The Boston Globe from Boston, Massachusetts • 19

FEBRUARY 14, 1999 Opinion 2 Political Notebook 2 Around the Towns 3 Business 4 People Places 11 Sports 14 South 1 A Efk 4, New Brockton bus terminal fuels hope for downtown By Alexander Reid GLOBE STAFF place. Ledoux said the $4 million station is a vast improvement from the terminal's old location, at the corner of Belmont and Main, which had become overcrowded. "It's a tremendous improvement," Ledoux said. "It has an open-air feel. It's aesthetically pleasing to look at, and it serves our ridership better." BROCKTON, Page 5 They will converge on a new orange-brick bus terminal, outfitted with an atrium and interior spaces ready for a newsstand, a coffee shop, and retail stores, and an adjacent 250-car parking area.

For now, leases are being negotiated with the Subway Company about a sandwich shop, and with Webby's, a local newsdealer, said Reinald G. Ledoux administrator for the Brockton Area Transit The station's architecture, designed to evoke the city's past, is a smaller version of a railway depot that occupied the location in the late 1800s, when shoe factories and mills brought workers into the city. The terminal is more than a comfortable nexus for commuters. It is also a signal that critical pieces of Brockton's long-awaited downtown revival are falling into BROCKTON Tomorrow morning, buses will ferry passengers from Brock-Ion's neighborhoods and from surrounding towns to a lot on Commercial Street that once contained an abandoned car dealership. Others will walk, bike, or drive there.

GLOBE STAFF PHOTO GEORGE HIZfcR The Brockton bus terminal, across from the train station, has stirred visions of a transportation hub. MASSASOIT COMMUNITY CQUutOfe Brockton and Canton Campuses SWte you't Support dwindling for Greenbush rail An EPA report on diesel concerns adds to the skepticism in key towns molUnt tor Mm 'V r. hot eM, why not tak a hot at a hot trip By Robert Preer GLOBE CORRESPONDENT Phippen, a one-time Greenbush backer who has become increasingly skeptical. "If our board were to vote on it now, I would guess it would be BeacW Tv-j Piayhouso- fi" an w0 west r- you could in-r 4.sa The Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority and its planned Greenbush commuter rail line are being met increasingly on the South Shore with skepticism, distrust, and outright opposition. A bitter controversy has erupted in Scituate over the location of the planned terminal.

In Hingham, attitudes appear to have hardened in the three years since the town sued in federal court, charging that the trains would damage the downtown historic district. Cohasset selectmen recently raised questions about diesel fumes, noise and safety, and then sharply criticized the MBTA for not responding to their concerns. "Support for the trains has gradually dwindled over the years," said Scituate Selectman Susan A. One of the key arguments in favor of reviving the trains that they would improve air quality by taking cars off the highways was undercut by a US Environmental Protection Agency report issued last week. The report confirmed what critics have charged for the past two years: that emissions from the diesel locomotives will cause significant air pollution.

The EPA concluded that more studies must be done to determine if diesel pollution would negate the benefits of reduced carbon monoxide and other pollutants from cars. Although controversy has tended to follow the Greenbush line, support for the railroad seemed stronger when planning began in the early GREENBUSH, Page 15 11 -4 If i 1 hi -rr'EL yy GLOBE PHOTO KERRY BRETT Massasoit president Robert Rose says enticements like those on the poster resulted in increased enrollments for spring term. Colleges try to sell themselves By Karen Hayes GLOBE CORRESPONDENT EPA effort encourages local sprawl fighters ROCKTON One lucky Massasoit Community College student is headed for a free trip to ida. Another is on her way to free skiing at a Vermont resort. A By Jeff McLaughlin GLOBE STAFF dent.

"When they get here, we try to give them a good sales pitch." But not everyone agrees such promotions are a good idea. Barbara Anderson of the Peabody-based anti-tax group Citizens for Limited Taxation said any college that has to promote itself with free trips probably should not be in the education business. "It is possible there are more colleges than we need and if they can't attract enough students, then the word is consolidation. Anderson said. "State colleges are there for the kids who otherwise wouldn't get an education.

