Green Line land seizure plans fuel concern
Lawmakers want Route 16 stop opened sooner
As the public comment period on the proposed Green Line extension report drew to a close yesterday, officials in Medford and Somerville urged the state to speed up the opening date for the proposed Route 16 stop and expressed concern about plans to take private property along the route.
A spokeswoman for the state Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs, which must sign off on the report before the project can move forward, said this week that the agency had received about 225 comments on the proposed $932 million extension of the Green Line.
Ian Bowles, the state’s environmental secretary, will review the comments and the report before issuing a ruling Jan. 15 that either lets the project move forward or requests a second draft environmental impact report, his spokeswoman, Lisa Capone, said.
Stations are slated to open in 2014 at Ball Square and College Avenue in Medford and in the Brickbottom/Inner Belt area, Gilman Square, Lowell Street, and Union Square in Somerville.
A seventh station at Route 16 on the border of Medford and Somerville is scheduled to open in 2016, a delay that worries some backers because they fear it may not be built. Several lawmakers told Bowles that the Route 16 station should open in 2014 instead.
“The entire project is premised on the idea of reducing pollution and getting cars off of the road,’’ said state Representative Carl Sciortino, who represents Medford and Somerville and is vice chairman of the Joint Committee on Transportation.
“The Route 16 stop provides us with the best opportunity to add new riders’’ to the subway.
State Senator Patricia Jehlen, also a Democrat representing both cities, said in her letter dated Dec. 10 that the state must reaffirm its commitment to building the Route 16 stop.
“I . . . would like to see a commitment to extending the Green Line to Rte. 16 put into writing,’’ Jehlen wrote. “[Stopping] at College Ave. does not meet the requirements of providing service to the ‘Medford Hillside’ neighborhood. Therefore, a firm commitment to complete the extension to Rte 16 is imperative.’’
It’s also imperative that the state limit the amount of land it must take in order to build the stop, Mayor Michael McGlynn of Medford wrote in his letter dated Jan. 6.
The draft report includes a plan for Route 16 - which state officials have repeatedly called a “worst-case scenario’’ - that could require the leveling of an office complex in Medford that employs more than 200 workers and brings roughly $160,000 in tax revenue to the city each year.
McGlynn wrote that he could back the stop only if the state released a plan to limit land-takings in the area and minimize noise and air pollution, among other concerns.
State transit officials “have stated that such a plan exists but have not shown it,’’ McGlynn wrote.
They did show an early preference for putting a maintenance facility in the Yard 8 section of Somerville, located near the Brickbottom artists studios, and lawmakers representing Somerville are crying foul.
“I would argue that the Yard 8 proposal should simply be thrown out with no further time wasted talking about it,’’ said state Representative Denise Provost, a Somerville Democrat who was finishing her letter Thursday.
Neighborhood activists say putting the facility in Yard 8 would destroy local businesses, limit opportunities for new development, and bring noise and light pollution.
That’s why Provost favors Mirror Scheme H, which would place the facility near the Boston Engine Terminal on the Cambridge-Somerville line.
The most recent cost estimate for the extension is about $932 million, or $804.8 million in 2008 dollars, a Department of Transportation spokesman said, adding that the state expects to fund up to 60 percent of the project with federal money.
