Comments on Administrative Consent Order (ACO) compliance and re-evaluation, October, 2004


In September 2004, the Executive Office of Transportation (EOT) issued its annual update on the status of the State's transit commitments, which were made in the Administrative Consent Order (ACO) of September 1, 2000. The ACO includes the requirement that the MBTA restore light rail service to the Arborway branch of the Green Line. Recent indications are that EOT may be considering asking the Department of Environmental Protection to revise the Arborway transit commitment.

Below are the Arborway Committee's response to the ACO written by Franklyn Salimbene, Chair, and the responses of several individual members and friends.

Franklyn P. Salimbene, Chair, Arborway Committee • David White, Jamaica Plain Citizens for Clean Air • Shirley Kressel, Landscape Architect • John Cipolla, Jamaica Plain • Carolyn Manson, Brookline • John Kyper, Roxbury (ARRPAC) • Thomas O'Malley, Jamaica Plain (ARRPAC) • Srdjan S. Nedeljkovic, Newton Highlands (ARRPAC) • George P. Zoulalian, Jamaica Plain (ARRPAC)


Franklyn P. Salimbene
Chair, Arborway Committee • ARRPAC Member

Comments on the Transit Commitments Administrative Consent Order
2004 Project Schedule and Project Update

by

Franklyn P. Salimbene, Chair
Arborway Committee

October 25, 2004

EOT is not in compliance with the ACO. The request to reevaluate the Arborway project should be rejected.

The Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) should deny the request of the Executive Office of Transportation (EOT) to reexamine the order of November 6, 2001, to restore the Arborway branch of the Green Line. The request was included in Secretary Grabauskas’s September 2 cover letter to the 2004 Transit Commitments Consent Order Update.

Secretary Grabauskas argues in his letter that EOT wants to undertake an “open and transparent” process based upon new “objective criteria” for evaluating the project. He further requests that “DEP confirm EOT’s quantification of the air quality benefits” of the project. To support his request he provides a statement of alleged quantified values and  offers the same old reasons that were rejected by DEP in 1999, and in 2001, and in 2003.
 
Secretary Grabauskas’s request is further evidence of EOT’s and the MBTA’s failure to comply with the ACO and the order of November 6. It contradicts Secretary Herzfelder’s clear reiteration in her June 23, 2003 Certificate on the Expanded Environmental Notification Form that “DEP has directed the MBTA to restore light rail service and the MBTA is legally required to do so.”

It also both by statement and implication seeks to mischaracterize the Arborway project and the process that led to the decision to restore the service.
•    Secretary Grabauskas describes the Arborway project as an “extension” of service when in fact it is the “restoration” of a service that the MBTA “temporarily suspended” and promised to restore in 1985.
•    By claiming to apply “objective criteria” to the requested reevaluation, he implies that the process that led to the decision by two state Secretaries of Environmental Affairs and two Commissioners of Environmental Protection to restore the service was based upon faulty and subjective criteria.
•    He lumps Arborway together with the Red/Blue Connector and Medford Hillside project so as to imply that they are on the same footing when in fact the Arborway project is the only one of the three that has already been subjected to years of DEP hearings (1999-2001), is the only project for which a substitution ruling and a feasibility finding has already been made, and is the only project that is truly “in design” with a budgeted commitment of $10,000,000, and with a public project advisory committee in place.

Further, Secretary Grabuaskas’s request totally ignores the fact that the Arborway Green Line project unlike either the Red/Blue Connector or the Medford Hillside project has been deemed a high priority environmental justice project by the recently completed MPO process, and this despite the fact that CNG service is now operating along the route. The identification of the Arborway project as an environmental justice project recognizes that high density low and mixed income urban communities that have borne the burden of years of pollution and inferior transit service deserve a fair share of transit investment. Up until now, both EOEA and DEP have understood that while EOT never has. It is telling that while EOT spends billions of dollars to construct roadway projects, it is perfectly satisfied to provide inferior bus service to urban commuters. According to the most recent MBTA statistics, the composition of Arborway line commuters is as follows: 60% are women; 40% do not own an automobile; and 20% have an annual household income below $20,000.

The intent of EOT’s request to DEP to reevaluate the Arborway project is clear—it seeks a way of avoiding its legal and ethical obligation to the residents and commuters of Jamaica Plain. And in this attempt, it seeks the complicity of DEP by enlisting DEP’s assistance and collaboration. In so doing, its ultimate objective is to shift the blame and the responsibility for its hoped-for abandonment of the Arborway project to Secretary Herzfelder and Commissioner Golledge.

EOT is not in compliance with the ACO. The request to reevaluate the Arborway project should be rejected.

EOT’s request to reevaluate the Arborway project is a rejection of public process.

Secretary Grabauskas’s request is a challenge to the lengthy public process already undertaken by DEP and to the conclusions reached by DEP and reiterated by Secretary Herzfelder in her June 23, 2003 Certificate for the project. It is also a challenge to the state’s smart growth policy and to urban transit. In fact, in her Certificate, Secretary Herzfelder applauded the Arborway project as holding “tremendous potential to advance the priority policy goals of smart growth and support… a significant investment in urban mass transit….”

Also, in her Certificate, Secretary Herzfelder noted that the 2001 decision was based upon a 4-year process that began in 1998. To underscore the point, she indicates elsewhere in her Certificate that the public discussion about Arborway Green Line restoration had been on-going for many years before 1998. The discussion, which included the 1986 community referendum, hundreds of community meetings during a period of 16 years, three significant transit studies (1987, 1999, and 2001), and four sets of public hearings (1988, 1991, 1999, and 2001), encompassed a breadth and quality of openness unmatched for any other ACO transit commitment. In view of this history, Secretary Grabauskas’s request for yet another “open and transparent” process should not be seen so much as a commitment to openness by EOT as it should be seen as a further attempt by EOT to obtain a different policy result.

