MBTA and Massachusetts Port Authority officials are eagerly awaiting the spring inauguration of the brand-new Logan International Airport T station, a modernization that neighbors say is long overdue but several Boston University students said they find insufficient.
The Airport T station on the Blue Line will be replaced by a new modern facility – now in its final stages of construction – which will open this spring.
“It’s a beautiful station. We are confident that people from Boston and from outside of Boston will find it comfortable,” said Lydia Rivera, a spokeswoman for the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority. “We’re proud to showcase such a state-of-the-art facility.”
Jose Juves, a MassPort spokesman, said the port authority is working with the MBTA to make sure that the process of opening a new station will run as smoothly as possible.
“It’s a huge benefit for passengers,” Juves said.
But BU students said they were not enthusiastic about the possible benefits.
“I have a problem with the location of the airport T stop,” said College of Communication graduate student Kenneth Brown. “Ideally, I would like to walk between the terminal and the station. It should be more centrally located.”
Nevertheless, Brown added, “I always like it when they clean stuff up.”
Keren Rabi, a graduate student in the College of Arts and Sciences, said she only took the subway to the airport once and started taking taxis afterward because “it’s uncomfortable to carry your luggage up the stairs.”
The new station will feature escalators, spacious elevators and suitcase slides.
But Rabi said even those features would not make her take the T instead because “it’s still not comfortable. I don’t feel like making [a ride to the airport] a journey and not having enough space for my luggage in the train.”
William Manning, who lives near the airport in East Boston, said the old station was in a state of disrepair.
“I haven’t seen the [new] station, but the old one was a wreck,” Manning said. He added that the renovation of such an important stop was long overdue.
As a member of Citizens Against Runway Expansion, Manning said he is more concerned about a different project at Logan – the construction of a controversial fifth runway, which he fears will lead to more air traffic and increased noise and pollution.
CARE is a staunch opponent of the proposed runway, which was approved by a federal appeals court on Jan. 30.
“I think everybody is concerned about it,” Manning said, adding that there is a great deal of sympathy for his group’s cause within East Boston.
Juves said that the runway will be built to give the airport more leeway, not to allow more jets.
“The runway will give the Federal Aviation Administration more flexibility,” Juves said. “It does not increase airport capacity.”
Juves said the fifth runway will actually reduce emissions and noise by allowing more planes to fly over the water instead of over the city.
The runway and the T station are just two parts of a $4 billion modernization plan that has been underway at Logan for the past 10 years, Juves said.
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