Wynne Mun - Excerpts from Capstone Report to the Rappaport Institute

Fellows work directly with officials from state and local public agencies in the Greater Boston area on policy research and management projects. In addition, at the end of the summer program, all fellows are required to submit a capstone project or report that addresses the policy and management challenges posed by their work. Here are some excerpts from our public policy fellows.

Wynne Mun

In September 2003, Governor Romney reluctantly announced that construction of the long-delayed "Greenbush" rail line would continue. Now slated for service in 2006, the line will connect the Greenbush section of Scituate to Cohasset, Hingham, and Weymouth to the Braintree line ending Boston’s South Station. The Romney administration sought to portray the decision as honoring a past legal commitment rather than establishing cost/benefit thresholds or setting precedents for wider land-use policy.

The impetus for Greenbush began during Governor Dukakis’ Administration when the whole Old Colony Rail system (Greenbush being one spur of the system) was adopted as part of the Central Artery/ Tunnel’s (CA/T) mitigation agreement against the increase in air pollution that would result from more vehicle miles traveled on Route 93. The Old Colony Rail also formed part of the State Implementation Plan to fulfill federal requirements under the Clean Air Act. Third, the Executive Office for Transportation and Construction (EOTC) and the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) entered into an Administrative Consent Order to further identify the Old Colony Rail under legal commitments.

The Old Colony Rail was viewed as a catalyst for economic revitalization. The Dukakis Administration frequently cited the importance of re-establishing the Old Colony Rail system in total, claiming that only then could full economic benefit be gained. The Kingston/ Plymouth and Middleborough/Lakeville spurs were completed by 1997.

The Greenbush spur, however, encountered community opposition. Residents of the south shore communities, especially Hingham, protested that the revival of the Greenbush spur would have adverse economic and environmental impacts on the suburban community. The South Shore communities represented a different demographic group with different economic needs from those served by the Kingston/Plymouth and Middleborough/Lakeville spurs.

The communities and property owners successfully derailing the Greenbush spur, entering into a protracted negotiation phase with the MBTA. Financing uncertainties and impending state fiscal budget deficits presented additional resistance to Greenbush while the Kingston/Plymouth and Middleborough/Lakeville were well under way. Ultimately, the total cost estimate for the project increased to $479 million: the largest increases resulting from land/ relocation costs, design of the Hingham underpass, and legal fees.

To community residents, the benefits of the Greenbush project were difficult to quantify. Many of its benefits were intangible and more regional in scope: better air quality, better pedestrian access, better access to the regional core, increase in density, and even unburdening commuting traffic. Issues of public good, such as air quality, failed to garner much attention from community members. Instead, residents focused on local impacts. Arguments touting local benefits polarized the community, failing to register a consensus. For instance, local proponents of the Greenbush line aligned with the South Shore Chamber of Commerce, whose economic interests in the Greenbush were clear.

On the other hand, community momentum had been increasing since the mitigation negotiations between the MBTA and town officials. The South Shore Chamber of Commerce’s suspicious public opinion poll cited 64 percent support from South Shore residents. In recent communications with local authorities, towns have begun public hearings to adopt zoning measures that would formalize transportation-oriented planning and development. The Town of Scituate had retained the Cecil Group as consultants to perform civic visioning work for the Greenbush Terminal Station area. Weymouth and Braintree have been working together to engineer a zoning overlay ordinance mechanism for the Weymouth Landing Station area in hopes of economic revitalization. Hingham, however, has been aloof to any planning measures for the new Greenbush Rail.

Residents in the communities rarely act cohesively. The various towns have demographic differences that lend themselves to differing perspectives on the Greenbush project’s significance. The Town of Braintree can hardly be compared to Hingham. Second, business interests in the towns, such as those represented by the South Shore Chamber of Commerce, have differing transportation needs than residents. Residents themselves have differing circumstances and needs for public transportation. Without a leading consensus, Greenbush opponents have wielded greater influence on the progress of the project. Hingham effectively put the project on hold through litigation and acquiesced only when the MBTA offered to build an underground tunnel to mitigate visual impact in the town center.

As the Hingham example underscores, much of the community debate centers on local impacts. Debate between residents hardly turns on issues of regional benefits. Instead, one citizen’s word for economic revitalization have become another for slum creation. Hence, support for the project is fractured and the community often does not understand the project wider benefits. Spending $479 million under such circumstances is difficult, especially during times of economic stress and increasing competition from more accommodating communities.

Not all benefits of the Greenbush project are regionally dispersed. One of most cited benefits for local residents were decreasing commuter times, lessening of traffic congestion, and greater access to Boston. The MBTA found that the commute-time of the Greenbush project were less than other capital-expansion projects, according to measures such as capital cost per hour saved. The benefits of Greenbush were only marginally better when measured by operating costs per hour saved. Other projects, such as completing the Silver Line or the Urban Ring, or even a new commuter rail station at Union Square, Somerville, would save more commuting time per unit cost.

At the state level, the regional perspectives take greater precedence. The MBTA is confronts a host of competing capital-expansion projects throughout the state needs to consider factors other than time/cost benefits. Their May 2003 Program for Mass Transportation outlined seven criteria for evaluating and comparing projects: utilization, mobility, cost-effectiveness, air quality, service quality, economic/land use impacts, and environmental justice. The Greenbush project achieved poor rankings in three of the seven areas: service quality, economic/land use impacts, and environmental justice. Moreover, it ranked in the middle third in cost-effectiveness and air quality. By including substitution of riders from other parts of the existing system, Greenbush ranked within the top one-third group of projects for utilization and mobility.

The regional cost/benefit analysis framework was performed intermittently throughout the life of the Old Colony Rail/ Greenbush project. Governors Dukakis, Weld, and Cellucci understood the cost/benefit implications of the project in relationship to other transit projects. Yet, Dukakis’ analysis considered the whole rail system as one project, concealing the marginal benefit of each portion of the project.

Early estimates of the capital cost were unreliable. Cellucci better understood the spiraling costs of Greenbush, since much of the land relocation and mitigation agreements were performed under his Administration. While costs increased from $259 million to $436 — a 68 percent increase — Cellucci’s Transportation Secretary Kevin Sullivan firmly announced that the state would pull its support for the Greenbush line if the costs escalated past $400 million. Meanwhile, by 1997, the 27-mile Kingston/ Plymouth spur and the 25-mile Middleborough/Lakeview spurs were completed for roughly $537 million or $615 million after adjustments for inflation to current 2003 dollars. It is not clear how the Cellucci Administration established the $400 million threshold. Perhaps their announcement was intended to control costs by threatening abandonment. The project cost still escalated past the $400 million threshold and opposition leaders had a clear target to derail the project.