EOT’s request for acceptance of its air quality benefits values should be rejected.
   
It is strange indeed that despite its stated interest in conducting an open and transparent process, EOT requests that DEP “confirm” EOT’s quantification of air quality benefits before any public process begins. This request is clearly unacceptable and ought to be rejected out of hand. If DEP were to accept such a proffer, the need for any subsequent open and transparent process about Arborway restoration, or any of the other projects, would be unnecessary because the result of the process would be a foregone conclusion. The discussion would move directly to substitution, and this despite Secretary Herzfelder’s Certificate in which she refused the request “to explore additional alternatives” because of the years already spent analyzing substitute projects.

Nevertheless, undaunted by Secretary Herzfelder’s Certificate, and in support of his request for acceptance of EOT’s quantification of air quality benefits, Secretary Grabauskas offers Attachment A to his letter. The Attachment alleges the “value of the remaining SIP commitments.” It is intended to show that Arborway restoration is no longer a valuable commitment, yet includes no supporting data and no explanation as to how the values were calculated. The only support in the Attachment is found in a footnote, which includes erroneous information.

First, the footnote misstates the data regarding headways. The footnote claims that in 1992 peak headways were 7 minutes, while in 2004 they are 4 minutes. This would, of course, lead one to conclude that service has improved with a resultant increase in ridership and reduction in VMTs. But the facts are that service has declined rather than improved—peak headways have increased, the number of buses in service has decreased, and ridership after a precipitous fall, has remained flat for the last 10 years. Sixteen years of bus service has done nothing to improve air quality along the corridor, and EOT’s continuous drone does not change that fact.

The following chart using official MBTA data demonstrates the point that EOT’s “values” for the Arborway project are inaccurate and unreliable.

Year*	1988	1993	1996	2004
Peak Headways	3 minutes	3 minutes	4 minutes	5 minutes
Peak Buses	31 buses	24 buses	23 buses	18 buses
Ridership	28,000	17,200	16,200	17,400**

*all statistics are from MBTA sources
**the most recent ridership data available are from 1998; there are no current data.


Also to be considered is fact that bus trip times along the route, which are ignored by Secretary Grabauskas in his letter, are longer than the times for streetcar service. This is significant because trip times are an important factor in attracting new riders to public transit. For instance, real-time measurements taken in the fall 2003 of trip times along the route between Heath Street and Copley Square where buses and streetcars offer redundant service, show that streetcar passengers on average save 3 minutes traveling inbound during the morning commute and more than 4 minutes traveling outbound during the evening commute over bus passengers. The figures for trip times from Heath to Park streets are even more revealing—streetcar passengers save 6 minutes inbound and more than 13 minutes outbound. 

It is counter-intuitive and nonsense to claim a reduction in VMTs during a period when bus service has declined rather than improved and when bus ridership has remained flat. EOT has misstated the values as it has misstated its headways.
 
Second, the values alleged by EOT are not reliable because they have not been subject to any public scrutiny. Despite EOT’s new found interest in openness and transparency, the MBTA’s own Arborway Rail Restoration Project Advisory Committee (ARRPAC), the officially designated representative body of the Jamaica Plain community, has never been presented with this information, has never had the opportunity to ask questions about it, and has never been provided with any supporting data. In fact, EOT and the MBTA have intentionally disregarded ARRPAC by refusing to hold public meetings and rejecting requests from its members to be provided with information about the Arborway project. Indeed, since October 2003, only one meeting of ARRPAC has been held. That meeting in February 2004 was held at the insistence of ARRPAC members, and yet, when finally convened, members were told by MBTA officials that there was nothing to report. And now, Secretary Grabauskas is asking Commissioner Golledge to accept these values before any public process is initiated. So much for openness and transparency!

The City of Boston’s “public safety requirements” continue to be exaggerated.

In a cynical ploy to kill the Arborway project, EOT has invited the City of Boston’s on-going criticism of the project and has raised that criticism to a level of primacy neither contemplated by the ACO nor supported by fact.

• The City’s “requirements” ignore the historical record. Public safety was never in question in any of the early public discussions regarding the restoration of service. In fact, in the 1980s, when the Fire Department was looking to relocate a new central fire station in Jamaica Plain, it chose to relocate the station in the vicinity of the old station, on Centre Street and on the streetcar line. If streetcar service had been such a public safety concern in the 1980s as was alleged by Fire Department testimony at the 2003 Arborway EENF hearings, why was the central fire station relocated on the line? The answer is because there were no public safety concerns. To corroborate the point, on February 9, 1995, almost 10 years after streetcar service was “temporarily suspended”, at a meeting of interested parties in Jamaica Plain convened at the suggestion of the Mayor and minuted by the Boston Transportation Department, Deputy Chief Hartnett (BFD) stated that the BFD “would adapt to either trolley or bus service.” The public safety issue is manageable.
  
  
• The City’s “public safety requirements” and its opposition to the project, according to EOT’s comments in the body of the ACO Update (page 47), are premised on the allegation that restoration would “significantly impact traffic” and, therefore, emergency vehicle response time. There is nothing in the record, however, that would support that conclusion. In fact, the record contradicts the conclusion. In the 1987 Arborway Study, the MBTA’s consultants concluded (page 66) that “neither type of service [streetcar or bus] produced a detrimental effect on traffic flow.” At the January 17, 2001 public meeting held at the Agassiz School in Jamaica Plain by the MBTA under direction from DEP, the MBTA consultant, while recognizing that automobile drivers do not like driving behind streetcars and that some of them would think that there was an increase in congestion caused by streetcar service, stated: “And when we looked at all of this…, our general conclusion was that the introduction of the [streetcar] service should not have a negative impact on congestion in the corridor.” (Meeting transcript, page 37)
  
  
• The City’s alleged “public safety requirements” impose a higher standard on Centre Street in Jamaica Plain than the City applies to other neighborhoods. For instance, an article about traffic congestion on Hanover Street in the North End written by Monica Collins appeared in the Boston Sunday Globe on October 10, 2004. It recounted the difficulties created by double and triple parked cars along the street. Seeking comment from the Mayor regarding the situation, the Mayor, aware as he is of the presence of a fire station on Hanover Street in the midst of the congestion, said not only that there was nothing that the City could do about it, but that the congestion is “part of the ambiance of the North End.” What is “ambiance” on Hanover Street in the North End becomes “public safety” on Centre Street in Jamaica Plain! I raise the Mayor’s comment not because I believe that he is insensitive to the issue of public safety, on the contrary, but because he accepts that BFD can adapt to conditions on the street, as Chief Hartnett maintained in 1995, and still deliver emergency services.

