Gov't Center Station Rebuild

[Jahvon09]

Will the 'pigeons' eventually be moved to the inside of the station just before it is completed?

The posters won't be there forever.

 

[Jahvon09]

At this point, Bowden Street Station could stand some improvements as well!

There is no access for people in wheelchairs to get into the station and the dirty dingy grubby white walls behind the tracks, could also stand a facelift, so while they are spending two years to update & glorify Gov't Ctr Station, then why aren't plans in effect as to how best to make Bowden more user-friendly?!

I mean, if I were in a wheelchair and had to go all the way to Gov't Center or Park Street to gain access into the subway system, I'd be pretty pissed off about that!!!

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

At this point, Bowden Street Station could stand some improvements as well!

There is no access for people in wheelchairs to get into the station and the dirty grubby dingy white walls where the tracks are, could also stand a facelift, so while they are spending two years to update & glorify Gov't Ctr Station, then why aren't plans in effect as to how best to make Bowden more user-friendly?!

I mean, if I were in a wheelchair and had to go all the way to Gov't Center or Park Street to gain access into the subway system, I'd be pretty pissed off about that!!!

It's exempt from ADA because of the limited hours it's open and structural issues with modifying it. That one will never be wheelchair-accessible. Boylston stands a better chance of someday being made wheelchair-accessible than Bowdoin does.

 

[davem]

Not to mention it's getting blown up if the BL is ever extended to Charles.

 

[Jahvon09]

Hynes Convection Center is also not wheelchair-accessible either.

What is their so-called excuse for not bringing THAT station up to par?!

Bowden, Boylston & Hynes seem to be the only ones that do not have access for people in wheelchairs.

 

[JeffDowntown]

Hynes Convection Center is also not wheelchair-accessible.

What is their so-called excuse for not bringing THAT station up to par?!

Bowden, Boylston & Hynes seem to be the only ones that do not have access for people in wheelchairs.

Simple MONEY. As it is ADA compliance is essentially the only type of capital project that has happened in the core subway for the past decade or more. Lots of deferred maintenance has happened throughout the system to pay for the ADA compliance projects.

ADA compliance is essentially an unfunded capital mandate -- it has to be done, but no serious additional monies were allocated to make it happen. So capital funds are shifted from other needs to make it happen. And the old stations in Boston make this an expensive proposition.

 

[swtat]

Hynes Convection Center is also not wheelchair-accessible.

What is their so-called excuse for not bringing THAT station up to par?!

Bowden, Boylston & Hynes seem to be the only ones that do not have access for people in wheelchairs.

There is a very good excuse - MassDOT is leasing air rights above the Mass. Pike on that parcel of land to a private developer. One of the requirements for leasing the parcel is that the developer must also renovate Hynes Convention Center station and integrate the station with the new building. See here.

Boylston is designated as a National Historic Landmark. This forbids the MBTA from making any major alterations to it.

 

[datadyne007]

Hynes, Symphony & Wollaston are in the study phase for elevators and have been for a couple years. Lots of different options are being looked at.

 

[Jahvon09]

Forgot about Symphony.

I thought that the MBTA had once said that ALL of their subway stations were to be made ADA accessible by about 2016 or so.

 

[mass88]

Hynes, Symphony & Wollaston are in the study phase for elevators and have been for a couple years. Lots of different options are being looked at.

Well if those projects move anything like the Park Street elevator project, they should be up and running by 2022.

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

Wollaston is funded and shovel-ready. Final design went slow because I think there was some tricky water mitigation to solve with lobby flooding during heavy rain runoff, but that one should start as early as next spring.

Hynes they're hoping the Pike air rights parcels will help pay for, because that one isn't funded and will be a hella pricey deal. See that thread on the Dev Projects subforum. They have a basic idea of what the design is going to be: Boylston St. entrance restored and integrated into the air rights dev, Mass Ave. southbound bus tunnel restored, a corresponding Mass Ave. northbound bus shelter. But money to advance the design isn't there. That's what they have to self-fund because we know how unreliable the air rights fairy has been.

Symphony simply doesn't matter until Hynes is done because it's E- only and Orange-Mass Ave. is accessible. They have to do it, but not one dime will be spent until Hynes is shovel-ready. It's a basic job, and probably the only design feature that could significantly change the station vs. today is restoring the track underpass.



