Silver Lining for Newton

In a letter to the Globe editor Saturday, Silver Line hater Mark Slater (Bay Village Neighborhood Association) railed (no pun intended) against the T's plans to link the two branches of the urban rapid bus transit line via a tunnel under downtown. 

A leading example of this fiscal folly is the widely reviled Silver Line Phase III, a $1.5 billion to $2 billion bus tunnel touted as providing Roxbury residents with a "one-stop ride" to Logan airport. This project will result in an increase of the MBTA's debt by $600 million to $800 million, despite adding an insignificant number of new riders to the system and despite the fact there is no demand from Roxbury residents for this route.

Slater has a point: there is some dissension in Roxbury as to whether the Silver Line Phase III is of any use at all. But the project is not really intended to serve the people of Roxbury. The Silver Line connection through Chinatown and Boylston stations will allow people from Newton to ride into the South Station financial district and the cash-rich South Boston waterfront without going through Park Street. (Roxbury and South End riders will be able to do the same thing without going through Downtown Crossing.) I've got nothing against the people of Newton, Roxbury or the South End, but I'll relish their absence all the same, next time I'm jammed in there waiting for a train.