Green Line Extension to Medford & Union Sq

[whighlander]

I'm going to square my answer with F-Line's by saying we're both right. The total package with Pan Am may have been good deal statewide, but the local effect on Lechmere was this "can't occupy both sides of the street at the same time" (not even for a construction period) that will 100% require that old Lechmere close *before* ground can be broken on new Lechmere, and then we're fully at the mercy of getting the new station built before re opening. I would have at least liked a "you don't have to close Old Lechmere until you've severed the steel viaduct" kinda deal.

Arlington -- I think that you and F-Line are not experienced as you think with MA politics and deals

Remember that if nothing get's done at Lechmere for the T -- Nothing will get done for Northpoint as the T will just keep running the Green Line as is

So the cards are definitely in the hands of the DOT for both Lechmere and also the other work that Skansa-White is looking to do

Baker also has a fair amount of good will and there is now a new Fed Transportation Bill ready for the President's signature

I'm sure that a deal can be worked similar to my suggestion minus the sale of the land [which somehow I missed a few years ago]

• Build the New Leechmere
• finish the new connector from the New Lechmere to the CR rail cut
• build the connector from the viaduct to the New Lechmere
• Open new Lechmere
• tear down old Lechmere
• Build Union Square [with extended provision for buses]*1
• finish the connection to Union Sq with provision for a future Station at Washington St.
• Open the Union Sq. GLX
• let development proceed and revisit about 2025

*1 buses from Union Sq. can provide convenient service to:

• Tufts,
• Harvard Sq., Red Line & more buses
• Assembly Sq., & Orange Line
• Porter Sq. CR, & Red Line
• Kendall/Central

 

[citylover94]

I think you are vastly underestimating how upset people in somerville would be about still having to take a bus to a transit line then to there destination. It just doesn't strike me as likely based on how Somerville has reacted to the extension that people would say oh yay I have a shorter bus ride now thats great. I think it would go more like, "wow we all still have to take a bus to rail transit and most of the city isn't served by the part of the extension that was built." I also think you are overly optimistic about how much power the state has over having to free up the current lechmere station when they start the new one. Some things especially in a sale/swap like that just can't be negotiated out of.

There are plenty of pieces of the northpoint develoment that could be started without the new lechmere station the only spot it holds skanska up at is the current station and something tells me that won't bother a multinational development company that much.

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

Arlington -- I think that you and F-Line are not experienced as you think with MA politics and deals

Remember that if nothing get's done at Lechmere for the T -- Nothing will get done for Northpoint as the T will just keep running the Green Line as is

So the cards are definitely in the hands of the DOT for both Lechmere and also the other work that Skansa-White is looking to do.

Baker also has a fair amount of good will and there is now a new Fed Transportation Bill ready for the President's signature

Bravo, Professor, for this word salad of nothingness. Lechmere having no deadline for relocation was already duly stated. You make an unsubstantiated statement about one politician's "goodwill" (and hell, you could easily substantiate it by citing some relevant examples...but that would mean expending effort instead of phoning it in) without positing how it relates in any way to this particular situation. There's one non-sequitur. And then shotgun it with another non-sequitur about the U.S. Congress passing a bill replenishing the Highway Trust Fund...and leave it hanging as if the two statements build off each other. Charlie Baker, Governor of Massachusetts, was so subliminally convincing he somehow got the U.S. Congress to get off its collective asses and vote to re-fund a pre-existing program commitment. What an accomplishment. And where theoretically (but unlikely) a tiny portion of that replenish money set aside for transit could provide another federal funding shot for GLX, you then segue into yet another debunked copypasta about how a cut-and-run is all ¡easy answers! So the Highway Trust Fund is a relevant funding source to tap for some cunning plan to back out of funding four-fifths of the project because reasons and stuff and [*voice trails off*. . .]?

It's like a perfect singularity of Westie-speak.

I'm sure that a deal can be worked similar to my suggestion minus the sale of the land [which somehow I missed a few years ago]

• Build the New Leechmere
• finish the new connector from the New Lechmere to the CR rail cut
• build the connector from the viaduct to the New Lechmere
• Open new Lechmere
• tear down old Lechmere
• Build Union Square [with extended provision for buses]*1
• finish the connection to Union Sq with provision for a future Station at Washington St.
• Open the Union Sq. GLX
• let development proceed and revisit about 2025

Except that would require cancellation of the contracts and eating the money being spent up and down the Lowell Line corridor on culvert work. And to do the Union branch you have to construct all of the expensive flyovers at the junction that are one of the biggest single cost items on the project. But it's OK...Charlie Baker got the Highway Trust Fund replenished so we can get free money to back out of the project and stuff, right?

