Government Center Renovation

I'm not so sure a piece of modernistic glass really fixes anything. Granted yes, the station will be nice and obviously much cleaner of course, which is the T's job, just being concerned with the state of their property.

However, this new station doesn't change the fact that Government Center is a wasteland of nearly useless space in a downtown city core with a concrete behemoth acting as the centerpiece.

Now if this was part of a massive Government Center facelift that would be something different entirely. But this is Boston...that kind of talk is blasphemy.
 
Modernist and brutalist complexes nationwide are being "improved" or "renovation" in piecemeal fashion with the addition of gimmicks like the useless awning in Government Center, or the new little slopey lawn at Lincoln Center. Any successful reform is going to have to be on the same scale as the projects themselves, but, ironically, planners steeped in a "smaller is better" mentality can no longer think so grandiosely about anything.
 
That looks like a pretty weak ass design which look look worn out in 25 years.

?This will feel like you are walking into the lobby of a hotel or the atrium of a shopping area,? DePaola said of the new structure
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Um, why not design it to feel like you are walking into a train station since THAT'S WHAT IT IS. Who is this clown? A glass box is cheap, just admit that's the aim.
 
A burden on taxpayer? Who ever said there should just leave the city if they don't want their taxpayer's money used on improvement. Seriously, the "I Got Mines" mentality is nothing less then selfish and uncaring.
 
vanshnookenraggen said:
That looks like a pretty weak ass design which look look worn out in 25 years.



Um, why not design it to feel like you are walking into a train station since THAT'S WHAT IT IS. Who is this clown? A glass box is cheap, just admit that's the aim.
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I believe designing a regular train station headhouse is probably a lot more cheaper than what is proposed. For example, those NYC subway headhouse probably cost a quarter of this proposal's total going to be, so I doubt being cheap is the aim here.
 
The MBTA, with all its budget problems, is getting swept up in the whole "let's make a dramatic statement with the architecture of our new stations" mentality. I doubt that I'm in the minority when I say I would prefer to have an MBTA that is clean, efficient, and has updated trains with very modest stations rather than an MBTA that's dirty, inefficient, and has dilapidated trains with spectacular stations.

This design isn't even that impressive. Granted, many stations need to be renovated, but I would bet they could save a lot of money on these projects if they cut all the frills out.
 
Why not keep the headhouse? I thought the plan was to make a second one on the west end of the Blue Line platform? There's no need for this cheap glass box.

Also, I like the way the brick headhouse just rises out of the brick plaza, even if I do hate how large and barren the plaza is...
 
Jackson said:
The MBTA, with all its budget problems, is getting swept up in the whole "let's make a dramatic statement with the architecture of our new stations" mentality. I doubt that I'm in the minority when I say I would prefer to have an MBTA that is clean, efficient, and has updated trains with very modest stations rather than an MBTA that's dirty, inefficient, and has dilapidated trains with spectacular stations.

This design isn't even that impressive. Granted, many stations need to be renovated, but I would bet they could save a lot of money on these projects if they cut all the frills out.
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Agreed, and i think Arlington best reflects this. I believe it was under $25m, and it is a clean, functional and modest station.
 
It sounds like the Herald editorial staff agrees with us...

Rail reality bites . . .

By Boston Herald Editorial Staff
Monday, October 4, 2010 - Added 15 hours ago

?It makes little sense to continue expanding the system when the MBTA cannot maintain the existing one. Slow expansion until the safety and maintenance priorities can be addressed.?

- MBTA Review recommendation, November 2009

One year ago former John Hancock CEO David D?Alessandro conducted a top-to-bottom review of the struggling MBTA, then stood beside Gov. Deval Patrick to deliver the bad news: If the T were a private company, it would have already folded or declared bankruptcy.

D?Alessandro?s review, which Patrick commissioned, also cautioned against any further expansion projects until the agency has a better handle on its existing maintenance and repair needs.

Ah, but the courting of South Coast voters must go on, and so Patrick and Lt. Gov. Tim Murray were back at it last week - talking up their plans to build a new commuter rail line to New Bedford/Fall River, announcing $320,000 in technical assistance grants to local communities for vague planning purposes.

This is the project that is projected to cost up to $2 billion - with no identifiable funding source - and that is supposed to magically pay for itself with all of the new economic activity it will generate.

During a debate Thursday at UMass-Dartmouth Patrick again cited the need to fulfill an ?unkept promise? to residents of the South Coast, who were passed by when the T expanded commuter rail service to Boston over the past few decades. The region does have higher-than-average unemployment and could use a helping hand.

But if you?re facing down foreclosure on your house - and your roof is caving in - do you keep the ?promise? to put in a new master suite?

In addition to $8 billion in current debt obligations, D?Alessandro?s report predicted the T will have a cumulative operating deficit of at least $550 million by fiscal 2014.