A final comment regarding public opinion about the project in Jamaica Plain seems appropriate. As has been widely reported, and as was evidenced at the EENF public hearing, there has come to be organized a vocal group of an unknown number led by several business owners who oppose the project. It seems that their opposition is based out of concern that businesses will be disrupted and the flow of automobile traffic through the business district affected. These are reasonable concerns that were being addressed in the ARRPAC process until the MBTA halted the public discussion regarding the project. Nevertheless, as was pointed out by Secretary Herzfelder in her Certificate,

“…many of these issues are not new or particular to the restoration of light rail. To different degrees, congestion, enforcement of traffic rules and regulations, accessibility of the transit system, and bicycle and pedestrian safety have posed challenges during the years that trolleys operated in this corridor, after trolley service was discontinued and continue today.”

More than anything else the concern expressed by these opponents to the project is founded, it seems, more on their experience with the City government’s long-standing inability or unwillingness to deal with issues on Centre Street than it is on the efficacy of the Arborway project itself. Their concerns, like the concerns of opponents to the Old Colony project in Hingham, can be remedied. It is EOT’s responsibility to bring the City along, to suggest and facilitate mitigation, and most importantly to do what is necessary to enhance public transit and promote the objectives of environmental justice by completing this project. The rights of public transit riders should not be placed in a position subservient to those who drive automobiles along Centre Street and otherwise use the Arborway corridor. 

DEP should not join EOT in a joint process to evaluate the Arborway project.

DEP should hire an independent master if it were to make the insupportable determination of reversing its order of November 6, 2001.

The Arborway Committee opposes any reopening of the Arborway decision. If the decision were to be reopened, however, we would oppose a joint process wherein DEP and EOT together conduct the hearings. We have already stated our opposition to this suggestion both to Commissioner Golledge and Secretary Grabauskas. In stating our opposition, the Committee holds the view that a joint process would violate both the spirit and the letter of 310 CMR 7.36 (4). A full explanation of the legal position was included in written comments sent to Commissioner Golledge following a meeting between him and members of the Arborway Committee in May 2004. A copy of those written comments will be forwarded to you and is incorporated herein by reference.

In addition to the legal issues that a joint process would raise, such a process would also compromise the ability of DEP to make an independent and detached judgment. In the Committee’s view, because the ultimate goal of EOT in reevaluating the Arborway transit commitment is well known and understood across the transit and environmental communities as seeking the reversal of the November 6, 2001 order, DEP’s joining EOT in conducting a joint process would create the appearance of a conflict of interest and shake the confidence of the public in DEP.

Nevertheless, and in any case, if DEP were to allow the reopening of this process to another feasibility review and project substitution request by EOT, it would be imperative that an independent master be employed by DEP. The role of the master would be to review all EOT submissions so as to render a judgment as to their credibility and their reliability. The master would be one who would apply national standards of public transit and environmental good practice to his or her task. He would be an individual of national stature who has experience and expertise in the operation of urban light rail systems. He would be a truly independent person who has not previously been an employee, agent, or independent contractor of either DEP or EOT, and who has no potential for being one in the future. 
 
Conclusion

At a 2004 meeting of Move Massachusetts, Astrid Glynn, Assistant EOT Secretary, when unveiling the new “objective” criteria for evaluating transit projects, was asked whether the new criteria were truly objective. As is her wont, she was candid in her answer. She said that no criteria could ever be truly objective.

In the instance of Arborway, despite years of hearings, meetings, analyses, studies, and petitions for substitution, EOEA and DEP have maintained the importance of EOT meeting its obligations to the Arborway transit commitment, to the ACO of September 1, 2000, and ultimately to the order of November 6, 2001. EOEA and DEP should continue to hold EOT accountable to that commitment.

The request by Secretary Grabauskas to reevaluate the Arborway commitment, couched as it is in the rhetoric of “openness”, “transparency”, and “objectivity”, is nothing more than an on-going, patent attempt by EOT to obtain its long-sought goal of abandoning the Arborway Green Line. 

EOT is not in compliance with the ACO. The request to reevaluate the Arborway project should be rejected.

Addendum

Most of the documentation referenced in these comments is available only in hard copy. These along with comments relating to the legal issues raised by a joint DEP-EOT process will be forwarded by US post. They are incorporated herein by reference.
                    


David White
Jamaica Plain Citizens for Clean Air

October 16, 2004

Ms Christine Kirby, Chief           
Transportation Management Programs
Department of Environmental Protection
1 Winter Street
Boston, Massachusetts 02108

RE: ACO Update 2004 Comments, Project Schedule for 2004 of Executive Ofc. Of Transportation, Arborway Light Rail Green Line Restoration

Dear Ms. Kirby,

We would like to comment on the portion of the 2004 ACO Update related to Arborway Light Rail Green Line Restoration, a restoration many in this community have been fighting for for a long time. 

On June 23, 2003, EOEA Secretary Herzfelder issued an EOEA Certificate for this project finding that the project “holds tremendous potential to advance the priority goals of smart growth.” She also said that the project “represents a significant investment in urban mass transit and fulfills a longstanding commitment. And that it will improve transit and air quality in an urban neighborhood.”