That's all they're on the hook for in the subway. Bowdoin and Boylston have structural exemptions. Boylston could conceivably someday have elevators grafted on behind the headhouses where that electrical box stands behind the outbound stairs, and where that garage door stands behind the inbound stairs at far end of the platform (ex- Little Building entrance). With appropriate track fencing and security cams making those blind spots safe. But that requires relocating a major Green Line electrical substation, so they have absolute zero reason to do that unless South End light rail starts using the outer tracks or Silver Line Phase III builds "Boylston Under"...either of them turning Boylston into a major transfer station. Bowdoin's got similar structural difficulties, but that station has no possibility of bumping in importance like Boylston could as a transfer stop because it would be demolished entirely for the Red-Blue alignment.

 

[Jahvon09]

So it appears that those four stations will remain outdated & obsolete with no ADA access until other things related to them are done first.

In the meantime, physically disabled riders are inconvenienced by having to make their way to other stations that are ADA certified or workable.

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

So it appears that those four stations will remain outdated & obsolete with no ADA access until other things related to them are done first.

In the meantime, physically disabled riders are inconvenienced by having to make their way to other stations that are ADA certified or workable.

And...how exactly was the T supposed to retroactively get all these done when in the last 12 years it had to do complete ADA builds at these stations?
-- Park St.
-- Charles MGH
-- Savin Hill
-- Fields Corner
-- Shawmut
-- North Quincy
-- Maverick
-- Logan Airport
-- Aquarium
-- State St.
-- Community College
-- Chinatown
-- North Station (Green Line)
-- Science Park
-- Haymarket
-- Government Center
-- Arlington
-- Copley
-- Kenmore
-- Prudential

...and:
-- all eligible Mattapan Line stops
-- all eligible surface E stops
-- 8 D stops
-- 5 B stops
-- 4 C stops

...and:
-- overturning nearly the entire bus fleet to low-floor with wheelchair bridge plates, and retrofitting all remaining high-floor revenue buses with wheelchair lifts
-- implementing 100% Green Line ops with at least 1 low-floor car on every train
-- achieving 100% boarding accessibility on 7 of 9 southside Commuter Rail lines
-- securing final funding and design (Chelsea station relocation) to finally achieve 100% boarding accessibility on the first 2 of 5 northside Commuter Rail lines


...all with little to no outside funding sources to float it. All after the Legislature kneecapped their budget with the Forward Funding debacle in 2000 and stuck them with the full bill on their Big Dig debt.


And you're complaining about 4 goddamn stations...2 of which are structurally exempt? Boy...tough room.

We can fault them all day every day for how they choose to spend their money on frivolous monument-building things, unicorn vehicles that don't work, and general-purpose waste. Compared to the place they were starting from at dawn of the millennium...they have moved more mountains on general accessibility than nearly any transit agency in the country. If Hynes and Symphony funding, the B/C/D backlog, and 5 neglected commuter rail lines are the only accessibility concerns going forward...they have the wind to their backs at settling up. They just have to keep pushing forward on the last big ones, not let the bare pavement strips fall through the cracks, and vigorously advocate for more accessibility funding. They've done a really really outstanding job on accessibility. It's one of the MBTA's finest accomplishments in their 50 years as an agency.


Calm...the hell...down.

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

BTW...to show that the priority list is a whole lot more varied than just those subway stops, here's the Top 20 non-ADA's in the system by daily boardings in the 2014 Blue Book. I withheld number rankings for the stops that are 1) structurally exempt from the law, 2) shovel-ready and scheduled for imminent construction, or 3) dependent on completion of MassHighway's Comm Ave. reconstruction before the T can even begin to design/fund/schedule.


OK...this is the real "ROAR! I'M ANGRY!" list if you gotta blow your top at somethingorother re: station accessibility the T has full in-house control over. Just make sure for perspective's sake to compare it to the Blue Book boardings on that list in my last post that were fully ADA-retrofitted with very sparse funds over the last decade.

