Area residents took part in an informational community meeting where issues concerning the ongoing Green Line Extension project were discussed.

By Adam Parise

Last Tuesday, November 19, residents gathered at the East Somerville Community School to discuss the current and upcoming status regarding the MBTA’s Green Line Extension (GLX) Project to extend the light rail system to the Union Square and Tufts University communities.

For the first 30 minutes, residents gathered in the hallway to talk with GLX officials about the proposed stations that were presented on billboards regarding their location and station layout. For the last hour of the event, residents moved into the school auditorium for the formal presentation.

Those presenting the overview of the Green Line Extension included John Dalton, the MBTA/GLX Program Manager, Jeff Wagner, the Public Outreach Manager and Terry McCarthy of the MBTA/GLX Stakeholder Engagement.

During the presentation, the first thing discussed was the scope summary and plan of this project. The plan is to have a brand new relocated Lechmere Station, five brand new stations (East Somerville, Gilman Square, Magoun Square, Ball Square and College Avenue) on the Medford Branch and one brand new station (Union Square) on the Union Square Branch.

In addition to this, there will also be a brand new Green Line Maintenance Facility, a procurement of 24 Green Line light rail vehicles as well as an expansion of the current Somerville Community Path, which will run right next to the Medford Branch of the extension to the brand new Lechmere Station.

MBTA/GLX officials offered a presentation aimed at clarifying their future plans, as well as engaging in meaningful dialog with residents.

The next thing discussed was the goals and benefits of this project, which are to improve local and regional air quality, daily ridership (boarding and alighting) of approximately 45,000 passengers by 2030 and to also improve the percentage of Somerville residents that are within walking distance of light rail service from 20% to 80%.

During the construction, the tracks of MBTA Commuter Rail’s Lowell Line were pushed over to make room for the new planned Medford branch as well as the new stations.

In order to improve the project and to allow construction of the tracks and stations, the Lowell Line has been shut down on select weekends with shuttle bus service running between Anderson/RTC located in Woburn and Boston North Station. During midday on weekdays, the Lowell Line has been operating during this project but with only one track in service.

The next thing discussed was the significant active work areas of this project which include the Washington Street bridge, the Broadway bridge, the Medford Street bridge, the construction interface with the Somerville High School project, retaining and noise walls, the major utilities plus the excavation and pile test at the brand new planned Vehicle Maintenance Facility.

The next item concerned the dates regarding the bridge closures. The Broadway bridge, Washington Street bridge and Medford Street bridge have been closed since the spring of 2019 and are expected to open back up in the spring in 2020. The School Street bridge is expected to close in the spring 2020 and will reopen in the spring of 2021. The College Avenue bridge will close for construction in the spring of 2020 but will reopen in the early fall of 2020. The Cedar Street bridge will be closed for the whole summer next year and the Lowell Street bridge will be closed for the entire fall of next year.

In addition, to allow work to be done on the new Lechmere Station, shuttle bus service will be provided to accommodate passengers between Boston North Station from Lechmere Stations. This is expected to start in the later part of Spring next year and is expected to conclude in the Spring of 2021.

Residents also got to have their say on this project. A few residents that live right next to the project were complaining about the lack of sleep they have been getting lately due to the loud noises at night.

The final key point was the Local Outreach which includes a community group hosting 24 consecutive monthly meetings, email blasts, door to door leafletting, tabling events, public meetings and updates at the GLX website, which can be found at www.Mass.gov/GLX.