Early Stages Green Line Construction Could Begin This Year

"Our goal is [to] get into construction this calendar year," Michael McBride, Green Line extension program manager, told the Boston Globe recently.

The first phase of construction on the Green Line extension project, which will cost about $20 million, according to the Globe, will include bridge reconstruction, demolition work and site preparation.

The Globe also reports that design work on the entire $1.1 billion project is scheduled to be complete by March. The whole fixed rail transportaiton project, which would add seven new Green Line stations in Cambridge, Somerville and Medford, is predicted to be complete around 2019, if it goes forward as planned.

Read the Boston Globe article here.

As work on the Green Line extension progresses, the MBTA faces a $161 million budget deficit in the next year and is

Project planners are hoping to receive federal New Starts funding to pay for much of the project.

That said, winning New Starts funding looks like a daunting task.

According to a Massachusetts Department of Transportation status report released in July, "[T]here will be ongoing operating expenses associated with running the expanded Green Line that must be borne by the MBTA. We are therefore concerned about the effect that the enormously constrained financial condition of the MBTA system will have on our chances of success within the New Starts program."

News of just how "enormously constrained" that financial condition is has been brought to the fore this month (see the above-mentioned service cuts and fare increases).

MBTA spokesperson Joe Pesaturo emphasized to the Globe that it's the state, not the MBTA, that is funding the Green Line project.

However, in recent months, and some members of the have also painted somewhat pessimistic pictures of Green Line extension funding.