Meaning that even if the revenue fairies come up with magic financing dust for construction of the South Coast line, no one has an earthly clue how the T would pay for future operations.

The state?s chief executive is ignoring financial realities, and that is a dangerous thing indeed.
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LINK

The MBTA needs to sit down, stop building fancy new stations, stop trying to undertake mega expansion projects, and focus on what they already have. That means purchasing newer, cleaner trains; renovating and cleaning (note: this DOES NOT mean sink millions to build a state of the art modernized station with tons of architectural frills) existing stations; improving its own infrastructure to at least respectable reliability; and then working to maintain all that. When the MBTA isn't $8 billion in debt, then I can get behind extravagant expansions and stations like the one mentioned above (except in needs a different design).

If the MBTA doesn't have a solid base to work from, how can they survive if they routinely keep expanding on borrowed money?
 
Jackson said:
The MBTA needs to sit down, stop building fancy new stations, stop trying to undertake mega expansion projects, and focus on what they already have. That means purchasing newer, cleaner trains; renovating and cleaning (note: this DOES NOT mean sink millions to build a state of the art modernized station with tons of architectural frills) existing stations; improving its own infrastructure to at least respectable reliability; and then working to maintain all that. When the MBTA isn't $8 billion in debt, then I can get behind extravagant expansions and stations like the one mentioned above (except in needs a different design).

If the MBTA doesn't have a solid base to work from, how can they survive if they routinely keep expanding on borrowed money?
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I really disagree with this sentiment for a number of reasons:

1) Aside from arguments around fiscal mismanagement, the issue around funding doesn't need to be placed solely on the T's shoulders. It's an issue of policy. Should there be tolls on I-93? Almost certainly, considering how much the Big Dig cost. Should there be congestion pricing? Sounds like a good idea. Should street parking be charged at variably-priced market rate? Certainly worth studying, now that we have multi-space electronic meters. And should all of those funds go to help pay for our public transit? Most definitely.

2) Despite everything, the T has actually done a *relatively* fantastic job of maintaining - and actually planning for the exapansion of - servivce, with almost no talk of fare increases. Compare that to the grim news coming out of NYC's MTA. The T deserves credit for this.

3) These large projects are not at the exclusion of other projects. The T's introduction of real time data to software/app developers is a case in point. I have some confidence that somewhere in the T's management are people who are actually thinking about how to solve service deficiencies in creative and inexpensive ways.

4) Architecture is marketing, and ultimately it does make a difference that residents and even tourists consider Boston to have a "nice" transit system. Much of that impression is made in the stations. To a large extent it's what separates DC's Metro - which has less coverage, longer headways, and no greater reliability (talking from personal experience) than the T - from Boston.
 
Government Center needs the ADA improvements, even if nothing else is done to it. Anyone who has tried to drag luggage down to the Blue Line level in order to get to Logan will agree.
 
Shepard said:
4) Architecture is marketing, and ultimately it does make a difference that residents and even tourists consider Boston to have a "nice" transit system. Much of that impression is made in the stations. To a large extent it's what separates DC's Metro - which has less coverage, longer headways, and no greater reliability (talking from personal experience) than the T - from Boston.
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I doubt I disagree with you on many things, but I think DC's system is incomparably better than MBTA. Mainline coverage is much more extensive and connections to commuter rail are better (not to mention the quality of the rolling stock). Yeah, the stations are very classy and that separates them from Boston, but that's not all.

As a newcomer who is completely ignorant of the history of the system, the source of the deficit, financing debacles, etc., I have to say that I'm surprised that the system (pretty modest coverage, stations that are a very mixed bag--to be polite--and frequency that is like NYC on a bad day) is as sub-par as it is. It seems heavily used and not inexpensive (not expensive, but passes are not cheap). I don't see why it can't afford to offer a better transit experience: cleaner stations with a modicum of flair (some of them are very nice, but others feel downright dystopian [cue the subterranian cannibals and mutants]) a modicum of punctuality, and a Green Line that looks like it wasn't built as an historical replica to commemorate V-J day. One of the things that attracted me to Boston was the promise or real, honest-to-god mass transit. It certainly beats Atlanta (where I moved from) but maybe we could set the bar higher?
 
Tombstoner said:
I think DC's system is incomparably better than MBTA. Mainline coverage is much more extensive and connections to commuter rail are better
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I don't think these two points can be supported. Using a standard of a 1/2 mile walk, Metro misses Georgetown, Adams-Morgan, and downtown Alexandria (three of its most active urban neighborhoods), as well as some key national-level tourist attractions (Lincoln and Jefferson Memorials). You could say the T misses Inman and Union Square, Somerville, but its hard to argue that those destinations are as prominent, for either the visitor or the local, as the areas Metro misses.

