Service delays

Urban users of public transit have been taken for a ride

When the Central Artery/Tunnel Project was approved a decade ago, it was on the condition that public transportation in the city be improved. That way more people would be enticed into leaving their cars at home -- thus keeping the new Central Artery free from gridlock. Having more people take the T would also mean less automotive pollution in the city.

It hasn't happened. State leaders have abandoned urban riders in favor of suburban commuters. To date, few of the improvements for the city agreed to by the state's transportation agencies have been completed. Most of the park-and-ride lots and commuter-rail improvements slated for the suburbs, however, have been completed or are well under way.

Last week, Mindy S. Lubber, the acting regional administrator for the US Environmental Protection Agency, sent a letter to federal and state transportation officials demanding that they follow through on the 10-year-old mandate to improve public transportation in the city of Boston.

Lubber notes that the T "has expanded the commuter-rail network substantially," and that expectations about increasing the numbers of suburban commuters have been "exceeded." But, she goes on, "It is especially unfortunate that many of these transit-project delays involve the projects that serve the Boston urban core, which disproportionately impacts disadvantaged communities."

Indeed. Just last Friday, an eclectic coalition of environmental and civil-rights activists filed a complaint with the US Department of Transportation charging that the MBTA is out of compliance with the Civil Rights Act of 1964. And the coalition publicly accused the T of engaging in "transit racism" against communities of color in Boston. It's impossible to calculate the damage done by the MBTA's delays in replacing the Orange Line along Washington Street (see "Last Stand on Washington Street," News and Features, March 3). Roxbury residents have long complained about the pollution brought to their neighborhood by diesel buses. They note that the Orange Line used to get riders from Roxbury to downtown Boston in eight minutes, but that today they have only the slow and overcrowded 49 bus. And then there's the damage that isn't as readily apparent: Roxbury's inaccessibility keeps nonresidents and potential new residents away. This adds up to a less vibrant neighborhood and a loss of business for local storeowners.

The list goes on: the debut date of a modernized Blue Line has been pushed back from 1998 to 2008, shortchanging Revere and East Boston commuters and Logan-bound passengers. Public transportation was to have been restored to the Arborway by 1997. But it's unclear when -- if at all -- Jamaica Plain will see the return of the Green Line along Centre Street. And 400 new buses were supposed to have been added to the MBTA's fleet by the end of 1992.

It's shocking that none of these projects have been completed -- and that public officials have silently stood by as the state's transportation agencies have ignored their responsibilities to urban commuters. To use a phrase that's been bandied about quite a bit in reference to Boston's development boom, "world-class cities" don't succeed with second-class public transportation -- which is what we have now. The Big Dig offered the vision of a community that would be knit back together after being ripped in half by a freeway. We're going to get our underground highway, but to see our city truly woven together we'll need massive improvements from the MBTA in the form of the service upgrades that were promised 10 years ago.

What do you think? Send an e-mail to letters[a]phx.com.