Advocates for a tunnel linking the MBTA commuter rail systems operating out of Boston’s North and South stations would obviate the need for big railyards on sites that would be better developed as housing. iStock photo

It could be just the ticket to stop the MBTA in its tracks as it forges ahead with one of the most outrageous government boondoggles in recent years.

To wit: Building a rail tunnel connecting Boston’s North and South Stations would help thwart a growing land grab by the MBTA in Boston’s urban core, where they aren’t making any new land.

And it is a land grab driven by the dumbest of reasons, with T executives dreaming of a vast parking lot for the transit authority’s fleet of suburban commuter trains.

OK, only in Massachusetts would this be one of the political selling points for a multibillion-dollar tunnel project – one I’ve repeatedly criticized over the years.

Yet alas, such is the case with the long-debated North-South Rail Link, and it’s what’s made me revisit my past critiques.

Rail Yards or Housing?

Finally connecting the two stations would merge what are effectively separate commuter rail systems to north and south of Boston.

And that, in turn, would give the T the ability to manage its fleet of trains much more efficiently, while also driving a stake through the troubled transit authority’s efforts to lay claims to large tracts of land in the Boston area on which to stick idle trains, Rail Link supporters say.

“If you do the North-South Rail Link, you don’t need as many [train] layover facilities – you certainly don’t need full-blown facilities,” John Businger, a former state rep and vice chair of the North-South Rail Link Working Group, told me in an interview for my newsletter, Contrarian Boston.

Specifically, the MBTA would be able to dispense of its planned rail yard in Widett Circle, a potential 100-acre development site in South Boston that the T forked over $250 million for in 2023, supporters of the rail tunnel and a 2018 MassDOT feasibility study say.

And that’s not all, as they say. The tunnel could also short-circuit a multibillion-dollar plan favored by Gov. Charlie Baker to add additional tracks to South Station where the U.S. Postal Service’s huge mail sorting plant now stands – valuable urban acreage that would be far better used for badly needed housing or commercial development.

In fact, the North-South Rail Link would also eliminate the need for some surface tracks at North Station as well, freeing up acreage there for redevelopment.

Who knows: Maybe the T and Amtrak would also no longer need the rail yard that they controversially want to plunk down in Allston, on land to be reclaimed under a planned, $1 billion straightening of the Turnpike’s route through the neighborhood.

Supporters See Other Benefits

It’s almost criminal in its stupidity, the idea of taking developable land in Boston’s urban core and parking trains on it, even as a dire housing shortage pushes prices and rents to insane levels – but that’s the T for you.

Once eyed for an Olympic stadium during Boston’s short-lived bid to bring the games to town, Widett Circle itself is large enough for a new neighborhood.

Of course, supporters of the Rail Link will tick off many other worthy reasons why the project makes sense, such as enabling someone to live on the North Shore and take a job on the South Shore, or vice versa.

That, in turn, could enable commuters to access less expensive homes farther out from the urban core than is feasible now.

“We have a rail system that is not competitive, which does not connect North and South Station,” Mike Dukakis, former governor and the Democratic candidate for president in 1988, told me.

“It’s a no-brainer,” said Dukakis, who now chairs the advocacy group pushing for the project.

Take ‘Big Dig 2.0’ Fears Seriously

Still, the more cynically-minded among us might see this as the Massachusetts form of fighting fire with fire, or in this case, using one potential boondoggle to defeat another.

And that’s points to an area where supporters of the North-South Rail Link have some work to do.

Given the size of the project, with cost estimates ranging from a few billion dollars to well over $10 billion – there is no way to avoid comparisons with the Big Dig.

Scott Van Voorhis

For all its engineering accomplishments, the dishonesty surrounding the Big Dig’s price tag and its constant upward revisions left the public, the media and elected officials understandably wary of megaprojects.

North-South Rail Link supporters are too often defensive when it comes to the potential cost of the project, claiming that new tunnel boring technology will make what would have cost tens of billions of dollars years ago, mere billions now.

They would be better off acknowledging the potential for cost overruns and fears that it could become another Big Dig with runaway costs.

It’s the elephant in the room and there is no way around it.

And that’s before we get into whether there is a snowball’s chance in hell of the federal government putting any money into the project over the next few years, with Massachusetts probably not high on Trump’s political favors list.

Scott Van Voorhis is Banker & Tradesman’s columnist and publisher of the Contrarian Boston newsletter; opinions expressed are his own. He may be reached at sbvanvoorhis@hotmail.com.