Fairmount Line station planning stirring a fuss
A senator walks out
By Gintautas Dumcius
News Editor
April 8, 2010
Transportation officials faced angry neighborhood residents
last week in a pair of contentious meetings about the
Fairmount commuter rail line, including one session that ended
with a state lawmaker abruptly leaving the room.
“I’m losing faith in the Department of Transportation,” state
Sen. Jack Hart (D-South Boston) told the Reporter after the
meeting.
Some Mattapan residents have been pressing for the re-
location of a commuter rail station proposed for a site near
Woodhaven St. They argue the station, which would be
located between Blue Hill Avenue and Cummins Highway,
would affect the property values of their homes as well as
other “quality of life” issues.
The meeting prompted the general manager of the MBTA to
send out a letter this week to residents of Woodhaven and
Regis Streets asking to meet with them again. General manager
Richard Davey said he would be willing to hold the meeting in
one of their homes.
“I want to be clear that it was not the intent of the MBTA to
have residents feel they have been ignored and concerns not
addressed,” Davey wrote in the Wednesday letter. “I would
like to discuss ways that we may work together now and in
the future to address your concerns.”
The Blue Hill Avenue station, which would be part of the
Fairmount line, is one of four new stops being added to the line
that runs between Readville and South Station. By court
mandate, all the new stations, located in Dorchester and
Mattapan, must be functional by December 2011.
At a separate meeting, neighborhood residents pressed
transportation officials to ensure that the contractor working
on the Four Corners commuter rail station, located at
Washington Street and Geneva Avenue, is hiring women and
minorities from within the community.
Hart said Gov. Deval Patrick’s transportation chief, Jeff
Mullan, had promised that no final decision would be made on
the siting of the Blue Hill Avenue stop until Mullan had a
chance to personally speak with neighborhood residents.
Mullan was unable to attend last week’s meeting, held Tuesday
night at the Mattapan Public Library, because he was focused
on a fierce rainstorm’s effects on the state’s roads and
bridges, aides and lawmakers said.
But during last week’s meeting, other transportation officials
said that a letter had recently been sent out to a neighborhood
group focused on the Fairmount line which could be
interpreted as saying that a final decision had been made. The
admission prompted Hart to walk out. “I said there’s no need
for me to be sitting there,” Hart told the Reporter. “Because I
no longer have faith in this process.”
Davey, who attended the meeting, said there had been a “little
bit of a miscommunication.” “We have not made a final
decision,” he said. “We’re trying to balance everybody’s
interests.”
He added that there were also individuals in attendance at the
meeting who support the proposed site for the station.
As for the letter that led to Hart’s walkout, Davey said, “One
could read it to say a decision has been made,” despite that not
being the case.
Davey added that the MBTA is able to conduct a pre-
construction inspection, if permitted, of the homes abutting the
site of the proposed station. “The inspection will allow us to
impose upon the construction contractor the financial
responsibility for any issues that may occur because of the
proposed station construction,” he said in his letter to abutters.
The Department of Transportation and MBTA are overseeing
the construction of the Fairmount line and the 800-foot
platform at the Blue Hill Avenue station, which could spur
economic development in Mattapan Square. A DOT
spokesman told the Reporter in February that the MBTA had
analyzed the possibility of other stops and found that other
alternatives were not feasible.
“It’s a beautiful residential area that will be impacted,” Hart
said of the Woodhaven St. area. “We need to find some
alternative.” He added: “I understand the larger picture of
having a number of stops on the Fairmount Line in order to
access the train. But the fact remains that the T still hasn’t
resolved it to the satisfaction of the neighborhood residents.”
Fireworks were not limited to the Blue Hill Avenue station. At
the meeting at the Codman Square Tech Center on the Four
Corners station, neighborhood residents, in urging the
contractor to hire more women and minorities, berated
company head Stephen Early, who was in the room.
“People of color are in the majority in this community,” said
City Councillor Charles Yancey as Early and other workers
from S&R Construction Company looked on. “We cannot let
the contractor off the hook. The process in place right now is
not good enough.”
Early pledged to hire more women and minorities, taking
business cards from local business owners in the crowd and
shaking Yancey’s hand at the end of the meeting. “We want to
do the right thing,” he said. “We want to hire people from the
neighborhood.”
He noted that he has already hired several people of color, and
added that the construction work, expected to take two and a
half years, will not need many jobs. “It’s not like there’s a
hundred or fifty jobs [available],” he said.
The MBTA’s Office of Diversity and Civil Rights is charged
with monitoring whether workers on a project are 30 percent
minority and 7 percent female. Wanda Hubbard, ODCR’s
government compliance officer, said if the company doesn’t
meet those goals, the MBTA can stop payment for the project,
terminate the contract, or bar them from working on another
MBTA contract. She said S&R has agreed to use local
businesses for materials and supplies, such as Dorchester Tire.
Construction on the Four Corners station begins this month.
The project plan calls for an 800-foot long platform that will
include a steel canopy, benches, a train approach warning
system, and lighting.
“I think we made progress,” said Pamela Bush, a lead
organizer with the Greater Four Corners Action Coalition,
which has been pressing for the station to get built. “I believe
the T understands that Four Corners is a force to be reckoned
with, that it’s time for a change and it has to happen right
now.”
