It is 1:05 a.m. on a depressingly typical, frigid Boston February night. The affects from the $12 shots you have illegally been consuming at the bar across the street from Faneuil Hall for the past three hours are starting to lose their effects. You push out the heavy door at the front of the bar and are ambushed by a chilling winter breeze. You are now faced with the most pressing dilemma of the evening which is possibly more precarious than trying to figure out hot to ask that cute Boston College girl for her number: How the heck do I get back to Tufts? There are two basic options: stomaching the $35 cab ride or rushing to catch the T in its final ten minutes of operation. You know you need to get on the Green Line, but oh crap which way? And even once you've figured out that question, you are faced with the same dilemma after you successfully get off at Park Street: inbound or outbound? Will we be able to keep warm in the Citizen's Bank kiosk while we wait for the Joey or will some putrid homeless man have beaten us to it?
Luckily for us Tufts students, the MBTA has announced plans to extend the Green Line into Somerville, with a stop at Tufts right off of Boston Avenue. What could be better? No more having to worry about changing lines, no double worrying about which direction to catch it on and even better, no more need to have to wait for the terminally slow Joey in Davis Square. Extending the Green Line through Somerville and into Tufts would make all of our lives so much easier, but at what costs?
All we as a community have been thinking about is how this will benefit us (I am guilty of the same thing myself) but what does it say about us as a student body if we never for a moment stop to think how this might affect Medford and Somerville at large. While there are the obvious benefits (raised property values, improved and more reliable transit and improved air quality), it is important to raise some of the possible cons. These include an increase in the standing $160 million dollar MBTA deficit; a probable rise in T fares (by as much as 25-30%); gentrification brought by the extension of the T that could price out long term Medford/Somerville residents; and the concern that the government might seize land to build the project, as well as increased noise, vibrations and visibility impacts.
While some of these affects might seem obnoxious to students like us (although I'm sure none of us really want to pay more to ride the T), they don't significantly impair our daily lives. We don't need the T to go to work and provide for our families and we aren't going to get priced out of Tufts dormitories as a result of the project either. There is concern in the overall community that the extension would mainly serve to benefit Tufts. The plan has already been decided upon and funds have already been allocated by the legislature, but that doesn't mean that it isn't our duty as active citizens to continue to think about the surrounding issues.
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