Andy Mudder (sp?), Moderator

Every three years, the US Dept. of Transportation reviews the planning process for every urban region with a population of over 250,000 (?).

We should have input into the planning process—but not about specific projects. A comment sheet is also available. Comments are due by 27 Feb. The final report availability will be announced. These comments are being recorded. In our final report, there will be responses.

PUBLIC COMMENTS

Kevin Maloney, Jamaica Plain, for the Arborway Committee.

The MBTA twice tried to establish that restoration of rail service to Arborway was impossible. They were unsuccessful, which should put the rail restoration to the Arborway on the top of the list. This should be on the mandatory, not the discussion list.

James McGinnis of Union Square, Somerville.

[For Somerville residents], it is now a transit 'black hole', difficult to get via unreliable bus service to rapid transit stations. There is an issue of equity and economic justice. We should extend the Green Line to here rather than to Medford Hillsides. Bus rapid transit would not work unless there was a dedicated right of way, but it would still require a transfer [to rapid transit to get anywhere].

Moderator: We are really talking about the MPO process as such, rather than specific projects.

John Businger, Brookline, former state representative.

Our comments on how the MPO arrives at decisions. Our North-South Rail Link document was never published by the MPO. There was no discussion about how each project actually met the MPO criteria.

People voted without discussion of how the issues met the criteria. The MPO should explain this.

The Rail Link was dropped because it was not "affordable", but there no discussion of anything ELSE actually being 'affordable'.

Ellen Reisner (sp?) of Somerville.

There is an unusual structure of the MPO in that State organizations dominate it. East Somerville is beset by constant traffic, which slows down our buses.

Unidentified speaker

Part of the process is inclusion of those who do not speak English. I work at night. It takes me two hours to get to my destinations. As a result, I had to move to Winter Hill to get more convenient transportation. It is a class issue. The Red Line serves the higher economic classes, while the Lechmere area has poorer people and also poorer service.

Betty Sutterholm of Southborough. Route 9.

I am legally blind. Our transportation on Route 9 was taken away, so I have been isolated. I have no buses, and do not live near the Southborough railroad station. I have the opportunity to work, but cannot get to the workplace. I am going to make a submittal to Secretary of Transportation [and Construction] Daniel Grabauskas. There is no way to go east-west but the trains. But a car is needed to get to the train. Paratransit in our town is only twice a week. There is no transit to Framingham, which is the next town over, and which has public transportation.

Mike Kwan of Somerville.

If we all agreed to build a subway stop [today], it would take fifteen years to get it in operation. But the people cannot wait.

Moderator: People should speak at the MPO meetings about this.

Jamie Westfour (sp?) of Somerville.

The process on the books is one thing, the actual result is something else. The MPO hasn't tried to reach out to the public. There is a public process. There is a hugh disillusionment with the public process in Somerville because the Green Line extension always is listed [in the roster of projects], but nothing happens.

Denise Provost of Somerville.

I regularly attend MPO meetings. It is daunting for people to figure out how this system works. I want to help out my community. We are crisscrossed by public transportation routes, none of which make stops here. The T invested in commuter rail to the suburbs—This is capital-intensive, has little ridership, and at the same time the cities are being short-changed. The streetcar rail lines here were eliminated, and replaced by buses.

We invest all kind of money for suburban rail, but meanwhile Somerville children have asthma because of all the pollutants.

"There is class and influence" on all the political processes, which are dominated by white men. Even the legal notice for this meeting was small, written in [difficult] language as part of an occult science.

Richard Arena of Chestnut Hill.

I am a high-tech entrepreneur. Infrastructure is a problem. The risks are the infrastructure. Hiring people and keeping them is important. People can't spend three hours a day taking public transportation. Jobs are at route I-495. Our transportation network has not caught up to where we are at our part of the country. In other parts of the country, they have.

We are all fighting over the slices of the pie. We should ask what we can do about the economic environment. The MPO should keep an open mind. The Route 128 problem is not going to go away. Bus rapid transit dies not work in downtowns. We have a lot of endangered rights of way. They should be in a public trust. Once they are gone, they are gone. Even though we cannot build a facility at this time, nevertheless we should not do something that forestalls a project once we decide to go ahead. For example, putting pilings in front of a proposed rail line.

