Mock Green Line groundbreaking drives point in Somerville

Matt Byrne

The only Green Line that rolled through Somerville last night was the paper kind, meant to symbolize the much-delayed plans to bring trolley service through the city.

By Matt Byrne, Town Correspondent

Scores of Green Line extension supporters decrying the continued delay of the project rallied yesterday outside Somerville High School, where state transportation officials held a public hearing.

At the mock groundbreaking, supporters handed out green plastic shovels, rolled out a literal green line symbolizing their goal, and repeated the mantra "We are shovel-ready."

"The people of Somerville have suffered long enough," said Julia Prange of the LivableStreets Alliance, a sustainable urban planning group. "Let's raise our shovels and get this project back on track. "

City officials, including members of the Board of Aldermen and Somerville Mayor Joseph A. Curtatone revved up the crowd and renewed the call for the state to act.

"The Board of Aldermen has done everything that we were asked on this," said Maryann Heuston, Ward 2 alderwoman. She called on the state to now do its part, echoing Curtatone.

"We can't have broken promises and plan for our future," said Curtatone, who added later: "You'll leave a hell of a lot more money on the table if you don't build this and build this now."

Inside at the hearing, passions were more contained, although frustration continued to seethe. The state was airing its latest environmental assessment required to apply for federal New Starts money.

While the state has agreed to kick in nearly $500 million for the project, more than half of the estimated $1.2 billion price tag remains unfunded.

The state is required by a court order to complete the Green Line after the Commonwealth lost a lawsuit brought by the Conservation Law Foundation. The law group argued that communities surrounding Boston have taken the brunt of the pollution from cars and trucks brought by the completed Big Dig.

That decision also obligates the state to undertake smaller projects in the face of a Green Line delay. Many commenters last night agreed that those efforts should be undertaken in Somerville and Medford along the Green Line corridor.

Despite the legal mandate, funding woes and planning delays have dogged the extension, with the state repeatedly pushing back projected start dates. If built as currently planned, the line would extend to Route 16 in Medford, and would service a swathe of the region previously accessible only by bus or commuter rail. The latest projections say service will begin no sooner than 2018, and as late as 2020.

"We are reasonable people," said Denise Provost, state representative for Somerville, at the hearing. "But I think it's fortunate that some of the people outsde have shovels and not pitchforks," Provost said.

Fervor aside, challenges remain for the project, said state Senator Patricia Jehlen.

"You may think we've done the hard work," Jehlen said. "But the hard work is paying for it."

Mark Chase, a lecturer at Tufts University and consultant who studies parking and transportation demand who also sits on the board of Livable Streets, said during the hearing that interim offset measures could also bring in revenue, as well as improve air quality and other environmental factors.

The state should discourage automobile use, Chase said, and suggested an increase in the gas tax, a value-added tax, or congestion pricing that would charge drivers for entering a predetermined urban zone.

"Obviously it would be politically challenging, but the money could be a sort of carrot," Chase said. "Take some of the money you'd raise from this and spread it around the state."