As Raúl Guzman approached the Medford/Tufts MBTA station he was greeted by a crowd of cameras and reporters.
“Now, I know that’s not for me, but can I, like, pretend that it is?” the 22-year-old student asked no one in particular, before attempting to navigate the press and descend the station stairs.
Guzman wasn’t exactly wrong, but he wasn’t right, either.
His appearance and eventual departure from the station coincided with debarkation by a host of dignitaries arriving there specifically to see him and others just like him, finally, get on a train and leave Medford for Boston.
Amid all of the turmoil surrounding the state’s beleaguered transportation system, MBTA leaders and advocates had good reason to celebrate Monday, when shortly after 4:45 a.m. the first long-awaited Green Line train left College Avenue carrying hundreds of riders south into the city.
The new Green Line branch starts there but will add four new stops in Somerville to complement the March addition of a stop at Union Square station.
When coupled with the respective Red and Orange Line stops at Davis and Assembly, almost all of Somerville will now be within a 12-minute walk of a T station, with the five stops on the GLX line providing an estimated 50,000 rides a day and, according to officials, taking about 45,000 car trips out of traffic.
The first early morning train, packed to the gills by transportation advocates, MBTA officials, and regular commuters, represents the culmination of four decades of planning and advocacy, according to Gov. Charlie Baker.
“I go back a long time with this project, okay? It’s one of the things that happens when you get old,” Baker said. “I remember people talking about this project in the 1980s, like I personally remember people talking about it in the 80s, and in the 1990s, and the 2000s and the 2010s.”
Joined by U.S. Sen. Ed Markey, Assistant Speaker of the House Katherine Clark, MBTA General Manager Steve Poftak, MassDOT Secretary and CEO Jamey Tesler, U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren spoke alongside Baker on Tufts University’s station adjacent campus after cutting the ribbon on the Medford station.
“I’ve just got one word: finally,” Warren told a cheering crowd of hundreds. “It has been a long ride of fits and starts and near-death experiences, but we’re all here to celebrate today.”
The GLX project will connect 6,000 Tufts students to the university’s three geographically separate campuses, according to university President Anthony Monaco.
“The new station makes Tufts a truly transit-oriented university,” he said.
The full project, which cost about $2.3 billion, was funded in no small part by federal money secured by the efforts of former U.S. Rep. Mike Capuano, Baker and just about every other speaker noted.
A new $250 million vehicle maintenance facility now situated at the end of the line will be named in his honor, according to the governor.
“You can’t build a project like this on good intention and words, you need dollars,” Baker said. “This will be a tremendous asset to this community, and to the surrounding communities and to the greater Boston region, forever.”