New design could save office space at Route 16 T stop
State officials presented a new design for the Route 16 stop on the Green Line Extension at Tuesday's City Council meeting that would preserve the office complexes at 200 and 220 Boston Ave., which employ hundreds of workers.
"[The design] is similar to ours," said Ken Krause of the Medford Green Line Neighborhood Alliance.
His group has presented a design plan to state transit officials which, members believe, would save the complexes by shifting the tracks eastward, adjusting their curvature, and moving the rider platform.
While the state outlined a plan to possibly knock down both office buildings in a recently released report on the project, officials reiterated at Tuesday's council meeting that the early design was a "worst case scenario" for the stop.
Demolishing the buildings would displace over 200 workers and cost Medford about $160,000 annually in property tax revenue, according to the report.
Asked if the city should still demand a written agreement with the state to save the office buildings - which city officials have clamored for - despite the new design, Krause said, "absolutely."
Colin Durrant, a spokesman for the state Department of Transportation, said in an email that it would be "premature to make binding commitments until we know for sure what the engineering will allow."
In a related development, the state announced an extension on the public comment period this week for the project, pushing the deadline from Dec. 9 to Jan. 8.
Several transit and environmental activists - including Krause - sent a letter to the state dated Oct. 28 asking for more time, so residents could "fully digest" the environmental impact report on the project.
The letter reads in part, "considering the great complexities of the issues involved, we believe additional time is necessary to allow interested members of the public to fully digest the nearly 500 page report and to adequately comment on it."
The state plans to build two other Green Line stops in Medford, at Ball Square and College Avenue. Those two stations are scheduled to open in 2014, while the Route 16 stop is slated to open in 2016.
Residents can submit written comments to Holly Johnson of the state environmental policy office at holly.s.johnson@state.ma.us, and to Kate Fichter of the state Department of Transportation at katherine.fichter@eot.state.ma.us.
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