Silverline: No Light at the End of MBTA's Tunnel
Oct 26, 2006 21:10 | Silverline
SILVERLINE
COMMENTS WERE DUE OCT. 29 -- BUT IF YOU HAVE
SOMETHING TO SAY, WRITE IT IN! THE ANALYST WILL STILL
READ IT!
The room was packed at the MBTA's October 19 public hearing on its latest Silverline Phase III proposal. This is a tunnel through downtown between Green Line Boylston Station and Red Line South Station, supposedly connecting the Washington Silverline bus through Roxbury and the Piers Transitway bus to the waterfront.
The MBTA, invested for some reason in the fictitious "bus rapid transit" of the Silverline, keeps trying to use a bus tunnel for this connection. Every design option for the portal to get into this tunnel would be damaging to the neighborhoods, institutions and businesses along the route -- and impractical as a transportation choice as well.
The justification claimed for federal funding for this hugely expensive boondoggle is "environmental justice": it’s touted as taking those Roxbury folks to the great jobs (bellhop, chambermaid, parking valet, retail clerk) at the new Seaport developments. Washington Street Corridor Coalition to MBTA: “No thanks! Just give us what you took away when the Elevated was removed back in 1987: a direct rail connection into the downtown subway system!”
The Silverline tunnel is supported only by business groups -- the Artery Business Committee, the Urban League -- who see it as a connector for South Boston conventioneers to the hotels in the Back Bay. As the BRA's urban design chief said back in the planning stages, "the Back Bay will be the rec room for the South Boston convention center." Will conventioneers really want to ride buses all around the town to get back and forth?
The convoluted approach and portal into this tunnel, the tunnel itself, and indeed the whole "Bus Rapid Transit" system, is misguided and widely opposed.
The community wants the MBTA to do a fair study of a rail-based system to make the necessary transportation links, providing real transit that’s better for riders and cheaper in the long run.
Excellent testimony was given at the hearing, this time as previously, by John Kyper of the Sierra Club, the Washington Street Corridor Coalition, Mark Slater for the Bay Village Neighborhood Association, Kathy Emrich for Ellis South End Neighborhood Association, Michelle Yee and Serene Wong on behalf of the Chinatown community, Chris Betke, and Larry Rosenblum for Leather District Neighborhood Association, Emerson College, and many others.
Written comments on MBTA's Notice of project change are due by October 30, 2006 and can be sent to:
Secretary William Golledge
EOEA Attn: MEPA Office,
William Gage bill.gage@state.ma.us
Re: EOEA No. 6826/11707
100 Cambridge Street, Suite 900
Boston, Mass. 02114
617-626-1181 (fax)
The Notice of Project change is at the above link. For hard copy: Copley Library, Dudley Library and State Transportation Library, or call MBTA at 617-222-6950.
The room was packed at the MBTA's October 19 public hearing on its latest Silverline Phase III proposal. This is a tunnel through downtown between Green Line Boylston Station and Red Line South Station, supposedly connecting the Washington Silverline bus through Roxbury and the Piers Transitway bus to the waterfront.
The MBTA, invested for some reason in the fictitious "bus rapid transit" of the Silverline, keeps trying to use a bus tunnel for this connection. Every design option for the portal to get into this tunnel would be damaging to the neighborhoods, institutions and businesses along the route -- and impractical as a transportation choice as well.
The justification claimed for federal funding for this hugely expensive boondoggle is "environmental justice": it’s touted as taking those Roxbury folks to the great jobs (bellhop, chambermaid, parking valet, retail clerk) at the new Seaport developments. Washington Street Corridor Coalition to MBTA: “No thanks! Just give us what you took away when the Elevated was removed back in 1987: a direct rail connection into the downtown subway system!”
The Silverline tunnel is supported only by business groups -- the Artery Business Committee, the Urban League -- who see it as a connector for South Boston conventioneers to the hotels in the Back Bay. As the BRA's urban design chief said back in the planning stages, "the Back Bay will be the rec room for the South Boston convention center." Will conventioneers really want to ride buses all around the town to get back and forth?
The convoluted approach and portal into this tunnel, the tunnel itself, and indeed the whole "Bus Rapid Transit" system, is misguided and widely opposed.
The community wants the MBTA to do a fair study of a rail-based system to make the necessary transportation links, providing real transit that’s better for riders and cheaper in the long run.
Excellent testimony was given at the hearing, this time as previously, by John Kyper of the Sierra Club, the Washington Street Corridor Coalition, Mark Slater for the Bay Village Neighborhood Association, Kathy Emrich for Ellis South End Neighborhood Association, Michelle Yee and Serene Wong on behalf of the Chinatown community, Chris Betke, and Larry Rosenblum for Leather District Neighborhood Association, Emerson College, and many others.
Written comments on MBTA's Notice of project change are due by October 30, 2006 and can be sent to:
Secretary William Golledge
EOEA Attn: MEPA Office,
William Gage bill.gage@state.ma.us
Re: EOEA No. 6826/11707
100 Cambridge Street, Suite 900
Boston, Mass. 02114
617-626-1181 (fax)
The Notice of Project change is at the above link. For hard copy: Copley Library, Dudley Library and State Transportation Library, or call MBTA at 617-222-6950.
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