Baker's pitch to Chao possibly sealed Green Line extension
The crucial backing the MBTA’s Green Line extension project got this week from the feds may have been helped by one state employee’s personal pitch to Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao. It helps, of course, that the employee was Gov. Charlie Baker.
Sitting down at the National Governors Association dinner back in February, Baker’s seat placement that night next to first daughter Ivanka Trump earned a lot of headlines the next morning. But on the other side of him, he said, was Chao, who oversees the Federal Transit Administration that this week approved the Baker administration’s $2.3 billion budget for the long-stalled Green Line plans.
“I spent half the night talking to Secretary Chao about the Green Line extension project,” Baker said yesterday during an appearance on Boston Herald Radio’s “Morning Meeting” show. “I’m very excited about that opportunity. It’s a terrific infrastructure project, and the fact the feds will be a big co-sponsor indicates that they believe it’s a great project, too.”
The FTA’s green light is key to ensuring the state gets $1 billion in federal funding for the project, which will run 4.7 miles of track through Somerville and Medford, adding seven new stations along the way.
How much convincing Baker ultimately had to do that night may have been minimal. The Trump administration had previously highlighted the project, along with dozens of others, and Baker has said that it was a priority project for the feds.
State officials had stalled the project amid what they say were exploding costs before ultimately paring down plans, and the price tag, last year.
“It was running out of control financially,” Baker said. “I think the revised version, they and we both agree, is much more financially appropriate.”