Keller @ Large: Green Line Extension Mess No Surprise
BOSTON (CBS) - Here's your early leader for the quote of the day: "The price tag for the MBTA's planned Green Line extension into Somerville and Medford could come in at up to $1 billion more than first estimated."
Is that with or without the Olympic velodrome?
I want to call this news unbelievable, but it's actually completely believable.
Going back a quarter century to the start of the project – the Big Dig - that led to the court order requiring the Green Line extension, we have seen an unending litany of poor planning, ill-advised policy, burdensome lawsuits, and – always – completely inept budgeting.
The egomaniacs who conceived of the Big Dig's bloated scale and concept faced stiff resistance from impacted neighbors and environmentalists who rightly questioned the prioritization of cars and trucks over public transit. So they bought them off by agreeing to public transit projects that – lo and behold – turn out to be completely unaffordable.
State Transportation Secretary Stephanie Pollack – who ironically enough, was once one of those environmentalists – says T engineers drew up cost estimates based on rock-bottom construction prices of past projects built during the recession.
That wasn't too bright.
And however desirable an expanded Green Line might be, it isn't too smart to go broke building it before we know for sure we have enough money to run the existing system properly.
So everyone involved – the T, the environmentalists, the courts, the pols – needs to take a step back before we dive deeper into debt.
That would be the smart move.
And surely a culture smart enough to pass on building the velodrome is smart enough to make that move.
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