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Rockport officials apparently don't understand commuter rail politics in Massachusetts.
It is not about what the local residents want or need at their train station, even though it is in their town. It is what the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority wants. The suthority isn't there to serve the people — the people are there to serve the authority, right?
Sound backward? That's because it is.
Yet that's the message conveyed by the MBTA in its dealings with the town over the changes in plans for what was once to be perhaps a $20 million revitalization plan for Rockport's end-of-the-line commuter rail station.
In the MBTA universe, it is upset selectmen that need an attitude adjustment. If selectmen just understood how these things work, perhaps they would stop complaining about the MBTA making promises and then not keeping them. Perhaps they would realize that the promise of a full renovation of the local commuter rail station is only as much of a promise as the MBTA wants it to be — which, as it turns out, isn't much.
Of the money needed for the project, about $10 million secured by state Sen. Bruce E. Tarr, R-Gloucester, through a state transportation bond bill has never been authorized. The T has another $10.1 million in its capital budget that was earmarked for the project, but apparently even that is no longer all available to Rockport.
And selectmen now have little to nothing to say even about how that small remaining percentage gets spent.
The T is planning to spend $2 million to build a "hush hut" to quiet the noise from engines idling all night long and to buy ultra-clean diesel fuel, so those engines will foul the environment a bit less.
And yes, those are good things — although it is hard to believe that with $2 million, the technology brain trust at the T couldn't find a way simply to shut down the engines at night and still keep them warm enough to start in the morning. That would save all that ultra-clean fuel, eliminate the need for a hush hut and be much better for the environment.
But what town officials really want — what they have been telling the T for years that they really need — are improvements to the deteriorating parking lot, including the mitigation of its perennial drainage problems.
At this point, the sign at the train station probably ought to say, "Welcome to Rockport: Don't fall into a pothole."
But those improvements are not going to happen, according to the T, because those improvements would require extensive engineering and environmental reviews.
Such absurdity would be funny if it was not so damaging to the town. Obviously, it is T officials, not the selectmen, who need the attitude adjustment.
This is a project that has been in the works for years. The needs of the town have been expressed to the T multiple times. And the T ought to use what money is available for Rockport to cover the work that Rockport officials and residents believe the station really needs.
Why, after years of meetings and discussions and assurances from the T that it was going to be "partners" with the town, is it only now coming to light that fixing the parking lot is not eligible for funding because it requires these extensive reviews?
Is this a surprise to the T? Why didn't it inform local officials of this up front? Why haven't those reviews already been done?
It is understandable that, at a time of major recession and enormous fiscal stress, some budgets have to be cut and some projects have to be curtailed. Indeed, a number of people have been skeptical for more than a year about such a sweeping overall project in a time when revenues are tight — and at a time when the T itself is facing an uncertain economic future.
But there is no excuse for the MBTA ignoring both the needs and wishes of the town.
That parking lot should be the first priority for any improvements at the station.
That much is obvious to anybody in town. It ought to be obvious to the T as well. And it ought to have the MBTA's top — not lowest — priority.