We also feel that this light rail restoration brings about the most efficient, environmentally healthy method of transportation along the Green Line.  As you know, the CNG buses themselves are a source of air pollution (see below). I have just returned from Portland, Oregon where I observed first hand the success of their city wide light rail system. Toronto is another example.

In light of the Secretary’s Certificate and her commitment to the Arborway project, and DEP’s obligation to protect our air quality in Boston ,the Department of Environmental Protection’s willingness to reexamine its November 6, 2001, decision to restore Arborway Green Line service is bewildering. Any attempt to reopen that decision must be rejected since these issues have already been thoroughly discussed and dealt with before; the time to take appropriate promised action  to improve the quality of our air is long overdue.

There are several other reasons for rejecting such an attempt to reopen your decision:

1. the ACO says that the criteria that EOTC seeks to use in reevaluating the Arborway project are “objective,” but they are not objective; they are simply being used by the MBTA now  to trash the Arborway project so their CNG buses can be used here. We have been down this path before.
2. the ACO says that Arborway restoration would not result in significant environmental savings, but  EOTC can not in any way prove this other than through  unsubstantiated assertions. We have been down this path before and all of this nonsense has previously been rejected. Light rail produces no air pollution where it travels. As we wrote to Secretary Herzfelder on April 30, 2003,(see enclosed)  supporting the MBTA”s EENF, EOEA #12999,  CNG buses present  health hazards ; they produce particulate exhaust and high levels of carbon: 2382 grams per mile of CO2 and 12.2 grams of CO which contribute  to cause respiratory problems,  asthma and lung cancer.  Suffolk County continues to be one of the worst polluting counties in the US.
3. The ACO totally ignores the fact that the Arborway project is an “environmental justice” project serving an underserved transit ridership; remember the MBTA’s own stats: 60% ridership are women; 40% ridership do not own an automobile; 20% ridership have a combined household income of less than $20,000.]
4. We believe that , in previous Big Dig Litigation, there was and still is  a legally enforceable agreement in l991  with  Conservation Law Foundation to restore the Arborway Green Line light rail to partially offset (mitigate) the noxious air pollution emanating from  gas and diesel vehicles operating on  the new Big Dig roads, tunnels, byways and highways in Boston.

For these reasons, therefore, I believe that the Department of Environmental Protection should reject Secretary Grabauskas’s invitation to reopen the Arborway decision. Secretary Herzfelder’s Certificate must be respected and enforced. Thank you for your commitment to protecting our air.


Sincerely yours,

David A. White, Esq.
Jamaica Plain Citizens for Clean Air

cc: Ellen Roy Herzfelder, Secretary
Executive Office of Environmental Affairs
251 Causeway Street
Boston, Massachusetts 02114

<>Shirley Kressel
Landscape Architect

October 25, 2004

Christine Kirby
Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection
1 Winter Street
Boston, Massachusetts 02108

RE: Arborway Restoration, ACO Update 2004

Dear Ms. Kirby:

I am an urban design professional residing in Boston. I have for several years supported the Arborway Green Line Restoration, as an professional schooled in urban planning, an individual who travels exclusively by public transportation, and a leader of the Alliance of Boston Neighborhoods.  I am dismayed and astounded that we still have to write letters on this issue, which is a Central Artery Commitment, and which has been lauded and approved by EOEA Secretary Roy Herzfelder’s 2003 Certificate.

Unfortunately, our public transportation system is in the hands of the MBTA, an agency that has for decades pursued policies punishing its core constituencies -- transit-dependent people, who cannot, or cannot afford to, use a car, and people who have made the responsible decision to live without cars at “smart-growth” urban densities -- with declining service and higher fares, while favoring suburban commuters and shoppers, and local colleges/universities.  As cities all over America and the developed world are proudly advancing their rail transit technologies and expanding their systems, Boston, the cradle of American mass transit, is retrofitting for the ‘50’s, looking backward to a future of buses, carrying out the General Motors dream of replacing rails with rubber tires as line after line serving the urban population is cut and abandoned for replacement by “flexible” buses that avoid “interfering with traffic.”  I believe the reasons stem not from “impact studies” and “objective criteria” but with racial and class bias.  This is not only poor planning; it is deliberate social discrimination.

The MBTA has found its perfect excuse for further delaying the promised and mandated Restoration in the obstructionism of Mayor Thomas Menino, whose benighted vision of our future is as a booming suburb, where every resident, commuter, shopper, and visitor has a comfortable parking space.  Chauffeured around in his SUV, he defines the success of the city in drivers, not riders, oblivious to the environmental or social problems of his idyll.  The City – Menino, his compliant Transportation Department, and his urban-renewal-minded Boston Redevelopment Authority – are filling the city with garages, to assure every new resident, shopper, tourist, and commuter a parking space, at all costs.  The MBTA similarly is diligently building vast parking lots for suburban commuters, instead of encouraging denser development using feeder transit, wasting the most valuable land in the state to store cars instead of developing it into smart transit-oriented communities.
The Saturday, October 23, 2004 Boston Globe editorial, “Bribes for Biotech,” says what every good planner, and any sensible person, knows:  that without high-quality public services such as good public transportation, we cannot attract good industry:

We will have neither economic growth nor residential development nor environmental health unless we build a progressive, rider-attractive, and comprehensive rail transit system.  We need the Governor’s Office and the State Executive Office of Environmental Affairs, as well as a more enlightened Executive Office of Transportation, to protect the city and the region from the current regressive vision of our transportation future shared by the MBTA and our City administration.

Governor Mitt Romney was elected on a platform assuring that our state’s future growth will be “smart.”  No growth can be smart without smart, dependable public transit.  DEP knows this, Secretary Ellen Roy Herzfelder knows this, and Doug Foy knows this.  Buses are not the future of transit; look around the world.

