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.”
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.
Transportation Secretary Stephanie Pollack doesn’t seem capable of connecting obvious dots. Dysfunction starts at the top.
The state has spent over $40M on the SSX study yet only $2M on NSRL. They have watered down the process to the point where an amendment had to be floated in the State House just to make sure the NSRL study was more comprehensive. The only thing they are trying to prove is that they are blindly following Baker and his plans for South Station without bothering to give the link a fair deal. I wonder how the residents and business owners in & around Widett Circle feel about the extra layer of smog from expanding the rail yard (instead of new development).
‘Cause NSRL isn’t worth the costs. For similar costs to NSRL and hybrid diesel/electric trains, you could (1) extend the Blue Line to Lynn, (2) run DMUs @ 5-10 minute headways on the Fairmount Line, and (3) extend either the Green Line from the GLX Union Sq. Branch or the Red Line from Harvard Sq. to under the Charles to Barry’s Corner. That would make so many more transit dependent communities — Lynn, Salem, Dorchester, Mattapan, Hyde Park, Lower Allston, Watertown, Waltham among them — better off than they would be under NSRL.
Widett Circle certainly is worth something but not that much. And Widett would still have to deal with the highway noise in addition to the trains.
Your plan still does not allow for a direct, single train connection between north & south of the city. You think extending the Red Line UNDER the Charles and into Lower Alston is somehow similar in cost than the proposed NSRL? How does that help anyone up on the North Shore? How does bringing the Blue Line to Lynn help someone down in Braintree?
And Widett Circle is certainly worth “that” much.
Build over it, build around it, but not ON it!!!
We need to preserve this land for future transportation needs — maybe rail, maybe technologies we can’t even imagine. Permitting it to be developed is a short-sighted mistake.