Harvard Expansion Plans -- Comments by Jim RePass

BOSTON --- Harvard is a magnet that has for three and one-half centuries has attracted the best and the brightest of America and beyond, for both undergraduate and advanced degrees. And to all of us in Boston, its blessings are simply immeasurable.
So it is of concern that Harvard is developing an expansion plan requiring the closure of the sole Boston-area intermodal rail freight facility, Beacon Park Yard (BPY) in Allston, thereby doing major, permanent economic harm to the people of Boston, Cambridge, and all the rest of the towns and cities of Eastern Massachusetts.

Harvard’s closure of BPY will add thousands of trucks to the roadways within Route 128, and boost truck vehicle miles traveled in a region already high in the incidence of asthma and other pollution-related diseases. Harvard’s plan will also raise shipping costs, and thereby everyone’s already high cost of living, and increase the already serious congestion experienced daily by all those who use the region’s roadways. Freight traffic is expected to double over the next 20 years; we need to be looking for more rail-related shipping options, not killing off the few we’ve got.

Harvard’s plan would accelerate the relocation of Massachusetts businesses to other states, and the move of warehousing/distribution out to I-495 and beyond, creating still more truck traffic.

Worse: Harvard’s expansion plans would greatly diminish future growth prospects of the Port of Boston, rendering moot MassPort hopes to grow exponentially intermodal shipping from the current 150,000 “TEUs” (20-foot equivalent unit), service that directly contributes to the competitiveness of our region’s manufacturers and distributors. Those plans need access to quality rail intermodal service, which only BPY can provide; no BPY, and the port stagnates. An intermodal rail spur at the port, an alternative that was studied during Governor William Weld’s term, might be an appealing option; unfortunately, the port’s compact size and complex switching operation would make quality service expensive and difficult to provide. What Harvard is accelerating, sadly, is New England’s economic decline.

Harvard, like all successful institutions, must expand to survive. That is hard in the fully-developed Boston-Cambridge area, which is why Harvard has its sights set on the 91-acre Beacon Park Yard. In 2003, over objections from Boston Mayor Tom Menino and others, Harvard landed the rail yard for $75 million from its owner, the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority. This sale was encouraged by the Romney Administration to fund reduced tolls for FastLane users, a benefit that is about to run out.

CSX railroad, one of the nation’s major railroads, still retains the right to operate Beacon Park Yard as a rail facility, no matter who owns the underlying land. But of course, Harvard’s next step will be to pay CSX to go away, which it can easily afford to do. Harvard thinks in terms of decades, but CSX’s executives more readily think in terms of quarterly earnings reports, and the need for capital investment in the railroad. Sale of CSX’s Beacon Park Yard “rights” would satisfy a number of objectives, and as the MBTA seeks to take over the tracks from Framingham to Worcester --- as it is close to doing --- CSX may well decide it’s time to go, and consolidate work at its yard in Worcester. However, with massive expected growth in domestic and international intermodal traffic, these facilities will not be in a position to handle the additional traffic. Finding another location for a major new terminal that has the requisite rail and highway connections is extremely difficult in Eastern Massachusetts. This has been tried repeatedly over the last twenty years, without success.

SoŠ if you a buy a laptop, or a television, or an i-pod, or any one of thousands of other manufactured things, it will be coming from China via Worcester (or more likely Newark), and then by truck to you, because the [now shrinking] functions of Beacon Park Yard will be moved to Worcester. A huge jump in cost? No, just a bit more. Again.

Lots of new jobs for Worcester? No. Worcester already has two intermodal yards and can absorb Allston’s functions with few adjustments at current traffic levels. And none of the potential Boston-Allston drayage (short-haul) truck jobs from the Port of Boston will materialize in Worcester, because the distance Boston-Worcester is too long for port drayage, which requires short hauls and multiple turns per shift/truck/trucker.

And then, there is one more enormous expense related to the Harvard Allston expansion, but this one will be largely borne by the taxpayer: the only way the Allston expansion works is if the Mass Turnpike Allston interchange is moved from its present location to the opposite side of BPY. The cost to the public for this move: in excess of $500 million, and probably more. With careful planning, some of the intermodal functions at BPY could be retained if, when the turnpike is relocated to the opposite side of the parcel, the new freeway is placed as a viaduct over the new dual-track main line that would have to be built. The interchange tracks to the Grand Junction branch and perhaps the bulk transload operation at the site could also be saved. But again the expense is enormous.

Add it all up, and what Harvard needs to do is, stop. Before inking that buy-out with CSX that you are quietly preparing, stop. Before harming the transportation system of the Eastern Massachusetts region so that you can build a new campus on the wreckage, stop. Harvard, as great as it is, should allow the new Governor, Deval Patrick, and his transportation-savvy Lieutenant Governor, Tim Murray, to weigh in, before it makes the region’s fate a fait accompli.

Harvard has the time --- decades, perhaps. But the rest of us live here now, and have hope for an economic future that promises us, and our children, something to look forward to. Don’t forget about us, Harvard, as important as you are.

Note: Jim RePass is President of the National Corridors Initiative, the organization which in 1991 negotiated the release of blocked Federal funds to build the now-operating high speed rail line Boston-New York.