1 1 VOL. I 2 PAGES 1 - 139 3 4 COMMONWEALTH OF MASSACHUSETTS 5 6 ARBORWAY 7 LIGHT RAIL RESTORATION 8 PUBLIC MEETING 9 10 11 12 13 MODERATOR: Dennis A. DiZoglio 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 Agassiz Community Center 21 Auditorium, First Floor 22 Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts 23 Wednesday, January 17, 2001 24 Commencing at 6:00 p.m. MAHANEY REPORTING SERVICES Tel. (617) 542-4207 2 1 Representing 2 MASSACHUSETTS BAY TRANSPORTATION 3 AUTHORITY Transportation Building 4 Ten Park Plaza, Room 5750 Boston, Massachusetts 02116 5 DENNIS A. DiZOGLIO, Director of Planning 6 JOSEPH M. COSGROVE, Deputy Director of 7 Planning 8 9 Representing 10 URS CORPORATION 11 38 Chauncy Street, 5th Floor Boston, Massachusetts 02111 12 WILLIAM L. GALLAGHER, Vice President, 13 Chief Engineer 14 BRIAN P. VAILLANCOURT, Senior Transportation Planner 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 MAHANEY REPORTING SERVICES Tel. (617) 542-4207 3 1 MODERATOR DiZOGLIO: Good evening. 2 Thank you very much for coming this evening to 3 the second meeting, public meeting, relative to 4 our discussion about returning Green Line 5 service to the Arborway. 6 Just so that you know who is here 7 this evening, my name is Dennis DiZoglio and I'm 8 the director of planning for the MBTA. With me 9 from the T is Joe Cosgrove, the deputy 10 director. And we also have a couple of 11 consultants that we have brought on board to 12 help us with the study. We have Bill Gallagher 13 from URS, and his associate, Brian Vaillancourt, 14 who is out bringing people in. And Joe Beegan 15 from Rizzo Associates, who are subconsultants to 16 URS. 17 And as we did in the last meeting we 18 have our stenographer here. And so I ask that 19 when we get to the point of interaction with 20 some questions and responses and comments, that 21 if you could state your name and your address 22 for the record so that she can record it. And 23 then if you talk again as a follow-up, if you 24 could just mention your name, because she MAHANEY REPORTING SERVICES Tel. (617) 542-4207 4 1 doesn't know who you are, and she will be able 2 to record your comments. 3 Before I kind of go over the agenda 4 for tonight, I thought there was a little 5 housekeeping that we should go over. We did 6 send out a notice about this evening to the 7 people who came the last time, and there were a 8 couple of things we tried to do. There were 9 minutes or transcriptions from the last 10 meeting. We printed those out and we made them 11 available to the libraries, both the ones in the 12 Jamaica Plain area, in the public libraries, and 13 downtown as well, also the transportation 14 library. 15 I know there was a request to see if 16 we could put them on the Web, and our Web site 17 is going through a rebuilding and we weren't 18 able to do so. But if you're interested in 19 having those minutes and you want them mailed to 20 you, if you could give your e-mail address to 21 Joe Cosgrove or e-mail him, he can try to get 22 them to you. 23 The second point I wanted to make 24 was there was a lot of discussion at the last MAHANEY REPORTING SERVICES Tel. (617) 542-4207 5 1 meeting about the process. And as you recall, 2 at the last meeting it was my presentation that 3 the process that DEP was asking us to follow 4 relative to this investigation or this study was 5 one of a feasibility analysis, and that a 6 comparison analysis would be done after a 7 feasibility analysis was completed. 8 We did go back to DEP, expressed the 9 concerns that you raised at the last meeting, 10 that you thought a comparison would be much more 11 productive, and they have agreed to allow us to 12 kind of convert this study into a comparison 13 study. The time frames associated with the 14 consent order have not been adjusted, at least 15 from the final decision. We still have to make 16 a decision on what we are going to do by May 17 2nd. 18 However, the time frames that we 19 discussed last time relative to a hundred fifty 20 days after the consent order was signed and 60 21 days thereafter have been removed by DEP, so we 22 can adjust to this new process. And as I said 23 last time, what we did last time was very useful 24 because what we are going to do tonight is MAHANEY REPORTING SERVICES Tel. (617) 542-4207 6 1 really take what we discussed at the last 2 meeting, present a way that service can be 3 restored, and this will be the base for the next 4 person who will come. 5 We are going to hire another 6 consultant to help us do a comparison of what 7 you are going to hear tonight to other 8 alternatives, and so you can compare the 9 different kind of services that might be 10 possible. 11 So we will talk about where we go 12 from here after tonight, but we do have in the 13 packet that we sent out to you a letter that was 14 sent to DEP to confirm that process, so there 15 was some movement from the last meeting as far 16 as doing a comparison analysis. 17 Also, I sent out with the notice the 18 letters from police and fire that were requested 19 that we send out, because I know some people had 20 a question about that. And we also sent out a 21 preliminary -- which turned out to be a final 22 agenda for tonight's meeting as well. So we 23 tried to send out those elements so that we 24 could get some information to you as per your MAHANEY REPORTING SERVICES Tel. (617) 542-4207 7 1 requests at the last meeting. 2 So before I go over the agenda, I 3 know that Mr. Salimbene, you had your hand up. 4 Do you have a question, sir? 5 MR. FRANKLYN SALIMBENE: Franklyn 6 Salimbene, 51 Eliot Street. 7 Just a note. I was on the phone to 8 Christine Kirby, and while she confirms the 9 point about the comparative approach that these 10 meetings ought to take, they have not yet 11 decided on the question of the time frame. 12 Because as you know, we have maintained all 13 along that since EOTC signed the consent decree, 14 they ought to be held to the March 2nd deadline 15 for public process, and the May 2nd deadline for 16 the report from the EOTC. And I reiterated that 17 point to her today, and she did not indicate 18 that they had agreed or DEP had agreed to an 19 extension. I suspect that something will be 20 forthcoming within the next week or so regarding 21 that. 22 MODERATOR DiZOGLIO: Okay. It's our 23 intent to keep to a May 2nd deadline. We did 24 not ask for any extension beyond May 2nd. So MAHANEY REPORTING SERVICES Tel. (617) 542-4207 8 1 our goal is to accomplish the May 2nd. 2 Yes? 3 MR. DAVID ROHRLICH: David Rohrlich, 4 18 The Arborway, Jamaica Plain. 5 I heard you use the plural, 6 alternatives with an S, in describing the 7 comparative study. My understanding is that the 8 comparative study will compare the original 9 service, Green Line service to Forest Hills, 10 with the chosen alternative that the T has had 11 15 years to think about. So there's no place 12 for a plural there, according to my 13 understanding. 14 MODERATOR DiZOGLIO: Not to jump 15 ahead to the next meeting, but I don't disagree 16 with exactly what you are saying. However, 17 there may be some other alternatives someone 18 might want to suggest that we look at. So if 19 the consensus is no, we just want that one 20 alternative, I'm sure we can move forward in 21 that fashion. But if someone says "Well, gee, 22 what about" -- because at the last meeting there 23 was someone that talked about trackless 24 trolleys. MAHANEY REPORTING SERVICES Tel. (617) 542-4207 9 1 So I don't know. But that might be 2 the case. But we will definitively discuss that 3 as we go farther into the process. 4 Yes? 5 MR. KEVIN MOLONEY: Kevin Moloney, 6 20 Rambler Road, Jamaica Plain. Just a couple 7 of observations about the letters that you sent. 8 First of all, those letters are 9 dated sometime in 1999, and did not find very 10 much support from the DEP in the administrative 11 proceeding that they were sent in, number one. 12 Number two, during the first year or 13 so of Mayor Menino's becoming mayor in his own 14 right, he asked a number of representatives of 15 the Jamaica Plain business community and a 16 number of representatives of the Arborway 17 Committee and Jamaica Plain Neighborhood Council 18 -- I happen to have been one of them -- to 19 engage in a series of meetings in the mayor's 20 office, in Jamaica Plain, and at the 21 transportation department, discussing problems, 22 if they were any, of restoration of light rail 23 service. 24 Those meetings, virtually all of MAHANEY REPORTING SERVICES Tel. (617) 542-4207 10 1 them were attended by Chief Hartnett of the fire 2 department, and also a senior officer, uniformed 3 officer of the Boston Police Department. And 4 Chief Hartnett, I think he is now retired, but 5 he said that the Boston Fire Department has been 6 fighting fires in Jamaica Plain since before 7 streetcars came in the 19th century. They 8 fought fires while the streetcars were on Centre 9 Street and elsewhere in Jamaica Plain and would 10 continue to do so and saw no public safety fire 11 problems at all. Similar views were expressed 12 by the police department. 13 So the letters that you circulated 14 last week are letters that on their face appear 15 to be opinions that aren't supported by facts 16 mentioned in the letters, nor do I believe are 17 they supported by any facts that either 18 department has, and they are out of date. So I 19 just wondered why at this time, more than a year 20 later, those letters are being circulated as if 21 they had any meaning. 22 MODERATOR DiZOGLIO: You requested 23 that we give you the letters that we had in our 24 possession at the last meeting, and that's why MAHANEY REPORTING SERVICES Tel. (617) 542-4207 11 1 we submitted those. 2 MR. MOLONEY: Okay. 3 MODERATOR DiZOGLIO: Yes? 4 MS. MARY McCARTHY: My name is Mary 5 McCarthy. And I live at 29 Custer Street, but I 6 have lived at several neighborhoods in Jamaica 7 Plain over the last 20 years, and I have never 8 been notified of these meetings, or I would have 9 been at last month's meeting. 10 But I'm very disappointed, from what 11 I hear, that this is a done deal, that there 12 will be restoration of trolley service. And I'm 13 very upset about the public safety issue because 14 I have been a victim of several incidences where 15 a fire truck or an ambulance were not able to 16 get there. 17 The other day I saw a fire truck 18 unable to get up Centre Street, without trolleys 19 on it. So I don't think this is really a done 20 deal, and I wish people would try to keep an 21 open mind. And the people that use it, a lot of 22 people that are speaking for restoration of the 23 trolleys don't even use the trolleys. 24 And if you go back to 1985, which is MAHANEY REPORTING SERVICES Tel. (617) 542-4207 12 1 ancient history, I used to spend an hour and a 2 half going in town every day in a crowded 3 trolley, and I had to wait for five trolleys to 4 come home. So it wasn't a wonderful -- we are 5 not talking fairy land here. I think we have to 6 talk about reality, that there's really not 7 enough room for both cars and trolleys. So 8 seriously, let's, you know, let's get real 9 here. 10 MODERATOR DiZOGLIO: Yes? 11 MS. REBECCA KUSHNER: My name is 12 Rebecca Kushner, and I live at 95 Jamaica 13 Street. And since everybody else is making 14 general comments, I will too. 15 MODERATOR DiZOGLIO: We would like 16 to try to keep it on the process as opposed to 17 what they are suggesting, because they haven't 18 even presented what they are suggesting. But if 19 it's on the process that we just talked about, I 20 would be more than happy to take a question. 21 MS. KUSHNER: Well, then I guess I 22 have to wait. 23 MODERATOR DiZOGLIO: Okay. Thank 24 you. MAHANEY REPORTING SERVICES Tel. (617) 542-4207 13 1 On the process issues? 2 MR. CARRIER: This is about what the 3 lady said here. 4 MODERATOR DiZOGLIO: If you would 5 like to make a comment -- 6 MR. DOUGLAS CARRIER: Douglas 7 Carrier, 20 Montfern Avenue in Brighton. 8 I am a resident who lost the A line 9 in Brighton, and I am here to protect the battle 10 for the E line. I just want to make the comment 11 that the folks in this neighborhood deserve a 12 direct ride to Government Center, instead of 13 having to transfer at Back Bay, which is what 14 the 39 does. I think that people should get a 15 direct ride, so I do want the Green Line. 16 MODERATOR DiZOGLIO: Okay. We will 17 have some more discussions about what we are 18 going to suggest. 19 What I would like to do now is 20 review what they are going to try to discuss 21 this evening. I think it was clear from the 22 last meeting that it would be very difficult to 23 return light rail the way it was in 1985. Times 24 have changed. There's a lot of different MAHANEY REPORTING SERVICES Tel. (617) 542-4207 14 1 issues, ranging from accessibility issues and 2 the like. So we asked the consultants to come 3 in and help design how the system could work 4 with today's standards and today's things that 5 we have to meet. 6 So they have done a conceptual 7 design, and they have made some observations 8 relative to that conceptual design. I would 9 like to suggest that we give them the 15, 20 10 minutes or half hour they need to give you an 11 overview, and after they're done, we will open 12 it for questions, comments, concerns, whatever 13 it may be. And then when we are done with all 14 those, then we can start talking about where we 15 take this from here. 16 But just to reiterate, what we are 17 doing tonight is setting the base case for the 18 comparison. What we are going to decide or try 19 to come up with is a preferred design so that 20 when we compare an alternative or alternatives, 21 we will have something to compare it to. 22 So I'm going to ask Bill Gallagher 23 to start, and then Joe Beegan will give some of 24 the observations, and we will open it up at that MAHANEY REPORTING SERVICES Tel. (617) 542-4207 15 1 point for your comments, questions and 2 concerns. 3 MR. GALLAGHER: Thank you, Dennis. 4 Just as we left off last time, we 5 said that if the Green Line is going to be 6 restored down in the Arborway corridor, because 7 it's been out of service for so long, we have 8 got a ruling from the Architectural Access Board 9 that it must meet handicapped accessibility, 10 which the previous service did not. And I think 11 everybody understands that. 12 So what we have tried to do is to 13 show you how it could meet handicapped 14 accessibility, and we'll show some designs and 15 how that could work. And then Joe Beegan will 16 go through and show some of the observations as 17 far as traffic, parking and some other issues 18 along the corridor. And then at the end we will 19 give you a summary of our observations, and then 20 open it up for questions. 21 Basically all of the figures up here 22 on the board -- I'm sure some of you in the back 23 can't read them. They are all included in your 24 handout tonight. And if anybody doesn't have MAHANEY REPORTING SERVICES Tel. (617) 542-4207 16 1 one, Brian can make sure you get one. 2 That being said -- also it was asked 3 at the last meeting if we could check some of 4 our other offices and some of the work they were 5 doing in some of the older cities. I have done 6 that. I haven't heard from all of them, but I 7 can report to you what I have heard. 8 Our office is doing a light rail 9 restoration in Pittsburgh. That particular line 10 will be on its own reservation. However, the 11 person who is designing it mentioned that the 12 Port Authority of Allegheny County is wrestling 13 with the same issues that the T would be 14 wrestling with in restoring their old system. 15 Because of the issue of handicapped 16 accessibility, they can't just -- they need to 17 upgrade it and do the same things we are going 18 to be talking about tonight. 19 Another community is Portland, 20 Oregon, and we are designing a similar system 21 that -- as we are talking about tonight. They 22 are also having handicapped accessible platforms 23 along the curb line. Their platform lengths are 24 a hundred eighty-five feet, which are greater MAHANEY REPORTING SERVICES Tel. (617) 542-4207 17 1 than what we're looking at tonight. I haven't 2 heard from our other office, which is doing 3 restoration in Newark. And I have also gotten a 4 call in to the Washington office of the FTA to 5 get kind of an overview of what else is 6 happening, and we will include any of that data 7 in our report to the T. 8 So I would like to start by just 9 taking the low-floor vehicle that the T -- it 10 does exist. It's out at Riverside. It can be 11 seen out there. And basically it has a low 12 floor, which is 14 inches off of the surface of 13 the pavement which would be along your streets. 14 It has the feature of a plate that retracts out 15 onto the sidewalk. It comes out about 16 approximately two feet onto the sidewalk from 17 the car. And it requires, in order to get the 18 right slope so a wheelchair can access it, it 19 needs to have an eight-inch curb. 20 Now, normal curbs along a street, as 21 you are probably aware, are six inches. So it 22 presents a two-inch raise in the curb which 23 needs to be adjusted on both sides of the 24 platform. MAHANEY REPORTING SERVICES Tel. (617) 542-4207 18 1 The vehicle itself, the low-floor 2 vehicle, is situated from the curb line four 3 feet nine inches away to the center line of the 4 car. It requires for mobility around the 5 platform from the center line about 11 feet, and 6 the actual platform needs to be about six feet 7 two inches minimum. And I think those are the 8 main dimensions. And this is what we based our 9 design on because the T does own these cars and 10 would be operating these cars on your service if 11 it was to be restored. 12 I'm going to leave this up here in 13 case we need to refer to anything. 14 As I mentioned at the last meeting, 15 we have two characteristics of the streets along 16 the corridor. And we are talking about from 17 Heath Street down to the Arborway, and we are 18 talking about South Huntington Avenue, which is 19 54 feet wide. And then when you get to Centre 20 Street, Centre Street and South Street are about 21 42 and 40 feet wide, which are considerably 22 narrower. As I mentioned the last time, because 23 of the additional width on South Huntington 24 Avenue, we have more flexibility than we do on MAHANEY REPORTING SERVICES Tel. (617) 542-4207 19 1 Centre Street and South Street. 