Back to square one on Silver Line

It's a bad proposal. The current Silver Line bus between downtown and Dudley does not work well, and its planned $1 billion-plus extension would only make matters worse. If the two legs of this route are ever connected as planned -- with a convoluted bus tunnel around the far southern periphery of downtown -- it will be a waste of public resources, creating a grossly overpriced facility that will not take riders where they want to go.

Roxbury residents want to get to downtown and the rest of the subway system; people attending the Convention Center would be far more likely to want to go to the Back Bay hotels and attractions than to the southern part of the city. This "shotgun marriage" would inconvenience both sets of riders, forcing them to cross paths at Boylston Station and make an awkward transfer.

It gets worse. In order to connect Washington Street service into the tunnel, the MBTA is proposing to take Elliot Norton Park for use as a portal, much to the anger of the adjacent Bay Village neighborhood. Tremont or Charles Street through the Theater District would have to be dug up for many years. And to make the corner from Tremont to Essex, the T would need to construct a massive loop underneath Boston Common stretching to the Parkman Bandstand. It would be far cheaper and less controversial to build Washington Street service as light rail (as was originally proposed), putting it directly into the Green Line subway via an existing streetcar tunnel.

JOHN KYPER

Roxbury