By Jim O'Sullivan

Calling it a "three-run home run" and promising a "grand slam" once the fourth component of the $67 million project goes forward, MBTA General Manager Michael Mulhern joined Red Line activists and local politicians on a three-stop tour of the Dorchester stations poised for renovations. As local advisors and T designers negotiate final design details, Ashmont Station awaits construction next year.

And even as the long-awaited rehauls got a symbolic jumpstart with shovelfuls of sand tossed at Fields Corner, Shawmut, and Savin Hill stations, Dorchester activists were pushing for more amenities, and grumbling that Barletta Construction of Roslindale, a union contractor, should abide by neighborhood demands to hire labor from the neighborhood.

Sandi Bagley, co-chairperson of the Fields Corner Working Committee, a neighborhood advisory group, said Barletta and the T, which is not bound by a city ordinance requiring that local residents perform local labor, should make sure that jobs and fees go to area workers.

"We don't want the project to go forward until we've exhausted every avenue," Bagley told the Reporter, saying she had spoken with T officials and planned to meet with Mulhern. "We're expecting that money to stay in the community."

Bagley called on Dorchester state Representatives Martin Walsh and Marie St. Fleur to wield influence with the T. "I want to put them on the line for this one," Bagley said.

Barletta officials "will wait and see" about the labor force, said Tom Russo of the firm.

Mulhern said he agreed with Bagley's proposals "in principle," and planned to meet with Barletta to discuss implementation.

While labor difficulties complicate the project, relief at seeing another stage of what Massachusetts Secretary of Transportation Daniel Grabauskas called "a decades-long struggle" was evident. Russo said no start date had been determined, but state officials said construction would begin within a month.

Beginning with a press conference at Fields Corner Station, transportation and elected officials joined locals in riding Red Line trains to Shawmut, where Epiphany School students met them, and then to Savin Hill, which Walsh said was "the last station on the entire spider to be fixed," referring to the web-like MBTA rail map.

"It isn't about one particular station," said Coleman Flaherty, co-chairman of the Savin Hill community advisory committee (CAC). "It's about Dorchester getting public transportation we can be proud of."

"I like to think of it as the MBTA getting back to basics: renovation, rebuilding, and restoring our facilities that have been neglected over the years," Mulhern said. Mulhern and others trumpeted a policy shift away from the 1990s emphasis on extended commuter service into the suburbs, and toward refurbishing "the urban core." Grabauskas called it a "fix-it first strategy."

The slew of elected officials assembled credited local activists for relentlessness. Grabauskas encouraged advocates to continue "holding our feet to the fire."

"It was always the neighborhoods, the people on the street, the people who use the T every day who really got the ball rolling on this," said Congressman Stephen F. Lynch, who said he remembered discussing the project with Fields Corner leaders during his term as a state representative.

"They told me, 'If you get this project done, they'll elect you to Congress'," Lynch recalled.

"It's not just a renovation, it's a real sign that good things are happening in Dorchester," said state Senator Jack Hart.

"It's a lot of money, but it's a tremendous investment for us," Grabauskas said, crediting the local advocates who drove the project, a "decades-long struggle."

"The best thing we can do to reward that kind of tenacity is to build these people the best darn stations in the system."

"Somehow, just as the tracks travel through our community, so does the cooperation, and the hopes and dreams, of this community," City Councillor Maureen Feeney said.

Jenny Moye, co-chairwoman of the Shawmut CAC, whom Mulhern called "a very active penpal of mine," called the start of construction "a huge step forward in achieving equity," and, after lobbying for more capital appropriations for gardens and street lights, confessed a level of satisfaction with the T.

"Jenny Moye is happy with the MBTA," she said.