.comment-link {margin-left:.6em;} <$BlogRSDURL$>

Random musings from a Midwesterner in Beantown.

Friday, April 29, 2005

Green Line funding amendment passes! 


Date: Fri, 29 Apr 2005 18:29:09 -0000
From: "carls617"
Subject: Green Line Funding Amendment Passes!

I want to share some good news that happened this week at the
Statehouse.

The House of Representatives Wednesday night approved my budget
amendment to including funding for the environmental impact study
for the Green Line Extension! This is the critical next step to
keep this project moving forward.

It was a very difficult amendment to get included in the budget
considering the extremely tight fiscal times facing the state
budget. I was very happy to be able to give my first speech on the
floor of the House Chamber (known as a maiden speech) on the
importance of the Green Line extension.

I have received great feedback from colleagues who were alarmed to
hear of the statistics from our community on pollution, public
health hazards, and the lack of public transit, as well as the
history of this particular project and the legal commitments the
state has to Somerville & Medford.

For the full story on The Somerville News' website, go to
http://somervillenews.typepad.com/the_somerville_news/2005/04/sciorti
no_makes.html

The budget still needs to be approved by the Senate & Governor, and
I will be working with my colleagues in both branches to try to get
this through.

If you have any questions, feel free to contact me at the Statehouse
at (617) 722-2014, or csciortino@state.ma.us.

I will keep you updated as this moves through the rest of the budget
process.

Carl Sciortino
State Representative

Thursday, April 28, 2005

Clean-up Somerville! 


From: Jennifer Hill
Somerville City-wide Spring Cleanup!
Saturday, April 30th
10 a.m. - 1 p.m.
We're going to get it all done before the rain starts - please join us!

Groundwork Somerville will be helping at 3 locations this year
(1) on the Community Path at Cedar St. (with Friends of the Community Path)
(2) at Lincoln Park School (with City officials)
(3) in Davis Square (with Somerville Dog Owners Group)

We will have bags and some tools and gloves, thanks to the city and
partners. If you have your own, please bring them along to help.

The cleanup will be followed by a barbecue for all volunteers at Prospect
Hill Park.

MORE INFO:
Residents seeking to help with the cleanup should contact Eileen Costa, in
the Communications Department, at (617) 625-6600, ext. 2607. Cleanup sites
include the following (others may be added within each ward but the meeting
places will remain the same):
. Ward 1: East Somerville Community School (Meet at schoolyard)
. Ward 2: Lincoln Park Community School (Meet at schoolyard)
. Ward 3: High School Concourse and general school area (Meet at City Hall)
. Ward 4: Healey School (Meet at school yard)
. Ward 5: Magoun Square (Meet at Parking Lot Plaza)
. Ward 6: Davis Square Area (Meet at Statue Park)
. Ward 7: Teele Square (Meet at Fire Station)


******************************
Jennifer Hill
Executive Director
Groundwork Somerville
PO Box 441033
408 Highland Avenue
Somerville, MA 02144
617.628.9988 (v)
617.623.5943 (f)
www.GroundworkSomerville.org
Changing Places, Changing Lives

Sciortino secures Green Line extension funding 

State Representative Carl M. Sciortino Jr. secured the friendship and support of hundreds of Somervillians after speaking in support of the Green Line extension and successfully adding language to an amendment bill that would secure pre-construction engineering funds for the project. Bravo! But there's a lot more to do...

Wednesday, April 27, 2005

Supermarkets, supermarkets everywhere... 

...(at least in Somerville), and not a drop to spare (at least in Boston).

Monday, April 25, 2005

MBTA approves Somerville Community Path extension 

[From a City of Somerville press release. Yeah baby!]

Mayor Joseph Curtatone today announced the MBTA has approved the city’s plans to extend the bike path from Cedar Street to Central Street, affirming the project will not interfere with Green Line extension plans. Advocates for path had feared the T would oppose extension because it runs parallel to and close to the tracks slated for use by the proposed Green Line extension.

"This is a huge step forward for the Cedar – Central Street extension and a significant step in our overall effort to bring the path all the way to the North Point Development in Cambridge," said Curtatone.

