T puts brakes on Silver Line tunnel scheme

Jeremy Schwab

The MBTA’s ambitious plan to link the two branches of the Silver Line bus route via a tunnel from Boylston Street Station to South Station hit a snag in June when members of community groups testified overwhelmingly against the plan.

Bowing to the pressure from community groups in Roxbury, Chinatown and the Back Bay, MBTA officials announced last week that they will temporarily remove the project from competition for federal grants.

Daniel Grabauskas, general manager of the MBTA, indicated he aims to work with community groups to build support for the plan.

“We will be at a distinct disadvantage if we try to advance this project now,” he said in a press release. “If we are going to be competitive with other transit projects around the country, we need to build consensus locally, strengthen support, strengthen our financial situation and respond to environmental concerns.”

The Silver Line now shuttles riders from Dudley Square to Temple Place near Downtown Crossing. Another branch, opened earlier this year, brings passengers from South Station via a tunnel to the South Boston Waterfront and Logan Airport.

The proposed $780 million tunnel linking the two lines would run underneath Essex Street in Chinatown. The controversy that threatens to derail the project stems from neighbors’ vehement opposition to both of the proposed tunnel entrances.

Chinatown residents testified at MBTA hearings in June against a portal built near the New England Medical Center on Washington Street.

“It’s across the corner from the Quincy Elementary and Upper School,” Chinese Progressive Association Director Lydia Lowe. “It seems to me like the worst possible place you can do that. Chinatown residents don’t have a lack of transportation. I don’t think this plan is mainly for Chinatown’s benefit.”

Administrators at the medical center also oppose the plan, saying the buses’ vibrations could impact the MRIs done nearby amongst other potential disadvantages to the hospital.

Meanwhile, Back Bay residents testified against a proposed tunnel entrance on Columbus Avenue near Berkeley Street.

A coalition of 22 groups, headed by the Washington Street Corridor Coalition and Sierra Club and including both Back Bay and Chinatown neighborhood groups, issued a joint statement in recent weeks demanding that the MBTA halt the project.

The groups also called on MBTA officials to hold public hearings in every neighborhood affected by the plan and work with community groups on alternatives to the plan.

Bob Terrell, executive director of the Washington Street Corridor Coalition, said the groups want the MBTA to build either a trolley or subway along the Washington Street portion of the route instead of a bus line.

“This project is extremely expensive and doesn’t give us the service we’ve been asking for,” said Terrell. “It is far more expensive than any of the light rail options we are looking at.”

Officials at the MBTA have shown no willingness to consider building a trolley line instead of a bus line. They note that the proposed bus tunnel would be wide enough to accommodate a transition to trolley service at a later time.

Terrell says the MBTA could run the Silver Line through an abandoned rail tunnel that begins near Eliot Norton Park in the South End and runs under Tremont Street to Boylston Street Station on the Green Line.

Officials at the MBTA have cast doubt on whether the tunnel is usable. But Terrell insists that it is.

Roxbury activists have pushed for years for a trolley down Washington Street. Proponents of a trolley cite a promise made by MBTA officials when the old elevated Orange Line was dismantled that the MBTA would bring back service along the corridor that would be equal to or better than that of the old Orange Line.

While the Silver Line has a high volume of riders, some activists maintain that its stretch buses and compressed natural gas fuel system do not equal the service of a trolley or subway line.

Congressman Michael Capuano, one of the project’s lead advocates, said he agrees that a trolley would be best along Washington Street. But he said a trolley would be too expensive at the moment because it would require widening Washington Street.

“There are some people who say it is worth waiting for light rail,” he said. “It’s not happening right now. Let’s get what we can get now.”

Capuano said he is working with abutters and community groups to build support for the project.

A spokeswoman for the MBTA said her agency is still hoping to convince community members to support the project.

“We want the community to embrace the project and be happy with it,” said the spokeswoman, Lydia Rivera. “The general manager is aggressively [trying] to strengthen consensus and support for the project. We need to identify a [tunnel entry] location.”