More articles are available at the Reporter's website.
A senator walks out
By Gintautas Dumcius
News Editor
April 8, 2010
Transportation officials faced angry neighborhood residents
last week in a pair of contentious meetings about the
Fairmount commuter rail line, including one session that ended
with a state lawmaker abruptly leaving the room.
“I’m losing faith in the Department of Transportation,” state
Sen. Jack Hart (D-South Boston) told the Reporter after the
meeting.
Some Mattapan residents have been pressing for the re-
location of a commuter rail station proposed for a site near
Woodhaven St. They argue the station, which would be
located between Blue Hill Avenue and Cummins Highway,
would affect the property values of their homes as well as
other “quality of life” issues.
The meeting prompted the general manager of the MBTA to
send out a letter this week to residents of Woodhaven and
Regis Streets asking to meet with them again. General manager
Richard Davey said he would be willing to hold the meeting in
one of their homes.
“I want to be clear that it was not the intent of the MBTA to
have residents feel they have been ignored and concerns not
addressed,” Davey wrote in the Wednesday letter. “I would
like to discuss ways that we may work together now and in
the future to address your concerns.”
The Blue Hill Avenue station, which would be part of the
Fairmount line, is one of four new stops being added to the line
that runs between Readville and South Station. By court
mandate, all the new stations, located in Dorchester and
Mattapan, must be functional by December 2011.
At a separate meeting, neighborhood residents pressed
transportation officials to ensure that the contractor working
on the Four Corners commuter rail station, located at
Washington Street and Geneva Avenue, is hiring women and
minorities from within the community.
Hart said Gov. Deval Patrick’s transportation chief, Jeff
Mullan, had promised that no final decision would be made on
the siting of the Blue Hill Avenue stop until Mullan had a
chance to personally speak with neighborhood residents.
Mullan was unable to attend last week’s meeting, held Tuesday
night at the Mattapan Public Library, because he was focused
on a fierce rainstorm’s effects on the state’s roads and
bridges, aides and lawmakers said.
But during last week’s meeting, other transportation officials
said that a letter had recently been sent out to a neighborhood
group focused on the Fairmount line which could be
interpreted as saying that a final decision had been made. The
admission prompted Hart to walk out. “I said there’s no need
for me to be sitting there,” Hart told the Reporter. “Because I
no longer have faith in this process.”
Davey, who attended the meeting, said there had been a “little
bit of a miscommunication.” “We have not made a final
decision,” he said. “We’re trying to balance everybody’s
interests.”
He added that there were also individuals in attendance at the
meeting who support the proposed site for the station.
As for the letter that led to Hart’s walkout, Davey said, “One
could read it to say a decision has been made,” despite that not
being the case.
Davey added that the MBTA is able to conduct a pre-
construction inspection, if permitted, of the homes abutting the
site of the proposed station. “The inspection will allow us to
impose upon the construction contractor the financial
responsibility for any issues that may occur because of the
proposed station construction,” he said in his letter to abutters.
The Department of Transportation and MBTA are overseeing
the construction of the Fairmount line and the 800-foot
platform at the Blue Hill Avenue station, which could spur
economic development in Mattapan Square. A DOT
spokesman told the Reporter in February that the MBTA had
analyzed the possibility of other stops and found that other
alternatives were not feasible.
“It’s a beautiful residential area that will be impacted,” Hart
said of the Woodhaven St. area. “We need to find some
alternative.” He added: “I understand the larger picture of
having a number of stops on the Fairmount Line in order to
access the train. But the fact remains that the T still hasn’t
resolved it to the satisfaction of the neighborhood residents.”
Fireworks were not limited to the Blue Hill Avenue station. At
the meeting at the Codman Square Tech Center on the Four
Corners station, neighborhood residents, in urging the
contractor to hire more women and minorities, berated
company head Stephen Early, who was in the room.
“People of color are in the majority in this community,” said
City Councillor Charles Yancey as Early and other workers
from S&R Construction Company looked on. “We cannot let
the contractor off the hook. The process in place right now is
not good enough.”
Early pledged to hire more women and minorities, taking
business cards from local business owners in the crowd and
shaking Yancey’s hand at the end of the meeting. “We want to
do the right thing,” he said. “We want to hire people from the
neighborhood.”
He noted that he has already hired several people of color, and
added that the construction work, expected to take two and a
half years, will not need many jobs. “It’s not like there’s a
hundred or fifty jobs [available],” he said.
The MBTA’s Office of Diversity and Civil Rights is charged
with monitoring whether workers on a project are 30 percent
minority and 7 percent female. Wanda Hubbard, ODCR’s
government compliance officer, said if the company doesn’t
meet those goals, the MBTA can stop payment for the project,
terminate the contract, or bar them from working on another
MBTA contract. She said S&R has agreed to use local
businesses for materials and supplies, such as Dorchester Tire.
Construction on the Four Corners station begins this month.
The project plan calls for an 800-foot long platform that will
include a steel canopy, benches, a train approach warning
system, and lighting.
“I think we made progress,” said Pamela Bush, a lead
organizer with the Greater Four Corners Action Coalition,
which has been pressing for the station to get built. “I believe
the T understands that Four Corners is a force to be reckoned
with, that it’s time for a change and it has to happen right
now.”
More articles are available at the Reporter's website.
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