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Businesses urge regional planning

By Erica Noonan, Boston Globe

July 30, 2009

With more than a dozen planned new business developments along the Route 128-Interstate 95 corridor between Waltham and Burlington, the region is one of the state economy’s bright spots.

But business leaders at some of the largest employers along the 15-mile stretch of highway say they fear the anticipated growth, and resulting crush of new daily commuters, will overwhelm the corridor if transportation and infrastructure improvements aren't started soon.

A coalition of Waltham-based companies - including Adobe Systems, Fresenius Medical Care, ImmunoGen Inc., PerkinElmer, and National Grid - have formed the 128 Winter Street Council to push for managed growth and transportation solutions at the state level.

The council's chairman is Jack Troast, managing director of real estate firm T3 Advisors, who launched the effort officially last month with a series of meetings with officials from Burlington, Lexington, Lincoln, Waltham, and Weston. The sessions were convened to hash out an agenda for the fast-growing area, which struggles with rush-hour gridlock and power and water shortages even as it hosts the headquarters of some of the state's largest employers.

A former deputy director in the state's Department of Business and Technology, serving in the Romney administration, Troast is a longtime advocate for regional planning efforts, and said the prospect of nearly 1 million square feet of new office space springing up along the highway within a three-year period requires it.

"The 128 corridor is unique,'' Troast said. "Sometimes resources get focused only on parts of the state where economic development is needed. This district is growing fast, but we need to be proactive with issues to keep that growth successful.''

It's not an easy thing to get a wide variety of stakeholders to agree on any agenda, but preliminary discussions indicate there is widespread support for improving regional transportation and emergency management plans, Troast said.

The group hopes to collaborate with the 128 Council, an industry-funded group that organizes commuter shuttles between the MBTA's Alewife Station in Cambridge and employers in Lexington and Waltham, perhaps making the service more efficient and convenient, he said. Emergency management plans have been a topic of interest since a fast-moving December 2007 blizzard created a commuter traffic jam along 128 that took more than six hours to untangle.

"Everyone agrees we need to have more plans in place to move people across town boundaries. With the winter and ongoing construction on the highway, it would be too easy for something like that to happen again,'' Troast said.

Joel Barerra, deputy director of the Metropolitan Area Planning Council, a state agency that coordinates regional projects in 101 communities across Greater Boston, said he was enthusiastic about the new organization's ideas for the 128 corridor.

"We welcome the effort for business and regional leaders to come together,'' said Barerra, who said he expects his agency to meet regularly with the 128 Winter Street Council. "There is clearly a need to give extra attention to 128 and have more coordination among the five communities most affected by transportation issues. Route 128 is at capacity and it is not getting wider anytime soon.''

Eric Bourassa, the MAPC's transportation manager, said his agency is particularly interested in preliminary ideas about creating a local stop on the Fitchburg commuter-rail line that could expand the area's mass transit options. "It's one of the incentives we can create to have fewer people driving single-occupant vehicles to work,'' he said.

The regional planning council is in the midst of a traffic study of Route 128, and estimates the developments planned for the corridor will draw tens of thousands of additional vehicle trips daily.

The study won't be done until late fall, but early indications show the highly anticipated redevelopment of the former 10-building Polaroid property in Waltham into the Commons at Prospect Hill, a 1.7 million-square-foot retail and office complex, could add at least another 20,000 daily car trips to the highway and local roads, the agency said.

Weston Selectman Michael Harrity, chairman of the 128 Central Corridor Coalition, which was founded two years ago, said he expects to also collaborate with the new business council.

"I think we have a lot in common.'' said Harrity. "We came together for the same reason. We think 128 is stretched to capacity and recognize that it is a crucial resource that needs long-term management and regional planning.

"I think we all recognize we are at a crisis point and we are all in it together when it comes to developing solutions, when it comes to keeping quality of life high for local residents, but also keeping and attracting employers.''

For more information on the Winter Street 128 Council please contact Jack Troast, 781-890-5400 x107, or troast@t3advisors.com