At an MBTA board meeting Wednesday, board members and state officials touched upon financing difficulties for the Green Line extension, according to a report in the Boston Globe.

Check out the Globe article here.

Financing

One board member, Ferdinand Alvaro, asked where money would come from for the project, saying, "It gives me no comfort that we're taking money out of state taxpayers' pockets to pay for this. To me, we're just burdening everybody in the Commonwealth for seven stations," the Globe reports.

Based on the Globe's account, he seems to have sparred with Massachusetts Transportation Secretary Richard Davey, former general manager of the MBTA.

When Davey spoke about the federal government footing the bill for much of the Green Line extension, Alvaro said, "That money will probably just vaporize" if Republicans gain control of the White House, according to the Globe article.

Delays

The Green Line extension, which is legally required to be completed by the end of 2014, has seen substantial delays. Now, planners think the project will be done around 2019.

Finding money for the Green Line extension, now projected to cost $1 billion, is clearly a key to meeting even that delayed construction schedule.

Land takings and maintenance facility

The board also discussed land takings and complications with utility companies, the Globe reports.

Mary Ainsley, director of design and construction at the MBTA, said the project will require 39 land takings.

The land takings needed are in Cambridge, Somerville and Medford, but mostly in Somerville. Some of the takings are quite small, according to a draft environmental assessment of the project. One taking in East Somerville is six square feet. Larger takings are planned for the maintenance facility in the Inner Belt part of Somerville—a total of 442,594 square feet of space that brings in $258,425 in annual property taxes for the city of Somerville.

At a meeting held in October, some Green Line extension advocates suggested the state look at other options for the maintenance facility.

At Wednesday's MBTA board meeting, Board Chairman John Jenkins suggested that doing away with the maintenance facility would save the project $200 million, the Globe reports.

According to the Globe, the MBTA board will discuss Green Line extension financing in more detail at its next meeting, when it will also discuss "phasing scenarios" to make some stations operational earlier than 2019.