2 We told you last time that we would 3 look at the possibility of siting a center 4 platform, and that's what you see in this 5 graphic that's on -- the second one in your 6 handout. Basically the width of this is about 7 12 and a half feet, which is just this dimension 8 basically doubled, because if there's a train 9 stopping here and a train stopping here, you 10 need the same amount of room to be able to 11 maneuver around here. This width will also 12 allow for some street furniture, possibly some 13 canopies. And it would be the T's policy if 14 such a platform was built to provide those 15 amenities. 16 This also allows you to keep the 17 alignment fairly close to the center. It also 18 has a benefit of being able to have a clear path 19 for bicycles, because in the other alternative, 20 which you will see in a minute, when we bring 21 the track over by the curb, bicycles would have 22 to cross over the tracks, which is difficult for 23 them to maneuver. 24 MS. KUSHNER: I'm sorry. Where MAHANEY REPORTING SERVICES Tel. (617) 542-4207 20 1 would the bicycles go? 2 MR. GALLAGHER: The bicycles would 3 go right along the edge of the parking lane like 4 they do now, except that there's no train 5 there. 6 But basically the rails would be 7 approximately the same place or a little bit 8 more off-center than they are now, but pretty 9 close to the center of the street. 10 One thing that we have allowed in 11 this, because we have the extra width, is to 12 allow cars to pass a stopped train, and only 13 people would get off onto the island platform, 14 so that we have eliminated parking along this 15 length. So that cars could maneuver around the 16 platform to the intersection, and then pass the 17 intersection, and they would go back out and 18 share the same lane with the rails. 19 The length of this platform will 20 allow a two-car train to stop and let passengers 21 be able to board and unboard, deboard from the 22 four cars on the train, along the total length 23 of the platform. It would provide handicapped 24 ramps at the ends of the platform with MAHANEY REPORTING SERVICES Tel. (617) 542-4207 21 1 crosswalks at the intersection so that a 2 wheelchair could maneuver safely to the 3 sidewalk. 4 That's one. So basically coming 5 from the edge of the intersection, we have 30 6 feet, and then the actual platform length is a 7 hundred fifty feet, and then there's five feet, 8 which is just the transition back right at the 9 end. But basically the train would be stopped 10 here and here. 11 Now, another alternative for South 12 Huntington Avenue, because of its width, is to 13 bring the tracks over to the curb line, and this 14 would allow, by changing the striping, to allow 15 cars to pass along a station. And what this 16 does is takes the existing sidewalk and 17 basically brings it out an additional six feet, 18 six and a half feet, in order to accommodate the 19 platform that would be similar to here. 20 This 20 feet -- in that 20 feet you 21 would transition back from the eight-inch curb 22 back to the six-inch curb. And it's not shown 23 here, but you still have the handicapped 24 accessibility sidewalks at those points. Again, MAHANEY REPORTING SERVICES Tel. (617) 542-4207 22 1 the platform length is a hundred fifty feet, and 2 we figured beyond the hundred fifty feet, you 3 need another 30 feet with the 25 foot radius to 4 transition back to the parking lane. So in this 5 case we are eliminating basically nine parking 6 spaces for each length. 7 MS. ALISON POLTINAS: Could I ask a 8 question? Alison Poltinas, Long Street, Mission 9 Hill. 10 On the previous plan, the center 11 island plan, can you explain why the platform is 12 a hundred fifty feet there? 13 MR. GALLAGHER: This is to allow 14 boarding and access from all four doors on a 15 two-car train. And this is what the T's 16 standard length of a platform would be. 17 MS. POLTINAS: What do you mean, 18 four doors? 19 MR. GALLAGHER: Two doors on each 20 car, so there would be four doors. 21 MODERATOR DiZOGLIO: Could we hold 22 the questions, please, so he can get through the 23 whole thing? 24 Yes? MAHANEY REPORTING SERVICES Tel. (617) 542-4207 23 1 MR. JOHN KYPER: John Kyper, Centre 2 Street, Roxbury. 3 That would necessitate changes in 4 fare collections, since -- 5 MR. GALLAGHER: That's correct. You 6 are absolutely right. I'm glad you mentioned 7 that. 8 MR. KYPER: Does that mean you are 9 considering going to the proof of payment 10 system? 11 MR. GALLAGHER: All I'm saying in 12 this is that it's physically possible to have a 13 center platform. That's certainly an issue the 14 T has to consider. And it's, as you know, they 15 are considering methods of automatic fare 16 collection. As you know, they currently collect 17 fares on the opposite side of the train. And it 18 would require at this stage a proof of payment 19 system; that is an issue. 20 MODERATOR DiZOGLIO: I know there 21 are many people in the room who are on the 22 sophisticated side as to what we are talking 23 about, but some of these observations such as 24 that will come up, and it would be helpful if he MAHANEY REPORTING SERVICES Tel. (617) 542-4207 24 1 could go through the whole thing. And those 2 observations are very keen and will probably be 3 articulated when we get to the observation 4 stage. So if we could keep on going with the 5 presentation, I think everybody would get a 6 better feel for some of those issues. 7 MR. GALLAGHER: Getting back to the 8 curb platform, as I mentioned before, an issue 9 with bicycles who would be coming along between 10 the parked cars and the rail or along the rails, 11 as this rail moves over toward the curb, it 12 would have to maneuver around across the tracks, 13 which is uncomfortable. It's an issue. 14 This system also on South Huntington 15 does allow you to provide passing lanes, and we 16 have moved the striping to allow cars to pass on 17 both sides. So that that is possible with the 18 extra width. 19 Now, for Centre and South Street -- 20 by the way, I do have a typical section which 21 just reflects what I have been talking about. 22 This typical section is with the center 23 platform. We don't show both trains, but the 24 center lines are shown. It shows about a MAHANEY REPORTING SERVICES Tel. (617) 542-4207 25 1 12-and-a-half-foot platform, the relationship 2 with the curb, the distances. It shows a travel 3 lane with a center platform on the outside, 4 eliminating the parking. And this is where you 5 have a curb -- a station along the curb line, 6 which shows the passing lane in the middle. 7 Again, it follows these guidelines. 8 On Centre and South Street, as I 9 mentioned earlier, the widths of those streets 10 are relatively narrow. Centre Street is 42 feet 11 wide and South Street is 40 feet wide. So we 12 don't really have the opportunity to introduce a 13 center platform, so we are limited in this case 14 to the side platform. And basically it's the 15 same type of arrangement, only we won't be able 16 to have room to pass a car. 17 The general purpose traffic will 18 have to be behind the trolley as it stops, and 19 then wait for the trolley to move ahead before 20 it can proceed. The dimensions again are 21 similar to what was shown earlier. And we would 22 be eliminating the same number of parking spaces 23 per stop. 24 And again, here is a typical section MAHANEY REPORTING SERVICES Tel. (617) 542-4207 26 1 of how that would work, just showing the train 2 along the street. This is the center; this is 3 moved over at a stop. This is for a 42-feet 4 street, but they are relatively the same. 5 There's a two-foot difference. 6 So basically this is how we see it 7 could be restored. It's possible. And I would 8 like to at this point turn it over to Joe 9 Beegan, who will give you some of our 10 observations if this were to be restored. 11 MR. BEEGAN: Thanks, Bill. 12 What I would like to talk to are 13 several issues. First, the impacts of the 14 design that Bill has been talking about on 15 parking along the corridor. Then I will talk 16 about impacts related to traffic congestion. 17 And then finally, you know, touch on the 18 emergency response issue. And then I will again 19 summarize what our key findings are after I go 20 through that. 21 You have probably seen some of our 22 folks out gathering data. And we have had our 23 crews out over the last month or so at different 24 times gathering data about parking information, MAHANEY REPORTING SERVICES Tel. (617) 542-4207 27 1 the number of spaces, how they are being used, 2 what are the regulations. We have been 3 collecting traffic count information. You have 4 probably seen our counters out. We have been 5 doing travel time runs to get an idea how things 6 operate, to get a handle on some of the issues 7 about what's out there today, and then what 8 would the changes be when new service, based on 9 the design that Bill has talked about, if that 10 would be introduced here, what the impacts of 11 that would be. 12 The first area that I will talk 13 about is on-street parking. And today, when we 14 inventoried, there's about six hundred plus 15 on-street parking spaces along the corridor 16 running from Heath Street down to Washington 17 Street. The uses vary by locations. There are 18 unregulated parking spaces in some of the 19 residential areas, there are two-hour parking 20 spaces down in the commercial districts to 21 provide turnover parking. 22 When we looked at the overall impact 23 on the corridor, with the new stations, what we 24 found was about 20 percent of the spaces would MAHANEY REPORTING SERVICES Tel. (617) 542-4207 28 1 be eliminated with the introduction of the 2 platforms as Bill described them. What that 3 includes is the additional spaces that are lost 4 if a stop had to be expanded. It also includes 5 spaces that would be gained if a stop were 6 eliminated through consolidation. 7 Now, that's a lot of spaces that are 8 potentially lost. But what's important to note, 9 and I think folks here understand, is that the 10 impacts will vary by location. And to look at 11 that corridor-wide level just gives you a broad 12 brush as to what is happening. 13 We broke it down into three 14 sections, the South Huntington and the Centre 15 Street section and the South Street section, to 16 really try and pinpoint where the parking 17 impacts would occur. And the graphic in your 18 handout will explain the number of spaces in 19 each of these locations that are out there 20 today, and what I will do is go through them by 21 section. 22 The first section I will talk about 23 is South Huntington. And on South Huntington 24 today there are about 225 spaces, largely MAHANEY REPORTING SERVICES Tel. (617) 542-4207 29 1 unregulated. There would be a loss of about 45 2 spaces, which again is about 20 percent of the 3 total that's out there. 4 MR. MOLONEY: I would like to ask a 5 question at an appropriate time, before you move 6 on to another subject, because I have a question 7 dealing with the platforms and the so-called 8 loss of parking at this time, but before you 9 move on to another subject. 10 MODERATOR DiZOGLIO: As soon as they 11 are done, we can talk about it. 12 MR. MOLONEY: The problem is the 13 people listening get fixed in their mind certain 14 things that have been said. And I think it 15 would it be more appropriate to talk about that 16 before we move on to another subject. 17 MODERATOR DiZOGLIO: Another being 18 -- 19 MR. MOLONEY: What I want to talk 20 about is the assumption that's being declared 21 somewhat as gospel that there's going to be a 22 mandatory 150 foot space through the whole 23 corridor taken up. And at the last meeting I 24 think it was admitted by the consultants, if not MAHANEY REPORTING SERVICES Tel. (617) 542-4207 30 1 the T, that only one of the two cars was going 2 to be handicapped accessible, and that you would 3 not need a hundred fifty plus feet to 4 accommodate handicapped access; rather, you 5 would need maybe half that in order to 6 accommodate that. And that would have a direct 7 impact on the length of the platforms, if there 8 were going to be any, and a direct impact on the 9 parking situation. 10 MODERATOR DiZOGLIO: We can 11 definitely talk about that, I think, as soon as 12 they have presented what it would look like. 13 MR. MOLONEY: I'd like you to just 14 address that issue before we leave the parking. 15 MR. BEEGAN: As I said, along the 16 corridor about 20 percent of the spaces would be 17 impacted by the station design. That also 18 includes some spaces that are added back in 19 because one of the stops -- the little red 20 asterisk there, as you can see in your handout 21 -- is eliminated in an effort to kind of 22 consolidate the locations out there. 23 What's important to note here, 24 though, is we looked at how many vehicles are MAHANEY REPORTING SERVICES Tel. (617) 542-4207 31 1 out there during the course of the day. And 2 it's probably one of the more lightly used 3 sections of the roadway, maybe 50 or 60 percent 4 occupied at any given time. So when we looked 5 at this section of the corridor, knowing that we 6 are losing this number of spaces, we felt that 7 it wasn't -- it wouldn't be a parking impact for 8 that area, that the parking would get close to 9 what's known as practical parking capacity, but 10 not to the point where you would be over- 11 capacity. And what that means is you would 12 still be able to go out and drive on that street 13 and find a spot to park near where you wanted to 14 go with these new stations in that location. 15 The second area we looked at was on 16 Centre Street. And one of the things here that 17 we wanted to identify, in addition to the 18 on-street parking, was the location of the 19 off-street municipal lot, because we wanted to 20 be able to factor that into the equation, as to 21 what would happen if spaces were lost in an area 22 where you had a municipal lot. And again, we're 23 looking at roughly about the same number of lost 24 spaces as we had before at the South Huntington MAHANEY REPORTING SERVICES Tel. (617) 542-4207 32 1 section, about 40 to 45 spaces. 2 But what's interesting to note is 3 how they are located relative to the parking 4 lots -- the parking lot. The figure that you 5 have in your handout shows two big circles. The 6 one in green here is about a two-minute walk 7 from the municipal parking lot. The one in red 8 is a little further. It's about a five-minute 9 walk from the municipal lot. So we wanted to 10 identify what was happening in these areas to 11 understand whether or not the parking lots could 12 provide a resource as the on-street parking was 13 displaced. 14 And what we believe is in the area 15 of the larger of the two lots, which is about a 16 hundred and three spaces, that there should be 17 sufficient capacity to absorb any of the 18 on-street parking loss. What it will likely do, 19 again, is it will push things up to be near 20 capacity. So it's not that, you know, you will 21 have plenty of parking, but there should be 22 sufficient parking. 23 In the area to the north by the 24 Curley School we don't believe that there's MAHANEY REPORTING SERVICES Tel. (617) 542-4207 33 1 sufficient off-street resources to handle the 2 displaced parking that would be lost here, so 3 that will make conditions tighter on that 4 section of the roadway, and it may push some of 5 the parking a little further into the side 6 streets. But this is the first area, really, 7 that we identified where a specific impact would 8 occur. 9 The second area where we see an 10 impact occurring is down on South Street. As 11 you know, there are no municipal off-street lots 12 in that area. There are some private lots down 13 there. But here you're looking at a loss of 30 14 spaces. It's an area that as you get close to 15 Washington Street, that is pretty well parked 16 throughout the day, 80 or 90 percent full during 17 different times of the day. So this a parking 18 lot -- parking lots in this area we believe will 19 have an impact on the parking supply and make it 20 more difficult on the South Street section of 21 the roadway. 22 The next area that I wanted to talk 23 about was the traffic congestion issue related 24 to the project. And what's illustrated in your MAHANEY REPORTING SERVICES Tel. (617) 542-4207 34 1 handout are issues that we identified through 2 our work and our data-gathering work as to 3 different sources of congestion that we observed 4 in and along the corridor. We also took a look 5 at what would happen if -- or what type of 6 impact could we expect if the trolleys or LRV's 7 were operating on the corridor. 8 And first I will talk about this, 9 and then present our observations or what our 10 findings are relative to the institution of the 11 service and what that would mean as far as 12 congestion. 13 As you know, I think the key areas 14 of congestion typically are on Centre Street and 15 portions of South Street. South Huntington in 16 general has minimal congestion on it. It's the 17 wider section of the roadway. The volumes are 18 lower actually than Centre Street. Centre 19 Street actually has the highest volumes of all 20 three streets, you know, roughly over 17 21 thousand vehicles on a daily basis, whereas 22 South Huntington and South Street are about 12 23 thousand on a daily basis, which makes sense 24 when you think of how the roadways converge on MAHANEY REPORTING SERVICES Tel. (617) 542-4207 35 1 to Centre Street. 2 So when we looked at South 3 Huntington, we felt that there's not a major 4 source of congestion. And the issues that occur 5 along Centre Street are in part due to the land 6 uses around it, the activity at the Curley 7 School when school lets out, the activity in the 8 business district with people parking, moving in 9 and out of parking spaces and those two hour 10 parking spaces, people making left turns when 11 they don't have a left turn lane, that type of 12 thing. And that contributes to congestion along 13 the corridor. 14 There are some specific 15 intersections which I'm sure you are familiar 16 with that have congestion and delay associated 17 with them, Centre and South Huntington, 18 Washington and South Street in the evening, as 19 examples of that. 20 Basically all the items that I've 21 identified here are really independent of the 22 trains that are functioning and the transit 23 level functions, and what we wanted to identify 24 was the introduction of a trolley operating, MAHANEY REPORTING SERVICES Tel. (617) 542-4207 36 1 based on the assumptions we talked about here, 2 what effect that would have. 3 And our conclusions are really 4 twofold, that there's a general conclusion about 5 or a general finding about the overall operation 6 in the street, but then there's some specific 7 details that you should be aware of. And the 8 way we looked at this problem was to look at, 9 again, as I said earlier, take some -- get some 10 travel time information about how long it takes 11 to travel along the corridor. 