Arborway Green Line Restoration
Documents

Testimony of Franklyn P. Salimbene, Chair, Arborway Committee, regarding the Proposed MBTA Fare Increase

10 August 2000

The Arborway Committee urges that the MBTA's proposed fare increase be rejected until such time as the MBTA provides a level and quality of service consistent with the needs of Boston's urban neighborhoods.

We urge rejection because the MBTA's spending and transit priorities have resulted in disinvestment in urban transit to the injury of urban neighborhoods and the urban transit user. The MBTA's priorities are most clearly evidenced by its policy of abandoning urban rail and light rail service that would otherwise connect Boston neighborhoods like Jamaica Plain and Roxbury directly into the central subway system.

Specifically, the Arborway Committee objects to the MBTA's on-going efforts to abandon Green Line light rail service to the Arborway in Jamaica Plain.

The Green Line to the Arborway was "temporarily suspended" in 1985. As a result of that suspension, the Jamaica Plain community mobilized to restore Arborway light rail service. The community with support from state and local political leaders and with the participation of the MBTA held a series of community meetings, engaged in a $100,000 transit study, and held a non-binding referendum on the state ballot. The results of these actions clearly indicated that Arborway light rail service was the best transit alternative for Jamaica Plain.

In keeping with this finding, the Jamaica Plain state legislative delegation reached a written agreement with the MBTA and EOTC to restore the Arborway Green Line. This agreement was followed by the promulgation of state and federal regulations requiring restoration of Arborway Green Line light rail service. Yet, as we speak today and as further evidence of the MBTA's lack of good faith and lack of urban transit equity, the Authority is before the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection seeking to overturn the regulatory mandate requiring restoration of Arborway light rail service. The factual record demonstrates the open and comprehensive nature of the public process undertaken to restore Green Line light rail service to the Arborway. It also demonstrates the MBTA's contempt for that process.