The Arborway Green Line must be restored immediately, without further foot-dragging and fraudulent “analysis” and “community process” by the MBTA.  This necessity is even clearer now than when it was first promised.  The MBTA must not be allowed to forestall this restoration any longer.

I hope to hear that DEP is taking responsible stewardship of this project and will continue to mandate it forward.

Shirley Kressel
Landscape Architect

Cc via e-mail: 
Ellen Roy Herzfelder, Secretary, EOEA
Daniel Grabauskas, Secretary, EOT and Chairman, MBTA
Douglas Foy, Chief of Commonwealth Development
State Representatives Elizabeth A. Malia, Jeffrey Sanchez
State Senators Steven Tolman, Byron Rushing, Dianne Wilkerson
City Councilors Felix Arroyo, Maura Hennigan, Michael Ross
Franklyn Salimbene, Arborway Committee

John W. Cipolla
Jamaica Plain

Ms Christine Kirby
Mass Department of Environmental Protection
1 Winter Street
Boston, Massachusetts 02108

October 21, 2004
RE: ACO Update 2004 Comments

Dear Ms. Kirby,

I am writing to express my extreme disappointment with the DEP’s apparent willingness to reopen the issue regarding Arborway restoration. Those of us in the Jamaica Plain and neighboring communities considered the Fall 2001 decision a watershed event, capping 15 years of activism on our part and cynical footdragging on the MBTA’s part, and with the promise of leading to vastly improved mass transit in our neighborhood.
 
On June 23, 2003, Secretary Herzfelder issued her Certificate for this project, in which she unambiguously endorses the restoration as being in the best interest of improving mass transit and places in the context of region wide transportation issues, the specific concerns of many opponent including our Mayor.

I am particularly disheartened at the extent to which the process, at one time open and transparent to the public, has now become a secret proceeding, with misinformation distributed through the media masquerading as fact. The vehicle for community involvement, the ARPAC, has not met in some months while the media claims that several pertinent “engineering” studies have been done, of which ARPAC is apparently unaware.

For these reasons, I urge you to reject this invitation to reopen the Arborway decision. It is not a way to better mass transit but an invitation for further delay. Secretary Herzfelder’s Certificate must be enforced.

Sincerely yours,

John W. Cipolla
Jamaica Plain, MA


Carolyn L. Manson
Brookline

October 22, 2004

Ms. Christine Kirby
Chief of Transportation Management Programs
Department of Environmental Protection
One Winter Street
Boston, MA 02108

Dear Ms. Kirby,

June 23, 2003, Secretary Herzfelder issued a Certificate for the Arborway Green Line Restoration.  She was corrected in her judgment that this project is the best transportation with the least pollution for our area.  Here are some of my feelings about the delay or the stopping of this project.  Please add my comments to the ACO Update related to the Arborway Green Line.

First, I have been using the Arborway Line for 8 years to go to work.  For the first 7 years, I walked 11 minutes from my Moss Hill home in Jamaica Plain to the Monument where I would get the #39 bus.  During my walk I passed many homes where people drove to work.  Why?  They don’t like buses.  These homes are potential living places for people like us who do not want/need to drive a car to work.  If we are sincere about cutting down on cars used to commute to jobs, this is an area of the city that would be attractive to people like us, but ONLY IF THERE IS A NO-TRANSER STREETCAR OPTION.  Buses just do not draw riders.  I did talk to many of my neighbors and they used to go into town via streetcar, but they never made the switch to buses.

Second, we have moved, so now I stand at the Riverway stop to use the Arborway Line.  Over the past year, I have watched the buses and streetcars.  Streetcars are superior in all ways.  They go trough the traffic like magic while the buses bunch together (sometimes 3 bumper to bumper) stuck amid the commuter’s-vehicles.  The MBTA cannot provide good steady service using the buses because of the cars and trucks.  Why did we move?  I needed a better commute as well as to provide my disabled husband access to good public transportation as he can’t drive any longer.  Now we live where he can have the no transfer rides into the central tunnel.  I can proudly say, we used only 7 tanks of gas in 2004.  I do believe I qualify as someone who knows the best transportation for this area.

Third, we need better air quality and every car we get off the road helps.  In addition, we will not have nose level pollution with streetcars.  Our son lives on the “E” line and has asthma—any pollutant can cause him to have attacks. 

Fourth, streetcars will enhance the business district of Jamaica Plain.  Look what has happened to the new line in San Francisco.  The line is so overcrowded and heavily used that San Francisco is looking to buy old streetcars to supplement their fleet.  Why is it that other cities are getting streetcars and our project is being “studied” more?   If tourists will ride those horrible diesel polluting trolleys around down town, they will come out to JP’s restaurants, stores and Arboretum.  Kids love to ride “the real thing”.  Our children were delighted going to town on the streetcars—it was like a vacation trip.

About thirty years ago, streetcar riders formed the Arbor way Committee to improve the service.  We studied streetcars versus buses at that time.  Buses lost over and over again.  It is time that the MBTA, the Commonwealth and the City of Boston do what was promised and ordered.  We need the Restoration project finished.  It fits into  the SMART GROWTH plans of Governor Romney.

Please do whatever you can to keep this project on track.  It is something for the future just like the Big Dig was years ago.  It will work just fine once it is completed.

Sincerely,

Carolyn L. Manson
Brookline, MA

cc:  Ms. Ellen Roy Herzfelder
       State Senator Diane Wilkerson
       Representative Liz Malia
       Representative Jeffrey Sanchez
       Councilor Maura Hennigan
       Councilor Felix Arroyo
       Councilor Michael Ross

John Kyper
Roxbury • ARRPAC Member

Christine Kirby
Mass. Dept of Environmental Protection
1 Winter Street
Boston, MA 02114

Re:    ACO Update 2004 Comments

Dear Ms. Kirby:

    As both a member of the Arborway Rail Restoration Project Advisory Committee (ARRPAC), and a Boston resident long concerned with the need to extend and improve public transit service in the metropolitan area, I am writing to comment on the portion of the Administrative Consent Order Update related to Arborway Green Line restoration.