12 We looked at it in terms of a 13 private vehicle versus a bus that operates out 14 there today. Then we looked at what the 15 operation characteristics of the bus are versus 16 what the LRV would operate, taking into 17 consideration things like, you know, there would 18 be fewer stops for the LRV operating along the 19 corridor than there would be for the 39 bus, and 20 what that would mean in terms of the amount of 21 time spent with passengers loading and 22 unloading. 23 The key concern that we wanted to 24 understand was, or note especially, on the MAHANEY REPORTING SERVICES Tel. (617) 542-4207 37 1 narrower sections of Centre and South Streets 2 was that the vehicles, when they pull up to the 3 station, are effectively going to block traffic 4 that won't be able to get around that. In the 5 case of a bus, there's the opportunity for that 6 bus to pull to the curb. 7 And when we looked at all of this 8 and took into consideration the amount of -- the 9 number of doors on the vehicles versus what you 10 have on the bus, our general conclusion was that 11 the introduction of the service should not have 12 a negative impact on congestion on the 13 corridor. But there would be some specific 14 things that would occur that will result in 15 congestion. Let me give you a couple of 16 examples. 17 For example, if you are directly 18 behind a vehicle you are going to experience 19 more congestion today than you would if you were 20 behind a bus. Vehicles further down the chain 21 aren't going to notice necessarily that there's 22 a trolley maybe three or four minutes up ahead 23 of them, but the people right behind them 24 would. In cases where the ramp has to be MAHANEY REPORTING SERVICES Tel. (617) 542-4207 38 1 deployed in order for people with disabilities 2 to get onto the LRV, that's going to take some 3 time to do that. And that could be a two to 4 four minute delay when the vehicle is stopped in 5 the street and the traffic behind it has to stop 6 behind it. 7 The other thing that's important to 8 note is that the vehicles, because they are 9 operating in that fixed guideway, they are 10 operating on the tracks, are going to be much 11 more sensitive to what's happening in the 12 parking lane than a bus would be. So if a 13 vehicle is parked a little further out and 14 encroaching on the space that would be used by 15 the light rail vehicle, that's going to cause 16 the vehicle, the light rail vehicle, to stop, 17 where today a bus might be able to get around 18 it. 19 So there's that type of issue, 20 specifically related to operating on the fixed 21 track. That would be a consideration. So I 22 wanted to present it in that way, because we had 23 generally found that, you know, we didn't feel 24 that there would be a significant impact on MAHANEY REPORTING SERVICES Tel. (617) 542-4207 39 1 congestion, but there are going to be some 2 congestion points, and there are some congestion 3 issues related to the service that people need 4 to be aware of. 5 The final piece that we took a look 6 at was to try to get a handle on the issue of 7 emergency response. 8 FROM THE FLOOR: What issue? 9 MR. BEEGAN: Emergency vehicles, I'm 10 sorry. And in some ways it's a difficult issue 11 to get your arms around. But one of the days 12 our folks were out here, they made an 13 observation which helped us, I think, understand 14 it a little bit better, what the issues were, 15 and we will try to illustrate it in the graphic 16 that you have in your handout. 17 What we saw was a case where an 18 ambulance or fire vehicle needed to go down 19 Centre Street, and what our driver of our 20 vehicle noticed was that when that happened, the 21 two travel lanes pulled tight to the curb lane, 22 and that provided sufficient width down the 23 center line for that vehicle to pass. And what 24 was important about that was it kind of MAHANEY REPORTING SERVICES Tel. (617) 542-4207 40 1 demonstrated the difference that -- the 2 flexibility of how the corridor operates when 3 there isn't a vehicle on fixed rail versus when 4 there is. 5 And the reason is if there's a 6 vehicle on a fixed rail, it limits the ability 7 to make that maneuver, and what has to happen is 8 the traffic coming in the opposite direction has 9 to clear out so that the vehicle can go around. 10 That's not to say that that happens, that the 11 perfect situation happens in every instance, but 12 it was a demonstration for us of the flexibility 13 and that type of issue when you are able to get 14 the vehicles tight to the street and take full 15 advantage of the 40, 42 foot roadway width. 16 So that was our look at those three 17 areas. And what I would like to do is just 18 quickly summarize the points that we made. When 19 we looked at the parking, again, we identified, 20 we identified really two areas of impact, the 21 area up by the Curley School and South Street. 22 Traffic congestion, we noted that the key 23 congestion factors on Centre Street are not 24 necessarily related to the mode of transit MAHANEY REPORTING SERVICES Tel. (617) 542-4207 41 1 that's operating out there, but we did note that 2 there are some instances and some sensitivity of 3 the fixed rail system versus other types of 4 options that could result in congestion 5 occurring. And we identified really another 6 issue related to fixed rail systems and 7 emergency vehicles being able to maneuver along 8 the corridor. 9 Do you want me to go through the 10 rest of the list? 11 MR. GALLAGHER: You might as well. 12 MR. BEEGAN: There will be a little 13 bit of me and a little bit of Bill here. 14 So, again, we summarized -- in the 15 back you will see a summary of various 16 observations. I think Bill mentioned earlier 17 that one of the key issues related to the need 18 for meeting ADA requirements was raising the 19 platform level up to eight inches versus the six 20 inches that are out there today. 21 We noted that -- I think Bill noted 22 that island platforms were an option on South 23 Huntington. And I think what it demonstrates 24 here, and it came up in a couple of cases when MAHANEY REPORTING SERVICES Tel. (617) 542-4207 42 1 we were looking at it, there's some flexibility 2 on South Huntington that obviously doesn't exist 3 on Centre Street or South Street because of the 4 volumes and width of the street and everything 5 else going on there. We noted that there was a 6 net loss of over a hundred spaces corridor 7 wide. And as I said, there are two particular 8 areas where that could be a problem. 9 We didn't touch on this in my 10 presentation, but one of the other observations 11 we made was relative to loading zones. There's 12 a small number of loading zones that are out 13 there today. There's probably a case to be made 14 for expanding those. That could have an impact 15 on parking space, although there are some ways 16 to manage it by time of day that can lessen that 17 impact. 18 But that's something that is 19 important in order to make sure that trucks 20 don't double-park, you minimize the occurrence 21 of that. Also the importance of enforcement of 22 double-parking with the LRV system is much 23 greater than with a bus system. 24 I think that traffic on South MAHANEY REPORTING SERVICES Tel. (617) 542-4207 43 1 Huntington, again, can be maintained because of 2 the adequate width of the roadway. That 3 shouldn't be a problem. That, again, the width 4 of Centre and South Street prevent vehicles 5 really from passing an LRV, because once you are 6 behind it on those streets, you are really going 7 to be behind it. But again, overall congestion 8 not being a problem. The operation again of 9 those streets, as you know, today it's not -- 10 traffic doesn't move that quickly on Centre or 11 South Street, so when we talk about restoration 12 of the service, it's not a high-speed service 13 that would occur, that it's a service that will 14 move at the pace of the roadway, not something 15 that would be a high speed service like you 16 would find on a roadway with its own 17 reservation. It's sort of an obvious point, but 18 still needs to be stated. 19 There will be some additional 20 requirements in terms of vehicles, track, power 21 maintenance facilities in order to make this 22 happen. There is, as I noted earlier, the 23 flexibility of -- I should say the inflexibility 24 of the trolley on a fixed guideway that will MAHANEY REPORTING SERVICES Tel. (617) 542-4207 44 1 result in some additional emergency vehicle 2 delays. And then the issue Bill talked about 3 earlier, the track and station assignment will 4 have an impact on bicycle safety and mobility. 5 So that's the list, and we are here 6 to listen and answer some questions as best we 7 can. 8 MODERATOR DiZOGLIO: Okay. Just so 9 that we can do it, again, if we could have your 10 name and address for the record so she can 11 record it. 12 I know that Mr. Moloney had 13 suggested that question about the hundred fifty 14 feet. I know you raised it before, and if you 15 don't mind we can start with that question. Why 16 one hundred fifty feet? And, can't we address 17 the disability issue with a smaller platform? 18 MR. MOLONEY: It was discussed last 19 time that the practice of the T would be to have 20 one of the two cars handicapped accessible. And 21 if you needed a way to get a wheelchair from the 22 sidewalk or the curb onto the car, you would be 23 doing that on one of the two cars; you would not 24 have to do it with the second car. MAHANEY REPORTING SERVICES Tel. (617) 542-4207 45 1 MR. GALLAGHER: Let me just address 2 that point. And I think, two things. If the T 3 wants to reinstate this service, they have to 4 meet the ADA requirements. They also have to 5 look at safety and how does the whole service 6 run. And whether they just have one 7 handicapped-accessible car and the other not, I 8 think they want the flexibility to be able to 9 board from all cars, so that there would be 10 doors at both extremes of the train. 11 If cars are parked where -- say for 12 half the platform length, say in the 75 feet in 13 the back of the train -- don't forget that we 14 have brought the train not from the center of 15 the road; we have brought it over very close to 16 the curb. So somebody getting off one of those 17 doors with a baby carriage would run into a 18 parked car. 19 So for that reason we have 20 recommended, and I think we want to stand by it, 21 to have a hundred fifty foot platform, to make 22 the service run as best it can. 23 MR. MOLONEY: I understand that 24 there are arguments for the hundred-fifty-foot MAHANEY REPORTING SERVICES Tel. (617) 542-4207 46 1 platform. 2 MR. GALLAGHER: Right. 3 MR. MOLONEY: But I think the point 4 was made last time, and I think with some 5 agreement from both consultants and the T, that 6 this whole thing, whether it's restoration of 7 trolley service or the consideration of some 8 other alternative, is a matter, on many of these 9 issues, of balancing the pros and cons and 10 coming up with a balanced analysis all the way. 11 But the fault I have with the 12 analysis is that you take the assumption that it 13 is going to be a hundred fifty feet, and 14 therefore you make all sorts of other 15 calculations based on a hundred fifty feet 16 without studying the impact of a platform that 17 would be half that length. 18 MR. GALLAGHER: We did look at 19 that. 20 MR. MOLONEY: You may have, but it's 21 not up here on the board. And I think that's 22 something that ought to be looked at. 23 The other thing, on the summary of 24 observations, when Mr. Beegan was talking he did MAHANEY REPORTING SERVICES Tel. (617) 542-4207 47 1 make the positive comment that loading zones and 2 time of day would have another impact on some of 3 these parking issues. But the writing in here 4 is that parking spaces are going to be 5 eliminated because of a loading zone problem. 6 But if you're coming down in the 7 morning and you're heading north on Centre 8 Street, you will find that there is hardly any 9 parking along Centre Street between the monument 10 and Green Street. That many of us in the 11 community have done analyses about how many 12 people can load from the back. That with the 13 cooperation of the traffic and transportation 14 department and police department, that loading 15 zones can be restricted. But yet that doesn't 16 appear here. 17 These are all kind of declarations 18 from on high about very serious problems that 19 can't be looked at. And I think that some of 20 the things Mr. Beegan was saying mitigate 21 against some of the conclusions here. And I 22 think the analysis would be improved if you were 23 not to just make the assumptions, for example, 24 that a hundred fifty foot -- MAHANEY REPORTING SERVICES Tel. (617) 542-4207 48 1 MR. GALLAGHER: Okay. Let me just 2 say again, we did look at it. And the fact that 3 you are bringing a train close to the curb for 4 the handicapped accessibility means the whole 5 train has to come over. 6 MR. MOLONEY: But isn't the idea 7 here to show us the analysis? You're giving us 8 the conclusion that it is a hundred fifty feet, 9 and therefore we are going to have to do this 10 for the parking, which doesn't allow us to 11 evaluate how -- 12 MR. GALLAGHER: We will show you a 13 figure of what would happen if we did that. 14 MR. MOLONEY: I'm sorry? 15 MR. GALLAGHER: We will show a 16 figure in our report similar to what we've shown 17 tonight about how that would work, and how it 18 would restrict the extreme ends of the cars from 19 boarding and unboarding. And also describe how 20 we want to maximize that so we can maximize the 21 efficiency of the service. 22 MR. MOLONEY: Those issues ought to 23 be out on the table. 24 MODERATOR DiZOGLIO: I'm sorry, I MAHANEY REPORTING SERVICES Tel. (617) 542-4207 49 1 cut you off before. 2 MS. KUSHNER: I'm very concerned 3 about the biking issue. I'm a biker. The only 4 way I get around here is on my bicycle or on the 5 T. I thank you for addressing the fact that 6 it's hard for bicycles to cross tracks. I hate 7 crossing the tracks. When I make a left turn on 8 to Pond Street to go to the Jamaicaway, I hate 9 crossing those tracks. 10 I'm very concerned about having the 11 light rail, because right now -- if you can fit 12 an emergency vehicle in the center, you can fit 13 a bicycle in the center, not having a bike lane 14 in the middle, but -- right now I coexist with 15 the traffic on Centre Street. It's crowded, 16 it's a pain, but if I'm there, the cars can go 17 around me. There's enough space for them to go 18 into the intersection without going into the 19 oncoming traffic. They can go around me and I 20 don't get honked at, which means it's okay for 21 them. 22 If you are putting this in, and 23 there's very little space, that means that you 24 can't go around me, and you are all going to be MAHANEY REPORTING SERVICES Tel. (617) 542-4207 50 1 stuck behind me. And I have the right to be in 2 the center of that lane to make sure that I 3 don't get hit by a car. 4 MODERATOR DiZOGLIO: Thank you. 5 Yes? 6 MR. ALAN SMITH: Alan Smith, 2 7 Greenough Avenue. 8 What was your name again? 9 MR. BEEGAN: Joe Beegan. 10 MR. SMITH: Joe, you said that your 11 study didn't notice any significant effect of 12 having the trolley, to traffic congestion. And 13 in fact you said, however, there will be some 14 functional incidences. But your statement was 15 that generally speaking, there would not be a 16 significant difference. 17 However, what is written here on the 18 back expresses it in the following way. Overall 19 traffic congestion -- instead of saying, "would 20 not be radically altered," it says, "will 21 continue to be a problem." 22 My point is that there are ways of 23 expressing what you have found that in a way 24 betray a particular posture already taken. May MAHANEY REPORTING SERVICES Tel. (617) 542-4207 51 1 I suggest that what you write here is what you 2 said, which I think is a statement of fact. 3 And I have a second point to make. 4 This is to Bill. Your folks are involved in 5 Portland? 6 MR. GALLAGHER: Yes. 7 MR. SMITH: Now, am I right in 8 thinking that there are some trolley tracks in 9 the restored Portland service -- they stopped it 10 in '56, by the way, and they thought it was good 11 for the city to restore it, and they have done 12 it -- that those tracks do not have a 13 reservation, there are some tracks right in the 14 street similar to our situation? 15 MR. GALLAGHER: That's exactly 16 right. 17 MR. SMITH: That is correct? Well, 18 having not only found that it is feasible, but 19 in fact it is already a reality to solve these 20 problems in Portland, why can't we? 21 MR. GALLAGHER: As I said, this was 22 a brief conversation about several elements in 23 the design. I will get more information from 24 him to include in the report. But what he did MAHANEY REPORTING SERVICES Tel. (617) 542-4207 52 1 say, that he was looking at restoring service on 2 60-foot right-of-way streets. Now, it's not 3 clear whether the street is 60 feet wide or the 4 right-of-way is 60 foot wide, but we are 5 generally talking about the same width of 6 streets we are talking about here. 7 But he also said that he was having 8 side platforms like we presented here that have 9 to conform to a vehicle for handicapped 10 accessibility, and those platforms were a 11 hundred eighty-five feet long, not a hundred 12 fifty feet long. 13 MR. SMITH: But even with that 14 greater restriction, they have solved the 15 problem. You see? You are suggesting a smaller 16 platform, so our problem is easier. 17 MODERATOR DiZOGLIO: Yes? 18 MS. McCARTHY: Mary McCarthy. 29 19 Custer Street. 20 Again I reiterate, my greatest 21 concern is the fact that you mentioned, that it 22 will increased delays on public safety 23 vehicles. We have to do something -- whether we 24 eliminate the cars on Centre Street if you are MAHANEY REPORTING SERVICES Tel. (617) 542-4207 53 1 going to put LRV's in. But when you put 2 yourself in a situation -- because I have been 3 there hanging from the window of a second-story 4 building waiting for a fire truck to come, and 5 it doesn't come, or your beautiful house that 6 you just put all this money in burns because the 7 fire truck doesn't get there, or somebody dies 8 because they are having a heart attack and the 9 emergency response people don't get there on 10 time, I mean, this is something that we cannot 11 allow. 