It’s Not Easy Getting the Green Line

The epic struggle to get Green Line service extended into Somerville and Medford continued yesterday. The project’s advisory board met to discuss exactly where the new stops would be located, and where the light rail line would run.

The news that five of the seven new stops would be in Somerville should make the city’s T-starved populace happy. But the Somerville Journal reports that some residents aren’t thrilled to see the train coming.

The project’s planners say that the extension would require tearing down some homes, or taking a chunk of people’s backyards away.

According to Executive Office of Transportation manager of statewide transit planning Steve Woelfel, a few houses along the railroad tracks in the Ball Square area have built fences on MBTA property.

So the fences are going to have to come down, Woelfel said, and you’ll hear a train go by every five minutes at peak hours, in the morning and the evening, five days a week.

The city is also upset that the line’s maintenance yard will sit on a 10-acre parcel of undeveloped land in East Somerville.

[Chamber of Commerce Director Steve] Mackey was incensed. “There was no foresight,” Mackey said, “except the foregone conclusion it would be in Somerville.”

Looks like you’ll have to rely on the bus for the foreseeable future, Somerville.

Map from the Somerville Journal website