Terminus at College Avenue? Just say no!

We know that there will be a Green Line station at College Avenue. Will the College Avenue station be a regular station, or will it be a terminus? The answer makes a huge difference to our neighborhood.

If the Green Line ends at College Avenue, the station will be a terminus. We gain nothing by having the College Avenue station as a terminus instead of a regular station, but it’s clear that our neighborhood will suffer. A terminus means a much longer platform, more tracks, Green Line trains idling and switching tracks, more car traffic on Boston Avenue and on College Avenue, more air pollution near the College Avenue station and throughout Medford Hillside, and more trees removed between Burget Avenue and the tracks.

Terminus station requirements

A regular Green Line station platform only needs to be 225 feet long, but a Green Line terminus platform needs to be twice as long: 450 feet. A regular station only needs two tracks for the Green Line, but a terminus needs extra tracks for storing disabled trains and crossovers so trains can move between the tracks. Which would you rather have behind your home?

Extending the platform and adding tracks and crossovers for a terminus at College Avenue expands the land requirements for the Green Line at College Avenue. More land will be used for tracks and platforms, more trees will be chopped down, and we’ll have more noise and vibration. That also pushes the commuter rail trains closer to the homes on Burget Avenue, and nobody wants that. It gets even worse if the longer platform forces a worse curve for the commuter rail tracks behind Burget Avenue, because particulate pollution from diesel commuter rail trains is as much as 10 times worse when they cannot maintain a steady speed.

If the terminus is at Route 16, the longer terminus platform and added trackwork will be in place of the U-Haul building on Boston Avenue instead of behind our homes.

Car traffic

There won’t be parking at the terminus, but there will be cars dropping off and picking up passengers at the terminus. There’s no good place to do that at College Avenue, and there’s no good way for cars to turn around at College Avenue. We’ll have more traffic congestion throughout Medford Hillside and near the College Avenue station, which means more air pollution. And our roads and crosswalks will be less safe.

There’s space at Route 16 for cars to drop off and pick up passengers, turn around, and keep that traffic out of Medford Hillside and away from the College Avenue station.

An interim terminus?

The state claims that the College Avenue station will only be a terminus until they get around to building the section to Route 16 in a second phase. Even if the second phase is built, we’ll still have to live for years with College Avenue as a terminus.

Building the College Avenue as a terminus instead of as a regular station causes irreversible damage to our neighborhood. Suppose they build College Avenue as a terminus in 2014, and then later extend the Green Line to Route 16. Even though College Avenue would no longer be a terminus at that point, they are not going to tear out the extra trackwork, remove half the platform, shift the Green Line and commuter rail tracks away from the homes on Burget Avenue, shift the noise barriers away from the homes on Burget Avenue, and replace all the extra trees they chopped down. Irreversible damage for a temporary terminus? No thanks.

The only solution

We have to build the Green Line all the way to Route 16 as one project if we’re going to avoid the damage to the neighborhood around College Avenue. The terminus belongs at Route 16, not at College Avenue.