12 Regardless of what you put there, 13 there has to be a way of our emergency vehicles 14 getting up and down the corridor regardless of 15 the form of transportation you put there. It 16 can't be "It may cause delays." There cannot be 17 any delays. 18 And the other thing is, there is 19 congestion out there now. And the other thing 20 is, we have bad weather. Huntington Avenue, 21 when there's snow even on Huntington Avenue, the 22 cars are backed up, people park. I have been 23 there when the buses couldn't get by. I have 24 been on the D line when -- they have their own MAHANEY REPORTING SERVICES Tel. (617) 542-4207 54 1 reservoir. And when it's icing and freezing, 2 those things freeze so that those lines freeze 3 up. So there is going to be congestion if 4 there's snow. 5 So I mean, all's I'm saying is, 6 let's get real. You can't have -- you know, we 7 have to face the fact, unless everybody leaves 8 their cars at home and takes the T -- there's 9 the solution to your problem, but it's not 10 real. 11 MODERATOR DiZOGLIO: Yes, sir? 12 MR. DEMOS: Kosta Demos, 60 Yale 13 Terrace. Just a few observations. First, a 14 question. 15 Like I say, I'm delighted to see 16 nothing here that impeaches the feasibility of 17 restoration of the service, at least as far as I 18 can tell. A few normal pains in getting around 19 the city, no different than we put up with 20 already. 21 My main question was, I was 22 wondering, in terms of your calculations of 23 impact on traffic and on parking, whether you 24 made any projections in terms of how restoration MAHANEY REPORTING SERVICES Tel. (617) 542-4207 55 1 of LRV service would impact ridership and what 2 the relationship is between increased ridership 3 on the line and the number of cars running down 4 South Street and Huntington Ave. and along the 5 route. 6 The indication -- I do not have 7 numbers at the tip of my tongue, but the 8 indication that I have gotten from reviewing the 9 impact of routing the service is that it's a 10 substantial effect on ridership along that 11 corridor. And that most of those people that 12 stopped taking the 39 are in their cars right 13 now. So I think that you should be considering 14 the favorable impact of restoring the LRV. I 15 think it would be dramatic. 16 The second thing that I wanted to 17 point out was, there's a lot of ballyhoo about 18 the platform length and its elimination of 19 parking spaces. But I notice that you have not, 20 A, discussed the possibility of expanding 21 off-street parking, public parking, in 22 cooperation with the city. There are a number 23 of sites where that would be possible. 24 And secondly, if this is all about MAHANEY REPORTING SERVICES Tel. (617) 542-4207 56 1 comparing this with other possible modes of 2 service -- which of course you won't need to 3 employ because there's nothing infeasible about 4 the trolleys -- it was my understanding that the 5 main alternative being proposed by the MBTA was 6 the articulated CNG buses, which require roughly 7 the same amount of space for their stops. So we 8 are going to be ending up with those big 9 platforms no matter what. And I don't think 10 that it should be held as a black mark against 11 the LRV's. 12 Finally, in terms of the public 13 safety issue, I think that this is a red 14 herring. I grew up watching the very poorly run 15 old E line in action and never observed any 16 calamities coming from cars not being able to 17 get around. 18 And more than that, I'm distressed 19 by the tone of people who raise this as an 20 issue, suggesting that no matter what the 21 consequences, the fire engine, the ambulance, 22 the cop car has to get through, and it's a sort 23 of slash-and-burn approach. And I think it's 24 important that the fire truck gets to my house MAHANEY REPORTING SERVICES Tel. (617) 542-4207 57 1 if my house is burning, but it's very easy to 2 take this to absurd lengths. I don't think that 3 you have street access at the expense of public 4 transportation, necessarily. 5 I think, you know, if you really 6 want to make sure that nothing impedes the fire 7 truck or the cop car, forget about getting rid 8 of the trolley cars, get rid of the sidewalks 9 and the buildings. We can blacktop the city, 10 and those services will all be much more 11 efficient. 12 MODERATOR DiZOGLIO: Ms. Wepsic? 13 MS. KAREN WEPSIC: Karen Wepsic. 14 Somebody gave the figure of a two- 15 to four-minute delay for the deployment of the 16 ramp. Was it you? 17 It was my understanding that these 18 new ramps are much faster. I have actually 19 timed the bus which has to go up and down, and 20 it doesn't take that long for the bus. So I'm 21 wondering where you got the two- to four-minute 22 deployment. 23 MR. GALLAGHER: Let me just respond 24 to that. MAHANEY REPORTING SERVICES Tel. (617) 542-4207 58 1 How they work, or how they are 2 intended to work now with the T operation, is 3 that the driver of the vehicle has to secure his 4 controls, actually operate the service, operate, 5 crank out the plate. 6 MS. WEPSIC: On the Breda cars? 7 MR. GALLAGHER: On the ones that are 8 out at Riverside, right now, what they tell us, 9 it takes two to four minutes. 10 MR. MacDOUGALL: My name is Steve 11 MacDougall. 12 I'm with the Boston Carmen's Union. 13 I grew up in Jamaica Plain and Mission Hill all 14 my life, and now I live in Brookline. I drove 15 streetcars for the MBTA for 13 years. I have 16 been with the T for 15 years. I'm currently 17 vice president of the Boston Carmen's Union. 18 Are you stating that the dwell time 19 on a Breda type 8 car, the information given to 20 you by the MBTA is two to four minutes? Is that 21 your position that you are responding to that 22 woman? Because I have that question here, and I 23 don't really want to get combative and attack 24 you own a very simple issue like that, which she MAHANEY REPORTING SERVICES Tel. (617) 542-4207 59 1 asked a question that I wrote down, that I 2 wasn't even going to put you on the spot on. 3 But is that what you are telling 4 me? 5 MR. GALLAGHER: That's what the MBTA 6 told me. 7 MR. MacDOUGALL: The MBTA's 8 information to you -- 9 MR. GALLAGHER: That's what I heard. 10 MR. MacDOUGALL: Is it that dwell 11 time to load one physically challenged passenger 12 on a type 8 Breda car is two to four minutes? 13 Because that's going to add some substantial 14 running time to my members' trips that they do. 15 Which isn't my concern here today, because I 16 think there should be restoration. I think it's 17 a community standard issue. I think seamless 18 service is something that should happen. I 19 think there are promises that should be kept. 20 I might as well just go through some 21 of the other questions that I have for you, to 22 see if there were some real human issues 23 addressed while you did your studies. 24 On the Heath Street loop to Brigham MAHANEY REPORTING SERVICES Tel. (617) 542-4207 60 1 Circle, with the emergency vehicle response 2 impact study there -- 3 MR. GALLAGHER: That wasn't part of 4 our scope. 5 MR. MacDOUGALL: So you didn't 6 actually use a circumstance and a situation that 7 presently exists to make your calculations and 8 do your study. Correct? 9 MR. GALLAGHER: Basically that's an 10 existing service. And what we were told is that 11 restoring it beyond Heath Street -- 12 MR. MacDOUGALL: No, that's not my 13 question. My question is, did you actually use 14 that to see what the impact on emergency 15 response vehicles was down there? Have you ever 16 sat down and seen what happens when a fire truck 17 comes? Do you want to know what the fire trucks 18 do on the east and west? They actually 19 protect. It allows the fire truck to come up, 20 have protection going west on the east, by a 21 train, so that they can overcome and get in 22 front of the trolley that is on the eastbound, 23 to then retake the eastbound lane and have a 24 clear runway in front of them. And by the way, MAHANEY REPORTING SERVICES Tel. (617) 542-4207 61 1 my brother's a Boston firefighter, too. 2 (Applause) 3 Now, my next question. I guess I 4 won't get into the flow and the double-parking 5 issue, and the enforcement and the safety that 6 the T has taken a position on down in front of 7 Mission Park and up at the back of the hill for 8 elderly and handicapped who have to get off in 9 the middle of the street and cross with cars 10 zooming by, and the enforcement issue there, 11 because I know that you are just a consultant. 12 But if safety is the concern, maybe there ought 13 to be a little more enforcement on that. 14 The need for this hundred fifty foot 15 platform -- what is the exact measurement on a 16 two-car train, Breda, with a Boeing? Because 17 the Boeing is shorter, and they are supposedly 18 going to be compatible, even though we all know 19 that they can't make the two heads on the 20 couplers work right now. 21 The Breda car front door opened -- 22 all the Breda car doors open, and the second 23 car, Boeing car, with all its doors open, what 24 is the measurement from the front car door open MAHANEY REPORTING SERVICES Tel. (617) 542-4207 62 1 to the second car rear door open? 2 MR. GALLAGHER: We looked at the 3 worst case with the same vehicle -- 4 MR. MacDOUGALL: Two Breda cars. 5 MR. GALLAGHER: Right. And the 6 distance between doors is a hundred twenty-five 7 feet. 8 MR. MacDOUGALL: So it's not a 9 hundred fifty. But what you are doing is you 10 are covering the additional 25 feet for safety 11 reasons, to your credit, to add on to the back 12 of the platform, to protect from a car parking 13 there maybe and getting another parking spot? 14 Since no one, unless they are going to kick out 15 a window, can get out from there. 16 You are going to be off the hook 17 real soon. 18 (Laughter) 19 The thing that I want to talk about 20 is the Riverside line. And it's obvious, and I 21 don't want to attack any personnel here, there 22 are people on both sides of this issue. You 23 know, I'm passionate about anything I do, no 24 matter what, so that's just my own problem. But MAHANEY REPORTING SERVICES Tel. (617) 542-4207 63 1 when people say that the Riverside line -- and I 2 currently live in Brookline, and I drove the 3 Green Line, like I said, for 13 of my 15 years 4 own the T -- that when there's an ice storm, the 5 Riverside line breaks down and freezes up and 6 the cars don't run, I'm going to tell you right 7 now, that's not the case. 8 You know what they do. You are 9 consultants. You are in the planning. They 10 have heaters on the panographs, they have 11 ice-cutting cars. And these vehicles operate in 12 service. They are not special cars. They are 13 not running some empty train by a platform full 14 of people in an ice storm going, I hope we can 15 keep service going, the buses might be coming. 16 No, they have the ice cutters, they keep the 17 wire clear, and they keep the service going. 18 And in fact, keeping the ice off the wire is one 19 of the easiest parts of when there's a storm, to 20 combatting -- keeping the maintenance of 21 service. 22 So I don't want people who don't 23 know the facts to get up and try to scare those 24 who may not know the facts. I don't have every MAHANEY REPORTING SERVICES Tel. (617) 542-4207 64 1 fact. I didn't come here with all my homework, 2 but I came here possessing a level of 3 experience, working in this industry, living in 4 this community, and representing the workers, 5 who sometimes don't do the greatest job out 6 there, but I want to tell you something. 7 Ninety-nine point nine percent of the people out 8 there in the blue uniforms care about you, you, 9 you and you, and honest to God, you. 10 (Applause) 11 MODERATOR DiZOGLIO: Yes? 12 MR. CHILD: Tom Child, 75 St. 13 Alphonsus Street. 14 I have a couple of issues, mainly 15 about the platform, a question about whether or 16 not the platform is needed for the full length 17 of the train. And I want to point this out -- I 18 think I pointed it out at the last meeting -- 19 that the current stops where the trolley stops 20 in the middle of the street, there is no parking 21 for the length of the train. So the parking is 22 lost anyway for where the train stops. We might 23 as well have the platform. 24 The question, though, is, on your MAHANEY REPORTING SERVICES Tel. (617) 542-4207 65 1 diagram of the platform, there's a 30 foot 2 section where it feathers back into the curb. 3 Why is that necessary? Why can't it just, where 4 the hundred fifty foot ends, just end the 5 platform straight in, and have that 30 feet for 6 parking? 7 MR. GALLAGHER: You need to get 8 people in and out of the parking spaces. 9 MR. CHILD: You could parallel park 10 and pull up next to the car in front of you and 11 back into the space. 12 MR. GALLAGHER: This allows the car 13 to pull in. It's the standard the city has. 14 It's the same all over. 15 MODERATOR DiZOGLIO: Yes? 16 MS. DIANE PIENTA: Diane Pienta, 37 17 Custer Street. 18 I had a couple of issues with some 19 of the summary of observations. I think quite 20 frankly they're misleading, the first one being 21 the point that the restored light rail service 22 would not be a high-speed service due to traffic 23 congestion on Centre and South Streets. I think 24 it's misleading because the fact that you MAHANEY REPORTING SERVICES Tel. (617) 542-4207 66 1 restore a light rail service, if you look at it 2 through the entirety of the service, you 3 actually will have much faster service because 4 you can get into the reservation, you can get 5 into the subway system, and you don't have to 6 wait for the change to a bus. 7 So I think again, it is, for people 8 who maybe don't know, this is misleading. It's 9 taken me a long time to get on the bus and get 10 into the Park Street station because -- and this 11 doesn't address that. And I think that it's 12 incumbent upon you to point out these things, 13 unless you are supporting a preconceived 14 notion. 15 The second one is that -- another 16 issue is, "due to its fixed guideway, LRV's will 17 prevent passing on Centre and South Street." 18 And again, you said that you had counters 19 counting things. And again I think it's 20 incumbent upon you to point out the fact that 21 the buses do not pull over. You know, if you 22 have been behind a bus, you know they don't pull 23 over. I have been driving behind them, and it's 24 no easier to be behind a bus. And yes, ideally, MAHANEY REPORTING SERVICES Tel. (617) 542-4207 67 1 in an ideal situation if they pulled into the 2 bus stops, you might be able to. But again, 3 especially in those congested areas on South 4 Street and on Centre Street, that doesn't 5 happen. 6 And you -- somebody had mentioned 7 that it would be ideal to leave your car home 8 and take the T. That is not going to happen. 9 But its ridership dropped tremendously when it 10 went from trolley service to bus service. When 11 I moved to JP five years ago, I never thought 12 that I would be driving into town to go to 13 work. I had always take the D line. After a 14 couple of months of dealing with the bus and 15 going on to the subway system to get to Park 16 Street, it seemed inconceivable to me that it 17 actually took me almost double the time to use 18 the Rapid Transit system than it did to get in 19 my car in the height of rush hour and drive and 20 find a place to park. 21 I think some of these points are 22 misleading, I think, and that's my point. 23 MODERATOR DiZOGLIO: Yes, sir? 24 MR. NATHAN: David Nathan from 263 MAHANEY REPORTING SERVICES Tel. (617) 542-4207 68 1 Chestnut Ave. here in JP. 2 I want to go over a couple of points 3 that have been talked about. One was the 4 gentleman who was talking about the dwell time, 5 I guess you would call it, when you have to pull 6 out the handicapped ramp. It's -- the mention 7 of that during the presentation as a 8 disadvantage for LRV, I just can't fathom that, 9 because obviously since all of the buses in the 10 city are also equipped with similar devices for 11 wheelchair passengers, you have a similar kind 12 of dwell time regardless of the mode of 13 transportation. Therefore, it is not a 14 disadvantage or an advantage for any vehicle. 15 It is neutral. So it shouldn't even be raised. 16 The buses have the same disadvantage. 17 MR. BEEGAN: If I could respond to 18 that point, because one of the reasons, when we 19 looked at the overall traffic, and one of the 20 reasons -- we said overall we thought it was a 21 wash with or without the service, but that was 22 highlighted as an example of when there would be 23 delays occurring, that if you were behind a 24 vehicle that needed to do that, you would be MAHANEY REPORTING SERVICES Tel. (617) 542-4207 69 1 stuck in some congestion. You would notice it. 2 So it was cited as an example of that. 3 The difference between that and a 4 bus -- and again, to an earlier point, we did 5 observe buses using the curb. And the bus does 6 have the opportunity to do that for operating 7 the lift, where the LRV would not. And we just 8 wanted to point those out as issues. 9 MR. NATHAN: Nevertheless, they both 10 have that. 11 I have one other point, and it has 12 to do with parking. There are two aspects of 13 the way that parking was presented, and one is 14 that since this is going to be a comparative 15 analysis after all, one of the analyses points 16 ought to be the present situation, that is, 17 there are so many parking spaces along the curb, 18 along the whole length, Park Street to Forest 19 Hills, that are not legal parking spaces because 20 they are bus stops. There's a mention of, just 21 in the Jamaica Plain segment alone, of one 22 hundred equivalent parking spaces being lost 23 under the proposed LRV plan. 24 Now, do you have a figure for the MAHANEY REPORTING SERVICES Tel. (617) 542-4207 70 1 number of parking spaces, whether they are legal 2 or illegal, that are lost now, today, because of 3 bus stops? 4 MR. BEEGAN: Yes, we have that 5 information. I don't have that with me but 6 we'll include that in the report. 7 MR. NATHAN: That should be 8 presented too, because obviously if you lose 80 9 spaces due to bus stops you only have a 20 space 10 difference, not one hundred. 11 MR. BEEGAN: Well, no, the hundred 12 space is net above -- it assumes that you can't 13 park in a bus stop today. 14 MR. NATHAN: You are saying one 15 hundred over what it is today? 16 MR. BEEGAN: That's correct. 17 MR. NATHAN: That is not clear. 