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1. Introduction of officers and Board members.
President’s Annual Report: Fred R. Moore.
As President of APT, I am the spokesman of the organization, and guide the agenda of the regular business meetings. I implement the provisions of the APT’s "Framework for Advocacy"—as instructed by the consensus of the Board of Directors and therefore the membership at large—through numerous public hearings forums and workshops.
After the previous year, when APT spent considerable effort partnering with Rubel BikeMaps to publish the landmark tenth edition of Car-Free in Boston®, the active membership could now turn its attention to current transit-related issues.
The ‘Framework’, which is a living, evolving entity, guides our members in public forums when they are speaking for the Association. It consists of three major branches:
- Capital planning and projects that are consistent with the tenets of sustainable development and ‘smart growth’ as well as the synergy of walking, cycling, and mass transit and that promote such land use patterns not requiring motorized ‘automobility’.
- Operations: Working with the MBTA and other transit providers to improve service and work out existing problems.
- Outreach: forging strategic alliances with other like-minded groups, and also making presentations in public forums as commentators and/or invited presenters to policymakers and the general public about the value of quality mass transportation.
APT is a member of the Regional Transportation Advisory Council (RTAC). This is an advisory panel to the Boston Metropolitan Planning Organization. We have used this forum extensively to advocate better transportation public policy. As spokesman for APT, the President attends these meetings regularly.
We are participating in the MBTA Service Standards Technical Advisory Committee (SSTAC) to find quantified methods of evaluating service quality.
APT seeks out other transportation advocacy groups to form a network of strategic alliances to forge a consensus to present to public agencies, policy makers and elected officials to further the cause of better mass transportation within the APT framework of advocacy.
Vice President’s Report: Romin Koebel
I have expressed concern about design in the Central Artery corridor. I advocated retaining parts of the elevated Artery to be transformed as either a transit facility or as a scenic walkway. With my background of travel in Berlin, I have seen the ordinary use of features in vehicles that are not used in the U.S., namely double-deck buses connecting railroad terminals. They also use buses that have wide rear windows, which seemingly we can no longer do in the United States.
Clerk’s Report: Barry M. Steinberg
As APT Clerk, I not only took meeting minutes and sent them to the Board, but had them posted on the APT web site. In addition, I took notes for Move Massachusetts, which is a coalition of business, educational, professional and community organizations that promotes a transportation strategy for Eastern Massachusetts through forums. These Move Mass. notes are also posted on the APT web site. They represent meetings with very important people in the local transportation field.
I also represented APT at hearings on the T capital plan, operational plan, fare increase proposals, federal Metropolitan Planning Organization Certification Review hearing, meetings of community organizations on T bus emissions, meetings on the Ashmont Station re-building project and the APT advisory committee to the T for budget savings.
In addition, I drafted policy papers on transportation issues that guided APT policy statements and submissions to official bodies and to the news media.
As a Quincy resident, I made representations, oral and written, to T officials on behalf of area riders supporting more and better public transportation.
2. Nomination and election of Board members.
The following members were presented as candidates for Board members by the Nominating Committee for the new membership year:
- Barry D. Andelman
- Richard Arena
- John Hostage
- Romin Koebel
- Ernest V. Loewenstein
- Fred R. Moore
- Arnold Reinhold
- Barry M. Steinberg
There were no additional nominations from the floor. Motion made, seconded and approved unanimously to elect all of the above as Board members for the new membership year.
3. The meeting recessed.
BOARD OF DIRECTORS MEETING
6:44 P.M.
Attendance: Barry D. Andelman, Richard Arena, Romin Koebel, Fred R. Moore and Barry M. Steinberg
Excused: John Hostage
The following officers were elected:
- PRESIDENT Fred R. Moore
- VICE PRESIDENT Romin Koebel
- TREASURER John Hostage
- CLERK Barry M. Steinberg
The meeting adjourned 6:48 p.m.
4. The Annual General Meeting reconvened:
5. Solicitation of Capital Projects Ideas:
Silver Line Light Rail
North-South Rail Link
Electrification of Commuter Rail
6. MBTA Operations: Barry D. Andelman
The T is interested in hearing from us. Especially in this day of tight budgets, when management personnel have been cut, they are pleased to work with us, since we can act as their eyes and ears.
Items that we have looked at or are going to consider:
- Automatic fare collection
- Committee on bunching of vehicles.
- Scheduling with an eye to connectivity.
- Service improvements in a general sense.
A T intern has been assigned to us.
Not big bucks. Sometimes minor changes make for large improvements.
7. MEMBERS’ COMMENTS:
Richard Arena: There was a major North-South Rail Link meeting a month ago. There is not enough momentum.
Let’s split the Silver Line. "Try Silver." Build it Best—Logan, as planned. But streetcar Dudley to Downtown.
Robert LaTrémouille: We are skeptical of the new ring busways.
Everyone hates ‘bus rapid transit’.
Thomas Lenthal: Cut the cost of Greenbush, so we don’t use all our cash. Example: The tunnel under downtown Hingham so the merchants will have someplace for their dumpsters. If we had used Federal money for Greenbush, there would have been four times as many Federal dollars.
Talk to the local governments.
According to the Globe North, someone has said it will be twelve years before the Blue Line north extension is built.
There is a new issue: The consolidation of State transportation agencies.
