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DID YOU KNOW.... Light rail on Washington Street will cost hundreds of millions of dollars less to implement than completing the new bus system.

Download the recently released Silver Line report,
"MBTA's Silver Line - Taxpayers Get Less for More"

Read the Boston Herald Op-ed jointly signed by the Sierra Club and the Washington Street Corridor Coalition.

No matter what color you paint a bus, it still gets stuck in traffic. 15 years ago the MBTA – after tearing down the elevated Orange Line service to Dudley Square – promised equal or better service. For 15 years, that service was a dirty diesel bus that contributed to residents' suffering asthma rates six times higher than the state average.

Meanwhile, the state is in a fiscal crisis, and the MBTA plans to build an elaborate tunnel system underneath downtown Boston so buses can turn around. Otherwise known as the "Silver Line Phase III "the plan will cost millions more than using existing tunnels and restoring light rail service on Washington Street. Even MBTA studies showed using the existing tunnel for Green Line-type service is only a matter of new lights and tracks, a substantial savings.

What's so wrong with the Silver Line?

-A rail tunnel already exists that can serve Washington Street and the Roxbury community.

-Light rail will cost hundreds of millions of dollars less to implement than a new bus system.

-A new bus tunnel will require tearing up the newly refurbished YMCA, large swaths of Chinatown, the Theater District, and the Boston Common.

In times of fiscal crisis, the Governor should look at ways to do more for less. Since the MBTA already stated that rail service would increase ridership by 2 to 2.5 times that of a bus and cost $800 million less, he should make the switch to light rail.