The Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority’s (“MBTA”) spider-map has been praised and replicated in countries around the world, but it only takes one short look at the transit map to realize one obvious missing link: the Red Line and the Blue Line are the only two of Boston’s rapid transit lines that do not intersect. Six governors, over more than two decades, have legally committed the Commonwealth to fix this obvious problem. Earlier this week, however, the Patrick Administration decided to buck this trend by seeking permission to permanently and completely remove the legal obligation to finish the final design of the Red/Blue Line Connector, without proposing to substitute any other project for it.

The Red/Blue Line Connector was originally supposed to be completed by December 31 of this year. Less than five years ago, the Commonwealth had reaffirmed that it would at least design the connector by the same date. Part way through the design, the Commonwealth is throwing in the towel, stating that it is unrealistic to expect that construction of this project will be funded, although it has never really asked the state legislature or the federal government to fund this critical transit project and has not considered any more affordable options to accomplish the same goal. This is a symptom of the chronic underfunding of our transportation system. Instead of pushing forward and advocating for increased revenue, the State is now entering a dangerous trajectory of just giving up on beneficial projects.

As a result of this missing link, transit riders traveling from points along the Blue Line to the Red Line, or the other way round, must transfer twice by using either the Green or Orange Line, reducing ridership and unnecessarily increasing congestion at downtown Boston stations including Government Center, Park Street, State and Downtown Crossing. The need to transfer twice restricts access to jobs, such as those at the academic and medical institutions along the Red Line, particularly for residents of East Boston, Revere, Winthrop and Lynn, for whom the Blue Line is the only accessible subway route. The Massachusetts Department of Transportation (MassDOT) projected that the Red/Blue Line Connector would more than double daily boardings, from 10,050 to 22,390, at the Charles/MGH Station alone.

The absence of a direct connection between the Red and Blue Lines makes travel far more difficult than necessary and often discourages the use of public transit. For example, coming home from Cambridge, an East Boston resident has to wait on three different platforms for three trains. This can take particularly long for people who work at night, as many do, since the MBTA Rapid Transit lines’ arrival and departure times at Park Street, Government Center, Downtown Crossing and State Street are not coordinated and the trains are frequently delayed.  Even if on schedule, at 9:00 p.m. on a weekday, a trip from Harvard Square to Maverick Station involves 28 minutes of waiting time alone. By contrast, the route can be driven in only 16 minutes, resulting in a clear disincentive to use public transportation and contravening the State’s policy, articulated in the Global Warming Solutions Act and elsewhere, to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from the transportation sector.

Many people, however, do not have the choice between driving and taking public transportation. The Blue Line, more than any other MBTA rapid transit line, serves almost exclusively communities where a large percentage of residents depend on mass transit. At the same time, residents of these communities are also in need of greater access to jobs. Likewise, many Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) patients need to travel from Revere, where MGH has a satellite clinic, to the hospital’s main campus in Boston’s West End. Taking public transportation under the current circumstances is not a simple trek for the infirm.

The Department of Environmental Protection now gets to decide whether the Commonwealth can proceed to request a revision of the State Implementation Plan under the Clean Air Act from the federal Environmental Protection Agency. Let’s hope that someone in the process that lies ahead has the vision to create not only a praiseworthy map but a good underlying public transportation system.

The Union Square area in Somerville is one of the communities that would be served by the Greenline Extension. (Photo credit: dales1, flickr)

Residents of Somerville and Medford, MA, were crushed and angry when on Monday transportation officials announced that the already-delayed Green Line Extension project would most likely not be completed before 2018. The project would extend the MBTA’s Green Line through parts of these two cities just north of Boston, where right now there is no subway service of any kind, but plenty of pollution from I-93 and diesel commuter trains.

The critical project has already suffered several setbacks, and after years of broken promises, the community has had enough. Over 1500 residents, including many who stayed in Somerville or Medford because of the Green Line Extension, signed this petition demanding that the state follow through on the project and that they release a definitive plan to the public on how it intends to do so.

