Somerville's transportation system stands to receive some much-needed funding if a bond bill filed yesterday by Governor Deval Patrick and Lt. Governor Tim Murray passes.
The bill would allocate $1.47 billion toward ameliorating "the Commonwealth's immediate capital infrastructure needs," according to a press release issued by the governor's office.
"This bond authorization will allow us to address the state's most pressing and immediate capital needs," Patrick said in the press release. "Maintaining and developing capital infrastructure is crucial for our quality of life, our economic vitality and the proper functioning of government."
Included in the bill's provisions is $100 million for a number of public transit projects, including the long-awaited extension of the Green Line into Somerville, according to the Somerville Journal.
The plan to bring the Green Line to Somerville was formalized in 1990 when the state promised to undertake public transportation expansion projects to offset pollution from the Big Dig.
Since then, budgetary concerns, combined with what many have criticized as a rift between the governor's office and the state's towns, have delayed the project. Thomas Champion, the executive director of communications for Somerville Mayor Joseph A. Curtatone, said that the introduction of Patrick's bond bill could signal the revival of the Big Dig's promise.
"So far as we know, on the basis of this preliminary announcement, this proposal does include funding for planning and design that does represent a real commitment to support transit programs originally promised in the Big Dig package," Champion said.
Exactly how much money Somerville would be granted to extend the Green Line remains unclear.
Maeghan Silverberg, a spokesperson for Curtatone, said that a more important facet of the bill is the money it would inject into cities to begin repairing crumbling roads.
"We'll pave more roads. We're delighted to have the additional resource," she said. "It's an important acknowledgment from the governor's office that Massachusetts has a real infrastructure crisis, and Somerville is no exception."
Somerville has recently made progress on street repair, however, repaving some 100 roads since 2003, Champion said. Last year in particular Somerville was able to make use of $308,000 from other cities that were unable to spend all of the funds that they were given.
"By being ready with a list of streets we were ready to proceed on immediately, we were able to take advantage of other cities unable to use all the money allocated to them for street repairs," he said.
Despite last year's improvements, Champion said that additional funds are still a "very welcome" prospect that would allow Somerville to address an issue that had not been a top priority while former Governor Mitt Romney was in office.
"In the previous two years before [Patrick] took office, there had been no repaving at all," he said. "The backlog of streets needing paving goes back many, many years."
Silverberg said that Patrick campaigned on the issue of deteriorating transportation infrastructure, and said the bill represents part of the "realization of a campaign promise."
She also said that the bill is "a component of a growing relationship between the governor's office and towns," and will join a number of measures, such as property tax reform, that city legislators see as signs of renewed cooperation between Massachusetts' towns and Beacon Hill.
City officials cannot yet name the specific roads the additional funding would go toward fixing, but Silverberg said this information should be available in the near future.
