Good morning, Governor. If you don’t mind looking up from your paperwork for a minute or two as you are driven to Boston, we have a few things to point out to you.
The ferry dock and parking lot you just rode past on the Lynnway is gathering weeds, thanks to your decision to not support water transit from Lynn to the Boston waterfront.
A ferry isn’t just a pleasant summertime commuting option for your fellow North Shore residents. It is a vital component of a critically-needed solution to relieving North Shore-to-Boston commuters — that includes you, Governor — who are unfairly excluded from transportation options their MetroWest and South Shore counterparts enjoy.
While we have your attention on the ride into Boston — and depending on what time you left Swampscott, we could have up to an hour — let’s tick off some facts.
Fact: the North Shore’s two main roads into Boston — Route 1 and Route 1A — are clogged with traffic during rush hour with frustrated commuters creeping through the harbor tunnels and over the Tobin Bridge into Boston.
Fact: The only rail transit service to Lynn and points north is a commuter rail system with insufficient stop frequencies and service terminating at North Station where commuters disembark and walk blocks to their offices. And it isn’t cheap — especially when compared to rapid transit. (And not that rapid transit and efficiency ever appear in the same sentence. Compared to commuter rail, the T’s rapid transit system is a model of efficiency.)
Fact: A Green Line transit extension to Somerville and Medford and South Coast rail service to southeastern Massachusetts cities are projects that are seeing the light of day even as a proposal to extend Blue Line rapid transit to Lynn remains a conversation piece — since the 1940s.
The state budget on your desk requires the state Department of Transportation to study the Blue Line extension’s feasibility. State Sen. Brendan Crighton successfully pushed to get the study in the budget based on an argument you must surely appreciate as you ride into the city.
“I think anyone that’s commuting into Boston would recognize the importance of getting folks off the road and onto rapid transit,” Crighton said.
We hope Crighton’s unassailable logic makes sense to you. It most assuredly does to us. Bringing the Blue Line to Lynn isn’t the only answer to righting the North Shore’s transit inequity. But it is a key piece of a plan to alleviate traffic congestion and the attendant environmental consequences and strengthen the economic connection between Boston and Lynn.
We encourage you to stand with the Lynn delegation and your fellow North Shore commuters and declare now is the time for a rapid transit extension to Lynn.
Thank you for your consideration, Governor. And enjoy the rest of your commute.