18 And finally one point, and this was 19 brought out constantly in the first session in 20 December, and that is, the study is not for 21 Jamaica Plain only. This is not just Heath 22 Street to Forest Hills. It's the parking 23 impact, it's the traffic impact, it's the public 24 transportation ridership impact all the way to MAHANEY REPORTING SERVICES Tel. (617) 542-4207 71 1 Park Street. There's all those other spots, all 2 those other bus stops, trolley stops, further in 3 town beyond Heath Street that are being ignored 4 in these presentations. You get the idea that 5 it's just going into a pit in the ground at 6 Heath Street. 7 MR. GALLAGHER: I think our scope 8 was just to look at the feasibility of restoring 9 the service from Heath Street down to the 10 Arborway. 11 MR. NATHAN: Service means all the 12 way in town. 13 MR. GALLAGHER: At future meetings 14 we will address those. 15 MR. BEEGAN: And if I could respond 16 to that one point about the parking, because the 17 parking tends to be a very local issue. And 18 what we tried to do was look at the corridor and 19 look at where the impacts were. That's why we 20 broke it down into segments and broke it down 21 even further. Because the type of parking you 22 are talking about on Huntington Avenue would not 23 serve as replacement parking, say, down on South 24 Street. So we wanted to identify what would MAHANEY REPORTING SERVICES Tel. (617) 542-4207 72 1 happen on South and other streets, and that's 2 why it was presented that way. 3 MR. CARRIER: Douglas Carrier, 4 resident of 20 Montfern Avenue in Brighton, 5 where like I mentioned earlier, we lost the A 6 line several years ago. 7 The first thing I just wanted to 8 mention is that when the A line was cut in 1969, 9 they gave us 22 buses for rush hour, which is 10 what the 39 bus has today. And from what I have 11 read, 11 years ago the T made a promise to the 12 citizens that they were going to improve the 13 suburban commuter rails and inner city trains. 14 Well, since 1969 the 57 bus line is down to 11 15 buses at rush hour, and we need more buses. So 16 that's kind of a nuisance. I would hate to see 17 the Arborway lose buses too. 18 The next thing I would like to 19 mention is about our bike woman who -- I guess 20 she left. She only cares about herself, so she 21 left. I love biking too, but I have respect for 22 good transit. And I'm not going to say I only 23 care about my bike, who cares about all these 24 other people who ride public transit? I do like MAHANEY REPORTING SERVICES Tel. (617) 542-4207 73 1 to bike and I respect good public transit. So I 2 won't mind getting stuck behind a light rail 3 vehicle. 4 The other thing I'd like to mention 5 about the parking spaces, yes, you may lose 30 6 parking spaces along this piece of the corridor, 7 but if you look at other parts of the Green Line 8 the businesses in that area are doing well. 9 Coolidge Corner, Newton Center, all these 10 corridors with light rail, their business are 11 doing well. People come back because they like 12 to ride the Green Line. 13 And look at Brighton Center and Oak 14 Square. They are dead, absolutely dead because 15 there's no more light rail. If you had light 16 rail, those people who would have drove would be 17 riding the light rail to come to the stores, 18 plus more. 19 The other thing I would like to say 20 is in Toronto, on imposing traffic vehicles -- I 21 have been to Toronto. I have seen if people 22 park -- double-park, or if they come up the side 23 of a vehicle that's unloading, the operator of 24 that vehicle can get the plate and is allowed to MAHANEY REPORTING SERVICES Tel. (617) 542-4207 74 1 issue that car a ticket. So they do not impose 2 on a trolley in front of them. 3 The other thing I would like to say 4 is, overall costs to the T, I know that you want 5 to look at the overall costs, too. When you 6 have a double vehicle, light rail vehicle, two 7 type 8's, that is enough to hold a load of four 8 MBTA buses. Now, four MBTA buses is four 9 operators. They make a damn good salary. And I 10 have a few friends that operate buses. They 11 make a damn good salary. Now, a double LRV is 12 two operators. You just cut your costs in 13 half. And that's my point. 14 And my one other point, I would like 15 to make the statement that a city 20 miles 16 outside of Boston, Lowell, Massachusetts, is 17 really looking forward to getting a heritage 18 slash transit line down their main street. It's 19 not guaranteed yet, but they are looking forward 20 to it. And so a little city outside of Boston 21 is looking forward to trolleys, and here we have 22 it and we want to get rid of it. Go figure. 23 (Applause) 24 MODERATOR DiZOGLIO: Yes? MAHANEY REPORTING SERVICES Tel. (617) 542-4207 75 1 MR. NEDELJKOVIC: My name is Srdjan 2 Nedeljkovic. I work at Brigham and Women's 3 Hospital, right off the Heath Street train, and 4 I live on Bennett Road in Newton Highlands. 5 I just want to make a comment about 6 the traffic study that you have done. It's 7 apparent to me that you primarily looked at 8 traffic supply, you looked at roadway space, you 9 looked at travel times. But there are now 10 sophisticated travel modeling studies which 11 investigate the impact of travel demand as well 12 as traffic supply. 13 And just for your reference, I know 14 of two studies. One is the land use/ 15 transportation/ air quality study from Portland 16 Oregon, which is WWW lutraq dot org. And 17 there's also the Texas Transportation Policy 18 Institute study. 19 And these studies show that because 20 of the increased capacity that public 21 transportation, light rail vehicles in 22 particular, brings, and because of the 23 encouragement that light rail transit brings to 24 people who want to use public transportation, MAHANEY REPORTING SERVICES Tel. (617) 542-4207 76 1 that this will decrease the number of cars on 2 the road. And I would challenge you to 3 incorporate these other traffic modeling studies 4 in your work when you are determining the number 5 of vehicles and traffic delays and other aspects 6 in studying whether or not light rail should be 7 restored to this corridor. 8 The second point is that the simple 9 knowledge of having trolleys on the road will 10 change human behavior. It will change the way 11 people react on Centre Street, on South 12 Huntington, and on South Street. Some drivers 13 who would otherwise be aggressive will be tamed 14 by the mere presence of trolleys along the 15 roadway. And some cars which would normally 16 have used this as a cut-through will now seek 17 alternative routes. And therefore that will be 18 another reason why travel demand may be 19 decreased. 20 People who want to patronize 21 businesses there will have greater access. The 22 residents who live in this area will have 23 greater access. But people who are just using 24 this area to cut through will not want to deal MAHANEY REPORTING SERVICES Tel. (617) 542-4207 77 1 with having the trolleys on the road, and 2 therefore they will seek alternative access. 3 And that goes to -- the change in 4 behavior also goes with emergency vehicles as 5 well. We are not fools. When you see an 6 ambulance coming, you see a fire truck coming, 7 you find a way to let that vehicle go by. And I 8 think that will also happen whether or not there 9 are trolleys along the roadway. 10 I want to make a totally separate 11 second point, which is, when I look at the map 12 of these stations and I look at the five minute 13 walk map, it seems like there could still be one 14 or two stations that can be consolidated. And 15 that would impact on the numbers that you have 16 proposed tonight. 17 And the third point I want to make 18 is in reference to your point about the D line, 19 because I take the D line every single day. And 20 I remember three instances in 1992 when the D 21 line didn't work, December 1992, October 1996 22 and the blizzard of April 1, 1997. Those are 23 the only three times that I remember, the big 24 flood in October of '96 and the two blizzards in MAHANEY REPORTING SERVICES Tel. (617) 542-4207 78 1 '92 and '97. I have worked through three cars 2 in that time period. So to say that light rail 3 is less reliable than other alternative 4 transportation, at least in my instance it isn't 5 the case. 6 MR. MacDOUGALL: Let's not forget 7 that not only did the Green line not run in 8 those two snowstorms, neither did the rest of 9 the planet. 10 (Applause) 11 MODERATOR DiZOGLIO: Mr. Salimbene? 12 MR. SALIMBENE: Thank you very 13 much. 14 Good evening. I would like to thank 15 the T for coming out here. I know that it isn't 16 totally their option, but they are cooperating 17 with DEP in the process, and I appreciate that. 18 I obviously take some issue with 19 some of the things that they have said tonight. 20 I know that Mr. Gallagher has several times 21 referred to the fact that Centre Street is 42 22 feet wide. I don't know which street you 23 measured, but the 1987 Arborway study and the 24 1999 Arborway report both indicate Centre Street MAHANEY REPORTING SERVICES Tel. (617) 542-4207 79 1 is 44 feet wide. So perhaps when the Grinch was 2 stealing Christmas, he stole a couple of feet 3 off the roadway. 4 I also would like to say that it's 5 meetings like this that really bring to light 6 some of the inaccuracies that have been part and 7 parcel of the MBTA's approach to this line. 8 Last year when they submitted the 1999 report on 9 the Arborway to the Department of Environmental 10 Protection, they asserted in more than one place 11 that the restoration of light rail would result 12 in the loss of 220 parking spaces. This year, 13 2001, we are now down to losing only a hundred. 14 And maybe if we wait another couple of years and 15 go through this process, we'll be down to losing 16 none. So I think these public processes are 17 very important. 18 I would like to really address the 19 issue of safety, because I think the two letters 20 that were mailed to us as part of the packet, 21 while we asked for them and Mr. DiZoglio was 22 very kind to send them along, really are a 23 disservice to the discussion, because it's an 24 attempt, I think, on the part of some -- and I MAHANEY REPORTING SERVICES Tel. (617) 542-4207 80 1 don't know who those some are. It certainly is 2 the T. I don't know to what extent they are 3 getting cooperation at other points, but it is a 4 disservice because it politicizes a public 5 safety issue that should not be politicized. 6 The rationale in those two letters 7 could be used to justify stopping any kind of a 8 public project. I'm sure that the police chiefs 9 in more than a dozen South Shore communities 10 wrote to the T when they were proposing the 11 restoration of the Old Colony Line and argued 12 very forcefully that operating trains in those 13 towns with crossings and children playing along 14 the tracks would result in safety implications. 15 And in fact we know from the news that 16 unfortunately several children have been killed 17 as a result of playing on the tracks in the 18 restored communities. And yet the T I'm sure 19 likewise argued that we can solve public safety 20 problems, and I think they can. 21 It would be, for example, as if the 22 commissioner of the MDC wrote a letter to John 23 Iappini and Lisa Coakley of the Pond Association 24 and said over the last ten years, at least five MAHANEY REPORTING SERVICES Tel. (617) 542-4207 81 1 people have died as a result of crashing into 2 the trees on the Arborway, and many more than 3 that have been severely injured. Therefore 4 we're going to chop down all the trees on the 5 Arborway. 6 Now, you couldn't argue with the 7 statistic, but I think you have to consider the 8 issue of public safety and what can be done 9 about it in the context of living in an urban 10 environment. Now, I have sent around, and I 11 will provide for the record, copies of two 12 letters. 13 You know, this issue of public 14 safety has been discussed in the past. I 15 engaged in an e-mail dialogue with the deputy 16 chief George Yeager of the Philadelphia Fire 17 Department. Philadelphia has over 30 miles of 18 instreet running light rail. And in response to 19 my question, as a firefighter who operates 20 vehicles, fire trucks, in the city of 21 Philadelphia, "I don't believe that trolley cars 22 are inherently hazardous to response times. In 23 my 26 years as a firefighter I can probably 24 count on one hand the times that the trolleys MAHANEY REPORTING SERVICES Tel. (617) 542-4207 82 1 have had a direct negative impact on 2 operations." 3 A letter from the San Francisco fire 4 department, Patrick White, deputy chief of 5 administration. " Experience is that delays 6 during emergency response caused by instreet 7 streetcar or cable car operations are very 8 rare." 9 I have provided copies of the other 10 two letters to you, for two reasons. One is 11 because they both reiterate the point that there 12 are ways of dealing with public safety and 13 instreet rail operations even in cities that 14 have light rail functioning on streets the width 15 of Centre Street, and in fact in Philadelphia, 16 on streets that are even narrower. 17 They both make the point, but those 18 two letters speak to something else. And I 19 would like to call your attention to them. In 20 the letter from the Toronto Transit Commission I 21 received from Duncan Harrop, who is the 22 superintendent of fire prevention for the 23 Toronto Transit Commission, he gives us an 24 example of what city government and state MAHANEY REPORTING SERVICES Tel. (617) 542-4207 83 1 agencies can do in dealing with public safety. 2 He notes in the third paragraph down 3 on the first page of that first letter dated 4 March 3, "I chair the Emergency Procedures 5 Committee, which is comprised of representatives 6 from municipal Police, Fire and Ambulance 7 Services." There is a standing committee of 8 government agencies that deal with issues of 9 transit and emergency vehicles. It's a real 10 shame that in the city of Boston, that type of a 11 standing committee doesn't exist. There's no 12 inclination on the part -- at least from the 13 letter from Commissioner Evans -- for that kind 14 of a committee to exist to deal with issues. 15 If we are going to talk about 16 restoration of light rail, we ought to talk 17 about it by using the best practices on a 18 national standard. Jamaica Plain is not 19 someplace in outer space that exists totally 20 unto itself and has to live or die based on what 21 it does. There are national standards out there 22 that we ought to apply in this process. 23 The second letter that I handed out 24 to you is a letter from the deputy mayor of the MAHANEY REPORTING SERVICES Tel. (617) 542-4207 84 1 city of Philadelphia. She's a woman who has 2 been in that position, it's not an elected 3 position, since the 1980's. She knows what she 4 is talking about. And while she reiterates the 5 point about public safety not being compromised 6 to any extent greater than it's compromised in 7 everything else we do -- and I have got 8 photographs here of tandem trailer trucks 9 double-parked on Centre Street making deliveries 10 to shops that have rear access, and they are 11 never ticketed. 12 And in fact, the picture of one I 13 took in December, I was amazed, it's parked 14 literally across Centre Street from the front 15 doors of the firehouse. Now -- and it's 16 blocking traffic. I don't know why there wasn't 17 a letter from the commissioner saying we can't 18 have deliveries in the middle of the street 19 because it is a public safety hazard. And they 20 were right outside the window of the firehouse. 21 But more importantly, this letter 22 from the deputy mayor of Philadelphia I think 23 speaks to what really is going on here. And I 24 will ask you to look at the very last paragraph MAHANEY REPORTING SERVICES Tel. (617) 542-4207 85 1 in the second page of her letter. 2 "In all candor," she says, "and 3 under the rubric of what one might call dishonor 4 among thieves" -- this is the deputy mayor of 5 Philadelphia -- "transit managers who dislike 6 streetcars" -- that's the T -- "because it makes 7 their work somewhat more difficult, regardless 8 of the ridership and the external benefits" -- 9 that's us -- "are not beyond co-opting others" 10 -- I mean, I could have written this myself. 11 When I got this I fell off my seat --"are not 12 beyond co-opting others such as police, fire, or 13 traffic officials, in expressing opposition to 14 continuance of streetcar service. It seems to 15 me that, with very few exceptions, the debate 16 over whether streetcars or buses should serve a 17 particular route should pivot around the market 18 for and the economics of public transit." 19 We have had a great discussion today 20 about parking issues and congestion issues. 21 This is our public transit agency. Why aren't 22 they talking to us about the benefits of public 23 transit? All of the down side, none of the up 24 side. MAHANEY REPORTING SERVICES Tel. (617) 542-4207 86 1 (Applause) 2 And the reason, the reason this 3 transit agency is distrusted and continues to be 4 distrusted in this neighborhood and throughout 5 the city is because they will say whatever they 6 want and do whatever they want and study 7 whatever they want and pay whomever what they 8 want to get what they want. And that's what's 9 coming out in these letters. 10 I think we ought to have national 11 standards, we ought to be fair with the 12 community. And I think the issues that were 13 raised and the points that were made regarding 14 the conclusions as written, as opposed to what 15 was stated, are right on the target. Because 16 this is the written record that goes to DEP. 17 And if you don't think that these 18 folks here are not going to DEP with your record 19 and argue the right side of the issue, then you 20 are mistaken. And I'm sure that at this point 21 DEP, having proven up to now to be evenhanded 22 and fair minded in this, will ultimately order 23 you to restore this service. 24 And now I've got -- the other thing MAHANEY REPORTING SERVICES Tel. (617) 542-4207 87 1 I've got, and I'm sorry that I wasn't able to 2 find it, I've got the specs for the type 8. I 3 remember distinctly, somewhere in these 4 thousands of pages, finding the performance 5 requirement that the MBTA imposed on the 6 manufacturer for the deployment of a bridge 7 plate. It didn't say four minutes. 