Stand with the residents of Somerville and Medford in support of government accountability and better transportation options for communities that need them. Sign the petition today.

Photo credit: Stephanie Chappe

As budget woes continue to strain the Commonwealth’s ability to maintain its aging transportation system and constrain its vision for the system’s future, more than twenty Bay State organizations have formed Transportation for Massachusetts (T4MA) to advocate for alternative financing and improved accountability in pursuit of a modern transportation system that works for Massachusetts. T4MA brings together a broad cross-section of historically disconnected organizations in the areas of transportation, regional planning, affordable housing development, public health, environmental advocacy, environmental justice and smart growth that will use their diverse experience and collective influence to bring about a safe, convenient, reliable and affordable transportation system for the people of Massachusetts.

John Walkey, field organizer of T4MA, explained, “On behalf T4MA, we thank Mr. Mullan for his dedicated service and welcome Mr. Davey to his new position. We look forward to working with him to ensure that the Commonwealth will create and maintain a 21^st century transportation system that is at the heart of a thriving economy. The jobs and economic prosperity the State hopes to sustain cannot be built on top of an underfinanced and crumbling transportation system.” More >

Comedian Will Rogers once joked, “Even if you’re on the right track, you’ll get run over if you just sit there.” He might have been advising the Commonwealth about the cost of inaction on the state’s much-needed public transportation projects. The Commonwealth announced yesterday that the Green Line Extension will be delayed yet again. MassDOT now is projecting that the earliest the Green Line Extension will go into service is in the Fall of 2018, but the moment the residents of Somerville and Medford have been waiting for could be as far away as 2020. That would be six years after the federally mandated deadline and fourteen years since the Big Dig was completed—a long delay considering that the extension of the Green Line was a firm commitment made to counter the air pollution from the Central Artery Project. The year 2020 happens to also be a benchmark year for the Commonwealth’s greenhouse gas reductions goal (25 percent of 1990 levels), which will be hard to reach without the help of transit projects like the Green Line Extension.

Sadly, less than five years after it reaffirmed the promise, MassDOT yesterday also announced that it is seeking permission from the Department of Environmental Protection to abandon its obligation to design another highly beneficial transit project, the connector of the Red Line and Blue Line, citing its increased cost estimate. Part of the reason the costs of the Red/Blue Connector have increased, however, is the Commonwealth’s own repeated delay of this important transit project. Construction projects get more expensive over time.  Likewise, the cost of the Green Line Extension can only be expected to increase as a result of the delay.

Fortunately, the Commonwealth will be required to put in place interim offset projects or measures to achieve the same air quality benefits the Green Line Extension would have during the time period of the delay starting on December 31, 2014. We hope those projects will be located in the areas the Green Line Extension is intended to serve. Although MassDOT has known for more than a year that the Green Line Extension will be delayed, we still do not know what these projects will be. We do know that they will not be free. That points to the fact that it would be a lot cheaper to build the extension than to keep delaying it. And that’s no laughing matter, especially these days.

Perhaps the only good thing about tight financial times is that it forces us to carefully examine our priorities.  For the Maine DOT, that financial reality resulted in the practical and smart decision to shelve the Wiscasset Bypass project.  The preferred bypass route, meant to alleviate traffic on Route 1 in Wiscasset, ME, was shaping up to be expensive– upwards of $100 million. In addition, it would have taken decades to complete, and circumvented the charming downtown of Wiscasset, displaced over 30 homes and businesses and taken land from over 70 landowners in the process.  It would also have ended up being the second longest bridge in Maine.  All of this to alleviate the area’s traffic volume, which has actually been decreasing since 2000.

The summer crowds at the popular Red's Eats are a major contributor to the traffic congestion along Route 1 in Wiscasset, ME. (Photo credit: TripAdvisor)

The writing was on the wall in December 2010, when during a Midcoast Bypass Task Force meeting the DOT laid out the financial reality of what the Department was facing. They reported a $3.3 billion shortfall over the next 10 years and major competing needs for existing infrastructure, such as the Kittery Bridge (which requires $200-$300 million in immediate funding) and immediate repairs needed for arterial and collector highways, all competing against the sobering reality of dwindling fuel tax revenues, a lack of political will to increase fuel taxes or generate other funding mechanisms and a big unknown hanging over the federal funding program.

