Before it became the center of the biotech universe, Kendall Square was home to many candy companies — one of which, Junior Mints, even hung around into the 21st century.
Apart from that, though, all that’s left of the area’s industrial past are a few buildings that have been repurposed — and the Grand Junction rail line.
It’s an increasingly incongruous relic: a sizable chunk of Cambridge real estate that is rarely used anymore and creates traffic bottlenecks when it is.
The line starts on the Boston side of the Charles River near Boston University, crosses the river under the BU bridge, then traverses the MIT campus and Kendall Square, before merging with the MBTA commuter rail tracks in Somerville.
The only traffic are out-of-service trains that the T or Amtrak ferries between the north and south sides of the city.
With clockwork regularity, someone proposes turning the Grand Junction into something — anything — more useful. The latest someone is the Cambridge Redevelopment Authority, which issued a report highlighting how the Grand Junction could be transformed into a transit route, connecting Allston to Kendall to North Station, with several new stations in Cambridge.
It all seems very promising and exciting, and I hope it is successful at pushing the idea along.
Perhaps the most telling part of the report, though, is the preliminary material that lists 17 other reports since 2000 that also examined the line and called for a variety of other uses, including bike trails, dedicated bus lanes, conversion to light rail, running trains from Worcester.
What’s lacking, in my view, isn’t technical studies. If anything, the route and its possibilities have been studied to death.
What’s missing is political leadership. The only political figure I’ve ever heard express much interest in upgrading the route is former lieutenant governor Tim Murray. Having the lieutenant governor on your side in politics is kind of like having the attorney general by your side in a war — it’s better than nothing but not by much.
Someone with some clout on Beacon Hill needs to pick up the cause — or else my money is on this study becoming the 18th to start gathering dust.
This is an excerpt from Are we there yet?, a Globe Opinion newsletter about the future of transportation in the region. Sign up to get it in your inbox early.
Alan Wirzbicki is Globe deputy editor for editorials. He can be reached at alan.wirzbicki@globe.com.