F o r a thrivin g Ne w Engla n 

CLF Massachusetts 62 Summer Street 

Boston MA 02110 

P: 617.350.0990 

F: 617.350.4030 

www.ctf.org 

September 14, 2012 

Jerome Grafe 

Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection (MassDEP) 

One Winter Street, 6th Floor 

Boston, MA 02108 

RE: Proposed Amendment to Transit System Improvement Regulations 

Dear Mr. Grafe: 

On behalf of the Conservation Law Foundation ("CLF") I write to urge MassDEP not to 

amend its Transit System Improvement Regulations as they relate to the requirement to design 

the Red Line/Blue Line Connector ("Connector"). Completion of environmental review and 

final design of the Connector by December 31, 2011, is a legal requirement of the current 

Massachusetts State Implementation Plan ("SIP"). The Commonwealth should not be relieved 

from the obligation completely without substitution. The potential benefits from this project are 

far too great for it simply to be removed from the SIP. A deadline extension or a substitution 

project or measure would be a permissible approach under the SIP. 

I. Project Benefits 

The Red/Blue Line Connector is a critical transit project that would be of great benefit to 

air quality, public health, mobility, environmental justice, and economic development in the 

region. The Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority's ("MBTA") Red and Blue Lines are 

the only two of Boston's rapid transit lines that do not intersect. As a result, transit riders 

travelling from points along the Blue Line to the Red Line, or from Red to Blue, must transfer 

twice by using either the Green or Orange Line, reducing ridership and unnecessarily increasing 

congestion at downtown Boston stations including Government Center, Park Street, State and 

Downtown Crossing. The need to transfer twice also restricts access to jobs, such as those at the 

academic and medical institutions along the Red Line, particularly for residents of East Boston, 

Revere, Winthrop and Lynn. The Red/Blue Connector is projected to more than double daily 

boardings (22,390 instead of 10,050 boardings by 2030) at Charles/MGH Station alone. See 

Draft Environmental Impact Report for the Red Line/Blue Line Connector Project ("DEER") at 

3-21. 

The absence of a direct connection between the Red and Blue Lines makes travel far 

more difficult than necessary and often discourages the use of public transit. For example, 

coming home from Cambridge, an East Boston resident has to wait on three different platforms 

for three trains. This can take particularly long for people who work at night, as many do, since 

the MBTA Rapid Transit lines' arrival and departure times at Park Street, Government Center, 

Downtown Crossing and State Street are not coordinated and the trains are frequently delayed. 

i,LF MAINE • CLF MASSACHUSETTS • CLF NEW HAMPSHIRE • CLF RHODE ISLAND • CLF VERMONT 

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Even if on schedule, at 10 p.m. on a weekday, a trip from Harvard Square to Maverick Station 

involves seventeen minutes of waiting time alone. By contrast, the route can be driven in only 

sixteen minutes, resulting in a clear disincentive to use public transportation.2 

Many people, however, do not have the choice between driving and taking public 

transportation. The Blue Line, more than any other MBTA rapid transit line, serves almost 

exclusively communities where a large percentage of residents depend on mass transit. At the 

same time, residents of these communities are also in need of greater access to jobs. Likewise, 

many Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) patients need to travel from Revere, where MGH 

has a satellite clinic, to the hospital's main campus in Boston's West End. Taking public 

transportation under the current circumstances is not a simple trek for the infirm. 

Extending the Blue Line to Charles/MGH would significantly improve travel time and 

convenience for those traveling between Red Line and Blue Line locations. Furthermore, it 

would reduce travel time on public transportation to Logan Airport, providing a necessary 

incentive for a large number of travelers to leave their cars behind. For example, from Harvard 

Square to Logan Airport the travel time would be reduced approximately twenty-two percent.3 

The reduction in congestion at the intersections of the Red Line with the Green Line and Orange 

Line would benefit passengers throughout the system. As a result, more people would choose to 

take public transportation which would reduce automobile, traffic—and therefore harmful auto 

emissions—in local neighborhoods. It would also decrease vehicle miles traveled overall. The 

associated reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, in turn, would help the Commonwealth in its 

efforts to meet the important goals of the Global Warming Solutions Act, M.G.L. Chapter 2 IN. 

