healthy economy and investments in clean waters can drive economic growth. Even if you do not fish, boat, kayak, or swim, local communities stand to benefit tremendously by investing in the preservation or restoration of their waters.

Ipswich, Massachusetts received its first wind turbine this week!

Parts for the wind turbine, including three 132-foot-long blades were delivered to the Town Farm Road site on Wednesday March 30th.  The wind turbine is expected to be constructed and in operation by Memorial Day and it will supply power to the Ipswich High School/Middle School. Check out the enthusiasm displayed by kids as the blades passed by Ipswich Elementary School:

Less than a week after I posted my blog post about the environmental and health problems associated with road salt, the Boston Globe published an article about de-icing alternatives some Massachusetts communities are turning to. Boston has received almost 50 inches of snow this winter compared to a total of 17 inches on average around this time. We can only assume that it means we’re using record amounts of salt to combat all this snow. While it is difficult to say if the increased snowfall we’re seeing is directly related to climate change, increased temperatures tend to increase evaporation thus resulting in increased precipitation.  (In the Northeast, there has been a 5 to 10% increase in annual average precipitation since 1900.) More generally speaking, scientists are increasingly concerned about the link between global warming and anomalous winter weather (such as the bizarre snowstorms seen recently in the South). As such, it is encouraging to hear that towns are looking to more environmentally friendly alternatives to deal with our new weather conditions as the planet continues to warm.

Besides rock salt (sodium chloride), calcium chloride and magnesium chloride can be used in colder temperatures but unfortunately, they are significantly more expensive than the traditional rock salt. Instead a growing number of Massachusetts communities are returning to an age-old solution: brine. The mixture is a combination of rock salt and water. Applying brine before snow falls and ice forms on the roadway (known as “anti-icing”) can prevent snow and ice from sticking to roads. Unlike plain old rock salt, this stuff doesn’t bounce or get blown off the roads like we’ve all seen. As such it dramatically reduces the amount of salt used and the time it takes to remove snow and ice from the roads in turn saving towns money. A study done in Oregon and Washington state showed that anti-icing can decrease costs by more than 50% compared to conventional de-icing. And it reduces the amount of salt that gets into our drinking water and the negative impacts on the environment.

This yet again reinforces the idea that solutions that are good for the environment are often also good for people and the economy.

It’s difficult to imagine a day like today in Boston without the aid of salt to make our roads safe to use. For those of us in the snowier parts of the country, road salt is a necessary and accepted part of our winter. It’s cheap, effective and it allows commuters, motorists and emergency vehicles to safely reach their destinations in harsh conditions. According to the Salt Institute, Americans used 22 million tons of road salt in 2008. In a different study by the National Research Council, Massachusetts tops the list of of states with the highest road salt-use at, 19.94 tons per lane-mile each year, surpassing even New York, with 16.6 tons per lane-mile. Under MassDOT salt policy, salt or sodium chloride is applied at 240 pounds per lane-mile. In other words, trucks in Massachusetts are dumping more than a ton of salt every 10 lane-miles in a single application! Salt does not evaporate or otherwise get removed, so one has to ask: what is the fate of all this salt that is dumped on our roads?

Unfortunately, most of it is washed off of roadways by rain runoff and snow melt and enters our rivers and streams or percolates through the soil into our drinking water supplies. That’s the situation that Cambridge, MA has been combating for years. This densely-populated city gets its water from two reservoirs, both located next to Route 128, making it particularly susceptible to salt contamination. Another town suffering from the same issue is Boxford, MA. The town launched a suit against the state highway department, MassHighway, to close its salt storage shed, contending that it was responsible for contaminating at least 30 local wells. Aside from the ecological damage of excess salt, there are also health and financial burdens associated with high salt levels in public and private water supplies. High salt levels can result in skin and eye irritation and pose a danger for individuals with sodium-restricted diets, according to the New England Interstate Water Pollution Control Commission.

MassHighway is already under court order to manage stormwater runoff after CLF’s successful suit in 2008. Hopefully this effort will divert some of the salt from our waters and, in turn, lead to better health for both the environment and the MA residents who live in it.