*1 buses from Union Sq. can provide convenient service to:

• Tufts,
• Harvard Sq., Red Line & more buses
• Assembly Sq., & Orange Line
• Porter Sq. CR, & Red Line
• Kendall/Central

What profundity! Let's see here:

CT2, 91, 86...yup, goes to Orange today.
87...yup, goes to Porter today.
91...yup, goes to Central today.
85...yup, goes to Kendall today
86...yup, goes to Harvard today
88 two blocks down the street...yup, goes to Tufts.




Didn't you used to be better at this threadshitting game once upon a time, Professor?

 

[FK4]

FK4 -- yes when we are talking China's Urban Mega-growth

However, thanks to modern automotive technology -- pollution due to passenger vehicles continues to decline as the usage increases

• first because of numbers the highly improved efficiency of the gasoline engine with computer controlled fuel injection and electronic ignition timing
• reduced vehicle weight hence reduced fuel consumption per mile driven
• hybrids taking advantage of regenerative braking
• now beginning to be quite a few pollution source location shifting full electric vehicles

There are some further reductions in emissions in places such as Logan by replacing ordinary diesel powered buses with CNG-diesels

So -- no you can't really sell GLX on emissions effects other than the source shifting of diesel fumes for central generation

If you are going to make a successful case for GLX it needs to be done on the basis of improved commutes for the people currently taking the bus to the train or possibly even the bus to the place of work

No. In general, particulate matter leads to higher disease rates when it is emitted in higher concentrations. Neighborhoods subjected to higher levels of emission have higher disease rates. Period, end of story. I'm not really talking about GLX... I'm talking about the fact that pseudo-scientific arguments against global warming are used by people to justify refusing better emissions standards and less pollution, and publicly, these arguments are solely fought because they are dumb, and there is rarely any countering of them on the other point - that even if global warming were a sham, we are all still, medically, suffering the consequences of particulate matter. And even if you cut emissions a hundred times more, people living next to highways will STILL have greater numbers of asthma and other exposure-related disease. It will always be relative.

 

[JeffDowntown]

No. In general, particulate matter leads to higher disease rates when it is emitted in higher concentrations. Neighborhoods subjected to higher levels of emission have higher disease rates. Period, end of story. I'm not really talking about GLX... I'm talking about the fact that pseudo-scientific arguments against global warming are used by people to justify refusing better emissions standards and less pollution, and publicly, these arguments are solely fought because they are dumb, and there is rarely any countering of them on the other point - that even if global warming were a sham, we are all still, medically, suffering the consequences of particulate matter. And even if you cut emissions a hundred times more, people living next to highways will STILL have greater numbers of asthma and other exposure-related disease. It will always be relative.

Well documented in the ongoing study at Tufts Medical Center CAFEH. The study includes the I-93 air pollution catchment area in Somerville. Pretty clear epidemiology.

http://sites.tufts.edu/cafeh/cafeh-study-2/

 

[Arlington]

^ problem is still that GLX won't move the i-93 catchment nor reduce traffic on 93--it just changes where the drivers live to further out. Tolling or congestion charges would reduce 93 traffic (and I favor those). Everything else is undone by induced demand.

The perpetual supply and operations of indoor HEPA filters and window A/C --kind of like how Logan mitigates it's noise--would probably do more good and cost $20k per residence x 5k residences = $100M. Or call it $33k x 12k residences = $400M but actually targeted at what ails the people hurt by 93 particulate and proximity.

I am all for GLX but I see it as a way of powering economic growth and, yes accommodating low carbon growth/lifestyles. But trying to say you will improve the health of disadvantaged populations close to I-93 is either without evidence or not cost effective.

 

[whighlander]

No. In general, particulate matter leads to higher disease rates when it is emitted in higher concentrations. Neighborhoods subjected to higher levels of emission have higher disease rates. Period, end of story. I'm not really talking about GLX... I'm talking about the fact that pseudo-scientific arguments against global warming are used by people to justify refusing better emissions standards and less pollution, and publicly, these arguments are solely fought because they are dumb, and there is rarely any countering of them on the other point - that even if global warming were a sham, we are all still, medically, suffering the consequences of particulate matter.

FK-- I'm, getting really tired of people who wouldn't know a Hadley Cell from a Polar Vortex popping off as if they were the authoritative source straight from from Nature, or the Almighty -- you take your pick

And then there was the comments about particulate matter when the entire discussion is about gases -- having trouble with disparate states of matter?

