The decadeslong Green Line Extension project opened to the public on March 21, connecting North Station to the newly constructed Union Square Station in Somerville.
Governor Charlie Baker, who was present Monday for a ribbon-cutting ceremony, said the extension would bolster educational and employment opportunities throughout the region.
“This milestone will have a significant impact on this region of the Commonwealth by providing better MBTA service to riders and spurring economic growth,” Baker stated in a March 21 press release.
Magdalena Gomez, a community organizer for the Community Action Agency of Somerville, said the Green Line only adds to the benefits Somerville brings to local residents.
“And that’s the reason why they don’t want to leave,” Gomez said. “Somerville has a great education, great health services, great parks and businesses close to home. Now there’s the Green Line, so of course people don’t want to leave.”
Senator Elizabeth Warren, who was present at the ceremony, said the extension helps combat climate change.
“Fixed rail is fast and reliable, and it dramatically cuts down on pollution,” Warren said. “And when it’s done right, infrastructure projects like let us tackle environmental justice head on.”
Ben Ewen-Campen, a Somerville city councilor, said the extension is a good means of combating climate change, but that it also has adverse impacts on low-income residents.
“The whole premise of this was to bring a sense of environmental justice, economic justice to a community that had been kind of left out of that for decades,” he said. “And what is very ironic is that now, by the time the train really shows up, those communities have been priced out by and large.”
Darien Farnham, a Somerville resident and senior at Tufts University, said the Green Line Extension project is redundant due to the Red Line, which currently spans from Davis Square in downtown Somerville to Park Street Station in Boston.
“What is the point of extending the Green Line if I can already take the Red Line directly to the Green Line?” Farnham said.
With the Green Line coming to Somerville, Gomez said the rise in rent prices “obligate” people to make a decision on whether to stay or move elsewhere.
“We have very well qualified workers and very well-paid people that are coming to the city and the prices are going up, with no control because of that,” Gomez said.
Ewen-Campen said despite price increases, Somerville has managed to enact progressive, beneficial housing legislation.
“We are doing everything within our local power to create new affordable housing to protect tenants, to connect [them] with resources, so that they know their rights and that they’re able to have some leverage pushing back against displacement,” he said.
The $2.3 billion Green Line Extension project saw the construction of seven new stations along two branches — Union Square and Medford. The Medford branch is expected to open in summer 2022.
Fabiano Latham, another community organizer for CAAS, said he hoped community leaders would balance big spending projects so that negatively affected communities could also benefit.
“We are not against the public transportation,” Latham said. “Every time we have something, like a development, we need the same efforts to prod us to help people that may be impacted.”
Associate editor Walker Armstrong contributed to the writing of this article.
