State Rep. Denise Provost provides constituents with an informative e-newsletter from time to time.  In case you’re not on her mailing list, here’s what she wrote recently about the Green Line project:

What’s Up With the Green Line?

1. Higher Costs, More Delay Proposed
On July 3, 2009 the Executive Office of Transportation (EOT) submitted a
draft amendment to the state’s long-term Regional Transportation Plan
(RTP, or “plan”) and a draft Transportation Improvement Program (TIP)
for the federal fiscal years 2010-2013 to the Boston Municipal Planning
Organization (MPO). These documents reflect changes in the state’s
thinking about the funding and implementation of Somerville projects,
most significantly, the Green Line. To view the draft documents, go to
the MPO website, www.bostonmpo.org.

2. Opportunity to Comment
The MPO is seeking public comment on the proposed changes until their
deadline of 5pm on Tuesday, September 22, 2009

3. What Changes Does EOT Propose?
If you look at the proposed RTP Amendment, you’ll see that the Green
Line Extension has now been broken into two phases; Phase being the
stretch from Lechmere Station to College Avenue at a cost of $934
million. Phase 2, College Avenue to Rt. 16, is estimated to cost $130
million, for a total of $1 billion, 64 million ($1,064,000,000). This
amount represents a big jump from the $600 million that EOT, in 2008,
said would fully find the project.

The administration asked the legislature in 2008 to authorize the
issuance of $600 million in bonded debt to pay for the Green Line
Extension project – and we did. Since that amount is no longer pay for
the re-estimated project cost, the financing plan for the Green Line
Extension now depends upon 50% of the project being paid for by the
federal government, under its “new starts” grant program. EOT has not
yet completed the grant application process, and the Federal Transit
Administration (FTA) is not able to endorse “EOT’s current cost
estimates, which FTA fears will continue to creep upward.

EOT has not proposed to amend its project completion deadline, which
remains December 31, 2014. EOT is, however, pushing back an important
internal project deadline, the filing of its Environmental Impact
Report/ Environmental Assessment (EIR/EA). In its July, 2009 RTA
amendment, EOT said it would make this filing in August, 2009 – but it
did not. At a September 9, 2009 hearing at the Massachusetts Department
of Environmental Protection (DEP), and EOT official verbally represented
that there would be a three-month delay in this filing – putting it a
full year behind its originally scheduled date.
DEP has responsibility to monitor the progress that EOT is making in
implementing requirement of the federal Clean Air Act. Construction of
the Green Line Extension is one of the Transportation Control Measures
(TCMs) which Massachusetts is obliged to construct as part of its State
Implementation Plan (SIP) for the Clean Air Act.

4. Build Transit Options with “Rail-Volution”
A national conference devoted to expanding Massachusetts transit and
transit-oriented development will be held in Boston at the end of
October. “Rail-Volution 2009” will include, among other features, a New
Starts Symposium (on Friday, 10/30/09), which offers guidance on how the
program works, and how to succeed in getting New Starts funding –
something to consider, how that the Green Line Extension appears to have
become New Starts dependant. For more information on the conference, go
to www.railvolution.com.

5. What’s Wrong with Transportation in Massachusetts?
Much is wrong with the transportation system in Massachusetts, including
chronic underfunding, over reliance on debt, and mismanagement. In case
you didn’t see my recent op-ed pieces in the Somerville News, they are
available online at:

http://thesomervillenews.com/main.asp?Search=1&ArticleID=1784&SectionID=3&SubSectionID=3&S=1

http://thesomervillenews.com/main.asp?Search=1&ArticleID=1830&SectionID=3&SubSectionID=3&S=1

http://thesomervillenews.com/main.asp?Search=1&ArticleID=1881&SectionID=3&SubSectionID=3&S=1