Yesterday, the Maine DOT Commissioner David Bernhardt announced that the ongoing studies examining a bypass route would be cancelled.  This is the second major transportation planning effort to be cancelled by the LePage Administration– the first was the Gateway 1 project that examined land use and transportation plans for 110 miles of Route 1 from Brunswick to Prospect, ME.

The cancellation of the Wiscasset Bypass may be pegged on the Bald Eagle that decided to build a nest right smack in the middle of the preferred corridor (referred to as N8c) for the bypass; but the truth is that the nest merely provided the Department an opportunity to take a step back and carefully evaluate the wisdom of spending upwards of $100 million on a bypass that would alleviate traffic congestion for a mere 6-8 weeks in the summer.  A significant amount of that congestion can be directly attributable to pedestrian and vehicle crossings in lower downtown Wiscasset.  And yet, dating far back as 1958, when the Wiscasset Master Plan– which included a call for a bypass– was first developed, proposals for a major expenditure of funds for highway expansion have been seen as the only way to solve the congestion problem.

Tighter purse strings provide us with a great opportunity here.  Budget conscious alternatives, such as a traffic signal, a pedestrian bridge over Route 1 or a tunnel under Route 1, reconfiguration of parking in Wiscasset’s downtown business community or a traffic control officer directing the flow of pedestrians and cars can now be given the common sense consideration they deserve.

Rep. Issa (R-CA) made a fortune building car alarms. For years he was best known as the recorded voice of the Viper alarm that warned people to “Step away from the car!” (Really, this is all true, it says so in Wikipedia).

But now he is  a powerful member of Congress and in that role he is threatening to undermine the deal struck among the White House, the auto manufacturers and his own State of California.

Let’s review for a moment – the agreement would reduce pollution, make cars more efficient and thereby reduce use of imported oil and pain felt by people paying at the gas pump and help move forward progress towards practical and affordable electric cars. The auto manufacturers supported and helped shape it and think it can be implemented at reasonable cost while maintaining a healthy auto industry that will meet the needs and wants of  drivers. So what is wrong with it?  Representative Issa says he is concerned about “transparency” and process here – legitimate concerns to be sure. But they are concerns that will inform the formal process that will follow as the federal agencies propose, present and seek comment on this package of rules in the formal rulemaking process.

Like an overly sensitive car alarm that makes threatening speeches at passers-by who mean no harm to the protected car, or that releases punishing waves of sound late at night when garbage trucks pass by, Rep. Issa is sounding a very false alarm and threatening to steal away the cleaner, cheaper-to-operate car of the future.

Many good people have spent decades working to build a great place place on the waterfront across the Fort Port Channel from Downtown Boston and to make Boston a city that celebrates and embraces all modes of transportation, especially the sort that doesn’t emit greenhouse gas emissions.  That includes many past and present CLF staffers.

All those warriors for a better Boston should note that in the first weekend of operation of the new Hubway bicycle sharing program that the system map for the Hubway has shown the “station” in the Seaport has been in heavy use all day – with very few of the 15 bikes that were placed there at the launch of the program still in residence.

In Washington, D.C., a good deal has been announced bringing together the Federal government, the state of California and auto manufacturers.  As our friends at the Union of Concerned Scientists note, these standards will:

• Cut oil consumption by as much as 1.5 million barrels per day — 23 billion gallons of gasoline annually — by 2030. That is equivalent to U.S. imports from Saudi Arabia and Iraq in 2010.
• Cut carbon pollution by as much as 280 million metric tons (MMT) in 2030, which is equivalent to shutting down 72 coal-fired power plants.
• Lower fuel expenditures at the pump by over $80 billion in 2030 — even after paying for the cost of the necessary technology, consumers will still clear $50 billion in savings that year alone.

