The Massachusetts Department of Transportation will present and seek public input on alternatives for the siting, design, and construction of a vehicle storage and maintenance facility to support the proposed Green Line Extension. Members of the public, agency representatives, and other project stakeholders are invited to attend the meeting, which will include a presentation, and to provide comments and ask questions.

The Somerville News has two articles on the Green Line Extension today: one on last week’s DEIR public hearing and an editorial on the maintenance facility.

Green Line report criticized at Somerville hearing

Elected officials and residents weighed in on a Green Line extension environmental report last Wednesday, with dozens putting in more than three hours of testimony cautioning state officials to analyze the project more thoroughly.
…
The majority of those commenting spoke against the proposal to put a Green Line maintenance facility on a site in Brickbottom known as Yard 8, adjacent to a converted industrial space that now serves as an artist community.

The View From Prospect Hill for November 25

So the state wants to put the MBTA maintenance facility in Somerville and ruin any chance this city has to realize the full economic potential of the last piece of developable, open land we have. Not a popular concept around here, that’s for sure.

What is it about Cambridge that they get to just say, “Hey we don’t want that facility here” and the state turns to Somerville and says, “Well, this is where we are putting it.” Really now? Someone should explain to the backward-thinking folk behind the idea that this Somerville and it’s 2009 – not the West End, circa 1958.

Maybe they think there’s only a couple of nutty artists at Brickbottom that are going to raise a little stink and they will just do what they want. You don’t have to live at that specific area of Somerville to really hate the idea of a train maintenance facility located in our city. There are people living in West Somerville that are almost as crazed about it as the artists.

Welcome to Brickbottom Open Studios

Refreshments from the Biscuit www.visitthebiscuit.com

The lobby

David Tonnessen

George Gabin and Martha Stone

Gina Kamentsky and her mechanical creations

Sam Smiley

Celia Gilbert (and daughter Kate)

Wally Gilbert's studio

The wonderful found world of Rosamond Purcell

Pauline Lim

View of Yard 8

Many more!

We’ll also have a table set up in the lobby to discuss the Green Line Extension and a petition people can sign opposing Yard 8. Hope to see you there!

For more info, visit the Brickbottom Artists Association website at http://brickbottom.com/.

Brickbottom residents came out in droves to ask why Yard 8 is still being considered for the maintenance facility when the city and its residents have already explained that it would be a most unfit site, given its proximity to the artists’ building and its 24-hour operation schedule.

“We will be in misery from the moment the bulldozers come,” said George Gabin, 78. Brickbottom Association president for the past 23 years, Gabin threatened to be the first to lie down in front of the bulldozers if the state does not find a better alternative.


From the Somerville Journal

Via Universal Hub

Most people in Somerville look forward to raising a glass of champagne to the Green Line extension. But as of June, the state Executive Office of Transportation was poised to drop some bitter into the sweet: Planning to put a big, honking MBTA maintenance facility in southeast Somerville.
The city’s mayor, aldermen, business groups, and transit advocates protested. Loudly. Where the state saw a garage, they envisioned a gleaming office park. They were in a stare-down.
The state blinked first. On Oct. 15, the EOT filed a draft environmental impact report that offered not one but two alternatives to the original plan, potentially freeing the 160-acre Brickbottom/Inner Belt to become another Kendall Square.

More at Boston.com

Answer: In the Inner Belt, on the northwest side of the Boston Engine Terminal

STEP‘s already made a version of this that’s a lot easier to read:

What do you think of the Option L site?

The full DEIR is posted as well over a hundred different PDF files in multiple volumes, if you find it easier to just grab a couple of (large!) files, try these:

• Volume 1
• Volume 2
• Appendices

From the official press release:

A public hearing will be held Wednesday, Nov. 18, at 6 p.m. in the Somerville High School auditorium at 81 Highland Ave.

Written comments must be submitted in writing to be formally considered by the Secretary of Environmental Affairs within the 45-day review period. Letters should be sent to: Secretary Ian Bowles; Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs; MEPA Office, Attention Holly Johnson, MEPA Analyst; EEA Number 13886; 100 Cambridge St., Suite 900; Boston, MA 02114; fax, 617-626-1181; email, Holly.S.Johnson@state.ma.us.

Copies of these comments can also be sent to Kate Fichter, MassDOT Office of Transportation Planning, 10 Park Plaza, Room 4150, Boston, MA 02116. A 45-day comment period has been established. Comments must be received by Dec. 9.

Show page:  http://www.radioboston.org/shows/2009/07/13/parkway-predicament/
Podcast:  http://feeds.wbur.org/WBURRadioBoston