1. Hynes (GL subway) - 8946
n/a. Boylston (GL subway - 6826 (EXEMPT-structural)
n/a. Wollaston (Red) - 4624 (FUNDED/SCHEDULED)
n/a. Packards Corner (GL-B) - 2654 (**)
n/a. Warren St. (GL-B) - 2047 (**)
2. Symphony (GL subway) - 1711
3. Newton Highlands (GL-D) - 1627
4. Blandford (GL-B) - 1540
n/a. Bowdoin (Blue) - 1526 (EXEMPT-structural)
n/a. Allston St. (GL-B) - 1437 (**)
5. Chestnut Hill (GL-D) - 1416
n/a. Babcock St. (GL-B) - 1387 (*)
n/a. St. Paul St. (GL-B) - 1296 (*)
n/a. Griggs St. (GL-B) - 1203 (**)
n/a. Pleasant St. (GL-B) - 1167 (*)
6. Natick (Worcester CR) - 1077 (funded for design-only)
7. Beaconsfield (GL-D) - 1075
8(tie). Walpole (Franklin CR) - 945
8(tie). Summit Ave. (GL-C) - 945
10. Franklin (Franklin CR) - 876
11. Sutherland Rd. (GL-B) - 856
12. St. Paul St. (GL-C) - 849
13. West Medford (Lowell CR) - 819
14. Eliot (GL-D) - 814
15. Wellesley Square (Worcester CR) - 804
16. Winchester Center (Lowell CR) - 789
n/a. BU West (GL-B) - 704 (*)
17. Wakefield (Haverhill/Reading CR) - 682
18. Tappan St. (GL-C) - 674
19. Chestnut Hill Ave. (GL-B) - 626
20. Chiswick Rd. (GL-B) - 615

* - dependent on completion of MassHighway Comm Ave. reconstruction Phase II (BU Bridge-Packards, funded but final design unapproved)
** - dependent on completion of MassHighway Comm Ave. reconstruction Phase III (Packards-Warren, unfunded)


I'd get angry at MassHighway first for being so late on the Comm Ave. reconstruction that it ties the T's hands on the B. And for still not having the Packards Corner-Warren portion funded or final-designed. And I'd save some pity for Franklin and Worcester commuter rail riders who get dinged almost as hard as the C; the 2nd- and 3rd-busiest Franklin stops are both AWOL and you can't get a wheelchair on the Worcester Line anywhere past-Yawkey and pre-West Natick. But please don't overrate Bowdoin...it's not even in the same universe as all the ones recently finished or the remaining ones most in need.

 

[BPLange7]

Is it common for transit authorities to pay for the ADA upgrades out of their own budget?

Given the difficulty in covering expenses, it seems like the MBTA should be held accountable for its operating budget and should be forced to balance annually with fare receipts, town/city assessments and their dedicated sales tax stream. It seems like the fare revenue, town/city assessments and dedicated sales tax should go to covering the operating budget while capital projects (i.e. station upgrades, track, procurement) should be funded by the State or other outside sources. Is that how it works in general and is the ADA an exception to the rule?

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

Is it common for transit authorities to pay for the ADA upgrades out of their own budget?

Given the difficulty in covering expenses, it seems like the MBTA should be held accountable for its operating budget and should be forced to balance annually with fare receipts, town/city assessments and their dedicated sales tax stream. It seems like the fare revenue, town/city assessments and dedicated sales tax should go to covering the operating budget while capital projects (i.e. station upgrades, track, procurement) should be funded by the State or other outside sources. Is that how it works in general and is the ADA an exception to the rule?

There are some ADA-specific grants from the feds, but not nearly what it used to be given the austerity climate in Washington and totally fucked dysfunction in Congress. Stimulus grants paid for some as well. A lot of the progress on bus stops came from those funding sources, since it was mostly non-transit specific and related to general-purpose municipal sidewalk ADA doled out from road funding sources. The Key Bus Route Improvements project is a transit-specific one aiming to prioritize bus stop ADA gap-filler on the highest-priority bus routes...but it's disappointingly going at quarter-cocked speed with disappearing effort after so many years of hype.

For train stations...the T shoulders an overwhelming majority of the burden. For subway stations and very expensive retrofits...the overwhelming-overwhelming majority. Only place where they get some state-level relief is the outer commuter rail stops where other regional transit authorities that share parking/bus connection jurisdiction underwrite some of the cost for platform accessibility when it directly serves their their own riders and revenue collection. It's the reason why, for example, the oldest of the outer Haverhill and Lowell legacy stops got retrofitted to compliance so much earlier than the inside-128 stops that are still badly lagging on accessibility.

