State transportation officials just unveiled their first capital spending plan since being rebuffed last year on an expensive, ambitious plan to pour higher income taxes into Massachusetts roads, rails, and bridges. The $12.4 billion plan is a scaled-down version of the one Gov. Deval Patrick pushed last year. But the real action is on the other end of the five-year plan, when the state would create a new network of rapid rail service on existing commuter rail tracks.
The Globe provides a run-down of the projects MassDOT’s five-year plan would fund — most of which have been kicking around, unfunded, for some time. They include new Orange and Red Line cars, the straightening of the Massachusetts Turnpike in Allston, extending the Green Line to Somerville and Medford, and rebuilding highway stretches in Springfield and Canton. The plan also puts down payments, but doesn’t fully fund, two projects Patrick has been chasing for years: the $1 billion expansion of Boston’s South Station, and the $2.1 billion extension of commuter rail service to Fall River and New Bedford. Those two big-ticket projects are intertwined; the state can’t expand commuter rail traffic without first building more tracks and platforms at the congested Boston terminal.
If those are all old, familiar projects, it’s a $252 million earmark in the $12.4 billion capital plan that points the way to what’s next. MassDOT’s capital plan funds the expansion of Silver Line bus rapid transit to Chelsea, and diesel multiple unit (DMU) cars along the Fairmount corridor in Dorchester, Mattapan, and Hyde Park. DMU cars run on commuter rail tracks, but they provide service with subway-like frequency. The cars appear to be at the core of the MBTA’s growth strategy. A map outlining the T’s 10-year vision shows DMU service running from North Station to Lynn, Winchester, and Woburn; to Cambridge, via Allston and North Station; between Boston’s Back Bay and its convention center; and from South Station to Newton. The DMU cars could significantly expand the MBTA’s reach, without the cost of laying much new track. It’s the opposite of Patrick’s South Coast Rail approach — growing the transit system by deepening it, not widening its reach.
–PAUL MCMORROW
BEACON HILL
Massachusetts First Lady Diane Patrick, joined by her husband Gov. Deval Patrick, will be in Alabama tomorrow to christen the new Navy joint high-speed vessel the USNS Fall River.
Boston Mayor Marty Walsh is asking the state gambling commission to give the city more time to negotiate mitigation packages with potential casino operators in neighboring Everett and Revere.
MUNICIPAL MATTERS
Lawrence Mayor Dan Rivera shakes up the police department, the Eagle-Tribune reports.
Larry Harmon sees a lot not to like in Boston Mayor Marty Walsh’s selection of Eugene O’Flaherty as the city’s corporation counsel and in the restructuring of city departments that puts Felix Arroyo in charge of the city’s public health commission.
With Lowell facing a number of vacancies in key financial jobs, City Manager Bernie Lynch says he may be willing to work beyond his March 10 departure date, the Sun reports.
New Brockton Mayor William Carpenter, who promised a more open city government, is keeping a lock on the City Hall bathrooms, where visitors for the past year have had to go to the mayor’s office for a key to perform their less-than civic duty.
Tough to compete. The town administrator in Dudley is leaving his $86,350-a-year job to take the town manager job in Cave Creek, Arkansas, where the pay is $130,350, the Telegram & Gazette reports.
Newbury selectmen declare a state of emergency in four areas of Plum Island.
NATIONAL/WASHINGTON
President Obama unveils five promise zones, areas where the administration will focus on creating jobs and cutting poverty, the Washington Post reports. Writing in CommonWealth, Deborah Connolly Youngblood of the Crittenton Women’s Union says a holistic approach is needed to combat poverty.
The Washington Post’s Dan Balz analyzes the fallout from the George Washington Bridge scandal on New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie. The New York Times reports that the US attorney’s office in New Jersey has begun a preliminary inquiry. Erik Wemple, writing in the Washington Post, details how the Record of Bergen, New Jersey, broke the story. Meanwhile, Rachel Maddow presents a plausible alternative theory of why it was “time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee,” which has nothing to do with its mayor.
More than half the members of Congress are millionaires, with the median net worth at just over $1 million, 14 times that of the average American, according to a new study by the Center for Responsive Politics.
The Globe’s Bryan Bender reports that a new $12 billion naval aircraft carrier is beset with a host of performance problems
ELECTIONS
Cohasset businessman Gabriel Gomez announced he will not run for any office this year but kept his options open for the future.
Democratic state Rep. Tom Conroy of Wayland is running for treasurer.
Former RNC chairman Ed Gillespie is readying a Senate run against Virginia’s Mark Warner.
BUSINESS/ECONOMY
Rents are soaring in Boston’s waterfront Innovation District.
After a six-hour hearing, the Cape Cod Commission says no to a Lowe’s proposed for Dennis.
EDUCATION
Programs in Lynn offering adults high school diploma equivalency classes have huge waiting lists. The head of Operation Bootstrap calls the situation a crisis, the Item reports.
An anonymous benefactor has donated $1.1 million to UMass Dartmouth’s LeDuc Center for Civic Engagement in honor of community activist Rev. Robert Lawrence, a minister in the Fall River area for the last 60 years.
TRANSPORTATION
A Herald editorial praises the structure of the state’s new commuter rail contract.
ENERGY/ENVIRONMENT
During this week’s cold snap, coal and oil staged a comeback as fuels for producing electricity in New England, CommonWealth reports.
A new study finds that suburban sprawl, where people drive more and live in larger homes, negates any carbon reductions made in high-density urban areas with mass transit and other green initiatives.
An independent study released by the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center says proximity to wind turbines has no effect on home values or sales.
CRIMINAL JUSTICE
The national and local chapters of the American Civil Liberties Union ask the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court to bring some legal order to the mess created by former state chemist Annie Dookhan, WBUR reports. The Globe says the groups are effectively calling on the court to vacate all of the more than 40,000 criminal cases tied to Dookhan.
Mass murderer Whitey Bulger and his abetting girlfriend have exchanged weepy love letters while in separate jails, his lawyer tells a gathering of defense attorneys.
The lawyer for Rep. Carlos Henriquez is talking mistrial, after an Arlington police inspector takes the stand and produces a report that neither the prosecution nor the defense had seen.
MEDIA
Caleb Jacoby , the 16-year-old son of Globe columnist Jeff Jacoby, who went missing Monday afternoon, is found in New York City’s Times Square, NECN reports.
John Carroll of Boston University analyzes the innovative digital shift at the New York Times.
Fun for Friday: Time magazine tries to predict your politics.