8 As a matter of fact, if the MBTA 9 attempted -- and they will need to use bridge 10 plates in some of the subway stations, for 11 example at Government Center, which is own a 12 curve. If you think for one minute that the 13 MBTA would allow the operation of a type 8 that 14 deploys four minutes for bridge plates to board 15 and load at Government Center station, I think 16 you have another thing coming, because that 17 would have a significant impact, a deleterious 18 impact, on the operations in the subway system. 19 So I'm going to find the statistic 20 here, and I'm going to bet you dollars to 21 doughnuts it's not four minutes. 22 (Applause) 23 MODERATOR DiZOGLIO: Yes? 24 MR. KYPER: John Kyper, 111 Centre MAHANEY REPORTING SERVICES Tel. (617) 542-4207 88 1 Street, Roxbury. 2 I want to revisit the point that I 3 raised earlier this evening about the fare 4 collection, because that is one of the major 5 impediments to faster service on the Green Line 6 today. Whenever I take an inbound train, at 7 every stop before it goes into the tunnel, the 8 boarding and disembarking is slowed greatly by 9 the fact that everybody has to enter and leave 10 via the front door and the front door only. 11 I have ridden modern light rail 12 systems in other cities on this continent, like 13 San Jose, California, Portland, Oregon, Denver, 14 Salt Lake City, Sacramento, Los Angeles, where 15 you, if you do not have a monthly pass, you can 16 buy a ticket from the machine on the platform. 17 And that means that completely divorces the 18 operator from having to deal with collecting the 19 fare, or deal with opening and closing the 20 doors, because there are little buttons on the 21 sides of the doors that if the passenger wants 22 to, you know, enter or leave the car when the 23 car is at a stop, they push the button and the 24 door magically opens. MAHANEY REPORTING SERVICES Tel. (617) 542-4207 89 1 And they also have, for added 2 security they have security personnel, roving 3 inspectors who come into the train and ask to 4 see people's ticket, and if you don't have a 5 ticket, you get a 25 dollar fine. So these are 6 things that, you know, the T really needs to 7 talk about, deal with, to make -- it would 8 definitely speed up the service along this route 9 and along the rest of the routes. 10 MODERATOR DiZOGLIO: If I could just 11 address that, there is a lot of interest in 12 doing exactly what you said. The AFC, automatic 13 fare collection, is something that is a top 14 priority for the T and we will be pursuing it 15 within the next few years. 16 One of the limitations with the 17 proof of payment, which we are supportive of, is 18 being -- having legislation that would allow us 19 to fine someone who has not paid. And perhaps 20 the legislature could be supportive in our 21 effort to get that legislation that allows us 22 you to ticket somebody so that we could do the 23 proof of payment, because that is something -- I 24 believe that that was going to be filed this MAHANEY REPORTING SERVICES Tel. (617) 542-4207 90 1 year. I'm not sure where it is in the process. 2 But that is -- we are supportive of that 3 legislation. 4 REPRESENTATIVE FITZGERALD: If you 5 ask the right rep, you could get through. 6 MODERATOR DiZOGLIO: Maybe we should 7 talk after the meeting. 8 MR. KYPER: Are you saying that a 9 fare violation is not a crime now? 10 MODERATOR DiZOGLIO: I believe, as 11 far as I understand from the police, I don't 12 think you can give them a ticket. It may be 13 illegal, but there's no teeth to it. 14 Yes, Mr. Representative? 15 REPRESENTATIVE FITZGERALD: Kevin 16 Fitzgerald, state representative from Jamaica 17 Plain. I thank my good friend, Frank Salimbene, 18 in terms of addressing the issues. 19 Just listening tonight, myself and 20 Liz sitting here, and we were cheating on the 21 side here, talking to one another while other 22 people are talking, but listening, both of us 23 are extraordinarily proud of the people of 24 Jamaica Plain here tonight who have taken the MAHANEY REPORTING SERVICES Tel. (617) 542-4207 91 1 time and made the effort, and really in some 2 ways are becoming the experts for the community 3 and for us, in terms of not only informing the T 4 but informing the elected officials and 5 appointed officials and others who are here to 6 listen to the commentary back and forth. 7 Steve MacDougall, for taking the 8 time to be here tonight, from the Carmen's 9 Union. You represent the best of organized 10 labor in terms of taking the time and making the 11 effort and sharing with us the facts and 12 information just to make a baseline decision 13 about what we think. 14 I go back to when the service was 15 interrupted. And it was interrupted temporarily 16 to put back the service. So what sometimes I 17 have a difficult time trying to comprehend and 18 understand completely is that we ask a lot of 19 experts for a lot of information to inform us 20 about decisions collectively that we might 21 make. But back then there was something that 22 was said to me by way of some work in the 23 community and community people, and it 24 registered with myself and Liz's predecessor, MAHANEY REPORTING SERVICES Tel. (617) 542-4207 92 1 John McDonough, and Paul White, who was a 2 senator at the time, was that if we looked along 3 that track, and we started down at Huntington 4 Avenue, and it was the Mission Hill Main Public 5 Housing Development, it was the Flynn House at 6 Mission Park, it was the high rises on 7 Huntington Avenue. It went up through the 8 Forbes Building, the Sherril House, the back of 9 the hill housing, elderly housing, handicapped 10 housing, Pond Street, Forbes Building, 11 Farnsworth. 12 Think about what I'm talking about. 13 I'm talking about Pond Street elderly. 14 What really moved the elected 15 officials back then was that the elderly people 16 in this community who used this mode of 17 transportation wanted it to return. And when 18 there was a public referendum, they won on the 19 ballot in terms of returning the service. And 20 all of the same questions that are being raised 21 today were raised then. And I just wonder 22 sometimes, oftentimes we get off the track, no 23 pun intended, and we search out all of the 24 information locally, nationally and regionally MAHANEY REPORTING SERVICES Tel. (617) 542-4207 93 1 around the transportation issues, but I think 2 the question we don't ask is, we don't ask the 3 people who have used the service, who it's been 4 provided to, whether the service was good 5 enough. 6 And with the elderly, it was one 7 stop downtown or it was a stop to an institution 8 or a medical institution or an appointment they 9 had made or a place of work. And as a result, 10 it made this community a desirable place to 11 live, no matter what the economy was. And I'm 12 talking preboom economy in terms of a working 13 class community in the city that had to 14 collectively make those decisions. And Jamaica 15 Plain and Roxbury and Mission Hill made the 16 decision that that's what they wanted. 17 My concern is I don't know what's 18 changed since then. We haven't gone on the 19 ballot, but I really, I have been coming to a 20 lot of meetings and don't know what has 21 changed. The obstacles to us putting it back, 22 the temporary interruption, I don't know -- they 23 are not obstacles that can't be overcome. We 24 have lived with them for a lifetime. MAHANEY REPORTING SERVICES Tel. (617) 542-4207 94 1 As Steve said, and people here know, 2 it wasn't something that people said, "We have 3 to make this change because this enormous 4 obstacle has been put in our way." It was a 5 matter of, this transportation or mode of 6 transportation or this track was interrupted to 7 make repairs. And while we have it in repair, 8 you know, whether administrations change or 9 people's ideas change in positions of leadership 10 and responsibility, but I'm not quite sure 11 whether collectively the wisdom of the people 12 has changed on the issue. And I think that 13 should be part of the record, because we haven't 14 gone back out to say to folks, "What do you 15 think"? 16 Now, everybody here has an opinion 17 about what they think, don't get me wrong. And 18 for a wide variety of reasons that are both 19 technical and sophisticated -- and I applaud 20 everybody for that kind of effort in gathering 21 the information, so from a technical point of 22 view, with the consultants, everybody can barter 23 back and forth. 24 But from a common sense point of MAHANEY REPORTING SERVICES Tel. (617) 542-4207 95 1 view in terms of an elderly person, maybe at the 2 Sherril House or the Home for the Aged or the 3 Pond Street Elderly, who used to walk up to the 4 end of the street and get on the train to get 5 all the way in town to either make a connection, 6 go to Dinnie's, do their shopping, or go to a 7 medical appointment, gees, I don't think that's 8 changed. I think that should be spread upon the 9 record. 10 And I'm open, meaning I have been in 11 the middle of this for as long as I have been an 12 elected official, and if the collective wisdom 13 is that we change for all those reasons that I'm 14 seeing up here tonight, well, then we will end 15 up changing. But I really haven't heard loud 16 and clear from my constituents or from our 17 constituents or community that that's happened. 18 And I just thought that we should say that 19 tonight and make that part of the record from 20 that point of view. 21 (Applause) 22 MODERATOR DiZOGLIO: Thank you. 23 Can we get someone that hasn't 24 talked yet? MAHANEY REPORTING SERVICES Tel. (617) 542-4207 96 1 MS. CONNIE CECIL: My name is Connie 2 Cecil, 8 Glenside Avenue in Jamaica Plain. 3 On the issue briefly of safety, I 4 live on a dead-end street off of Glen Road. 5 Glen Road becomes Green after it crosses 6 Washington Street. In my neighborhood all the 7 streets are dead-end streets. It's the main 8 route up to the parkside neighborhood. And I 9 guess because we are not a business community, 10 when somebody blocks our dead-end streets, we 11 can't get the cars towed. The police will come 12 up and ticket, but they won't tow. So in the 13 interest of saving my wooden house, I call the 14 fire marshal's office when these things happen 15 and we get the cars towed. 16 So I wanted to just point that out, 17 that issues of safety are differential, 18 depending on where you live here in Boston, and 19 they are perhaps less a priority where people 20 live than they seem to be on Centre Street. 21 Okay? Perhaps you are not aware of that. 22 Perhaps you don't live in Boston. But that's 23 the way it goes. 24 Now, I would think that people MAHANEY REPORTING SERVICES Tel. (617) 542-4207 97 1 living in wooden houses on a dead-end street 2 would be a priority for making sure their 3 streets are clear, but apparently Centre Street 4 isn't. Listen, this city allows streets to be 5 clogged all the time. The Glen Road that I live 6 on has a school on it. Twice a day school buses 7 and cars park on both side of the street, 8 blocking that street so you can't even get a car 9 up it. God forbid the neighborhoods that are 10 accessed by that road should have a medical or 11 fire emergency during those two times of the 12 day, nine months of the year. 13 I usually breathe easier in the 14 summer. I see this on Carolina Avenue all the 15 time, everywhere there is a school. Nobody 16 thinks that this is a major safety issue. So we 17 live with a lot worse. 18 As for parking, I keep hearing this 19 argument that somehow we can't have public 20 transit because it will get in the way of the 21 private cars. I hate to say this, but that's 22 fine with me. 23 (Applause) 24 It does seem a bit flip, but let me MAHANEY REPORTING SERVICES Tel. (617) 542-4207 98 1 tell you what happens in my neighborhood, and we 2 are on the other side of the tracks here. We 3 have five hundred parking spaces, commuters that 4 sprouted in the last 15 years in my 5 neighborhood. And when I was on the co-chair of 6 the committee for environment and traffic for 7 the Arborway yard process, we discovered, we're 8 in a bowl. So, you know, like the old roach 9 motel, the pollution goes in and it don't get 10 out. 11 Well, guess what? We did an 12 informal survey and came up with 50 percent of 13 the commuter parkers come from JP. They are 14 parking near the Orange Line to take the T 15 downtown. So I am very much in favor of having 16 another way for them to get downtown. 17 (Applause) 18 MODERATOR DiZOGLIO: Thank you. 19 MS. CECIL: We have got a lot of 20 children living there. It can't be good for 21 their health. 22 And finally, fare collection. This 23 is now 2001, and all over town I watch people 24 fumbling for change, exact change on the buses. MAHANEY REPORTING SERVICES Tel. (617) 542-4207 99 1 This is the only -- I lived in Europe twice. 2 This is the only city I have ever lived in where 3 everybody has a sign near the bus station that 4 says, "We don't give change." Do you think we 5 could possibly get to the 20th century by now, 6 let alone the 21st? 7 MODERATOR DiZOGLIO: Yes, ma'am. 8 MS. DIANE SIMPSON: Diane Simpson, 9 263 Chestnut Avenue. I have two comments. 10 I will make the same observation I 11 made last time, which is that everything on the 12 summary of observations is negative. You didn't 13 seem to want to take seriously my suggestion 14 that you should look into the positive economic 15 impact of bringing additional people into the 16 business district. I would like to see 17 something about that by the time you finish 18 doing your study. 19 And my second point is I would like 20 to ask you a question about this bullet point 21 down here. It says, "Additional vehicles, 22 track, power and maintenance facility would be 23 required to restore service." Have you made any 24 plans whatsoever in this new bus maintenance MAHANEY REPORTING SERVICES Tel. (617) 542-4207 100 1 facility at the Arborway to include any kind of 2 maintenance facility for trolleys? 3 MODERATOR DiZOGLIO: They haven't. 4 I believe that there have been some discussions 5 that an additional acre would be needed to 6 accommodate the light rail vehicle maintenance. 7 So there has been that discussion. 8 MS. SIMPSON: So in response to that 9 answer, I would like to know if you've come up 10 with a plan B in your bus vehicle maintenance 11 facility for that additional area in case you 12 did have to restore the LRV service. 13 MODERATOR DiZOGLIO: The discussions 14 that are being held are with high level MBTA 15 officials and the city. I'm not privy to 16 exactly what is discussed, but I do know that 17 the additional acre has been put on the table 18 that would be needed if we do the light rail 19 vehicles on the Arborway. So yes, it has been 20 discussed. They are aware of it, but no final 21 decisions have been made that I'm aware of. 22 MR. MOLONEY: Could I just clarify 23 that? I'm a member of the CPCAY. Up to an acre 24 was part of the plan. It's one of the 41 MAHANEY REPORTING SERVICES Tel. (617) 542-4207 101 1 recommendations that are coming from this 2 community. 3 But I'm troubled by this language 4 about maintenance facility. When I saw those 5 words, what occurred to my mind was a 6 maintenance facility for the Green Line. You 7 are not talking about a maintenance facility for 8 the Green Line? 9 MODERATOR DiZOGLIO: No, just the 10 acre that we talked about just for their 11 service. 12 MR. MOLONEY: That's just a place to 13 put the trolley cars at night and to get rid of 14 them during the day. But it's not a maintenance 15 facility. 16 MODERATOR DiZOGLIO: There's nothing 17 above the acre. 18 MR. MOLONEY: Well, why are we 19 talking about a maintenance facility here? 20 MODERATOR DiZOGLIO: Well, there 21 would be some minor maintenance. There would be 22 cleaning, there would be -- 23 MR. MOLONEY: That's not what this 24 so-called finding says. It talks about a MAHANEY REPORTING SERVICES Tel. (617) 542-4207 102 1 maintenance facility. Again, that ought to be 2 clarified. 3 MODERATOR DiZOGLIO: It will be 4 clarified when they make their statement that it 5 is one acre. 6 MR. MOLONEY: Well, the problem, 7 sir, is when you hand out these materials with 8 these findings, we find, for example, that they 9 are incorrect, they are incomplete and they're 10 misleading. This business about delays with 11 ambulances, Mr. Beegan made it clear it's 12 anecdotal. There's no study that establishes 13 that point. Yet on writing here, we have this 14 finding. 15 We have this finding here about this 16 negative impact on Jamaica Plain, as somebody 17 alluded to before. My God, the city will have 18 to clean up a double-parking problem if we 19 restore light rail service, as if that was 20 something terrible. Here we have a public 21 agency supporting another public agency that's 22 not willing to spend a dime of money or people's 23 time to cure the problem that exists on a few 24 blocks in Centre Street, so we have MAHANEY REPORTING SERVICES Tel. (617) 542-4207 103 1 double-parking. Yet that is viewed by you folks 2 as being a negative for restoration. It's 3 really incredible. 4 I object to the summary of 5 observations becoming a part of this official 6 record. The statements of the people who 7 supposedly write them don't support them and 8 they are not in many cases based on any facts, 9 and certainly no facts spread upon the record. 10 MODERATOR DiZOGLIO: Obviously 11 that's your interpretation. 12 Yes? Someone who hasn't talked 13 before? 14 MR. MacDOUGALL: Would you yield to 15 me, please? Would you mind? I apologize 16 because I know I've already spoken once. 17 They have -- what is the headway 18 that would be desirable out here? Would you be 19 facilitating a true railroad out here, to run a 20 railroad? I mean, are we getting people to work 21 in rush hour and are we talking about having 22 maybe 48 cars to run two-car trains, with the 23 Bredas to carry the freight, with the numbers 24 that are currently or would be known to ride a MAHANEY REPORTING SERVICES Tel. (617) 542-4207 104 1 light rail system here? 2 Have you developed any kind of 3 scheduling of what the ridership level would be, 4 what their headway would be, what the running 5 times would be, peak, off peak, what the number 6 of vehicles would be needed to facilitate a line 7 here, whether it be Park Street, Government 8 Center, go to Lechmere? What's the maintenance 9 facility that you refer to here? Because I'm an 10 expert on this issue, and I want an answer from 11 you on, what do you mean by a maintenance 12 facility? 13 And I'm glad this issue was -- I'm 14 perplexed that you say this would -- what is 15 your position? I'm sorry, I don't mean to 16 insult you. I forgot your position with the T. 17 MODERATOR DiZOGLIO: Director of 18 planning. 