8. Featured Speaker, HERB PENCE on Streetcars along the Rose Kennedy Greenway.
There is a swath of land a few hundred feet wide, encompassing 27 parcels of land, each one block square. There has been an intense competition to see what can be done with them.
There is a lot of land and a lot of demand. We need something to pull these unconnected parcels together. The ‘string’ is the Rose Kennedy Greenway Streetcar. Points to be connected: North Station, Washington St. or Canal St., Haymarket, Russia Wharf and South Station. It would be electrified.
Who would use it? Commuter rail passengers, Amtrak passengers, commuter boat users, hotel guests, business people at lunch, people on shopping trips, tourists, day trippers and casual passengers going from Point A to Point B.
I asked former co-workers at the T about their thoughts on the matter. This is doable.
In 1983, San Francisco was going to take their cable cars out of service [for maintenance of the system]. Mayor Feinstein organized a historic streetcar festival during the time the cable cars were out of service. But the historic streetcars were old and of different types. Muni purchased 11 Peter Witt streetcars from Milan. Speed and conformance with the Americans with Disabilities Act were problems. They got old PCC streetcars and painted them in the traditional colors of streetcar systems around the U.S.
Next, San Jose, Calif., wanted a new light rail system. Two old streetcars were completely rebuilt. There was free fare, with the cars operating in a continuous loop. The system is now using eleven cars.
Sacramento started a system. Then Little Rock, Ark., and Charlotte, N.C.
In Tampa, Fla., a streetcar line was put in service between the cruise ship terminal to Ybor City—A mini New Orleans.
[Mr. Pence proceeded with a panorama of slides of existing streetcar systems around the country.]
Questions and Answers:
Q. The Central Artery Oversight Committee said there is too much park and too little transportation.
A. We have to keep an awareness up to connect the lines. There is no political capital in a line where you are not going to cut the ribbon for ten years.
Q. Ernest V. Loewenstein: There would be visual pollution [of overhead wire]. What about conduit?
A. This would be a problem for bicyclists. The line is for local travel, [and wouldn’t require the catenary as now used on the T’s light rail lines].
Q. What is the relation of this proposal to that of the proposed North-South Rail Link?
A. They serve completely different purposes. It would also use a somewhat different routing from that of the NSRL.
Q. Bob LaTrémouille: What about accessibility and the ADA?
A. It would be completely accessible. There would be a ramp to platform to car. There would be a small gap between platform and car.
Q. Storage and maintenance?
A. The line would go around the yard at South Station to a small carbarn.
Q. Barry M. Steinberg: What if we’re too successful?
A. We plan for fourteen cars. There would be loops at the end of the line. It would loop through Chinatown.
Q. Richard Arena: This is a political question—Some people see this streetcar as a threat to the North-South Rail Link.
A. South Station was built in 1897. The NRSL has been wanted ever since. But this does not conflict with my proposals.
A. Barry D. Andelman: Someone traveling from Maine isn’t going to want to ride a streetcar to go to connect to New York. The NSRL is still necessary. Also, consider Cambridge, where they have a new Red Line—They still need local bus transportation.
Q. Romin Koebel: In all your slides, all the streetcars are single-level. Have you come across double-deck trams? And might they be available?
A. You have answered Barry Steinberg’s problem of capacity. There is also a problem of falling—people are not used to upstairs/downstairs in moving vehicles.
9. Other Speakers:
Mary Ann Krebs: The MBTA Ridership Oversight Committee was being formed. I asked if there could be a meeting of the ‘reject’ group. One of the things we wanted to develop is to come up with creative solutions. The group seems to be dwindling. I personally am interested in joining you.
Fred Moore: I would like to bring you people in to ‘holes’ in our organization.
Barry Andelman: We also have these committees. You don’t have to be an APT member to serve. You would be surprised how far you can get.
Ken Terrell, Massachusetts Association of Transit Users: I have known Fred Moore for many years. I am chairman of this group. It was set up to defeat privatization of transit on behalf of Carmens’ Union Local 589. It had nine members.
A note about electrifying the Fairmount line: We have gone out on a limb. We have talked with carbuilders. We proposed a monorail. We started a company. We propose a line from Mattapan Square to North Station.
We can help you people out as well.
Robert LaTrémouille, Friends of the White Geese: I have two years of railroad experience and on the urban ring rail proposal for fifteen years.
A lot of environmental destruction has happened because of a project. A busway off the Mass. Turnpike to Cambridge. This involves destruction of the environment. The Cambridge City Manager is turning this into an off-ramp to Cambridge. Harvard University has similar purposes. What used to be the MDC does not work in this framework, and is not constrained by the planning processes of other organizations’ projects.
Thomas Lenthal, transportation consultant. I also work for bus companies. I am currently setting up a van service between Logan Airport and Needham.
The Ottawa O-Train runs on a five-mile long railroad line, single track. There are four or five stops, with 15-minute service using diesel light rail cars. The City of Ottawa has decided they do not want to do busways.
What is happening there? The Washington Street busway is not a busway.
T funding for the waterfront is done and is using federal ‘new starts’ funding. Part of the federal regulation is that you must keep all existing transit service in the area in operation. This includes limousines and a bus from Montreal. No one at the T has figured out how to keep these other lines in operation.
The North Shore line would also be under the new starts program. You must guarantee that all existing feeder bus service continues to operate. And you must give the operation to the existing carriers.