OWNERSHIP
CONDITIONS
HISTORY
ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES
DESIGN AND PLANNING
TESTIMONIES

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OWNERSHIP:
-- The connected sections of Centre Street and South Street east of Jamaica Pond and the Arnold Arboretum are owned by the City of Boston. 
-- The MBTA will own and operate the Arborway Green Line along Centre and South Streets and thus coordination between the City and the Authority will be necessary.

Note that this entry refers only to Centre and South Streets south of Green Street in the Heart of the City.

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CONDITIONS:
Collectively, Centre Street and South Street form the thriving commercial backbone of Jamaica Plain and have been lumped together as a Boston Main Street. The two streets connect at the Soldiers' Monument and are similar to one another in function, although Centre Street receives a higher volume of traffic, with a greater number of businesses, and South Street is more residential in nature. The land use and street geometry of both roads are conducive to pedestrian movements, with wide sidewalks and numerous crosswalks.

The public uses of the strip include a post office, fire station, community center, library, public monument used for public celebrations, and park and passive sitting area.

Businesses along southern Centre Street and South Street include:
-- Several realtors: each one posts pictures of properties for sale in its windows and people constantly stop to check out the prices.

-- Restaurants have been a driving force in the success of the Centre/ South Street corridor. The restaurants include a seafood restaurant and popular cafe, and a slew of ethnic restaurants, including upscale Indian, Thai, and Vietnamese restaurants, as well as a smaller Chinese restaurant. There is also a wildly popular ice-cream and baked goods store.

-- Several major banks

-- Chain businesses (drug stores, video store, donut store, hardware stores, clothing and shoe stores)

-- Independent businesses such as a toy store, antique store, hair salons, gift shops, artisan stores, and jewelry stores.

-- Services such as insurance, law services, and physical therapy

-- Large liquor store

-- Food Co-op (grocery store with community membership)

-- Neighborhood bars

-- Seasonal offerings include a clothing and jewelry business on the side of the road, and a farmers market in the warmer months that operates on Tuesdays and Saturdays of each week.

Parking, roads, and traffic:
A 2001 MBTA study showed that approximately 17,900 vehicles were recorded traveling on Centre Street during a 24-hour period, as compared to 12,100 vehicles on South Street over a 24-hour period. South Street is 40-feet wide, while Centre Street is 42-feet wide. More than 100 vehicular crashes occurred between 1995 and 1997 between Pond Street and South Street, a number which is considered high. Cars along the corridor are generally responsive to pedestrians' right-of-way on crosswalks and pedestrians frequently cross the corridor at unmarked locations, causing frequent pedestrian-related automobile crashes. The MBTA identified particularly serious congestion problems at the intersection of South Street and the Arborway near the Forest Hills MBTA Station.

The Boston Transportation Department (BTC) has set two-hour parking limits on the commercial heart of Centre Street and part of South Street. Residents report a great improvement in parking and traffic enforcements along Centre and South Streets since the late 1980s when flagrant violations were common. According to a 2001 MBTA analysis, Centre Street experiences 84% parking utilization during midday and 66% utilization during the evening.

Centre Street includes two eight-foot parking lanes, eight-foot sidewalks on both sides of the road, and wide travel lanes. According to a 2001 MBTA analysis, there are insufficient public rights-of-way for the construction of an exclusive light rail transit (LRT) alignment without the elimination of on-street parking on both sides of the street. The study assumed that the LRT system would operate in mixed traffic and share the travel lane with cars.

Transit:
Currently, this corridor is serviced by the route 39 bus, which leaves at least once every ten minutes from Copley Square and runs 20 hours a day. This is the most heavily used bus route in the system, accounting for almost 5% of all MBTA bus riders. According to the MBTA, the bus averages 17,400 passenger boardings on a typical weekday. In summer 2003, new buses, powered by compressed natural gas and built with low floors and automated stop announcement systems began to service route 39. These new 60-foot buses, which hold more than 100 people, are the same type being used on the Silver Line.
 
Bus #41 also serves Centre/ South Street and leads to Jackson Square. Centre Street is also served by the Green, Stonybrook, and Forest Hills Orange Line stops.

A 1999 MBTA report found that 70% of bus riders along the Centre Street/ South Street corridor live within a 5-minute walk of a bus stop and that there is a higher than metro-average transit dependent population in this area throughout the day.

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HISTORY:
General:
Centre Street was laid out in 1663 and was originally known as "Dedham Post Road." The road was renamed Centre Street in 1825. This was once the main avenue of commerce from Boston southward. Centre Street was a place for commerce as early as 1796, when Joshua Seaver founded Seaver's general grocery store. During this period, clothing, a post office, a barber, and a small restaurant were also available along Centre Street.

The Arborway trolley tracks were laid along Centre Street in 1889. The tracks were first used by private coaches, then by horse-drawn omnibuses, and ultimately by an electric trolley system (see below).

Like much of the area, much of Centre Street fell into disrepair in the 1970s. In her memoir of the area, writer Kathleen Hirsch describes Centre Street in the early 1980s as a dead civic space with grates on the windows and no streetlights. By 1989, although there had been improvements, Centre Street was still in relatively poor condition in some areas. Many store signs were spray painted and dusty. Businesses used metal security grates at night.

According to a real estate agent on the street who has been actively engaged in civic affairs and greenspace advocacy in Jamaica Plain for decades, the area's many high-quality, diverse restaurants were key to the renaissance of the business district along Centre Street and continue to play a major role in the success of the area.