    In November 2001 Secretary Durand ruled that the MBTA had failed to demonstrate that restoration of Arborway light rail service between Heath Street and Forest Hills was infeasible.  At that time the Authority expressed its intention of complying with his decision and begin the planning process that led to the formation of ARRPAC the next spring.

    There followed a series of ARRPAC meetings and public hearings—all of them open to the public and receiving extensive coverage in Jamaica Plain’s two community newspapers.  On June 23, 2003, Secretary Herzfelder issued her Certificate for this project, stating that it “holds tremendous potential to advance the priority goals of smart growth” which “represents a significant investment in urban mass transit and fulfills a longstanding commitment.”

    The Certificate addressed the concerns of the City and the community regarding the restoration of light rail service, noting that this project had good potential to resolve many long-standing issues along the corridor, as well as to improve transit and air quality in the neighborhoods through which it passes.  Its conclusions paralleled the work of ARRPAC during the year and a half that we were meeting more or less regularly.

    I am thus very concerned by the recently announced willingness of the Department of Environmental Protection to reexamine its decision of three years ago.  Any attempt to reopen this decision must be rejected and would make a mockery of the public process that led to the Secretary’s Certificate.
 

    In the ACO, EOTC claims to desire a public process; however, I must question the sincerity of this assertion.  ARRPAC last met in early 2004, and repeated member queries to MBTA officials about the next meeting have received no response.

    The ACO cites the City’s concern with public safety, particularly with regard to the firehouse located on Centre Street.  Again, this is a dubious claim.  I have lived in the area for three decades and regularly shopped in Jamaica Plain during this time.  When the new firehouse was built 20 years ago, streetcars were running along Centre Street, and they were not a factor in the decision to site the facility at that location—which replaced a firehouse two blocks away that was also located on the car line.  Transit officials from Philadelphia and Toronto have written that streetcar service has not had a detrimental effect on emergency operations in their cities, but instead, may be somewhat beneficial in providing traffic calming in the streets they traverse, benefiting emergency response.  The City’s exaggerated, worst-case scenario is little more than an argument of convenience, unsupported by other cities’ experience.

    The ACO contains other defects.  The criteria cited by the EOTC are not “objective” as alleged, but were fashioned by the MBTA to try to kill the Arborway project.  It claims, without any supporting data, that restoration would not result in any significant environmental savings.  Finally, it ignores the “environmental justice” aspect of the project, which would serve an underserved ridership—as the MBTA’s own statistics admit—40% of whom do not own an automobile and 20% have a combined household income of less than $20,000.

    Thus I strongly urge the Department of Environmental Protection to reject Secretary Grabauskas’s petition to reopen the Arborway decision.  Secretary Herzfelder’s Certificate must be enforced.

Sincerely,

John Kyper
Roxbury, MA

cc:  Secretary Herzfelder, EOEA

Thomas J. O’Malley
Jamaica Plain • ARRPAC Member

October 21, 2004

Christine Kirby
Mass Department of Environmental Protection
1 Winter Street
Boston, Massachusetts 02108

RE: Reconsideration of the Arborway Green Line Commitments as outlined in the ACO Update 2004 Comments

Dear Ms. Kirby,

I am writing in support of the Arborway Green Line Restoration.  Please reject any effort to once again open this process that has been revisited a number of times over the past 10 years.  

Secretary Herzfelder only issued her Certificate for this project in June, 2003.  In it she stated that the project “holds tremendous potential to advance the priority goals of smart growth.” She also said that the project “represents a significant investment in urban mass transit and fulfills a longstanding commitment.”

As a long time resident of Jamaica Plain, I am aware of the arguments, pro and con, related to this project.  I also know that a well maintained public transit system is vital for smart growth and can be operated effectively and be a benefit to the business district.  If we can overcome the technical difficulties of the Central Artery Project, then most assuredly we can overcome any engineering issues related to the restoration of the Arborway portion of the Green Line.  This project also has significant environmental benefits that should not be overlooked for any reason.

In light of the Secretary’s Certificate and her commitment to the Arborway project, the Department of Environmental Protection’s willingness to reexamine its November 6, 2001, decision to restore Arborway Green Line service is unacceptable and I ask you and the Secretary to reject yet another review.  After many years of discussion and bureaucratic review, it is time to implement the restoration because it makes good public transit sense and is a direct mitigation for the Central Artery Project and its’ emphasis on automobiles. 

I am a member of the Arborway Rail Restoration Project Advisory Committee (ARRPAC).  As such I am disappointed at the decision to subvert this public process established by the MBTA.  This committee has met only once in the past year.  I thought it had proven a useful forum for discussing the specifics of implementation and can only speculate as to why this process was abandoned since no one has given any explanation for abandoning the process.

For these reasons I believe that the Department of Environmental Protection should reject Secretary Grabauskas’s invitation to reopen the Arborway decision.

Sincerely yours,

Thomas J. O’Malley
Jamaica Plain, MA

CC: Secretary Herzfelder
        Senator Wilkerson
        Representative Sanchez
        Representative Malia
        City Councilor Arroyo
        City Councilor Hennigan

Srdjan S. Nedeljkovic, M.D.
Newton Highlands • ARRPAC Member

Robert Golledge
Department of Environmental Protection
Commonwealth of Massachusetts
1 Winter Street
Boston, MA  02108

Re: Arborway Rail Restoration and the EOTC’s 2004 Administrative Consent Order (ACO)

October 25, 2004

Dear Commissioner Golledge:

    In November, 2001, the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) ruled that light rail service must be restored in the Arborway corridor of Jamaica Plain.  Restoration of environmentally clean light rail to this densely populated urban neighborhood of Boston was deemed feasible.  Thus, the DEP ordered the MBTA to implement this project in a timely manner.  Arborway rail restoration is an important environmental commitment legally mandated by the air pollution control measures per the State Implementation Plan (SIP) and the Central Artery/Tunnel project.

