We have leadership with no inherent knowledge of transit systems. They are too used to hiring consultants to supervise consultants to supervise consultants on the topic.
That's a really cynical take based on limited information. He's the former SecDOT, so it's no surprise that Tibbits-Nutt uses his counsel. The article didn't say "Salvucci AND SALVUCCI ALONE was responsible for Tibbits-Nutt opposing the layover". If he weren't around she very well may have talked to other experts and reached the same conclusion. Geez.
This might be a good time for a recap: Tibbits-Nutt, the same transportation secretary that said she does not support the yard here, also mentioned last fall that "rapid transit extensions just don't happen anymore". As I've explained in that link, that's wildly out of touch with what's actually happening in cities with similar transit systems as Boston.
Which arguably should be the two top priorities. Bus improvements can be done with minimal infrastructure investment, so just do it. And state of good repair is a mandatory pre-cursor to further system expansion. I don't know her views on an RER system for Massachusetts, but that might be outside the scope of this discussion. Hopefully she favors such an idea, as it would be a good third leg for early improvements before we get to the rapid transit expansions.
Not really. The express tracks were going to split to the south side of the ROW, the layover was going to be in the middle, and the local tracks were going to split off to the north. It would've precluded putting another mode in the middle at all the way the revenue tracks were splitting/combining at the ends, so the great middle would've been a waste of space in the end now that they have the Widett site and don't need Beacon Park storage. The track layout depicted on the last page of the thread is the antithesis of future provisioning.
While I fully support bus infrastructure expansion, let's not pretend it is cheap infrastructure. With the T committed to electrifying as much of the bus fleet as possible, the cost for new bus garages is now looking like $500 million per garage, nine to replace. That is $4.5 Billion in bus garages alone. And that does not include the electric fleet.
I don’t know if it’s fair to bill all of that towards “bus infrastructure expansion.” The Quincy garage needed replacing even in an all diesel world.
It is more that EV garages are going to be more expensive than the old diesel garages (apparently). EV buses seem to mean more garage space needed per bus. More busses also means more garages. I am just pointing out that supporting bus infrastructure is pretty major. It is not free of infrastructure costs.
Quincy's cost is scandalous. Quite literally a scandal, as the whole process was re-bid when the initial bids came out insanely high in a way that the bidders could not fully explain. While the costs for these types of projects have unfortunately increased lots, there is no way in hell Quincy Garage is the bellwether for how these will price out in the future. And most garages on the system are not so antiquated as Quincy needing full replacement, so the costs of retrofits to existing facilities will be lower than the outright replacement going on in Quincy.
It's not more garage space needed per bus, it's more buses needed per garage. BEB fleets require much larger spare ratios than diesel or diesel-hybrid fleets because of % of the fleet that will be down at any given hour for charging.
They already did a Layover Analysis 11 years ago attached to the South Station Expansion scoping study that detailed exactly what future layover needs were going to be. Widett Circle was evaluated for that at the time but eliminated from consideration due to the (then) land acquisition politics of displacing the Food Market businesses. Beacon Park was advanced (then with 12 trainsets) along with Readville Yard 2 because the sites were fully under T control. Widett was the largest site by storage (24 trainsets...30 if the adjacent cold storage warehouse is taken), and now it's available because the private buyer (who then cynically land-parked it) already got the city to relocate the Food Market. Beacon Park (now shrunk to 8 trainsets because of Harvard pressure) numerically isn't needed anymore because they ended up getting the 'superset' property they originally thought would be politically unavailable.
T estimate is $4.5B for facilities. Arborway 15% cost estimate for construction was $495M, subject to change at this stage, but they're on track for that $4.5B mark.
That all sounds reasonable about the additional capacity gains out of Widett, but one question I do have is optimizing alignments to avoid Tower 1 crossing movements. According to the environmental assessment for SSX, crossing moves at the Tower and at the two downstream interlockings on Worcester/NEC and Fairmount/Old Colony respectively are a big operational headache and capacity limitation. Wouldn't a layover yard to the west allow for clearer moves through the crossings for yard-bound trains that terminated on lower-numbered tracks? Alon Levy has proposed essentially segmenting South Station ops into two functionally separate stations for the Fairmount/Old Colony on one side and Worcester/NEC on the other. Even recognizing that kind of full rationalization is unlikely given current T rolling stock, employee contracts, etc., it seems to me that some effort at routine track assignments by line to minimize crossing moves would be a good idea, and the same logic would go for yard access, right?
This is what the South Station Expansion DEIR says about mitigations to the Tower 1 chokepoint.