19 MR. MacDOUGALL: Planning. What 20 would the maintenance facility be? For what 21 level of maintenance? 22 MR. GALLAGHER: This would be 23 whatever requirement would service the 24 additional cars that would be put on the line. MAHANEY REPORTING SERVICES Tel. (617) 542-4207 105 1 This study did not establish an operation plan. 2 MR. MacDOUGALL: Not whether it's 3 heavy maintenance, inspections, whether it's 4 just replacing windshield wipers and putting 5 fluid in, door problems, headlight problems? 6 You have no idea? 7 MR. GALLAGHER: We didn't look into 8 that. 9 MR. MacDOUGALL: But you wrote 10 "maintenance facility." 11 MR. GALLAGHER: Well, it will 12 require some additional vehicles. 13 MR. MacDOUGALL: How many? 14 MR. GALLAGHER: Additional vehicles. 15 However many there are. 16 MR. MacDOUGALL: Additional to what? 17 The one that's displayed on the illustration? 18 Additional to what? What's the number? 19 MR. GALLAGHER: To run the service. 20 I believe the number that we saw in a previous 21 report was on the order of ten additional 22 vehicles. 23 MR. MacDOUGALL: Ten vehicles? 24 MR. GALLAGHER: Right. MAHANEY REPORTING SERVICES Tel. (617) 542-4207 106 1 MR. MacDOUGALL: To run this line? 2 MR. GALLAGHER: Right. 3 MR. MacDOUGALL: When? Like when 4 are they running? Who are they carrying? Ten 5 vehicles? What, five inbound, five out? I 6 mean, what? A seven minute headway? 7 Thirty-five minute -- I don't know. What's the 8 round trip? What's the running time to town? I 9 know it, but I wonder if you do. 10 MR. GALLAGHER: I think it's a half 11 an hour. 12 MR. MacDOUGALL: Do you? 13 Thirty-seven minutes to Park Street on the 14 rail. But we don't have the rail anymore. 15 But I have to help this community. 16 I want to make a statement and I will stop. I 17 won't steal any more time. I'm going to make a 18 little statement here about -- the gentleman 19 from Brighton alluded to the labor cost, the 20 maintenance cost. And I want to talk about 21 forward funding. And it's not a usual position 22 for a union to talk about cutting labor costs. 23 But the Boston Carmen's Union, on 24 the issue of the E line, because of what they MAHANEY REPORTING SERVICES Tel. (617) 542-4207 107 1 saw happen to the residents of Brighton -- and 2 we are people from this community -- is that we 3 are taking a community stand on this issue, with 4 the community, for seamless service, for a 5 reason. That almost undermines what people's 6 perception of unions are, to get more money and 7 to get more dues. No, no, no. See, we stand to 8 help with forward funding, that the legislature 9 helped the T get to make us run better, to hold 10 labor's hand to the fire a little and say, "You 11 have got to help too." 12 It's going to cut labor costs, it's 13 going to cut maintenance costs, it going to cut 14 pollution. The cost savings on implementing 15 light rail -- and you know, I mean I don't want 16 to get into T 21 and the federal money that's 17 going to be available to put this in, or the 18 fact that the T already got the money. I mean, 19 and all that -- 20 (Laughter) 21 -- you know, really. But to talk 22 about a maintenance facility and try to stroke 23 this -- excuse the term, but to just paddle him 24 somehow to have him believe that you know what a MAHANEY REPORTING SERVICES Tel. (617) 542-4207 108 1 maintenance facility is as you represent it on 2 this summary page, is offensive. 3 Tell me what you mean if you can. 4 Because I'm from Mission Hill project, I'm from 5 Holbrook Street. My family lives here. Can you 6 tell me what the maintenance facility in your 7 summary is? 8 MR. GALLAGHER: It means additional 9 maintenance space will be required for the 10 additional vehicles that are supplied on the 11 line. It's a cost. 12 MR. MacDOUGALL: You can surmise 13 that by saying, "I don't know." Because you 14 don't. If you think ten cars is going to run a 15 railroad out here, you're in the wrong 16 business. And you are a transportation 17 consultant, and you expect these good people of 18 Jamaica Plain and Roxbury and other parts of 19 this city and beyond to believe what you just 20 said to them, and they not rush that stage on 21 you? That you insult the intelligence of this 22 community I find offensive, sir. And I will end 23 with that, and I will speak no more tonight. 24 (Applause) MAHANEY REPORTING SERVICES Tel. (617) 542-4207 109 1 MR. JOHN DEACON: My name is John 2 Deacon, like the church deacon. 3 A couple of observations. I would 4 like to go back to the observation page. And 5 again this is -- I mention this in a lot of 6 issues dealing with the MBTA and in various 7 lines regarding certain standards have to be 8 held. All lines have to be held to certain 9 standards. You can't use different standards 10 for different lines. 11 And this is about the "additional 12 vehicles, track, power and maintenance facility 13 would be required to restore service." That 14 shouldn't be an issue. If you can't afford to 15 buy an LRV for the Arborway, then you can't 16 afford to buy an LRV for Beacon Street. If you 17 can't afford to fix the track on Centre Street 18 then you can't afford to build a Greenbush 19 commuter rail line. So this can't be an issue 20 of feasibility or infeasibility. 21 The issue of congestion, of snow 22 removal, has been mentioned by several people. 23 It's not good out here. It's not good on a 24 whole bunch of other streets, too, that have MAHANEY REPORTING SERVICES Tel. (617) 542-4207 110 1 very heavy transit lines. It's not good in 2 Cambridge, it's not good in Somerville, it's not 3 good in Boston. 4 Over the years in discussions about 5 the Arborway corridor, something has come up 6 that would designate this -- discussions have 7 been held around the designation of this 8 corridor as a transit priority corridor. In 9 other words, things like double-parking would be 10 dealt with, things like snow removal would be 11 dealt with much more effectively than it has 12 been in the past. 13 Things like loading zones, a whole 14 range of things. Things like striping the 15 street, doing a good parking inventory so the 16 cars know exactly where they should park so they 17 don't stick out, so you have the lines, the 18 whole range of things. 19 And it was thought that not only on 20 this line, in terms of restoring Green Line 21 service here, but even on other -- the heavy bus 22 lines, even on the heavy bus lines using city 23 streets, not only here in Boston, but in 24 Cambridge, Somerville, like the number 1 for MAHANEY REPORTING SERVICES Tel. (617) 542-4207 111 1 example, like the number 66, all those lines can 2 benefit from being designated transit priority 3 corridors, and the same types of services, 4 prohibition against double-parking, better snow 5 removal, so that those lines also will move 6 faster. 7 The whole issue, again, of proof of 8 payment. Fare collection systems would move not 9 only the Arborway line faster but would move the 10 heavy bus lines a lot quicker throughout the 11 city. 12 It must be mentioned, the city of 13 Toronto years and years ago did a study and 14 analysis on whether or not to replace their 15 heavy car lines. And one of the things they 16 found was that -- they did convert a number of 17 lines. One of the things they found is that the 18 lines actually moved much slower as bus lines, 19 that the passengers, the transit passengers -- 20 your customers, your potential customers -- 21 didn't actually get much of an improvement from 22 converting those streetcar lines to buses 23 because the buses had to pull in to the bus 24 stops. And in Toronto they actually make sure MAHANEY REPORTING SERVICES Tel. (617) 542-4207 112 1 that if you park in a bus stop, you do get a 2 ticket. 3 And what happened was the buses had 4 to pull in and fight their way back out in 5 traffic. So that the transit service had a 6 disadvantage vis-a-vis the mostly rush hour 7 commuter or automobile traffic. 8 So the TTC said, "Well, the heck 9 with it, we will leave the streetcars on the 10 heavy lines." In other words, they've got two 11 choices. They can follow us or they can get off 12 and park their car and they can get on the 13 streetcar. And they found that the running 14 times with the buses were actually longer. 15 I want to talk to the issue of 16 bicycles, which is important. You mentioned 17 that your firm is going out to several cities, 18 that you're being contracted in Portland, 19 Oregon, was one. And Pittsburgh is another 20 one. 21 I would encourage your firm to go 22 out to other cities such as Philadelphia, such 23 as San Francisco, even though you don't have 24 contracts in those cities, and also find out MAHANEY REPORTING SERVICES Tel. (617) 542-4207 113 1 what industry standards are in regards to safety 2 issues, fire issues and also bicycle design 3 issues. Because a lot of the cities that are 4 known to be bicycle friendly and known to have 5 very strong bicycle constituencies also have a 6 lot of street running light rail. 7 Toronto is one of them. Toronto a 8 few years ago was, by one of the bicycling 9 magazines, was designated one of the bicycle- 10 friendly cities for that year. Portland, Oregon 11 is another city which has that designation. San 12 Francisco has a very militant bicycle 13 organization, extremely militant. And they 14 have not only streetcar tracks, in fact new 15 streetcar lines are being opened all the time. 16 And they also have those cable car lines, which 17 is another groove to worry about. So there are 18 industry design specs for bicycles as well as 19 there are for everything else, for accessibility 20 issues. So that needs to be dealt with. 21 The issue of how long the streetcar 22 is and how long the platform is, the length 23 between the front door and rear door and not the 24 entire car needs to be looked at. Because where MAHANEY REPORTING SERVICES Tel. (617) 542-4207 114 1 you're in a tight parking situation, especially 2 along Centre Street, you do need to maximize the 3 number of parking spaces, so you have to be 4 careful about knocking off parking spaces. 5 There's one design thing in here 6 that I didn't see -- and again I'm not 7 advocating for this, but I didn't see it 8 mentioned, and I was just curious as to why it 9 wasn't -- which is a side platform. Many, many 10 cities use those. Instead of an island platform 11 or a platform on the berm, you have an island 12 platform, which is, the tracks remain in the 13 middle of the street and the platforms are built 14 on either side. Sometimes they are offset. 15 We had often suggested that over the 16 years for the Roxbury tenants. They have a 17 situation down there which is very, very 18 dangerous, and unfortunately, when the T 19 restored the service back to Heath Street, they 20 didn't, again, look at the issue of putting in 21 that type of platform, which would allow the 22 street -- which would allow automobiles to go 23 around and also allow a platform, a safe place 24 for people to go on. MAHANEY REPORTING SERVICES Tel. (617) 542-4207 115 1 So that's extremely important. And 2 in dealing with the entire corridor, again, 3 going all the way down to Park Street, you have 4 to go back and take a look at those issues down 5 on the Heath Street, and Brigham Circle section 6 of the line also. 7 The parking for buses, the pull-in 8 and pull-out, when you are talking about bus -- 9 the 60-foot articulated buses, first of all they 10 are going to bunch, so you are going to have two 11 60-foot articulated buses trundling down -- very 12 heavy articulated buses -- trundling down Centre 13 Street. You are going to need more than your 14 present length of bus stop to accommodate those 15 vehicles. 16 Not only do you have to accommodate 17 the length of the vehicle, which is 60 foot for 18 each vehicle, but you have to accommodate the 19 pull-in and pull-out of the vehicle. They don't 20 go sideways. So there's a loss. So that 21 parking inventory needs to be dealt with for 22 those, too. 23 Traffic counting. There's a lot of 24 comment about traffic counting right now. And MAHANEY REPORTING SERVICES Tel. (617) 542-4207 116 1 actually light rail is considered to be a 2 traffic counting measure. And that's something 3 people need to deal with. 4 And while I have your attention, 5 there's one other issue here that's extremely 6 important. I represent the Massachusetts Sierra 7 Club. One of our major issues has been air 8 quality. There's more and more information on 9 the very, very harmful impacts of air 10 pollution. And one specific piece of that 11 puzzle is small particulate matter. That's the 12 stuff that's really, really fine. 13 And when you see a diesel bus go by 14 and it blows out a whole lot of soot, it's the 15 stuff you can't see that's getting in your 16 lungs. Fifteen years of very heavy diesel bus 17 service here has probably had a very significant 18 negative impact on public health in this 19 community. 20 This line was supposed to have been 21 restored as an electric line. It was not. 22 Compressed natural gas buses have a different 23 pollution breakdown, but they still put out 24 pollutants. And in heavy traffic areas, MAHANEY REPORTING SERVICES Tel. (617) 542-4207 117 1 especially when you have a lot of trucks, more 2 and more trucks are going to diesel, the 3 combined impact of all that pollution is not 4 good. 5 This line was supposed to have been 6 restored as an electric line. It should be 7 restored as an electric line. It should be 8 restored as an electric line as soon as 9 possible. There is a real, real important 10 public safety issue, public health issue, 11 involved with running all these diesel buses. 12 Thank you. 13 (Applause) 14 MODERATOR DiZOGLIO: Yes? 15 Representative? 16 REPRESENTATIVE MALIA: I'm 17 Representative Liz Malia, and I represent part 18 of Jamaica Plain. I live here on Child Street. 19 I actually wasn't going to say 20 anything tonight, because I'm not sure I have 21 anything new to add to this discussion. But I 22 feel like there's one point that I do want to 23 try to focus on. And that is as formerly a user 24 of the line, in 1985 when the service was MAHANEY REPORTING SERVICES Tel. (617) 542-4207 118 1 suspended, I worked at the Harvard medical area 2 at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, and so I 3 was a constituent that used the services. And I 4 started to work for and I was a staff person for 5 John McDonough, the state rep here. And I'm now 6 the state rep. 7 So I have looked at and experienced 8 different areas of the transit problems along 9 this corridor. And what really -- I will say a 10 couple of things that aren't popular. I don't 11 have an answer. And I can be honest in terms of 12 saying I can't tell you a hundred percent that I 13 support the light rail vehicle restoration 14 because of this fact: I'm not a transportation 15 planner. 16 I have been going to these meetings 17 for 16 years. I haven't spent half the time 18 some of the people in this room have spent. I'm 19 not anywhere near as educated or up to date as 20 some of the folks in this room are. And we have 21 heard a wonderful summary tonight of all the 22 technical points, I think. And as Kevin 23 mentioned, I think we've demonstrated the people 24 in the community are very sophisticated about MAHANEY REPORTING SERVICES Tel. (617) 542-4207 119 1 public transit. 2 But I will tell you what does 3 concern me and what is my realm of 4 responsibility as an elected official, and as a 5 resident here, and that's what troubles me the 6 most, is that the transportation needs of this 7 community and of the city are not being 8 addressed by the MBTA. And the MBTA is the 9 authority that is designated to handle these 10 matters. 11 For 16 years I have been coming to 12 these meetings, Representative Fitzgerald has 13 been coming to these meetings, our elected 14 officials have been coming. But every one of 15 the people in this room -- most of them have 16 been coming to these meetings. 17 There are also a very large number 18 of people who haven't come to this meeting 19 tonight who have different views. Some support 20 LRV restoration, some support just wanting to 21 get decent public transit. The real issue I 22 think at this point is that -- to be counting 16 23 years of no resolution to the public transit 24 needs of the people in this community. Really, MAHANEY REPORTING SERVICES Tel. (617) 542-4207 120 1 that's the issue. 2 I was being facetious at one point 3 and I said, "I don't care if the T uses a 4 helicopter to get people downtown, we want one 5 ride downtown." And a couple of years ago we 6 spent time listening to the CNG articulated 7 buses, and I have heard all these things. And 8 I'm stopping and I'm listening to people talk 9 about other cities. And these cities, they are 10 dealing with these issues, these states are 11 dealing with these issues, cities that are 12 similar in need, in structure, in layout, in 13 size and everything else. 14 Whether it's Philadelphia, Toronto 15 -- we are not all exactly the same. But the 16 fact that we have all known that the 17 environmental issue is around, that's what 18 really gets me. The environmental problems that 19 we have had that John Deacon just referred to 20 have been allowed to continue without any 21 resolution. 22 If there's an alternative to LRV, 23 why hasn't that been brought to us? Why don't 24 we own the stock, you know. Why don't we have MAHANEY REPORTING SERVICES Tel. (617) 542-4207 121 1 refined diesel buses that don't pollute? Why 2 don't we have, you know -- why don't we have CNG 3 buses or electric buses, or whatever? Why don't 4 we have them? I can't imagine the amount of 5 money that's been spent on studies, and because 6 -- the only reason I can see why is because the 7 T does not want to address, or this 8 administration does not want to address, these 9 needs in this community. And they have been 10 doing it for God knows how many years. 11 And I just, I mean my question is, 12 and that's what I want on the record is, please 13 tell me what it's going to take to get a 14 resolution to the transportation needs in this 15 community. You know, fish or cut bait. We 16 either need to be doing the LRV restoration -- 17 we have discussed this until -- you know, most 18 of the people in this room know a lot of the 19 information. 