    In 2003, as part of the process of rail restoration, Secretary Herzfelder of the Executive Office of Environmental Affairs (EOEA) issued a Certificate on the Expanded Environmental Notification Form (EENF) for Arborway restoration pursuant to the Massachusetts Environmental Policy Act (MEPA).  Secretary Herzfelder pointed out that Arborway rail restoration “holds tremendous potential to advance the priority policy goals of smart growth and support for continued investment in urban mass transit and fulfills a longstanding commitment made by the Commonwealth to include urban and suburban transit projects as an integral element of the Central Artery/Tunnel Project (CA/T).”  Secretary Herzfelder ordered the MBTA to address the unique design challenges that this project presents, stating that “this project offers an opportunity for the MBTA, the City of Boston and its agencies … to address some of these longstanding issues while facilitating the restoration of light rail service.”

    However, in the recent update of the Administrative Consent Order (ACO) regarding the Mass Transit Commitments (2004 Project Schedule and Project Update), the MBTA and the Executive Office of Transportation (EOT) are attempting once again to impede the legally mandated restoration of light rail service in the Arborway corridor.  In the ACO, the MBTA/EOT is jumping to erroneous conclusions regarding rail restoration and is clearly making efforts to renege on the responsibility to complete this project.  I urge the DEP to reject these efforts.  The decision made by the DEP supporting Arborway restoration was a sound one, and all efforts should be made to encourage timely restoration of rail to this corridor. 

    The DEP should reject the erroneous, misleading, exaggerated, and indefensible arguments proposed in the ACO update by the MBTA/EOT for delaying Arborway rail restoration.  The following are supporting reasons:

•    Rail restoration is feasible.  Many cities in the United States, Canada, and throughout the world have implemented environmentally friendly electric streetcar service in relatively narrow, densely populated, multi-use corridors such as we have in Jamaica Plain.  There is very little that is unique to this project from an engineering and traffic standpoint when compared to numerous other similar, existing and planned light rail ventures in the world.

•    Rail service along Arborway will result in significantly improved transportation access and options that will reduce reliance on polluting, rubber-based vehicles such as cars and buses.  Because of the service characteristics, capacity, and convenience of rail, ridership on transit in this corridor will increase markedly.  Increased ridership will allow for a reduction in car trips in the corridor and region, especially single-occupancy vehicle trips.  Not only will there be no point-of-service pollution with light rail, but regional air quality will also improve.

•    Light rail transit is among the safest forms of transportation.  According to public safety officials in other cities where there are routes and corridors similar to Arborway, having light rail vehicles share the road with cars has no adverse impacts on public safety and response times for emergency vehicles.  In fact, by making the corridor more attractive and by taking measures that will result in “traffic calming,” light rail will confer significant advantages to the neighborhood, for pedestrians and automobile users alike.

•    Many people in Jamaica Plain and other Boston neighborhoods who will be affected by this line have participated in the public process to implement rail restoration.  Although the “Arborway Rail Restoration Project Advisory Committee” (ARRPAC) met often in 2002-2003, the MBTA has apparently closed down this public process.  The DEP should support efforts to re-initiate the ARRPAC process, which is a wide-based community effort that had begun to resolve issues in the corridor, so that rail restoration can proceed promptly and with full input from the community.

In summary, the DEP should reject any efforts that are being made by the EOT and the MBTA to reconsider or delay implementation of the decision made by the Department of Environmental Protection in November, 2001 to restore Arborway light rail service.

    It is important to understand that restoring rail to Arborway is a relatively inexpensive transit project that will yield tremendous benefits in terms of urban public transportation, increased ridership on transit, decreased auto use, improved environmental conditions, reduced pollution in this urban neighborhood, better air quality in the region, and overall enhanced safety for pedestrians and others who use the corridor. 

    For unclear reasons, the MBTA has had a bias against providing modern, cost-effective, and profitable urban rail projects to Boston’s neighborhoods.  This is especially the case for neighborhoods that are politically, socially, and economically disadvantaged.  For example, by manipulating data, the MBTA has tried to show how ridership on a restored Arborway line will be similar to maintaining buses.  Transportation experts and data from other cities where similar projects have been implemented have proven that this is absurd: replacing light rail for buses almost always results in markedly higher transit ridership in the corridor in question.  For an objective assessment of this parameter, the DEP should insist on hiring an independent expert resource to study ridership.  Because of the MBTA’s history of creating data that supports its unfair biases against urban rail projects, any assertions brought forth by the MBTA regarding Arborway restoration must be looked upon with skepticism.

    For these reasons and others, the DEP should reject any efforts to overturn and impede rail restoration in the Arborway corridor.  The MBTA must be made accountable for its commitment to Arborway restoration.  The DEP must not allow this project to be “studied to death,” biased by erroneous assumptions and data, while wasting valuable time and transportation dollars in the process.  The DEP must insure that light rail service to Arborway is restored as soon as possible, per the November, 2001 order, and no later than 2006.

Sincerely,

Srdjan S. Nedeljkovic, M.D.
Newton Highlands, Massachusetts

George P. Zoulalian
Jamaica Plain • ARRPAC Member

October 21, 2004

Christine Kirby
Chief of Transportation Management Programs
Department of Environmental Protection
One Winter Street
Boston, Massachusetts 02108

Re: Arborway Restoration

Dear Ms. Kirby:

I wish to raise several points regarding the 2004 Project Update and Administrative Consent Order of the Central Artery Transit Commitments in an effort to promote Arborway Green Line restoration to Forest Hills. This is a project worthy of the highest priority with regard to so called “transit justice,” environmental necessity, community investment, and mass transit alternatives.