II. Air Quality Benefits Associated with Design 

Under the Clean Air Act, states are assigned the primary responsibility to achieve and 

maintain compliance with the national ambient air quality standards ("NAAQS"). To this end, 

Massachusetts has adopted a SIP containing the projects and measures relied on to satisfy the 

state's obligations to achieve and maintain the NAAQS. In 2008, the Commonwealth sought and 

received approval for its revised SIP. The Commonwealth included the design of the Connector 

in its revised SIP, recognizing and relying on the associated air quality benefits. Last year, only 

1

 See MBTA Trip Planner at www.mbta.com for Tuesday, September 11, 2012, last accessed on 

September 11,2011. 

2

 See Google Maps at www.google.com/maps, last accessed on September 11, 2012. 

3

 Based on a comparison between a weekday trip starting at 5:00 p.m. from Harvard Square to Terminal A 

of Logan Airport using the Red and Silver Lines (45 minutes) versus connecting from the Red Line to the 

Blue Line at Charles/MGH and using the MassPort Shuttle to get to Terminal A (35 minutes). See 

MBTA Trip Planner for Tuesday, September 11, 2012, last accessed September 11, 2012. Estimated time 

for Red/Blue Connector in place: nine minutes to Charles/MGH; about five minutes for connection to 

Blue Line, twelve minutes to Airport Station, approximately five minutes for the connection to MassPort 

Shuttle, and four minutes on the MassPort shuttle. 

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three years after the revised SB? was approved, MassDOT denied that the same project has any 

merit and sought to remove it from the SIP claiming that it does not help the state meet national 

ambient air quality standards. In its request to MassDEP, MassDOT reasoned that there are no 

air quality benefits associated with the design of a transit project, calling it a "purely procedural 

requirement," which raises the question why the Commonwealth would have included the 

Connector in the revised SIP in the first place. Based on its inclusion in the revised SIP, the 

Commonwealth should be precluded from arguing now that the design of a transit project has no 

calculable air quality benefits. 

Moreover, there are clearly air quality benefits associated with designing a transit project. 

For a transit project to be constructed, it has to be designed first. Frequently funding becomes 

available for a transit project only after it has been designed. Despite MassDOT's grim 

prognosis of the availability of federal funding, increasingly only projects that are shovel-ready 

are eligible to apply when federal funding opportunities arise. Thus designing a transit project, 

more than anything else, raises its chances of ever being built. One new opportunity for potential 

funding, for example, only recently became apparent and, to the best of our knowledge, the 

Commonwealth has not pursued it yet. The Commonwealth should request that the owners and 

developers of the proposed casino at Suffolk Downs contribute significantly to the Connector as 

a condition of proceeding with their project. As a result, air quality benefits can be calculated by 

applying a discounted percentage of those the constructed project would produce. This 

percentage can take the estimated likelihood of construction, at the time of the inclusion in the 

SIP, into consideration. In 2006, the Commonwealth estimated that the Connector would reduce 

emissions of carbon monoxide by 156 kilograms, nitrogen oxides by 4 kilograms, and volatile 

organic compounds by 9 kilograms per day. See DEER, Appendix E, at 3-16 and Central 

Transportation Planning Staff ("CTPS"), "Description of Modeling Assumptions and Analysis 

Methodology for the State Implementation Plan Transit Commitment Projects Current and 

Proposed Substitutions," December 28, 2006, revised March 15,2007 ("2006 SEP Analysis"). 

Even if discounted by ninety percent, the design of the Connector would still provide emission 

reductions of 15.6 kilograms for carbon monoxide, 0.4 kilograms for nitrogen oxides, and 0.9 

kilograms for volatile organic compounds per day. 

The fact that these air quality benefits from the Connector were previously not included 

in the air quality model for the revised SIP does not make the project any less of an obligation. 

The EPA approved the revised SIP expecting that the estimate for the revised SEP is leaving the 

Commonwealth some room for error—the Connector helped to create that necessary buffer. 