20 And no disrespect to the people who 21 came in as consultants. Everybody, most of the 22 people in this room, know all of this, plus. 23 They know where all the loopholes were and where 24 all the inaccuracies were. And they have known MAHANEY REPORTING SERVICES Tel. (617) 542-4207 122 1 that for 15 years, because we've done the 2 studies. We have votes that we have taken in 3 the community. We've had meeting after meeting 4 after meeting after meeting. 5 But the real issue is the taxpayer's 6 monies are being used to do the studies, to pay 7 your salaries, to provide us with service that 8 is less than it should be. Some people are very 9 opposed to LRV and they say, "We like the buses, 10 they are faster." There is that contingent in 11 the community, yes. 12 I also know that those diesel buses 13 spew out particulate matter in emissions that -- 14 I mean, we know the asthma rates in this city. 15 We also know how much it costs to rehab the 16 roadway every two or three years because the 17 diesel buses on this busiest line in the city 18 beat the crap out of the roadway. 19 So we are never going to win. And 20 some of us who have been involved with this for 21 so long are caught between a rock and a hard 22 place. There are people here in this room 23 tonight who will tell you they are angry at me 24 because they think I should have done something MAHANEY REPORTING SERVICES Tel. (617) 542-4207 123 1 by now to fix and resolve this problem. They 2 want to see trolleys. I don't blame them for 3 being absolutely frustrated, and I don't blame 4 some of the other folks that I see who are 5 saying, "We just want to get to work. And why 6 do we have to deal with the poor level of 7 service, no matter what it is." 8 So I wanted to put that on the 9 record, that what really, really disturbs me is 10 that we have been on this treadmill for 16 years 11 and we haven't resolved the issue, even though 12 we know we should be doing better, you know, 13 whether it's going to be a CNG articulated bus 14 or LRV or a new diesel that's been modified and 15 doesn't pollute the air as badly. But the fact 16 that we keep coming back and we keep rehashing 17 this, we are just caught in this incredible 18 cycle where nothing happens, there's no 19 improvement, and it's an insult to the 20 community. 21 And I really think that that's part 22 of the problem at this point. And I just, you 23 know, I don't want to go to any more meetings, I 24 really don't. Why? Why are we doing this? Why MAHANEY REPORTING SERVICES Tel. (617) 542-4207 124 1 are people spending their good time that they 2 are not being paid for -- again, no insult to 3 anyone here, but nobody, none of these other 4 folks are getting paid for this, and we don't 5 have a resolution. What is it going to take to 6 get a resolution? Do we sit and wait for the 7 lawsuit to finish itself? Wait for DEP? Help 8 me. Tell me. 9 MODERATOR DiZOGLIO: Let me say, I 10 can appreciate your frustration. It has been a 11 long, long process, and I haven't been part of 12 the long, long process. I do believe, however 13 that we are on a path, it may be -- since I only 14 have the room until 8:30, and I will be more 15 than happy to have everybody stay to answer 16 questions in case they come and tell us to leave 17 -- but I think we are on a path to final 18 resolution. 19 And maybe it leads to the last item 20 on the agenda, the next steps. We have to make 21 a decision one way or the other by May 2nd. And 22 I have been charged to do that, to bring this 23 process all the way to that point. It is our 24 intent to finally make that decision on May MAHANEY REPORTING SERVICES Tel. (617) 542-4207 125 1 2nd. 2 Whether it be popular or unpopular, 3 I'm not sure what's going to happen, but the 4 decision should be made on May 2nd. And then 5 you will at least have that decision that you 6 can hold people to implement one way or the 7 other. 8 The issue that I have is that we 9 have now adjusted the way we are going to look 10 at this, in that what we have talked about 11 tonight would be the basis for a comparison. 12 And there was a comparison analysis done in the 13 past that was not acceptable to DEP. And that's 14 why we are here tonight, to say, this is what we 15 are going to suggest would be the replacement or 16 the base case scenario, what we would like to 17 return for light rail. 18 What I would like to do, and I know 19 this is more meetings, but for a process to get 20 to May 2nd, next month I would like to bring in 21 another set of consultants to the ones who did 22 the first comparison analysis. I would like 23 them to present the criteria that they would 24 compare this light rail to an alternative or MAHANEY REPORTING SERVICES Tel. (617) 542-4207 126 1 alternatives. But I need input as to what we 2 could do the comparison on, air quality, those 3 kind of issues, and what kind of service we can 4 compare to. 5 Now, originally the study talked 6 about CNG articulated vehicles, which everybody 7 has been aware of. That could be, let's compare 8 light rail to CNG articulated. But I need to 9 hear feedback from people. 10 So at the next meeting, what I would 11 propose is that the consultants put down what 12 criteria they are going to use, get some 13 feedback whether you think the criteria is valid 14 or not, and then make sure that we are comparing 15 the right alternatives, and then have the 16 consultants do the comparison. 17 Let's do, you know, apples to apples 18 if possible, come back in April, present that 19 comparison, here's what we found when we looked 20 at light rail, this is light rail. Here is what 21 we found when we looked at A, B, C, depending on 22 what the community feels we should look at. And 23 then at that point see the analysis, EOTC 24 reviews it, and a decision is made on May 2nd. MAHANEY REPORTING SERVICES Tel. (617) 542-4207 127 1 That's what I would like to suggest 2 that we do, and that's what we are going to do 3 in February, and then in early April, and try to 4 get some resolution finally to this issue. 5 MR. SALIMBENE: Mr. DiZoglio, with 6 the greatest respect, if I may, first of all the 7 May 2nd deadline is a deadline on which the EOTC 8 will make a recommendation to the Department of 9 Environmental Protection. 10 MODERATOR DiZOGLIO: Right. 11 Mr. SALIMBENE: DEP will make the 12 decision. 13 MODERATOR DiZOGLIO: Okay. 14 MR. SALIMBENE: More important, the 15 issue of standards and what are the comparative 16 standards, DEP has told you. You have to 17 compare your alternative to six-minute LRV 18 headways to Park Street. You have to get a 19 passenger from Centre Street to Park Street. 20 And whether you do it by LRV or you do it by 21 helicopter that lands at Logan Airport and bring 22 somebody across to downtown, or whether you do 23 it by bus that gets stuck in traffic on 24 Huntington Avenue, those are the standards. DEP MAHANEY REPORTING SERVICES Tel. (617) 542-4207 128 1 has told you that. 2 Don't come to us and say, "We've got 3 to tell you." DEP has given you that 4 information. Those are the comparative points 5 you have got to study. And someone has made the 6 point earlier tonight about, you are not 7 studying the whole line, and you are not 8 studying the whole line. 9 This is a regional transportation 10 project. It's a big, big commitment that the 11 state has made. And the Department of 12 Environmental Protection looks at this 13 regionally. It doesn't look at this as a Heath 14 Street to Forest Hills issue. So the points 15 that you have got to compare are, if you are 16 going to talk about traffic impacts, they have 17 to be traffic impacts on the whole length of the 18 line. 19 What does it mean to take 400 buses 20 off of the streets of the Back Bay and the 21 Fenway and Huntington Avenue? What's the 22 economic advantage in that? Where are your 23 parking and your traffic benefits in that? You 24 haven't done any of that. So that's where you MAHANEY REPORTING SERVICES Tel. (617) 542-4207 129 1 should be focusing. And with the greatest 2 respect, you haven't done it, and I haven't seen 3 anything to that effect yet. 4 MODERATOR DiZOGLIO: And we haven't 5 done it yet, but that would be the next step, to 6 do that comparison. And I just wanted to make 7 sure that if we do -- if we say we are going to 8 compare this to that, and use this criteria, and 9 someone says, "Well, why did you do that," I 10 need to hear people say, "Gees, I don't think 11 you should do it like that," or "Yes, you should 12 do it like that." We need some feedback on some 13 of these issues. 14 Now I can take people who haven't 15 talked yet. I don't want everybody at 8:30 to 16 throw me out of here. I will stay as long as 17 you want. 18 And I know you haven't talked, 19 sir, if you would like to talk. 20 MR. JEFF KURLAND: My name is Jeff 21 Kurland. I currently live in Newton. However, 22 I did live on the line back in 1985. 23 Frankly, there's no mandate for you 24 to do a comparison. You have already proven MAHANEY REPORTING SERVICES Tel. (617) 542-4207 130 1 that this is feasible. That's what they asked. 2 The only time you would do a comparison is if 3 you think it's infeasible. You proved it 4 feasible. Therefore there's no need or even -- 5 nor even a right to do a comparison at this 6 point. There's no alternative. You've proven 7 it feasible; that's that. 8 MODERATOR DiZOGLIO: DEP has 9 suggested that we adjust the study as per the 10 suggestion of the comparison, to do the 11 comparison. I'm just doing what everybody at 12 the last meeting kind of suggested, that a 13 comparison would be better than a feasibility. 14 So we adjusted to do the comparison. 15 Yes? 16 MR. MOLONEY: I'm troubled by the 17 bullet points that I see when I hear about a 18 comparison. I think Franklyn is right, that you 19 have to follow the criteria that DEP set down. 20 MODERATOR DiZOGLIO: We will. 21 MR. MOLONEY: But if you are going 22 to use those bullet points as a summary of 23 findings that were made on LRV's, and then to 24 crank up other bullet points on buses, we have a MAHANEY REPORTING SERVICES Tel. (617) 542-4207 131 1 problem, because nobody in this room believes 2 that all or even virtually all of those points 3 are grounded in fact or any kind of analysis. 4 MODERATOR DiZOGLIO: If you feel 5 that way, you can clearly state for the record 6 as you have clearly done tonight, that you have 7 opposition -- 8 MR. MOLONEY: I am trying to get 9 across to you that your own people have made 10 statements here tonight that are at variance 11 with the written words that you have included in 12 the record. And I would be very troubled by 13 using what's written on that board, as "this is 14 the case for LRV's," and now we are going to 15 write up a whole bunch of wonderful things about 16 buses. That's no analysis or comparison; that's 17 a bag job. 18 MODERATOR DiZOGLIO: We will have to 19 see how the process goes. I don't -- that 20 characterization is -- 21 MR. MOLONEY: Well, let's start off 22 with rejecting this written supposed summary of 23 observations as binding. 24 MODERATOR DiZOGLIO: Yes, ma'am. MAHANEY REPORTING SERVICES Tel. (617) 542-4207 132 1 MS. McCARTHY: Mary McCarthy again. 2 I just have a comment, and it's been 3 made before. And I think it's incumbent that 4 there's a big point that's missing from this 5 whole discussion, and that is the city agencies 6 that can do a lot to remove the impediments to 7 whatever mode of transportation that's goes in, 8 that they should be a part of this way before 9 May 2nd. 10 And there should be an agreement 11 with them that they will enforce whatever 12 regulations will exist to allow whatever you put 13 on the street, the LRV's, trolleys or whatever, 14 that would move my -- my big thing is the public 15 safety. I will have to admit that, from having 16 been through it. And I would say that if you 17 have a commitment and the cooperation of the 18 city of Boston and the mayor to work with you, 19 that this can come, and we won't have to sit 20 here and compare articulated buses and all these 21 other things, because there's going to be 22 impediments to that, too. So that's my 23 recommendation. 24 MODERATOR DiZOGLIO: Yes? MAHANEY REPORTING SERVICES Tel. (617) 542-4207 133 1 MR. ALAN SMITH: You have heard that 2 the community supports trolley restoration. You 3 have heard a lot of factual information and 4 observations that modify your observations, many 5 of which your coworkers have said yes, you are 6 right. 7 I want those things to be not only 8 in the record here but to have an effect on your 9 next presentation. I think, and I invite you, I 10 invite you to, in your own mind, turn this from 11 an infeasibility study to a feasibility study. 12 Thank you. 13 MR. Z: I'M George Z, Chestnut Ave. 14 I know there's not very much time, 15 and I'm not going to talk long. I want to say 16 that I'm very proud of everyone here. I think I 17 learned a lot. And I'm proud of my 18 representative. I just wanted to say a couple 19 of things on congestion, and put perspective on 20 that, that's high speed and passing. 21 What I get from this is that the 22 congestion is really from Washington Street to 23 Green Street, and after that, it really clears 24 out. And I think that's only what, a half MAHANEY REPORTING SERVICES Tel. (617) 542-4207 134 1 mile? A mile at the most? I mean it's really a 2 short distance from Washington Street to Green 3 Street. And after that the parking problems and 4 all the other things kind of clear out. 5 So when it says this will not be a 6 hide speed service, you should really say it 7 will be a high speed -- it will not a high speed 8 service up to Green Street, and then after that 9 it's high speed, and then it gets on the 10 reservation, and once again, emphasizing, like 11 the lady in back said, that it is high speed. 12 Passing. Am I wrong, but isn't 13 there a Mass. state law saying you cannot pass a 14 stopped trolley or bus? Why are you encouraging 15 passing? This isn't the Mass. Pike. I mean, 16 you shouldn't be passing a bus, whether you are 17 a bicycle or a car. I mean, the whole passing 18 issue, it really bothers me that you are going 19 to give a passing lane now. 20 On South Huntington Ave. you are not 21 supposed to pass -- I think you can pass a 22 moving vehicle if it's safe, but once it's 23 stopped, nobody can pass an emergency vehicle. 24 Right? MAHANEY REPORTING SERVICES Tel. (617) 542-4207 135 1 MR. BEEGAN: You can pass -- 2 MR. Z: Pass a bus that's pulled 3 over, maybe? 4 MR. BEEGAN: Sure. 5 MR. Z: You already said they don't 6 pull over. But I think Mass. state law says you 7 cannot pass a stopped bus. 8 MR. BEEGAN: You can pass a bus 9 stopped at a bus stop. 10 MR. Z: At a bus stop that's pulled 11 in. Okay. So I don't think you should be 12 encouraging passing. And it's not congested all 13 the way down the line, only to Green Street. 14 MR. BEEGAN: Well, it's up to about 15 Boylston Street. 16 MR. Z: And it is a high speed line 17 most of the way. 18 MR. BEEGAN: And that's the point, 19 between Boylston and Washington Street, that's 20 where the -- 21 MR. Z: That's the point. Right? 22 MR. BEEGAN: It is what it is on the 23 -- 24 MR. Z: And is it a mile, or what? MAHANEY REPORTING SERVICES Tel. (617) 542-4207 136 1 MR. BEEGAN: It's about a mile, yes. 2 MR. Z: That's basically my point. 3 MODERATOR DiZOGLIO: Yes? 4 MR. CARRIER: Doug Carrier. 5 Just quickly, I feel that streetcar 6 tracks actually give safety to the public people 7 on the streets. Because in Brighton in late '99 8 and early 2000, they completely dug up all the 9 tracks from Brighton, and I have noticed that 10 traffic has not only increased in volume but it 11 has increased in speed as well. 12 Brighton Avenue -- I mean 13 Washington Street and Cambridge Street in 14 Brighton are extremely dangerous now to cross. 15 One day I was crossing behind a bus, and this 16 car came on the completely wrong side of the 17 road, crossed the double line to get around the 18 bus -- because people keep parking in the bus 19 stops. And I almost got killed. I said, "Well, 20 if there were streetcar tracks there, that car 21 wouldn't be going that fast." So tracks provide 22 safety even if there is no streetcar. 23 MODERATOR DiZOGLIO: Okay. Mr. 24 Deacon? MAHANEY REPORTING SERVICES Tel. (617) 542-4207 137 1 MR. DEACON: Back to the issue of 2 the alternative analysis, you then have to 3 broaden the public outreach to the entire 4 Arborway corridor, all the way down to Park 5 Street. This means getting organizations such 6 as the Saint Botolph Street Neighborhood 7 Association involved, the institutions along the 8 line. The Back Bay Civic Association, Business 9 Association of the Back Bay. Depending on how 10 you want to go up and around the Common to get 11 to Park Street, you may want to bring in Back 12 Bay Neighborhood Association. 13 So you are going to have to do a 14 significant public outreach. And I suspect you 15 will find most of those people, organizations 16 and businesses and everything else, would prefer 17 to see transit vehicles underground, and that 18 there is a significant negative impact from 19 having all those buses slowly inching around 20 Boston Common, or trying to struggle through 21 various side streets. 22 So the other issue in terms of 23 analysis is, if you are comparing a subway to a 24 surface line, then you are going to have to do MAHANEY REPORTING SERVICES Tel. (617) 542-4207 138 1 bus lines. And that has a very significant 2 negative impact on parking, because you are 3 going to have to eliminate parking on many of 4 these streets in order to duplicate the 5 efficiencies of the subway throughout that 6 area. So if you are doing an apples and apples 7 and oranges to oranges, you have to take all 8 these things into consideration. 9 And when all is said and done, I 10 suspect that Mr. Kurland is right. You have not 11 proven infeasibility of restoring Green Line 12 service. So just do it. Thank you. 13 MODERATOR DiZOGLIO: Okay. I guess 14 we will see you in February. Thank you very 15 much for coming. 16 17 (Whereupon the hearing ended at 8:50 18 p.m.) 19 20 21 22 23 24 MAHANEY REPORTING SERVICES Tel. (617) 542-4207 139 1 CERTIFICATE 2 3 4 Commonwealth of Massachusetts 5 Suffolk, ss. 6 7 8 I, Kathleen L. McCarthy, Registered 9 Professional Reporter and Notary Public, do 10 hereby certify that the foregoing record, pages 11 1 through 138, inclusive, is a complete accurate 12 and true transcription of my stenographic notes 13 taken in the aforementioned matter to the best 14 of my skills and ability. 15 _____________________ 16 Kathleen L. McCarthy RPR 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 MAHANEY REPORTING SERVICES Tel. (617) 542-4207