TRANSPORTATION SECRETARY STEPHANIE POLLACK said on Monday that she saw no inconsistency in pushing ahead with a $2 billion plan to expand South Station even as the state is spending $2 million to study the feasibility of building an underground rail link between North and South Stations.
Backers of the so-called North-South Rail Link, including US Rep. Seth Moulton and former governor Michael Dukakis, say it would make no sense to both expand South Station to accommodate more commuter rail and Amtrak trains and build the North-South Rail Link. With the rail link built, they say, trains could be stored overnight at numerous track locations and wouldn’t have to occupy very expensive real estate at South Station.
Moulton could not be reached for comment on Monday, but a slide deck on his website says “South Station expansion threatens development and is costly and unnecessary.” The slide deck says the cost of the South Station expansion would be $2 billion, compared to $3 billion to $5 billion for the North-South Rail Link. The document indicates the South Station expansion would prevent $10 billion in downtown Boston development.
Pollack, who gave an update to the Department of Transportation board on the progress of the South Station expansion, said she saw no inconsistency between pursuing both projects at the same time.
“I’m not sure that we agree with the North-South Rail Link Working Group that it is an either-or,” she said. “There are costs and benefits to the South Station expansion and there are costs and benefits to doing the North-South Rail Link. We agreed that we would look at them both in the same time frame, which is why we’re getting the feasibility study [for North-South rail] off the ground. It’s not impossible that we would decide to expand South Station and then decide later on to do the rail link. We are just proceeding with both of them at this point.”
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About Bruce Mohl
Bruce Mohl is the editor of CommonWealth magazine. Bruce came to CommonWealth from the Boston Globe, where he spent nearly 30 years in a wide variety of positions covering business and politics. He covered the Massachusetts State House and served as the Globe’s State House bureau chief in the late 1980s. He also reported for the Globe’s Spotlight Team, winning a Loeb award in 1992 for coverage of conflicts of interest in the state’s pension system. He served as the Globe’s political editor in 1994 and went on to cover consumer issues for the newspaper. At CommonWealth, Bruce helped launch the magazine’s website and has written about a wide range of issues with a special focus on politics, tax policy, energy, and gambling. Bruce is a graduate of Ohio Wesleyan University and the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. He lives in Dorchester.
About Bruce Mohl
Bruce Mohl is the editor of CommonWealth magazine. Bruce came to CommonWealth from the Boston Globe, where he spent nearly 30 years in a wide variety of positions covering business and politics. He covered the Massachusetts State House and served as the Globe’s State House bureau chief in the late 1980s. He also reported for the Globe’s Spotlight Team, winning a Loeb award in 1992 for coverage of conflicts of interest in the state’s pension system. He served as the Globe’s political editor in 1994 and went on to cover consumer issues for the newspaper. At CommonWealth, Bruce helped launch the magazine’s website and has written about a wide range of issues with a special focus on politics, tax policy, energy, and gambling. Bruce is a graduate of Ohio Wesleyan University and the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. He lives in Dorchester.
The transportation secretary said a study of the South Station expansion identified the need for seven additional tracks there. She said a similar study for the North-South Rail Link hasn’t been completed yet, so it’s difficult to know whether the link would eliminate the need for more track capacity at South Station.
“I think it is an open question whether it would actually make sense that every single train would go through the North-South Rail Link or whether they would stop at South Station,” she said.
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