The real story behind this settlement is about a fundamental choice between two paths.  One path was the road taken, where the emissions standards for cars and trucks are integrated with mile-per-gallon (MPG) standards and California and the Federal Government both adopt and agree to the standards.

The other path was to return to the state of affairs that prevailed prior to 2009.  At that point, a fleet of states had adopted standards for greenhouse gas emissions from cars and trucks first developed and adopted by California. This came about because of the unique ability of California under the federal Clean Air Act to adopt its own standards and for other states to follow suit.  With the laudable decision by the Federal government (after legal challenges to the standards were shot down in court in California, Vermont, Rhode Island and Washington, D.C.) to adopt a modified version of those state-based standards and the integration of those emissions standards with the MPG rules, three different regulatory systems were folded together into one positive package.

California, and the states inclined to follow it (there were 13 at the time of that deal back in 2009), had a deserved presence at the table in Washington.  If the new federal standards were strong enough, the states could simply go their own way – but that wasn’t needed, and hopefully will not be necessary going forward as the new rules are fleshed out and implemented.  Having two sets of vehicle standards in the U.S. was not a terrible thing when we lived with it for 25 years – but having one good standard for the nation is better.

A good deal was struck in Washington (a nice thing to be able to say!) and the power of the states to chart their own course did not need to be invoked – but the fact that power exists, along with the other other good elements of the Clean Air Act (a great law being attacked daily in Congress) helps move us towards cleaner air and better cars.

Last week I had the honor of teaching a group of summer camp students enrolled in the University of Maine’s unique Maine Summer Transportation Institute, a two week program for Bangor-area middle school students.

The event is co-sponsored by the Maine Department of Transportation, the UMaine College of Engineering, and the Federal Highway Administration. It is designed to introduce students at an early age to jobs and careers available in Maine’s transportation industry.

I had 20 students in the class. We started off talking about transit options, different ways of getting around and the pros and cons of each option. Who knew that riding a Galapagos tortoise was a form of transportation?  Well, at least the carbon footprint was low on that option, compared to taking a rocket to the mall.

Then, I divided the kids into five teams. They had 10 seconds to give themselves a name, and soon we were off with the “Chickadees,” the “Destructive 4,” the “No Name 4,” “Team 1/Won” and my personal favorite, the “Guinea Pig Ninjas.”  Each team of four got a huge map of the Bangor area, which they huddled around with pieces of string measuring the distance from their school to their neighborhood. Some kids knew right off the bat: “0.8 miles– I know because I have to walk it” and others were surprised (and a little embarrassed) that their parents drove them when they discovered that other kids were biking the same distance. The team that had the overall shortest distance to school and the smallest carbon footprint in the mode of transportation used to get to school won.  Team No Name took first place with an average distance of 1 mile and three of the kids either walking or biking to school.

At the whiteboard. (Photo credit: Sheila Pendse, UMaine)

Then, in a questionable move on my part, I distributed colorful little Sharpie markers (yes, the permanent kind).  The assignment: design a trolley route that will be of most benefit to the residents of Bangor. The airport and urban areas were big factors. The result (after some creative tattoo work with the markers) ranged from a highly efficient four-mile loop to a 22-mile spiral. One route managed to extend 10 miles out of the way. When I dared to question the wisdom of that route, I was set straight with an exasperated, “because we need to pick up my best friend who lives on that street!”  Duh!

It is fantastic that the state can offer this program to generate interest in an area that continues to pose extreme challenges. Just take a gander at Rep. Mica’s federal Transportation Reauthorization Proposal, which seeks to slash 20% from already underfunded programs, including a 25% cut to the Amtrak subsidy that will severely undermine the flow of revenue into Maine.

Overall, this camp is a gem. The students are smart, polite and bursting with enthusiasm. I wish I could have told those kids that by the time they were working adults, they wouldn’t need to spend huge amounts of their income on gas for their cars, because they would have transit options. The fact of the matter is, given the challenges we continue to face in securing decent transportation options for Mainers, we’ll really need some of these kids– and a lot of adults, too– to commit to creating innovative solutions to move past these setbacks so we can give Mainers the transportation future that they need and deserve.

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