As for commuter rail, better connections is faint praise--the VRE lines (which connect in with all METRO subway lines nicely), is a peak direction only service with no midday, evening or weekend service. And the three MARC lines (which with the exception of the Penn Line share the same low level of service with VRE) only serve Union Station in central DC, which means that, like the T's South Station lines, a transfer is required for anyone not on the Red Line.
 
Tombstoner said:
I doubt I disagree with you on many things, but I think DC's system is incomparably better than MBTA. Mainline coverage is much more extensive and connections to commuter rail are better (not to mention the quality of the rolling stock). Yeah, the stations are very classy and that separates them from Boston, but that's not all.

As a newcomer who is completely ignorant of the history of the system, the source of the deficit, financing debacles, etc., I have to say that I'm surprised that the system (pretty modest coverage, stations that are a very mixed bag--to be polite--and frequency that is like NYC on a bad day) is as sub-par as it is. It seems heavily used and not inexpensive (not expensive, but passes are not cheap). I don't see why it can't afford to offer a better transit experience: cleaner stations with a modicum of flair (some of them are very nice, but others feel downright dystopian [cue the subterranian cannibals and mutants]) a modicum of punctuality, and a Green Line that looks like it wasn't built as an historical replica to commemorate V-J day. One of the things that attracted me to Boston was the promise or real, honest-to-god mass transit. It certainly beats Atlanta (where I moved from) but maybe we could set the bar higher?
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The fundamental problem with the Boston subway is that it is not just old, but old in concept. And by that, I mean:

1) In Boston, subway covers less and commuter rail covers relatively more than in DC. Examples in Boston that receive commuter rail coverage (but would be subway in DC) are Winchester, Melrose, Hyde Park, Roslindale, Needham. And neither Arlington nor Watertown have rail in any form.

2) Regarding the Green Line, you don't mean VJ Day, but rather the Spanish-American War of 1898, because that is how old the original Green Line tunnel is. This is the first subway in America, and was designed to separate slow moving streetcar traffic from even slower moving horses and pedestrians. It is not "rapid transit" as we know it.

3) Two of the four Boston subway lines (Green and Blue) terminate downtown (or immediately adjacent to it). Clearly, this is not optimal for providing a minimal transfer service. In any modern system, both lines would continue to the other side of the urban area. (Note that the Sommerville extension of the Green Line will somewhat rectify this in part).

Remodeling stations is rather easy to do. But that is not the fundamental problem. Rather, it is the overall layout of the system.
 
Two part post here:

1. I hope they move the escalator/staircase bank right now, or extend the inbound platform, because it is a clusterfuck trying to get around those when exiting inbound trains.

2. Not to bring this conversation any further off topic, but was any discussion ever given to the idea of ever tri/quad-tracking the central subway portions of the green line? Similar to how Kenmore/Park stations are set up, but instead of merging back to 1 line keeping it straight all the way. Some obvious technical problems would be the e line split and Boylston station in general, but was it ever even considered at any point in time (perhaps before Arlighton/Copley renos?)


:confused:
 
What is this a joke? 3 years if its closed, 4 if it isn't? Should be 1 year if its closed. This is going to be another State St fiasco but worse.

The Orange Line north of Sullivan is supposedly going to be shuttled for 3 years too (but it may just be nights and weekends, it isnt clear yet). Is 3 the magic minimum for any T project?

And that brings me to another point: 3 years to build a station from scratch where tracks have to be realigned, possibly while working only nights and weekends. But it will take 3 years to renovate a stop that's already there.
 
Is this 3 Earth years or 3 Mars years like State St.


They BETTER do the Blue Line level and the new entrance first if the Green Line is going to be closed. I can see why ripping the roof off is going to cause more than the usual disruptions, but they can't shut that station down altogether and there is no plausible reason why the BL level has to shut too with it being structurally separate.


If that's what it takes then postpone the @#$% thing, accelerate the Red-Blue connector to an actual build schedule, get the Lechmere relocation and at least the Union Square branch of the extension open so the west end can operate without shuttles, and do the ADA renovations on Hynes, Symphony, Science Park and the afforementioned Blue Line level + new entrance to buy some forward progress. Can you imagine how asphyxiated downtown is going to be with ALL double-transfers from Red to Blue having to cram through DTX and ALL airport passengers going east on the Green Line having to transfer at Park to South Station for the Silver Line? It's going to render the Red Line totally and utterly nonfunctional.
 
Three years is about 30 months too long for this. Three years without an easy Green-Blue connection will be madness.

I'm not sure I recall what track re-alignment needs to be done... is this truly necessary? For heaven's sake, just build an elevator. Plaster up some of those nifty green tiles like they have at Kenmore. And if the glass cube must be had (personally I do like it) then open a temporary entrance elsewhere so the station can stay open.

F-Line - to your point - was Charles MGH station constructed with the BLX in mind - i.e. room for escalators and elevators down to a below-grade platform?
 
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