Thus, it is not permissible for the Commonwealth to simply remove that project now. 

Ultimately, the SIP has to allow the Commonwealth to attain compliance with the NAAQS, 

currently Eastern Massachusetts continues to be in non-attainment status for ozone and has not 

applied for redesignation after a recent attainment determination. MassDEP should therefore not 

follow MassDOT's flawed logic and should not amend it Transit System Improvement 

Regulations, as proposed. 
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III. Deliberately Htllh^^stimates 

In an attempt to justify its request to simply be relieved from an important SB? 

requirement, although only a few years have passed, MassDOT last year claimed that the cost of 

designing the Connector has gone up significantly. See MassDOT Request to Amend Transit 

System Improvement Regulations dated July 1,2011 ("Request") at 3. MassDOT explained that 

the design costs, which are typically ten percent of the total construction costs, have increased 

because the ultimate construction costs of the project were estimated to "far outstrip" the cost 

projections in place at the time that the SB? regulation was promulgated. Id. MassDOT listed a 

number of factors that may have contributed to an increase in the estimated cost of the 

Connector. See icL at 3-4. Among those, MassDOT admitted to budgeting a much more 

conservative contingency for the most recent cost estimate, but failed to disclose that it also 

included a higher inflation rate. Likewise, MassDOT did not explain that it used less favorable 

assumptions to estimate the cost of the Connector than any other transit project it currently is 

planning. But without markups, the raw-cost estimate for construction of the Red Line/Blue 

Line Connector is about $336 million rather than the $748 million figure MassDOT relied upon 

to support its request. See Red Line/Blue Line Connector Project 10% Design Cost Estimate, 

Basis of Estimate, at 1. At the time of the SJP revision, in July of 2008, the Commonwealth's 

estimate was $290 million for construction of the project, which is not as significant of a 

difference. 

Specifically, the total cost estimated for the Connector included a forty percent 

contingency (up from a twenty percent contingency applied in earlier planning stages of this 

project) and an inflation rate of 4.2% (although construction cost changes are currently under 

two percent as is general inflation, and inflation is not expected to increase significantly any time 

soon). To make matters worse, these add-ons are not applied equally to every project MassDOT 

is planning. As a comparison, for the ongoing South Coast Rail Project, MassDOT is applied a 

lower contingency (31.70% instead of 40%), a lower inflation rate (3.25% instead of 4.20%), and 

a lower design cost estimate (13.44% of present construction cost not including the contingency 

instead of 14% of present construction cost plus the contingency which translates into 19.6% 

without the contingency). See South Coast Rail, Alternative Description Technical Report at 4-

53 (September 2009). Thus, a careful review of MassDOT's numbers reveal that the "dramatic 

increase" in project costs it describes in its letter is also a result of the application of a 

particularly and deliberately conservative budgeting approach for the Red Line/Blue Line 

Connector. 

Conclusion 

Amending the Transit System Improvement Regulations would relieve the 

Commonwealth from an obligation to design a critical transit project that has great potential to 

help Massachusetts comply with the NAAQS without proposing any other project to take its 

place. Any concerns with the lack of immediate funding for this project could be addressed by 

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either substituting the project or amending the regulations to provide for a deadline extension. 

To evaluate any potential substitution, MassDEP should require MassDOT to remodel the air 

quality benefits expected from the projects in the revised SIP and then compare them to those of 

the remaining transit system improvement projects without the Connector. For the reasons stated 

above, we respectfully request that MassDEP not amend the Transit System Improvement 

Regulations, as currently proposed. 

If you have any questions, I can be reached by phone at (617) 850-1739 or by email at 

rmares@clf.org. - ,^..„, ... 

Sincerely, 

Rafael Mares 

Staff Attorney 

cc (by email) 

US EPA - Region 1 

Donald Cooke 

Air Technical Unit 

Joe Cosgrove 

Director of Planning/Development 

Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority 

Katherine S. Fichter 

Massachusetts Department of 

Transportation 

Office of Transportation Planning 

Scott Hamwey 

Massachusetts Department of Transportation 

Office of Transportation Planning 

Christine Kirby 

MassDEP