Well anyway -- The key aspects of the argument which you conveniently misstated is:

• that over the past decades the air in the US is demonstrably cleaner -- many measures from direct measurements of concentrations to reductions in numbers and severity of "Smoggy days" -- Note that this is not true in quite a few other places globally -- principally in Asia
• the improvements in US air quality has come from due a combination of improvements in fixed source and mobile source emissions
• in the category of mobile sources the passenger car is demonstrably "cleaner" due to both the reduction in weight and improved engine performance
• engine performance improvements have come largely by replacing the one-size fits all model of carbureted combustion with a combination of fuel injection, catalytic converters, sensors and computation -- resulting in an engine which adapts to operating conditions
• the unintended consequence is that more cars and more miles today results in substantially less pollution than the far fewer cars driving fewer miles in the earlier technology era
• for varying reasons less has been done to reduce the particulate emissions from diesel buses and trucks -- today the primary mobile source of particulate emission in the US as there are no herds of 2 stroke "blue smokers" racing away from each stop such as is common in India and China

The result of all the above is that CLF-knee-jerk-ism to the contrary -- if you are to sell the need for the GLX to the general tax-paying public -- you'd better concentrate on convenience for the commuter rather than emissions reductions

 

[whighlander]

Well documented in the ongoing study at Tufts Medical Center CAFEH. The study includes the I-93 air pollution catchment area in Somerville. Pretty clear epidemiology.

http://sites.tufts.edu/cafeh/cafeh-study-2/

Jeffdtwn -- Please -- those kinds of studies are "Junk Science"

For example there is just as much traffic on Rt-128 next to Hanscom as there is passing through Dorchester on I-93 yet the incidence of Asthma and other diseases associated with urban poverty seem to be fairly rare in Lexington as compared to Dorchester

Just perhaps it might in part have to due with other things besides auto emissions

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

Jeffdtwn -- Please -- those kinds of studies are "Junk Science"

For example there is just as much traffic on Rt-128 next to Hanscom as there is passing through Dorchester on I-93 yet the incidence of Asthma and other diseases associated with urban poverty seem to be fairly rare in Lexington as compared to Dorchester

Just perhaps it might in part have to due with other things besides auto emissions

And what would that be? Insufficiently vigorous lung exercise from regularly tooting into one of these things?

 

[Arlington]

^ dog whistle or bong?

 

[JeffDowntown]

Jeffdtwn -- Please -- those kinds of studies are "Junk Science"

For example there is just as much traffic on Rt-128 next to Hanscom as there is passing through Dorchester on I-93 yet the incidence of Asthma and other diseases associated with urban poverty seem to be fairly rare in Lexington as compared to Dorchester

Just perhaps it might in part have to due with other things besides auto emissions

Very convenient to call anything you don't want to believe "junk science."

I don't know why I am even responding to your "junk post", but I don't believe asthma rates along the 128 corridor have been studied.

I do know they were studies in southern California in 2006 by USC, and that study found a 50% increase in asthma rate for kids living within 75 meters of highways.

http://news.usc.edu/21269/USC-researchers-link-asthma-in-children-to-highway-proximity/

The Tufts CAFEH study is interesting because it is particularly looking at elevated highways -- which seem to increase the exposure distance from the highway that causes the effect (not really that surprising). Cars and trucks have gotten cleaner, but not really for ultrafine particulates 100 nm or less in diameter (that are not even routinely measured for pollution control, because they are so hard to measure, and hard to control!). And those are proving to be the really bad actors on lungs.

 

[Charlie_mta]

I'm sure that a deal can be worked similar to my suggestion minus the sale of the land [which somehow I missed a few years ago]

• Build the New Leechmere
• finish the new connector from the New Lechmere to the CR rail cut
• build the connector from the viaduct to the New Lechmere
• Open new Lechmere
• tear down old Lechmere
• Build Union Square [with extended provision for buses]*1
• finish the connection to Union Sq with provision for a future Station at Washington St.
• Open the Union Sq. GLX
• let development proceed and revisit about 2025

*1 buses from Union Sq. can provide convenient service to:

• Tufts,
• Harvard Sq., Red Line & more buses
• Assembly Sq., & Orange Line
• Porter Sq. CR, & Red Line
• Kendall/Central

I believe the Green Line viaduct from Lechmere to Gilmore Bridge is going to be torn down and replaced as part of this project. So, the Green Line needs to be closed during that part of the project anyway, and phasing the replacement of the Lechmere station won't help shorten the closure.