First let me say that I am a lifetime Jamaica Plain resident and a three family dwelling homeowner. My family, neighbors, and tenants rely on the good transit alternatives which enhances living in JP. We live equidistant from the Orange Line and the 39 bus route and because of my interest in improving JP’s connection to downtown, I have been appointed a member of the Arborway Rail Restoration Project Advisory Committee (ARRPAC) as Senator Wilkerson’s designee. Also, I have joined The Arborway Committee, because I have seen that their thoughtful analysis of this project is far superior to the MBTA’s efforts to present this project to the community.

I find it outrageous that here at the end of 2004 we find that the state and the MBTA are trying to re-examine the issue of restoration. After seventeen years of analysis and study after study and even referendums, they are attempting to change the rules again until they get their way to abandon this project in favor of a bus route. Secretary Ellen Roy Herzfelder conducted a thorough analysis of this project and issued a certificate which required the MBTA to build this project. Her process included hundreds of comments, community meetings, and expert testimony. In the final analysis, the MBTA was shown to be wrong and was ordered to proceed to build the line. This was over two years ago and now we are told that we have to go through a review process all over again? Abandoning the rail alternative now is illegal under the rules, so they have no shame but to attempt to change the rules and undermine the process, they themselves set up to design and build Arborway.

The process concluded that the bus alternative will not relieve traffic congestion in Jamaica Plain and will not improve the environment as much as rail restoration, and that issues of community support and construction mitigation for business could best be addressed with a community process which resulted in the creation of ARRPAC. The 2004 Project Update for these SIP commitments all but negates the good work ARRPAC has done and seeks to replace it with yet another community process. I submit that this is just another attempt by the MBTA to throw out a process, because they do not want to build this project no matter what the law requires, or what consent decrees are signed or what the Secretary of Environmental Protection orders in her certificate. It smacks of racism as I will explain below.

Ridership on the corridor in question is predominantly woman and minorities, workers making less than $25,000, people without autos (over 20% do not own a car), and a large number of young people, disabled and the elderly. People in JP need to get into the subway system without changing modes, without walking up and down stairs, and without having to walk an additional two or three tenths of a mile to get into the already congested Orange line. In fact, for many commuters, the Orange Line does not go where they want to go. The Arborway corridor goes through the densest population of the city; a population which comprises the ideal profile of a transit rider. Yet the MBTA promotes a bus alternative while totally ignoring the dramatic increase in ridership that the rail restoration will provide.

Increase in ridership is the key to all of this. Example after example all across this country in Philadelphia, Seattle, Los Angeles, San Diego, Dallas, New Orleans, and Memphis, just to name a few, has proven that ridership increased way beyond expectations, that businesses have thrived along every newly improved transit corridor and this includes in-street service. Ridership on the restored Arborway will undoubtedly increase to the 30,000 mark, as it was in the 1970’s, because the ride is faster, cheaper, more comfortable and goes into the subway without changing modes. Much of this new ridership will come from people who have abandoned the MBTA in favor of their car. Being on the T map again, JP will be a destination of the thousands of tourists and riders from other sections of the city who now refuse to change to get on a bus. If the MBTA were honest and realistic about the increase in ridership, which the bus will never be able to duplicate, they would not have any argument to satisfy environmental concerns. In fact the cost of restoring rail compared to increase in ridership far outweighs any project underway or on the drawing boards. There are no tunnels, bridges or major infrastructure to build (just one sub-station) and the street will have to be torn up anyway even if they succeed in sinking this project.

The City of Boston has thrown up two canards in opposition to this project: safety and business. First, they provide absolutely no evidence that safety will be compromised. Conjecture is not  an acceptable argument. The facts show that their own Jamaica Plain fire captain declared in 1982 when the new fire station  was being built on Centre Street (when streetcar service was in existence), said he saw “no problem with streetcar service.”  The mayor is inconsistent on this issue. Just look at the Boston Globe two weeks ago Sunday when triple double parking was discussed in the North End in front of a fire house. He asserted that it was an issue that the community could live with. Response times are never analyzed on Centre Street now, while the city continually allows the double parking of 18 wheel delivery trucks on Centre every single day at all hours. Bus stops are routinely used by delivery trucks during rush hour with complete impunity. A certain small group of short sighted businesses are against the project because they do not want to adhere to any reasonable standard of street use. In fact, one of the major business opponents (Fresh Hair) uses up to eighteen parking spots for its employees to park all day on the street. None of them use public transit, yet they complain loudly that their business could be hurt if more parking spaces are used up. Every example of transit investment in every other part of the world shows that rail restoration is preferred and shows up in vast increases in ridership and as a result greatly improves those businesses who happen to be lucky enough to be within the corridor. Why would JP be different? It would not. Businesses have a right to be worried about the construction period, but we have submitted a plan through ARRPAC to address these concerns using insight gained from the big dig and our knowledge of traffic patterns in our neighborhood. At this very minute every street is being torn up in JP by the water and sewer department. Major thoroughfares (Green St.) have been closed for the past three months, but no one has opposed this on safety or economic grounds. It has to be done; it will improve the environment; we can work through it for the greater good of the community. This is the level of commitment that will bring success for the Arborway line and is easily achieved with just a fraction of support from the MBTA.

The fact of the matter is that community opposition to restoration is by a small contingent of people who do not use mass transit, may never use it, and who have no knowledge of what an efficient transit corridor in their neighborhood would look like. Restoration is supported by thousands of workers, elderly, disabled, students and commuters who have followed  and supported the process when asked, and who (wrongly) assumed that it was ordered to be built and completed by 2005 several years ago.

At this point I feel the need to urge you to promote Arborway rail restoration as the only viable alternative for the community of people who live and work in Jamaica Plain. We deserve this transit improvement. We have fought for it repeatedly. And the environmental benefits cannot be shuffled away any longer.

Sincerely,

George P. Zoulalian
Jamaica Plain, MA