Green Line extension debacle a sign of systemic budget issues

Massachusetts Secretary of Transportation Stephanie Pollack took some time out of her busy schedule last month to explain the disappointing news that, once again, the fate of the Green Line extension is up in the air. News broke in August that the long-planned and delayed Green Line extension north to College Avenue and Union Square from Lechmere may return to the chopping block because of new cost overruns on the project. On the tails of a budget passage that failed to adequately address a Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA) repair backlog of $7 billion, according to state transportation officials quoted in an Aug. 31. Associated Press article, the news that the project is now also in jeopardy due to cost is both all too predictable and increasingly disconcerting as another harsh Boston winter looms ahead.

Massachusetts voters and Beacon Hill pundits alike may have hoped that last winter’s catastrophic effect on the MBTA would have inspired lawmakers to take action, cutting through politics-as-usual gridlock to finally exorcise the ghosts — and debts — of the Big Dig. This summer’s budget debate instead found the governor’s office continuing the bad habits that state Republicans had taken issue with during Democratic administrations -- namely, the further draining of the state’s rainy day fund meant to finance critical programs during future economic crises. With recent tax increases passed in 2013 meant for transportation priorities repealed and the MBTA projecting even worse deficits to add onto its debts, the Green Line’s projected overruns seem almost tame.

Tufts, and most of Somerville and Medford, have been tied to the project for years. At this point, when construction has begun on campus and residents have begun to plan their lives around the new T stops, the idea that it may either be further delayed or canceled altogether not only undermines local planning but also may get Massachusetts in trouble with the Federal Clean Air Act, according to an Aug. 24 Boston Magazine article. 

While the question of the effect of the Green Line on gentrification is still unanswered, the broader questions of why costs suddenly are so much higher, and what that means for the MBTA as a whole, are growing louder. The MBTA has long been torn between the priorities of extending public transit to poorer communities while also paying down debts. The fact that the Green Line extension is still unresolved after decades of debate, backtracking and federal fundraising is a testament to a public policy problem in Massachusetts that will likely get worse before it gets better.