They are grateful the school is there for them. Schools shouldn't have to coax them to come with promotional rewards." She attributed such promotions to instinct to survive more than to serve. "They are trying to continue their existence, like any government bureaucracy, long after their need is gone," she said. But student numbers continue to rise at Massasoit, Rose said, due in large part to ag-ADVERTISING, Page 15 Ad campaigns aim to get the attention of potential students Registration is up 12.75 percent over last spring, Massasoit officials say, making for a current student population of 6,225 at the two-year commuter school. Not long ago, an inexpensive and conveniently located education was enough to entice students onto public college campuses.

Now, finding themselves in an increasingly competitive market, state schools are resorting to familiar corporate marketing ploys to target their specific student demographic and increase enrollment. And, college officials insist, such promotional gimmicks in no way cheapen the educational product. They are simply tools to help their school stand out from the pack. "It is another way to attract people onto campus," said Robert Rose, Massasoit presi for individual communities to manage growth intelligently. But the biggest impact here of the new federal push, they said, was in raising such issues from their usual policy-wonk ghetto into the larger domain of presidential campaign debates.

"I'm glad the feds are getting on the bandwagon," said Stephen Smith, executive director of the Southeastern Regional Planning and Economic Development District "Here we're well ahead of the curve on growth issues," said Smith. "But it's great that Vice President GROWTH, Page 7 third is off to a show at a Boston theater, free tickets in hand. These winners, from Weymouth, Brockton and Easton, entered their names in a drawing for the free trips when they registered for spring courses last month at Massasoit's Brockton and Canton campuses. The raffle was part of a promotion supplied by a Boston radio station after the college bought $15,000 in radio air time to plug its tuition of $72 a credit, its day, evening and weekend courses, and its two convenient campuses. It was aimed at boosting registration for spring term, traditionally a slower enrollment period than fall.

And the strategy seems to have worked. The New England office of the Environmental Protection Agency pledged two weeks ago to commit $3 million to fight suburban sprawl in the six states, a promise seen by planners in the region south of Boston as an important symbol of a new political emphasis on quality-of-life issues in suburbia nationwide. The south suburban region's planning leaders hope to win grants from the EPA initiative for their ongoing efforts to develop a regional policy plan and help cast strategies For three theatrical venues, curtain comes down on dreams By Judith Montminy GLOBE CORRESPONDENT sional facility in Norwell. "You have got to give people what they want" to survive, said Bradford, whose group is known for its musicals and celebrity series featuring national entertainers. Her group does not pay actors in its own original productions, using community performers, but does pay its regular technical and management staffs.

Not responding to audience wishes is one of the reasons the Orpheum has had to regroup, observers say. Last winter, the artistic director at the time, Andrew Barrett, told South Weekly that the Orpheum, home of The Foxborough Regional Center for the Performing Arts, had reached a "turning point," producing its own year-round professional play series rather than presenting prepackaged shows produced elsewhere and trucked in to different theaters. Attendance at the theater's first in-house profes- THEATERS, Page 6 i "w-, One year ago, they were filled with promise, but today three local theaters are facing troubled times, one of them darkened for the season with only vague hope that it may eventually reopen. The Orpheum Theatre in Foxborough is in the jnidst of a retrenchment, while the Black and White Theatre in Middleborough has closed its doors. Both had been unable to pull in the audiences needed to sus-)ain them.

Showstoppers fell victim to a dispute between partners and has moved out of its Scituate home. I In a region where dozens of community theaters ind a few professional theaters have emerged over the toast 20 years, competition for entertainment dollars and people's time is tough, said Zoe Bradford, executive director of the 20-year-old Company Theatre which owns the former Nickerson Theater, a profes GLOBE STAFF PHOIO JUSTINE ELLEMENI At a recent Showstoppers rehearsal, (from left) Paula Markowicz, Lisa Johnson-Oliviere, Ray Byrne, and Sarah deUma listen as Douglas Trudeau and Donna Bacherman give some stage directions. Reporting on: Abington Avon Braintree Bridgewater Brockton Canton Carver Cohasset Dedham Duxbury East Bridgewater Easton Foxborough Halifax Hanover Hanson Hingham Holbrook Hull Kingston Lakeville Mansfield Marshfield Middleborough Milton Norton Norwell Norwood Pembroke Plymouth Plympton Quyjcy Randolph Raynham Rockland Scituate Sharon Stoughton Walpole West Bridgewater Wescwood Weymouth Whitman.