The following is from Denise Provost’s email newsletter…
On Monday, July 24, I organized a meeting for the Somerville Legislative Delegation with representatives from MassHighway, MBTA, the Executive Office of Transportation (EOT), and from the City of Somerville to discuss the Green Line extension. Specifically, we met to clarify the timeline for progress on the Green Line extension, from engineering and public process, to identifying a funding source for the project.
We learned that EOT has a consultant doing some of the environmental evaluations, and expects to hold a public hearing this September (date TBA) on the Environmental Notification Form (ENF) for the project. The redrafted Ozone State Implementation Plan (âOzone SIPâ) regulations have gone to the state’s Office of Administration and Finance (A&F), and are expected to be released within the next month or two. It is expected that the project will be in the Regional Transportation Plan (RTP) in July, 2007, but that an alignment and station locations will not be identified until the end of 2007 or in 2008.
The Green Line meeting also yielded information about the status of MassHighway’s bridge projects in Somerville. The Sycamore Street bridge, long in stop-and-start reconstruction, is expected to re-open in late October. The Webster Avenue and Cross Street bridges are âunder design now.â
It has been determined that the Cedar Street and Cross Street bridges do have enough âhorizontal clearanceâ for the Green Line extension. Other bridges do not, including Lowell Street. Plans for remediation will evolve as the project does.