 

[FK4]

No. In general, particulate matter leads to higher disease rates when it is emitted in higher concentrations. Neighborhoods subjected to higher levels of emission have higher disease rates. Period, end of story. I'm not really talking about GLX... I'm talking about the fact that pseudo-scientific arguments against global warming are used by people to justify refusing better emissions standards and less pollution, and publicly, these arguments are solely fought because they are dumb, and there is rarely any countering of them on the other point - that even if global warming were a sham, we are all still, medically, suffering the consequences of particulate matter.

FK-- I'm, getting really tired of people who wouldn't know a Hadley Cell from a Polar Vortex popping off as if they were the authoritative source straight from from Nature, or the Almighty -- you take your pick

And then there was the comments about particulate matter when the entire discussion is about gases -- having trouble with disparate states of matter?

Well anyway -- The key aspects of the argument which you conveniently misstated is:

• that over the past decades the air in the US is demonstrably cleaner -- many measures from direct measurements of concentrations to reductions in numbers and severity of "Smoggy days" -- Note that this is not true in quite a few other places globally -- principally in Asia
• the improvements in US air quality has come from due a combination of improvements in fixed source and mobile source emissions
• in the category of mobile sources the passenger car is demonstrably "cleaner" due to both the reduction in weight and improved engine performance
• engine performance improvements have come largely by replacing the one-size fits all model of carbureted combustion with a combination of fuel injection, catalytic converters, sensors and computation -- resulting in an engine which adapts to operating conditions
• the unintended consequence is that more cars and more miles today results in substantially less pollution than the far fewer cars driving fewer miles in the earlier technology era
• for varying reasons less has been done to reduce the particulate emissions from diesel buses and trucks -- today the primary mobile source of particulate emission in the US as there are no herds of 2 stroke "blue smokers" racing away from each stop such as is common in India and China

The result of all the above is that CLF-knee-jerk-ism to the contrary -- if you are to sell the need for the GLX to the general tax-paying public -- you'd better concentrate on convenience for the commuter rather than emissions reductions

The demonstration that populations exposed to more vehicular traffic is linked to higher rates of diseases such as asthma has been very clearly documented. I dont know why you would ever bother to argue otherwise.

Highways are partly responsible for this but in general these findings are seen in dense, urban populations - it's not just the highways but the traffic clogging city streets. If you have a study of Lexington pulmonary disease rates compared to a similar town, feel free to share it here. My supposition would be that people living along the highway versus those who dont probably DO have higher disease rates, but it would be a shitty study because of such a small sample size and the important mitigating factors such as placement of houses in Lexington on 128 being significanty farther from the highway as compared to Dorchester or Somerville, as well as lack of street grid traffic density in Lexington as compared to an inner urban neighborhood.

At any rate, you seem to ignore what I said - regardless of the fact that emissions standards have improved, people living in urban environments are going to suffer more than people who dont, until cars emit NOTHING. I am not arguing about the Green Line as a solution for this problem at all - I agree with Arlington here - I only said what I said in the beginning of this dumb argument that there are reasons to argue for better air quality other than climate change.

 

[shmessy]

Just another thread that's been Whighjacked.

 

[Texasian]

So, I know that station construction contracts are on hold, but in the big construction area where the Union Square stop is going, they've had heavy dump trucks going in and out all week with loads of gravel. Perhaps they're getting ready to lay the rail bed?

 

[whighlander]

Just another thread that's been Whighjacked.

Schmess -- Please the diversion from the discussion of the planning and construction began a long time before I made my comments

as an example:

What we can say is that GLX will power low-emissions growth in Som/Med, and easy access to high-wage employment centers.

We cannot say that it will solve any existing road or pollution problems, except that some will be given a fast, clean alternative to those road problems (which will remain)....

The GLX's road benefits, instead of accruing to local Medford/Somerville drivers, will mostly accrue to Winchester-Woburn-Stoneham-Malden-Melrose drivers who are given a new "back way" to get places by cutting through Som/Med/Camb roads that commuters are no longer using.

