Questions remain on GLX

By Andrew Firestone

Questions still remain after a phasing timeline was released last week by the design consultants of  the state department of transportation (MassDOT). The plan, which details an opening of service to the proposed Union Square and Washington Street fork of the GLX in 2016, fails to implement the Route 16 stop.

The Route 16 which the Metropolitan Planning Organization included in their long term finance plan, which tags $476 million over the next four years for the GLX. Gov. Deval Patrick recently signed a bill to float out $20 in state bonds as part of the measure.

Conservation Law Foundation lawyer Rafael Mares said that there are many discrepancies still with the plans of MassDOT and the state implementation plan revealed in the environmental assessment report in October. Mares says that, aside from the non-inclusion of the Somerville/Medford border stop, the planners have not properly explained why they are delaying. The CLF successfully sued state in 2004 over the GLX, so under the Clean Air Act the project is legally mandated.

“At the same time that they delayed for another four years, they seem to be holding on to some vain hope that the Federal “New Starts” money will come through,” said Mares. “That is not a reason to delay. They are not putting themselves in a very good position to receive money from the federal government by under-funding their own transportation system. Why wait?” One of the requirements for the federal grant is that the state be sufficiently funding their own system, which is infamously indebted partly due to the Big Dig project.

He added that it didn’t make sense that, a year ago, the planners had not anticipated details in land acquisition and design that prevented a sooner opening.

City officials and residents have bombarded the state, and Patrick recently received a letter from Congressman Mike Capuano urging him to not pass the GLX problem onto a successor who may wash his hands of it.