Senator Brownsberger submitted the following letter of comment regarding the Allston Multimodal Project NEPA Scoping Document:
December 11, 2019
Jeffrey McEwen
Division Administrator
Federal Highway Administration
55 Broadway, 10th Floor
Cambridge, MA 02142
Michael O’Dowd
Acting Director of Bridge Project Management
Massachusetts Department of Transportation
10 Park Plaza, Suite 6340
Boston, MA 02116
Dear Mr. McEwen and Mr. O’Dowd,
I am aware that you are receiving many comments from other legislators, and I join in most of those comments. I write to place special emphasis on the following two issues:
Improvements should be made to public transit, prior to the start of construction to mitigate construction impacts. Efforts should be made to improve Worcester line reliability and to increase frequency. Additionally, we should adopt measures to add transit capacity on other modes; by expanding park and ride options and by adding additional new bus service. At a minimum, existing service cannot be degraded at any point during the project. Worcester Line service should not be reduced to a single track operation to facilitate construction staging.
To improve transit options for the neighborhood and commuters from the west, West Station should be constructed early. The design of West Station should accommodate high frequency service on the Grand Junction Line to Kendall Square or North Station, and high frequency service to South Station on the Worcester Line. The configuration of West Station tracks should be kept as simple as possible, so trains serving West Station do not block or otherwise foul tracks serving other trains.
I look forward to working with you and my colleagues to address these concerns and the many other important concerns that are being raised about this project.
Sincerely,
William N. Brownsberger
STATE SENATOR
You can see a scanned copy of the letter here.