Given this, it is folly to say that the GLX is good for reducing VMT or meaningfully reducing pollution (and the CLF knows this and so do the Courts)

In fact, [the car fleet] now pollutes something like 1/5 to 1/10th what they did when the Big Dig settlement was signed, so even doubling traffic still halves or fifths the pollution, thanks to the retirement of wave after wave of dirty cars (pre-1980 (guzzlers), pre-1989 (dirty sippers), which would have been most cars back then, and then 1989-1994, then 1994-1999, and now even the 1999-2003 are starting to be retired)


If the goal of the GLX was x% reduction in pollution, the reality is that it has already been achieved--and more--thanks to engine technology (and you could probably double VMT through the GLX area and still be below the original emissions goals)

You can basically draw a chart like this for any known pollutant/irritant (VOCs are "gas fumes" that cause smog, but you can do it with NOx, CO2, or particulates and it looks about the same) Source:US EPA

So why don't you point your finger at the true source of the diversion from the theme

Note that the reason that the curve for VOC [Volatile Organic Compounds] declines the way it does -- is not something profound

All that you need to know is that beginning in the 1970's and continuing through the 1980's that the Original Clean Air Act resulted in significant changes to passenger cars including:

• open fuel systems were banned [evaporating gasoline]
• carburetors [more evaporating gasoline] were superseded by fuel injection
• oxygen sensors and catalytic converters with unleaded gasoline and some changes in gasoline blending [cleaned up whatever was unburned when it left the cylinders] were introduced
• time toko care of the rest -- as gradually the population of old cars without those improvements declined with time --

The result is that our air is far cleaner than it was 40 years ago
-- and Note that this is demonstrably not the case in Beijing -- currently experiencing LA 70's type Smog

Trust me this stuff is Not Rocket Science

Back to the GLX plans and construction --- for the GLX Wednesday is the equivalent of Eisenhower's Go/No go call 24 hours before D-Day

By this time on Thursday we'll either be talking about a new timetable for the completion of however much of the GLX will be built -- or the discussion with be about the phase-out of the construction projects and salvage of whatever

 

[ant8904]

Again, as I pointed to your rhetoric before, he said it was whighjacked not because of the topic, but your annoying bullet point style of writing. As I pointed before, your bullet point break down of things likely reflect your style to write things as a consultant. It can look great when one wants to get to the point in something that has a lot of details around it. But the way you're using it make everything just making something concise into something verbose.

When you combine that by needless backhanded snark to posters known to shown themselves very knowledgeable to operations while then making 9 bullet points to simply say rebuild of the viaduct means the Green Line can't run to Lechmere regardless (and another 5 bullet points to list bus stops), it gets old real fast.


Regardless of the above, it us true that this is the week we'll hear their plan for the future. Again, listening/reading the latest news, the discussion remains in tone that the we'll have to pay 1bn more than planned if we go forward. Which again make no goddamn sense our choices seem to be cancellation/cuts or dealing with an extra 1bn cost to build as planned. Everything I read shows there's absolutely no engineering reason things need to cost 1bn more to do this - actually it should cost much less. Absolutely no amount of material, R&D, equipment, labor, energy, expertise, or any of that. Everything absolutely says it's just a contractor charging more so they can pocket more. A way bigger than needed profit margin for their contribution. Yet, everything I am seeing is not questioning that at all. Either it's gonna cost that much more or we're gonna "save" by doing far less than planned.

Is there any sign they will make the contractor just do more for less? Because it really does sound they are able to while walking away still well compensated.

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

Since the last 2 pages have degenerated into little more than a discussion of the semantics of threadshitting, and the repeat-offender threadshitter in question cops to said activity by omission in Sentence #1 of his first post-threadshat reply that why...yes...he was indeed trolLOLLOLing because the sidebar the discussion took bores him so. . .

. . .haven't we more than passed the point to either fumigate this discussion by taking a @#$% on the "Trash Heap of Off-Topic Posts" thread-in-exile or just get off the damn pot and bring this back on-topic?

 

[CS]

Since the last 2 pages have degenerated into little more than a discussion of the semantics of threadshitting, and the repeat-offender threadshitter in question cops to said activity by omission in Sentence #1 of his first post-threadshat reply that why...yes...he was indeed trolLOLLOLing because the sidebar the discussion took bores him so. . .

. . .haven't we more than passed the point to either fumigate this discussion by taking a @#$% on the "Trash Heap of Off-Topic Posts" thread-in-exile or just get off the damn pot and bring this back on-topic?

Can't speak for the other "lurkers", but I just usually scroll past \ ignore whigh's comments... you guys should try it.

 

[whighlander]

Can't speak for the other "lurkers", but I just usually scroll past \ ignore whigh's comments... you guys should try it.

CS: You've made an invaluable contribution to the discussion of the future or lack there-of for the Green Line Extension --specifically -- your Green Smiley face -- I plan to use it much in the future

By the way -- Special for F-Line -- I'm not sure its authoritative -- but today, although I missed the accompanying story, I saw a map on a local TV station that seemed to end at Union Sq and Washington St.