Board of Directors Meeting

1. Informal discussion:

Bob Nesson, Somerville Transportation Equity Partnership (STEP): Our goal is to reduce air pollution, diesel traffic and to get the Green Line extended to Somerville. STEP is the stepchild of the Mystic View Task Force, which concerns itself with the Assembly Square traffic proposal. STEP crystallized in part to react to those concerns. The two agendas partially overlap. MVTF has an adversarial relationship with the City of Somerville. Mr. Nesson commented that he is not an official representative of STEP. Ref. www.Somervillestep.com

Ellin Reisner is the ‘leader’ of STEP. The information that Wig Zamore gets is invaluable however.

2. Call to order at 6:15 p.m.

3. Minutes of the previous meeting, 12 Jan. 2005, were modified by inclusion of a report by Romin Koebel and approved.

4. Officers’ Reports:

A. Fred Moore.

(1) Jeff Levine, formerly of Somerville, said they submitted a letter on the Big Dig mitigation requesting that the mitigation projects be built.

(2) Fred suggested that people who use rail ‘motor cars’ should be enlisted to keep otherwise inactive rail lines used on a volunteer basis.

(3) He will attend the further Big Dig mitigation meetings—on Somerville and Jamaica Plain.

B. Barry M. Steinberg

(1) Quincy mayor Phelan replied to the letter Barry sent him, much of which was quoted in the Patriot Ledger.

(2) A news item in the Boston Herald: "Feds put Silver Line in funding pipeline".

That is, Phase III of the Silver Line has regained approval.

We will reiterate our policy against this as currently configured. Rick Arena: This will not work here in Boston and it is a burning-bridge system that will destroy the Tremont Street tunnel. It also perpetuates the technological incompatibility curse that harks back to the Boston El days.

(3) Rick Arena made PDF files of Steve Kaiser’s work on the Big Dig. Per our agreement, he will send Steve a disk containing this file.

(4) There was a community meeting about Ashmont Station. It turns out that the low bid for rebuilding the station was $10 million higher than the budgeted funds. What to do about that? Barry suggested doing what they did in the previous rebuilding of the station 25± years ago: Close the place and run bus shuttles to North Quincy Station for the duration. Even though a commitment had been made to the community this time not to close the station, it is possible that by closing the station, enough time might be saved to both accelerate the project and save construction money. There was not much support for this idea at the meeting. Another approach was suggested by the local state senator, that of asking the Legislature for more money, or a fall-back position of asking for $5 million, and maybe scrounge another $5 million from miscellaneous funds. The final suggestion was to postpone elements of the Ashmont rebuilding, and adding them back in later. Barbara Boylan, the T’s Director of Design, mentioned that would require some investigation, since it is not obvious what portions cost enough to make a difference. There is going to be another Ashmont meeting on 8 March.

5. Video presentation by Bob Nesson, STEP.

The 15 December State House meeting about Big Dig mitigation transit commitments was covered with two cameras. The meeting is considered a delaying tactic. This video [of professional quality—ed.] is a work in progress. It has aired on Somerville Community Access TV. Fred invited Bob to present his video at the APT Annual Meeting.

Further comments by Bob: We are going to be talking with public people about the air pollution effect [in the area].

They will be shooting video at the Mystic View Housing. Somerville has a large immigrant population, contributing to its environmental justice status. We’ll put a camera on someone taking bus service to a destination. One problem about the local bus routes is night and weekend service. Also, buses get caught in traffic.

6. Old Business.

A. The Framework for Advocacy.

We should have a page on our web site, with a hyperlink to any APT position statement and backup policy paper from the ‘Framework’ diagram.

B. Annual Meeting.

Rick Arena: There should be a marketing blurb. Fred: We should send out a slick letter with RSVP envelope, with a discounted advance fee and a higher walk-in fee. The fee should be a loss leader.

Our data base has 500 names. We should contact kindred organizations. Barry S. will contact Move Mass. We’ll ask Barry Andelman to contact the Transit Riders Union and the T Riders Committee member candidate ‘losers’.

Fred will compose an Annual Meeting agenda.

7. New Business

Public Comment on the Central Artery Mitigation Transit Commitments: Fred is going to make a submission on the remaining CA/T commitments.

8. The meeting adjourned 8:25. The next meeting will be on 9 March.