While true, this kind of misses the point. Moving to an electric system is not a prerequisite for having a more useful system design. As such, I don't think it's reasonable to consider electrification as a cost element for bus transformation. I'm talking more about changing frequencies, bus priority lanes, etc. Yes, there are some costs to this, but they pale in comparison to the cost of building rail, meaning we should be able to move forward more quickly.
I get all that, but in a practical sense Bus Electronification is costing capital monies, and with a higher cost per bus and bus garage charging space, it means bigger fleets are even more expensive. So Bus Electrification has a direct impact on our ability to expand fleets, frequencies, routes, all of which become more expensive per passenger seat.
I don’t really know what the forum sentiment is but I think it would be better to just link non-paywalled articles instead of copying and pasting them. I’m sure Streetsblog could use the clicks/revenue.Advocates Win Concessions As State Starts Value-Engineering Allston I-90 Megaproject
“In the past month, MassDOT has agreed to two significant changes in its Allston I-90 megaproject in response to pressures from sustainable transportation advocates.
Although MassDOT won a $335 million federal grant to help pay for the project earlier this year, that grant was $165 million less than MassDOT had hoped to receive from Washington.
That means that MassDOT still needs to fill in a formidable funding gap before it can start construction. Value-engineering the project to trim less-than-necessary expenses will be one way to fill the nine-figure shortfall.
Cambridge Street bridge will be replaced, not rehabbed
The first significant change concerns the Cambridge Street overpass over I-90, which is one of the few connections that Allston residents have over the Turnpike.
“The current bridge (pictured at the top of this story) features narrow sidewalks that are to steep to meet the requirements of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), but the roadway itself is absurdly wide, with four lanes of traffic for motor vehicles, even though Cambridge Street is only two lanes wide immediately to the bridge's south.
Until recently, MassDOT had been considering two possibilities for that overpass: a rehabilitation that would have re-built the deck of the existing bridge structure with some limited upgrades to its sidewalks and crosswalks, or a full-scale replacement with a new bridge that meets ADA standards and MassDOT's complete streets guidelines.
Many Allston neighbors and members of the project's advisory task force strongly favored the latter option….”
Train layover has 'gotta go'
“An even more significant change to the Allston Multimodal Project concerns a huge multi-block train yard that had been proposed for the heart of the project, next to the new West Station.
Since the early stages of the Allston Multimodal Project's design, the MBTA had insisted on building a four-track layover facility where up to eight commuter rail trains could be stored during off-peak hours.
Although it was ostensibly transit infrastructure, many transit advocates panned the idea of building what was effectively a massive parking lot for trains in the heart of a new transit-oriented neighborhood.
A 2020 MassDOT plan for West Station, highlighting (in yellow) the proposed 4-track MBTA layover yard that would have occupied several city blocks immediately south of the new station.
In that same March 20 letter to MassDOT mentioned above, advocates also asked the administration to "remove the MBTA layup yard from the project," calling it "unnecessary, inconsistent with the MBTA’s Regional Rail vision, (and) incompatible with economic development at Beacon Park….”
Additional commitments
“In their March 20 letter, a number of those advocates asked for additional commitments and scope changes for the project, including:
https://mass.streetsblog.org/2024/0...project?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=bluesky
- "Right-sizing the excessively wide streets in the current design, minimizing two-stage pedestrian crossings, and adding dedicated bike and bus lanes on key east-west and north-south streets." As we've reported previously, MassDOT's current design calls for the construction of numerous 4- and 5-lane streets connecting to the Massachusetts Turnpike – a roadway design that inflates infrastructure costs while also inflicting significantly higher risks of severe injury and death.
- "Serious review of all options for the number and width of vehicular lanes on both I-90 and Soldiers Field Road." The complexities of re-building 12 highway lanes along the space-constrained and environmentally sensitive banks of the Charles River is a major driver of the current project's eye-watering price tag. Reducing the number of lanes wouldn't just save on the amount of asphalt that taxpayers need to buy; it would also considerably simplify the project's construction logistics. A number of advocates have also noted the incongruities between the Commonwealth's climate goals, which will require a massive reduction in pollution from major highways like I-90, and MassDOT's desire to spend $2 billion to re-build a 1960s-era expressway.
- "Ensure that no element of the project included in the Reconnecting Communities Grant application is removed or diminished." They make up a relatively small component of the project's $2 billion pricetag, but advocate also want to make sure that MassDOT doesn't cut traffic-reducing components of the project. In fact, advocates are asking MassDOT to fast-track several non-highway elements of the project as "early action" items that can mitigate construction-related noise and traffic snarls once the rest of the project begins.”