Residents rally for Fairmount reconstruction

Serghino René

It was a rainy day when staff attorney for the Conservation Law Forum Carrie Russell decided to rely on public transportation to take her to a meeting in Dorchester’s Grove Hall neighborhood. She took the orange line to the Ruggles T stop and waited 30 minutes for the 45 bus to arrive. When she got on, the bus quickly filled to capacity and passed by a number of stops, leaving those who have already been waiting for a half hour to wait even longer.

“This is the kind of thing that people who live in those neighborhoods have to put up with everyday,” said Russell. “The Fairmount Line is walking distance from Grove Hall.”

People like Russell, community advocates, residents, leaders and local government officials gathered recently at Erie and Washington Streets in Dorchester to rally and bring attention to the so called neglected Fairmount Line. Due to lack of stations, the Fairmount Line has the lowest ridership among all the MBTA commuter rail lines. Though it passes through some of the city’s low-income neighborhoods, there are no stops to accommodate them.

“This community needs quality rail services that can connect us to the same resources that other Boston communities have,” says Marvin Martin, executive director of the Greater Four Corners Action Coalition.

Right now, the commuter rail train connects Hyde Park to South Station and runs through the Mattapan and Dorchester areas where the residents highly depend on buses.

The people were advocating for more stations and improvement in the quality to increase ridership. Providing hybrid trains would decrease pollution and frequent service would provide better traveling options for local and distant residents. Also, residents want affordable fares because they don’t feel they should have to pay more than other city residents.

Some of the 10 neighborhood organizations involved in the coalition advocating for the Fairmount Line include the Greater Four Corners Action Coalition, Dudley Street Neighborhood Initiative, Project R.I.G.H.T. and Greater Bowdoin Geneva Neighborhood Association. These organizations have a vision that involves a newly upgraded transit line to serve Hyde Park, Roxbury, Dorchester and Mattapan. They want a fast, inexpensive transit line that will provide equivalent services to other rapid transit lines.

According to MBTA spokesperson John Carlisle, funding to start the project is not the issue. It’s just that transportation projects take time to reach fruition.

“We are securing funds to start the design,” said Carlisle. “We plan to have [Four Corners] complete by December 31, 2007.”

The New Market, Talbot Ave and Blue Hill Ave stations are expected to be complete by 2011, says Carlisle.

Federico Aviles Rivera, an organizer with the Dorchester Bay Economic Development Corporation, described one vision for a complete transformation of the Fairmount Line to a rapid transit line, like the orange and red lines.

“A transformation of the commuter rail line into a rapid transit quality service, to be called the ‘Indigo Line,’ with fares, service frequency and day, evening and weekend schedules equivalent to Boston’s subway lines” would be more efficient for the community, he said.

Carlisle says it doesn’t look like that transformation is going to happen. For the foreseeable future, the Fairmount Line will remain a commuter line.