Unless
there are problems, most people take transportation for granted. When
it works we do not think about the importance of being able to move
from place to place for our personal and work lives as well as our
economy. Today, news about transportation in Somerville reflects both
the best of times and the worst of times. It is the best of times
because after over 20 years of increasing traffic on local streets and
highways, and no improvements in transit services Somerville is on the
brink of securing greatly improved public transportation with the
extension of the Green Line that will connect East and West Somerville
and a new Orange Line station at Assembly Square.

In 2013
Somervillians will be able to get out of their cars and hop on the
Green Line to get to places within the city and in the metro area.
Among the changes that will come about will be high school students
taking the Green Line to school; reducing the traffic jams around the
high school and make transferring from buses to the Green Line at
Lechmere a thing of the past. When completed, these projects will mean
that 85% of Somerville residents will be within ¬Ω mile of the Red,
Green or Orange Line.

A series of neighborhood station area
meetings are getting underway for people living near the proposed Green
Line station. The meetings are being held to enable Somerville
residents to talk about their vision of how the Green Line can and will
change their use of public transportation, green space and open space
and the station design and amenities. There will be opportunities to
talk about making sure that the Green Line is accessible for people of
all ages and levels of mobility. The meetings are being sponsored by
the Community Corridor Planning Project, a collaborative effort by
Groundwork Somerville, the Somerville Transportation Equity Partnership
(STEP), the Somerville Community Corporation (SCC) and the Somerville
Health Agenda (SHA). [ See table below or http://www.somervillecdc.org/GetInvolved/takeaction.html or www.somervillestep.org for the schedule and meeting locations].

For
most of the proposed Green Line stations the character of the
neighborhoods will not change. However, for Inner Belt, Brickbottom and
Boynton Yards, the Union Square and Lowell Line Green Line extensions
will provide the city with opportunities for economic development that
could improve the local economy, bring jobs to the city, increase the
city's commercial tax revenue and reduce the city's dependence on
property taxes and local aid from the state.

It takes many years
and the involvement of community residents working with the city to
plan and construct transit improvements as the people who lived through
the construction of the Davis Square T station can attest. Their
involvement throughout the process was critical in making the project a
success. The Davis Square experience of greater than expected use of
the Community Path for West Somerville and Cambridge residents to get
to the T has made the extension of the community path a high priority
in planning the Green Line extensions.

The Somerville Bicycle
Committee, the Friends of the Community Path, STEP and the City have
collaborated to secure the commitment from the Executive Office of
Transportation to include the engineering design of the extension of
the Community Path from Lowell Street all the way into Boston alongside
the Green Line because we know in Somerville that the large numbers of
people will use the community path to access Green Line stations. While
all this is in the planning phase, work is underway to extend the path
from Cedar Street to Lowell St.

All of these upcoming
improvements are important and exciting developments for the city but
reflecting the worst of times they are dependent on the Commonwealth of
Massachusetts coming up with a reliable revenue stream to fund
infrastructure maintenance and finance the transit improvements
promised to the city. Our own legislative delegation has been fighting
to ensure that the state addresses these revenue needs for transit
improvements and infrastructure maintenance, but their efforts have not
been supported by fellow legislators. Everyone complains about the
lousy roads, potholes, and slow MBTA service but paying to make
improvements is very unpopular. If this situation is not resolved by
the end of September the state stands to lose its federal share (80%)
of funding for transportation improvements unless it finds the funding
to pay for the 20% state share for project costs.

Despite the
lack of willingness to pay for it there is strong demand for Investing
in maintaining and improving transportation infrastructure in
Massachusetts, as well as across the country. New light rail systems
are opening in Dallas, Denver, Phoenix, Seattle, Los Angeles, and
Charlotte – all late in embracing investment in public transportation.
These communities are moving ahead strategically, investing in
transportation that will serve their residents for the next 100 years
by building light rail systems to support a strategy of transit
oriented development.

We in metro Boston region have been
fortunate to have an extensive network of public transportation that
has served the region well for many years. Yet, with the exception of
expanding commuter rail to suburban and ex-urban communities, there
have been very limited improvements made to the MBTA system since the
opening of the Red Line station in Davis Square in the 1980's.

Somerville
stands to benefit substantially when the state finally meets its 1991
legal obligation under the federal Clean Air Act to extend the Green
Line through the city and build Orange Line station at Assembly Square.
This is a decisive time for our city and involvement in planning for
these improvements and supporting transportation financing critically
needed.