LYNN — The City Council voted to approve two lease agreements with the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority on Tuesday for a temporary commuter rail platform. The temporary platform will be used during the project to renovate the original commuter rail station.
The design for the temporary platform was completed June 6, according to MBTA Director of Communications Joe Pesaturo. Mayor Jared Nicholson’s policy director, Danya Smith, worked with the MBTA for the past few months to coordinate with different city departments in order to complete the design.
MBTA Project Manager Sharon Cranston presented the design along with the proposed leases to the City Council’s Public Property and Parks Committee Tuesday.
The inbound temporary platform will be located at Ellis Street and Silsbee Street. The outbound temporary platform will be located at Friend Street and Silsbee Street near the city’s Senior Center. The leases contain easements required for construction.
The lease at Friend Street is for an emergency egress gate from the tracks to the parking lot at 37 Friend St., primary station access through an easement at 55 Friend St., and permission to overlay an existing easement at 55 Friend St. during construction.
The lease at Ellis Street is for temporary construction access, exclusive construction occupancy, and interim station use.
At the City Council meeting, Ward 3 City Councilor Coco Alinsug pointed out that the connecting buses stop in Central Square near the original commuter rail station, not the temporary one. Cranston said the bus routes cannot change due to the fact that the lounge for the bus drivers is in Central Square.
The walk from Central Square to the temporary platform is about eight minutes.
“I think that any location that’s not the station is going to feel like an adjustment and the most important thing is that we have a station,” Nicholson said in an interview after the meeting.
Additionally, he said that his office is still open to the idea of keeping part of the original station open during the renovation project.
City Council President Jay Walsh expressed his frustration with the MBTA at the meeting.
“We are not happy, we haven’t been happy with the T, not happy with the whole situation, the way the city’s been treated,” Walsh said to Cranston.
The City Council, he said, has been trying to work with the MBTA for years without receiving much of a response.
“We’re kind of sick of it, to be honest,” Walsh said.
Until recently, the completion date for the temporary platform’s construction was estimated at September 2024, which local leaders were not content with.
Now, the MBTA is estimating it will be completed in the spring of 2024, according to Cranston.
Nicholson said that any advancement in the completion of the project is positive.
“Our goal is to get it up as soon as possible,” he said. “We’re excited to move forward as quickly as possible. It’s imperative that the commuter rail stops in our downtown and we need the temporary platform to go up for that to happen.”