Paul Tyke (sp?), New England School of Law.

We oppose Phase III of the Silver Line. Construction would negatively affect us. The planning process has gone on for years, but until recently, we as abutters were not even contacted by the T. We were given very short notice, except for the possibility of speaking at a hearing. This does not give us the opportunity to make a presentation and have a discussion [with the officials concerned].

Karen Wepsic of Somerville.

Re the MPO process, the meetings are held during the working day, not at night. Minutes are not posted in a timely way. The minutes are perfunctory, and don't go into detail about what happened. The MPO seems project-driven rather than seeing where a project needs to go. The tail is wagging the dog.

Jane Sauer of Somerville.

Presenting a notebook, a compendium of 358 letters to the Federal Highway Administration. Somerville has been overburdened by the transportation infrastructure, but gets little in return.

George Zee (sp?) of Jamaica Plain.

How does the MPO structure the Process? The Arborway project was to be completed by 1997. There are legal mandates, but yet nothing has happened.

Ed Howland of Somerville.

We, the kids, intensively use public transportation. No one asks the kids what they want in terms of public transportation. We don't have lawyers.

Robert LaTrémouille of Cambridge.

My concern is glaring hyperbole. The MDC, now the Department of Parks and Recreation. The Urban Ring has shown a busway, really a highway project, through our area. There are a set of ostensibly local projects, which are not looked at as a unified project, which quietly it is. There are all kinds of non-projects, which seem to be coalescing into a large highway system through the area.

Lawrence Paolella (sp?) of Somerville.

I speak for the senior citizens.

There are many MPO meetings. It is a challenge to figure out what is happening in this process. Almost impossible. Something must be done for the MPO to explain themselves to the public. Tell us who you are. Take out full-page advertisements to tell us you are there and so we can help you. Not only do we want to participate, but we want results. You as the FHWA are here to make sure these things happen.

Bill Shelton of Somerville.

We in the neighborhoods don't know about the MPO. Look through my eyes to see how the policy is developed. So we don't get a meaningful dialogue. Seven rail lines dissect our neighborhoods, but only one has a stop in Somerville. For thirty years we have been promised that the Green Line would come to us. Every time a plan comes out, it is ten years in the future. But nothing is happening, and it is not funded.

The CTPS (Central Transportation Planning Staff) people are caring and thoughtful when they come in. We submit letters. The MPO publishes criteria. We are #1 by means of the criteria, but yet nothing ever happens. We don't understand the process.

Wig Zamore of Somerville.

I have come to most of the MPO meetings. The seats are held largely by State organizations, rather than neighborhoods or to businesses. So everything is skewed.

Six of the seven [rail] lines that go through Somerville are diesel lines, and only one has a passenger stop. You should be concerned that these burdens on a community do not overweigh the benefits. You should find out why these projects are not funded.

In the 20th century, Somerville was the densest-populated city in the United States.

If the intent is to flex road and bridge money to the transit side, you are going to have a fight. We are $200 million short of what we should have. With regard to environmental justice, any MPO study of an EJ (Environmental Justice) community should include local people from day one, not just having discussions with other governments in the planning.

Avi Green of East Cambridge.

The merits of the proposals are enormous, but how does the MPO make decisions? Are they listening to the people?

We must fulfill the legal obligations: Enhance what is working. The public process, i.e. hearings, is not the same as the decision process. There is a predisposition to road-based transit, not rail transit.

You have a community (Somerville) that is extremely upset. We continue to be ignored. The process is a fraud. Be sure it concerns itself with the merit, and that the substitutions are fully-funded and are equal to the original proposals.

Thomas Joyce of the Somerville Planning Dept.

A Medford to Cambridge transit trip goes all around Somerville, rather than describing a straight line. The majority of the Green Line does not serve Lechmere Station. We feel like second class citizens.

Serge, of Newton.

Transportation investments are based on well-known criteria. When projects are proposed, meeting the criteria, then the decisions are made in a mysterious way. [There has been a proposal for a branch of the D line going to Needham]. I commend the DOT for not giving funding to the Silver Line Phase III. No one in the community has been identified who has been a proponent for Phase III.

Erin Hemingway of Somerville.