Arborway Green Line history:
The first streetcar tracks were laid on Centre Street in the 1870s. Horsedrawn public transit was eventually replaced by light rail service featuring Presidential Conference Cars (PCC's). The service ran from Forest Hills station to Park Street station in downtown Boston via the MBTA's "E" branch of the Green Line. In December 1985, the service was suspended for the reconstruction of Huntington Avenue. The service was later partially restored through Heath Street in northern Jamaica Plain. The route 39 Bus currently serves the remainder of the corridor from Heath Street to Forest Hills.

Beginning in 1986 and continuing through 2001, there has been a struggle between trolley advocates and the MBTA regarding the possible return of the Green Line to Centre/ South Street. Throughout this period, the Jamaica Plain Neighborhood Council has been in support of the return of Arborway service. Despite several agreements to restore rail service over the years, concrete progress towards this end was minimal until 2002, when the formal planning process began.

In 1986 there was a non-binding referendum vote on the state ballot favoring retention of Arborway Green Line service by a margin of 67% to 33%. In 1989, State legislators, the City, and the MBTA agreed to restore the service. In 1991, a State transportation bond bill authorized the expenditure of $10 million by the MBTA million for construction of a light rail facility at the Arborway Yard. In 1994, the US Environmental Protection Agency approved Arborway Green Line restoration as part of the Massachusetts State Implementation Plan. In 1995, a State transportation bond bill authorizes a $20 million reconstruction of the Arborway Green Line. The City published a five-year capital plan in 1995 that called for the reconstruction of South Street from Centre Street to the Arborway in preparation for restoration of the trolley (the cost was expected to be $2.4 million of federal money). On November 7, 2001, the Massachusetts Executive Office of Environmental Affairs, through the DEP, ruled that Arborway Green Line restoration is feasible, and therefore must proceed. A group of committed community members have worked with local businesses and residents since that time to provide guidance in the planning process.

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ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES:
The Arborway Restoration Project is part of transit improvements relating to air quality that are required by Transit Systems Improvement regulation (310 CMR 7.36). The MBTA has committed to the return of LRT to Centre and South Streets. Thus the long-term debate over whether buses fueled by compressed natural gas (CNG) are more or less environmentally harmful than light rail has become less relevant.

Here is a brief outline of the debate: According to the Arborway Committee, while the electric trolley will emit no pollutants and operate at ten decibels below the level of diesel and compressed natural gas (CNG), CNG buses emit low levels of particulate matter and nitrous oxides but higher levels of methane and other greenhouse gases. According to Monica Barrow, project manager from Systra Consulting, emissions of non-methane hydrocarbon, carbon monoxide, and nitrogen oxides are equivalent for LRV and CNG alternatives at both the corridor level and the regional level. The MBTA has argued that CNG is the better and more cost-effective transit choice on Centre Street and South Street.

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DESIGN AND PLANNING:
Preliminary MBTA studies have estimated that the trip from Park Street to Forest Hills would take about 35 minutes on the Arborway LRT. The studies indicate that about 20 on-street parking spaces will be lost between Green Street and the Monument and 45 spaces would be lost in total on Centre Street. About 30 on-street parking spaces will be lost on South Street between Centre Street and the Arborway -- about 20% of the total parking spaces available on South Street. These figures are not universally accepted, and community planners are working to minimize the impact of the Arborway LRT to local business, particularly by limiting the number of lost parking spaces.

Proposed stops for the restored "E" line are at Pond Street; Green/ Seaverns Streets; South Street/Centre Street; Jamaica/ Child Street; St. Rose/ Anson Street; and Forest Hills. Platforms must be 150 feet long and will result in the average net loss of six parking spaces per station. In September 2002, the MBTA planned to build stops between 1/4 and 1/2 mile apart along the Centre/ South Street corridor.

According to the MBTA, restoration of LRV service will "...require a substantial capital investment in track and roadway, power system, platforms, additional rolling stock and space for maintenance operations." The rail bed requires a complete reconstruction; the power system requires significant work; platforms must be constructed and utilities must be relocated; and 19 vehicles will need to be purchased.

The City plans to partially reconstruct South Street from Centre Street to the Arborway in conjunction with the planned restoration of the Arborway trolley by the MBTA. The City estimated that it would need $2.4 million of Federal money to accomplish this task.

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TESTIMONIES:
"The return of the Arborway line will have huge ramifications for the whole area" (Andrea d'Amato, Commissioner of the Boston Transportation Department).

"This is a seriously congested area of the city and light rail vehicles would only add to the safety problems" (Paul F. Evans, Commissioner of the Boston Police Department, March 26, 1999).

"Did the BTD refuse to support the Big Dig with its massive disruption of downtown business and residential districts because of public safety issues? Come on, Mr. Gupta. Centre St. will be a piece of cake for you planners" (Edwina Cloherty, letter to the Jamaica Plain Gazette  on planning for the Arborway Restoration Project, January 25, 2002).

"The T's analysis needs no rebuttal; it speaks for itself. For example, who really believes that a bus can travel during rush-hour from Forest Hills to Park Street in 41 minutes? And who really believes that 120 parking spaces will be lost if light rail is restored when a City of Boston study indicates that light rail service would actually result in an increase of three parking spaces in the JP business district? And who really believes that air quality along Centre Street would be the same regardless of whether the T ran zero-emission light rail vehicles or 60-foot long motor buses?" (Franklyn P. Salimbene, head of the Arborway Committee, June 2001).

"We believe that additional track could be run from the restored Green Line into...Franklin Park making it possible for people to access the Park without an automobile" (Franklin Park Coalition statement of support for the return of the Arborway Green Line service).

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