State spending mess, court ruling slows but doesn’t derail extension of Blue Line

SALEM – Minutes after he touted plans for commuter parking improvements before an appreciative audience of Salem and Beverly employers Wednesday, state transit chief Daniel Grabauskas got a reminder about Lynn’s top transportation priority.”The Blue Line is essential,” North Shore Community College President Wayne Burton told the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority general manager, referring to long-deferred plans to extend subway service through Lynn.The extension has a $270 million bond financing commitment to cover half its construction cost but it has been the victim of extensions of a different sort, with one governor after another expressing support for the project but facing delays in building it.The latest delay comes as a plan to extend the Green Line to Medford at a cost of $700 million moves to the front burner as the result of a court decision originating from a legal challenge to the massive Central Artery highway project.”It’s frustrating but that case has been going on for 20 years,” said state Sen. Thomas M. McGee.McGee stressed that the Blue Line extension enjoys a fairly solid state and federal funding commitment at a time when the state Legislature, working with Gov. Deval Patrick, must revamp the state transportation system.Without new approaches to funding transportation projects, McGee and other legislators fear North Shore commuters will be hit in the wallet with tunnel toll hikes. Grabauskas has his own worries as head of the T, although he told business leaders gathered at the Hawthorne Hotel Wednesday that state transportation officials will try to make sure Blue Line planning stays on track.The MBTA has a $1.5 billion annual budget contrasting with it $8 billion debt load. Grabauskas said 27 cents of every dollar the Authority receives goes to finance debt. He blames the massive sum in part on lagging sales tax revenues. Projections for the amount of money the MBTA could receive from sales taxes over a six year period have fallen short by $200 million.”The problem is sales taxes have dramatically declined,” he said.That said, MBTA ridership posted a record year in 2008. The money the Authority has available to spend on new projects is going to projects like proposed commuter parking improvements in Salem and Beverly.Grabauskas told his business audience that federal design money is now available to begin planning the $40 million Salem commuter platform and parking project. Salem business leaders launched a petition drive among commuters to get the project built.”If we don’t do it now, it will never happen,” Salem Business Partnership Director Patricia Zaido said.Another transit, retail and housing project is planned for Beverly. Both communities have some of the highest commuter ridership rates of any serviced by the MBTA.Grabauskas said Lynn and Revere are seeing their share of smaller scale improvements with new, six-car Blue Line trains serving Revere stations and new buses running in and out of Lynn where improvements have been made to the local maintenance garage.He said track repair work along the commuter line running through Lynn should be completed once warmer weather arrives. The work is aimed at boosting train speeds.