In a separate announcement, Curtatone said the city had received a donation of $5500 from the Friends of the Community Path and Groundworks Somerville to acquire the inactive freight rail rights lining the proposed Cedar Street extension.

"We’re making steady progress toward our goal of bringing the path to Cambridge and beyond" said Curtatone. "There are a number of hurdles to clear in each phase of this extension but we’re in the race for the long haul."

Curtatone said the MBTA revealed their assessment in a recent meeting with city representatives at which the path extension plans were carefully reviewed.

The meeting between officials came one week after Congressman Michael E. Capuano announced he had secured one million dollars in the U.S. House transportation bill to extend the path all the way to the North Point Development in Cambridge. The bill has passed the House but awaits action in the Senate.

"We owe a great deal to Congressman Capuano," said Curtatone. "His ability to obtain federal funds gets the attention of the T and other state officials. They are much more willing to support these incremental gains when they know they are likely to get federal funds down the road."

Support from the Friends of the Community Path, Groundworks Somerville, and a grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Active Living by Design Program have been instrumental in these breakthroughs. The program promotes community design initiatives that enable residents to integrate physical activity into their daily routine.

"The current path serves as a prime example of how we can foster more activity in the daily lives of Somerville residents – a prime goal of the Active Living by Design Program," explained Jennifer Hill, executive director of Groundwork Somerville and project manager for the Somerville Active Living Partnership. "The extension of the path makes Active Living opportunities all the more possible."

Curtatone said the city was also actively working with the MBTA to ease traffic problems encountered by path users in busy Davis Square. Although no firm plans have been set, progress is being made.

"We’ve proposed a plan to extend the path along the busway to provide more space for pedestrians and bicyclists." Curtatone said. "Right now, because Davis is one of two breaking points in the bike path – places where riders have no real choice but to dismount – many ride illegally on sidewalks or in the busway. We’re looking at ways to make it possible for a cyclist to legally pass through the Square safely and with less interruption."

Curtatone said he would continue to make Community Path progress one of his administration’s top priorities.

"What we’re seeing now is a transportation transformation in this city," Curtatone added. "When these extensions are done, a Somerville resident will be able to commute by bike to either an urban job in Cambridge or Boston or a suburban job in Bedford, without ever really leaving the path. Coupled with a Green Line extension, it will completely change the way get around this area."

Friday, April 22, 2005

"Greenway project wilts as funds lag" 

The Boston Globe reports that a lack of clear claim to site threatens garden's future. Not only have we screwed up the actual big dig, but we can't get our act together around the greenway. People, if we leave it to the city and state to plan, we'll have another city hall plaza!

Wednesday, April 20, 2005

Longwood Bike Nite May 10th: Bike to Work! 

Join Boston Children's Hospital, MASCO and MassBike for an educational presentation on commuter biking with Dorie Clark of MassBike, followed by a panel discussion with local biking advocates and professionals.

Tuesday, May 10th
Enders Auditorium in Children's Hospital
320 Longwood Ave., Boston

5:30-6:00 p.m. Registration
6:00-7:30 p.m. Lecture and Panel Discussion

"Safe Biking in Massachusetts" Dorie Clark, Executive Director, MassBike
"Urban Biking 2005": Panel Discussion, Q&A

Free admission.

Tuesday, April 19, 2005

Traffic or no traffic, Stoughton Ikea on track 

Ikea is on track to open its Stoughton store in late fall, but the fate of its Somerville store plans remains unknown.

Friday, April 15, 2005

Trains vs. parking: The true costs 

Syndicated columnist Meil Peirce wrote an informative story on the cost of rails vs. cars recently.

STEP's own funny curmudgeon Fred Moore commented recently on this article, reminding us of the classic Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy concept of the SEP field. He wrote:

Amtrak was common fodder [for] P.J. [O'Rourke, who was] regurgitating the stuff of urban legends ... stating that with the subsidy cost per passenger on a certain route it would be cheaper to give all the passengers free plane tickets.

This little shell game is known [as an] "externalization" of costs ... and is abused by air transportation to the max.