We need more emphasis on public transportation. Many people have left their jobs because of train that runs a few times a day or else has substandard transit service.

Lauris Thibault of Somerville.

When we thing of climate change, we have made great strides in emission improvement, but not in the public transportation sector. By the time we get to those projects, the area will be under water.

Jerry Merrin of the Sierra Club.

An 'illustrative project' is one that stays on the list, but nothing ever happens. Millions of dollars are spent on planning, but the decisions are not public. There has been lots of discussion of the North-South Rail Link, but (it has not been discussed seriously). The NSRL would remove congestion on many of the rapid transit lines as well as alleviate congestion at North Station and South Station, but they the NSRL is no longer even an 'illustrative project'.

Bob Terrell of Boston for the Washington Street Corridor Coalition

In December of 2000, we went through this same process in Roxbury. There are two transit systems, separate but equal. After that certification hearing, the Federal government required the MPO to take certain actions, but nothing happened from the Environmental Justice Committee. But when the proposal went to the full MPO, nothing happened. The issue was replacing the Orange Line. We had many stops removed. Egleston, Dudley and Northampton St. were removed. But we got bus rapid transit (BRT). An argument was posited: Check the ridership. Yet 60% of the area is transit-dependent.

There are certain projects the MPO wants, but others it doesn't. Politics intervene. The MPO should not be certified until it is reformed. We should be members of the MPO. We should have some say where the dollars should go.

Where does the T lose money and where does it make money? It makes money in the Dorchesters, Roxburys, Somervilles and Chelseas.

Fred Moore, Association for Public Transportation.

The MPO process. In Lynn, we already have BRT, but it does not work. There is a cultural antipathy to light rail. One of the most effective lines in the metropolitan area is the Riverside line. There should be more of these built everywhere. The MPO seems to be a highway planning organization, but transit planning has been done by other organizations. There has been too much emphasis on highway solutions to highway problems.

Watch out for busway development. It will be opened to highway use. It is too easy to 'improve' highways.

The MPO has raised the feasibility study process into an art form. There should be no more highways within the Route 128 perimeter.

Franklyn Salimbene

In looking at the criteria the MPO has published, legally-required projects have not been considered because of these mandates. But yet even legal mandates have been ignored by the MPO.

I recommend you refuse to certify the MPO planning process.

John Deacon, Massachusetts Sierra Club.

You people in Somerville and East Cambridge should be careful when the T 'temporary' suspends [rail] service. Get an agreement written in blood that the service will be restored.

Pen Loh (sp?), ACE (Roxbury).

The planning process is a rudderless Titanic. We cannot put even more projects on the roster that are driven by a convoluted, fragmented planning process. Small changes to the system won't cut it in this dysfunctional system. Funding should be denied to the system until the planning becomes democratized.

Barry M. Steinberg of Quincy for the Association for Public Transportation.

There are legally mandated projects, as referred to above, that keep getting pushed to the bottom of the pile. On the other hand, there should be a mechanism in the planning process that uses common sense to move some projects up in priority. Two projects, even though mandated, have been de-emphasized, but nevertheless are particularly opportune at this time:

1. The Blue-Red Connection, because on one end, Charles St. Station is in the process of rebuilding and on the other end, Government Center Station is scheduled for a rebuilding. It would be logical to finally build the short connection that would make the Blue Line much more functional. It is especially important now that the Silver Line Phase III, which had been supported by the T as a reason to delay the Blue-Red Connection, seems itself to been consigned to oblivion.

2. There have been many complaints that the viaduct to Lechmere is to be closed for a year while the new connection with the remainder of the Green Line is completed and highway ramps in the area are made final. We oppose this long closure, but if indeed this is necessary, the T should take maximum advantage of the closure to build the new proposed Lechmere Station across the O'Brien Highway from the existing station at the same time. It would border on insanity to restore the Lechmere Viaduct to operation, only to close it again for the rebuilding of Lechmere Station across the street. If this latter scenario actually takes place, it would illustrate the antipathy to rail service that is apparently current. This whole process around even the initial closure of the Lechmere Viaduct indicates to us that the streetcar riders are not that important. They can put up with a slow, cumbersome bus ride to Haymarket Station for a years-worth of rush hours.