Medford Legislators Submit Green Line Letter to DOT

State Representatives Carl Sciortino (D-Medford, Somerville) and Sean Garballey (D-Arlington, Medford), along with State Senator Pat Jehlen (D-Somerville, Medford), sent the following letter recently to State Transportation Department Secretary Jeffrey Mullan:

January 26, 2010

Jeffrey Mullan, Secretary of Transportation
10 Park Plaza, Suite 3170
Boston, MA 02116

Dear Secretary Mullan:

We are writing to address some concerns regarding the Massachusetts Department of Transportation’s commitment to ensuring the completion of the green line extension to Route 16/Alewife Brook Parkway. We are committed to seeing this project be completed on time, with the terminus at Route 16, as the DEIR proposed as the project’s preferred alternative. To that end, we have two important and immediate requests.

First, we would like to request MA DOT work with the Boston MPO to revise the scope of work recently approved for CTPS to continue its analysis. As we move towards the filing of the FEIR and New Starts application, we would like to ensure that the analysis needed of the Route 16 terminus, with a review of alternative station designs, impacts on abutters, and environmental impacts be fully analyzed. The lack of this analysis in the DEIR is not in keeping with the EENF Certificate from December 2006, and has been noted as a significant concern in public comment letters on the DEIR by ourselves, Mayors McGlynn and Curtatone, the Conservation Law Foundation, and numerous local elected officials and community members.

We believe it is reasonable and necessary to include the analysis of Route 16 in the work that is about to begin by CTPS, and would enable MA DOT to keep its commitment to ensuring the preferred alternative can be realized in the near future. MA DOT has previously committed to keeping the analysis of the full project as a single submission in communications with the Green Line Advisory Group, to whom the following was emailed on 7/19/2009:

“Please note that the DEIR/EA that will be submitted in August will include analysis for the entirety of the Full-Build Preferred Alternative (from a relocated Lechmere Station to Route 16/Mystic Valley Parkway). This submission will allow EOT to receive environmental approval for the full scope of the project, thereby enabling us to proceed with the two-phased construction approach described here without needing to seek additional environmental approval in the future.”

Second, we would like to request MA DOT immediately release all analysis and station design alternatives for the Route 16 terminus that have already been done. Both in conversation with this legislative delegation, and in a public meeting before the Medford City Council, MA DOT has indicated that the Route 16 station design presented in the DEIR is the “worst case scenario” and that other alternatives have been reviewed. It is essential for our communities to have all of the information available so that we can make informed decisions about the future of this project. MA DOT staff indicated that alternative station designs could reduce or even eliminate the need for any takings of commercial properties at the terminus, and we are asking you to release whatever alternative station drawings or analysis that have already been started by MA DOT and its consultants.

We appreciate all of the hard work that MA DOT continues to do to ensure this project advances to the construction and completion phase, and we are eager to work with you to ensure that the preferred alternative, with a terminus at Route 16, be advanced without unnecessary delay. We would like to request a time to meet with you to discuss these issues further, and we look forward to your reply.

Sincerely,

State Representative Carl Sciortino
State Senator Patricia D. Jehlen
State Representative Sean Garballey