Please refer to the "Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy" under "somebody else's problem field." [It's] somebody's problem, but not yours, so you cannot see it. What no one wants to talk about is the cost to just about every taxpayer to go out and conquer the world in order to keep the petro supply stable. Then your oil really costs any where from $160 to $232 a barrel depending if we use the Kato or Brookings think tank numbers which I don't trust either, they are old numbers.

But hey! that's somebody else's problem.


Fred then goes on to post an article written, as far as I can tell, by Otis White, which I reprint here as there aren't any decent links to just the article:

OK, Then, How About a Yugo for Everybody?


Doing the Math on Public Transit

You've probably heard someone say, in a debate over rail transit, that these systems are so expensive and poorly patronized, it'd be cheaper to give every passenger a free car instead. Humorist P.J. O'Rourke made that claim recently in a Wall Street Journal column. O'Rourke's target: Minneapolis' new $700 million light-rail line, which he said was so extravagant, the city "could have leased a BMW X-5 SUV for (every) commuter at about the same price." But is that right? One reader ran the numbers.

Saying that he recognized O'Rourke was trying to be funny (although other, more serious writers have made similar claims), Janek Kozlowski suggested taking O'Rourke's offer at face value. Would taxpayers have been better served by giving every one of Minneapolis' 15,500 transit riders a BMW SUV? Well, said Kozlowski. leases for that many BMWs would cost $44 million a year, with leasers paying another $2,800 a year in gas, maintenance and so on. But, of course, that gets you only a car in the driveway. To get to work, Kozlowski said, the displaced commuters would have to drive on a highway. Highways cost about $20.6 million per mile to build, with interchanges averaging $100 million apiece. To replace the Minneapolis rail line, then, figure 12 miles of new freeway and two interchanges, which comes out to $440 million, not including annual maintenance, he said.

But that's not all. The commuters need a place to park their Bimmers when they get to work. If all 15,500 could park on cheap surface lots, the lots would cost someone (businesses, the city) another $31 million to build. That's bad, but worse is the impact on the city treasury, since parking lots generate a fraction of the tax revenues of a commercial building ($3 a year per square foot vs., conservatively, $50 for office space). Results of turning over nearly 2 million square feet of downtown land to surface parking: The city would lose $91 million a year in revenues.

So how do the two options compare when all the costs are taken into consideration? Assume that the BMWs, freeway and parking lots would last 50 years each (as rail lines do, on average). Assume, too, that you could amortize their capital costs over that period. Then add in the operating costs for the BMWs and maintenance for the freeway and parking lots (and keep in mind that fares provide nearly $10 million of the $13 million it costs to run Minneapolis' rail line each year). Finally figure everything at present-day costs (not including inflation). Ka-ching: Transit costs taxpayers a little more than $17 million a year. And what the Bimmers, highway and parking lots? "Taxpayers would have to dish out $166 million per year," Kozlowski concluded.

Footnote: So who is Janek Kozlowski? He's a military officer and engineer with a masters in business administration, who managed the engineering for all ground-force logistics for the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

Thursday, April 14, 2005

Green Line extension will be 10% cleaner... 

...ifit ever happens, that is...

Wednesday, April 06, 2005

Somerville rides edge of housing boom wave(?) 

As BusinessWeek declares the end of the housing boom, Somerville primes itself for its own little boom. As a homeowner in Somerville, I'm pleased to see the strong emphasis on development that Mayor Curtatone has. I hope that we can buck the trend. Everybody I speak with believes that Boston's real estate bubble is pretty well insulated, and I tend to believe it. Regardless, City Hall's emphasis on development is a good one. However, I'd like to see more than just "rebuild parks." Somerville needs new parks!

Friday, April 01, 2005

Last Chance to Save Belle Isle Aquarium! 

A last-minute effort is underway to keep Detroit's Belle Isle Aquarium going--North America's oldest continuously operating public aquarium. Kwame wants to shut it down, but supporters are putting up a good fight. Will it be enough though?

This is part of a larger effort to save some of Detroit's other historical buildings--but certainly one of more important efforts!

This page is powered by Blogger. Isn't yours?