To the editor:
Following are excerpts from comments I have forwarded to the MBTA regarding the new Salem Intermodal Transportation Complex. (Please note that I did not say garage.):
First, I applaud the change of heart in your commitment to building a full-length, high-level boarding platform. If we can have what has been built at curved stations on the Greenbush Line, that will be a magnificent improvement.
The MBTA has an opportunity to right many wrongs in this location. Your main goal should be to provide the best delivery system to and from the train platform for people who arrive by foot, car, bike, bus, drop-off, etc., and the appropriate climate protection to shield them along that forlorn North River landscape.
This functionality in getting customers to and from the train platform in an efficient and safe manner, as well as addressing the comfort issues, should be paramount. Building the garage is only one part of the overall picture. You do not want to build the right station wrong.
Please include safe pedestrian improvements for the 25 percent of the pedestrian traffic that comes from North Salem. Nor should access via a Hamilton-style pedestrian crossing, which was put in at the insistence of the local merchants in that town, be denied those coming from the Bridge Street-Salem Common neighborhood. This is another 25 percent of the pedestrian traffic.
The design should also allow for pedestrians coming from any direction to have the same weather protection as those who arrive by car. In other words, if you are walking to or from the platform, you should be allowed to pass through the garage if you choose and out the other side. This will be most welcome during storms or oppressively hot weather.
Lastly, your design has a serious operational flaw. In the zeal to accommodate the ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) regulations, you force all non-first-floor users to utilize a single ramp to exit the station, as well as making it the main entry point. You claim that for every staircase there must be a contiguous ramp to accommodate ADA standards.
Well, you had better redesign your garage, since there exists other staircases without this accommodation. Emergency or otherwise, they are still staircases. If these are allowed, then maybe we can call the one I propose — allowing people direct access to the train platform from Washington Street — an "emergency" staircase too.
This is a scenario that happens thousands of times a year: Let's say that I arrive above the station at the entrance to the garage ramp. The train is sitting beneath me. I have 30 seconds or less to get on board. The next train will come in an hour. If I miss this one, I will be late for work or miss a flight or not be able to do what I planned on doing in Boston.
Are you seriously going to tell me that I cannot go down a set of stairs and catch the train, with room to spare because I have to traipse hither and yon through some ADA-sanctified path, when all of this could be avoided with a simple staircase to the platform? Think of your real customers, not some ADA bureaucrat who will never, ever, ever ride a train from this station. You need to fight for this amenity for your loyal passengers.
In over 30 years of interacting with numerous MBTA management staff, I have seen — over and over and over again — that if the MBTA doesn't want to do something, it will make up excuse after excuse to avoid doing it. Yet I have also seen the MBTA go through hoops of fire if it wants to get something done.
If I am in a wheelchair, I do not want to be forced to compete and share with the hordes of people just trying to get to Washington Street or the upper levels of the garage via a single ramp. It is dangerous to them and to the people it was designed to serve. I have checked with members the Salem disability board and they support me in this observation.
As for the argument that you can't put in a staircase because of the "historically sensitive" signal tower: Let me remind you that 1.) this is not the historic tower from "ye olde dayes," and 2.) this one has been moved at least three times already.
Lastly, can you please put a sign on the faÃßade that says: "Salem Station" instead of a big T logo? We want to be proud of our station that we have waited so long to be built, and the big T logo says "Orange Line" more than it does "Salem Station."
By adding the Washington Street staircase, the northern pedestrian at-grade crossing, and improved safety devices and a garage walk-through for North Street-bound pedestrians, you will be able to diffuse the large crowds that disembark in four directions rather than one.
Right now your plan calls for only one egress point. This is a seriously flawed design when it comes to the 70 percent of users who could benefit from such improvements. You cannot build this based on the needs of the garage users alone.
David Pelletier
Salem