 

[Jahvon09]

And...how exactly was the T supposed to retroactively get all these done when in the last 12 years it had to do complete ADA builds at these stations?
-- Park St.
-- Charles MGH
-- Savin Hill
-- Fields Corner
-- Shawmut
-- North Quincy
-- Maverick
-- Logan Airport
-- Aquarium
-- State St.
-- Community College
-- Chinatown
-- North Station (Green Line)
-- Science Park
-- Haymarket
-- Government Center
-- Arlington
-- Copley
-- Kenmore
-- Prudential

...and:
-- all eligible Mattapan Line stops
-- all eligible surface E stops
-- 8 D stops
-- 5 B stops
-- 4 C stops

...and:
-- overturning nearly the entire bus fleet to low-floor with wheelchair bridge plates, and retrofitting all remaining high-floor revenue buses with wheelchair lifts
-- implementing 100% Green Line ops with at least 1 low-floor car on every train
-- achieving 100% boarding accessibility on 7 of 9 southside Commuter Rail lines
-- securing final funding and design (Chelsea station relocation) to finally achieve 100% boarding accessibility on the first 2 of 5 northside Commuter Rail lines


...all with little to no outside funding sources to float it. All after the Legislature kneecapped their budget with the Forward Funding debacle in 2000 and stuck them with the full bill on their Big Dig debt.


And you're complaining about 4 goddamn stations...2 of which are structurally exempt? Boy...tough room.

We can fault them all day every day for how they choose to spend their money on frivolous monument-building things, unicorn vehicles that don't work, and general-purpose waste. Compared to the place they were starting from at dawn of the millennium...they have moved more mountains on general accessibility than nearly any transit agency in the country. If Hynes and Symphony funding, the B/C/D backlog, and 5 neglected commuter rail lines are the only accessibility concerns going forward...they have the wind to their backs at settling up. They just have to keep pushing forward on the last big ones, not let the bare pavement strips fall through the cracks, and vigorously advocate for more accessibility funding. They've done a really really outstanding job on accessibility. It's one of the MBTA's finest accomplishments in their 50 years as an agency.


Calm...the hell...down.

Logan Airport is an entirely new station which was rebuilt from the ground up.

I believe that it was part of the multi-billion dollar facelift that was given to the airport itself, completely eliminating the annoying task of having to go upstairs to wait for one of the buses to the airport. The old station was just too far antiquated, outdated and obsolete with only one escalator in the up direction for those desiring bus service to Logan.

When going to work at the airport, yes, I HATED climbing those stairs from the ground outside to get to the bus stops upstairs, and inside, the one escalator that was there, never worked most of the time.

They HAD to include ADA access with the new one, and the new one was built about 500 feet north of the old one.

The stuff should have been done years ago. They were behind in just about everything. What about the Green Line Extension and the Blue Line Extension?

And besides, all of these projects & work is supposed to be federally funded, costing them little or no dough out of pocket.

The four stations that are left without ADA access might sound like small potatoes to you, but unless you're restricted to getting around on public transportation in Boston in a wheelchair, then how could you possibly know what it is like?

I have a dear friend who is wheelchair confined. He takes The Ride to places where he has to get to. He has complained heavily about the stations not having ADA access before he became qualified to use The Ride. He also feels that the T can do a little better than they've been doing, so it isn't just me complaining.

I feel bad for him, and have given him rides to places where he needs to get to. He offered to pay me for driving him to places, but I respectfully declined taking his money.

Also, I am disabled with a heart condition, even though I can still walk. That is why I say that ALL of the stations should have been given ADA access. I can walk, but not too far without my legs hurting so badly, so if it might sound to you like I am always complaining & bitching out the MBTA, yes, I do, because the stuff that they are supposed to do, or at least look into doing, should have been done some time ago.

 

[BPLange7]

Logan Airport is an entirely new station which was rebuilt from the ground up.

I believe that it was part of the multi-billion dollar facelift that was given to the airport itself, completely eliminating the annoying task of having to go upstairs to wait for one of the buses to the airport. The old station was just too far antiquated, outdated and obsolete with only one escalator in the up direction for those desiring bus service to Logan.

When going to work at the airport, yes, I HATED climbing those stairs from the ground outside to get to the bus stops upstairs, and inside, the one escalator that was there, never worked most of the time.

They HAD to include ADA access with the new one, and the new one was built about 500 feet north of the old one.

The stuff should have been done years ago. They were behind in just about everything. What about the Green Line Extension and the Blue Line Extension?

And besides, all of these projects & work is supposed to be federally funded, costing them little or no dough out of pocket.

The four stations that are left without ADA access might sound like small potatoes to you, but unless you're restricted to getting around on public transportation in Boston in a wheelchair, then how could you possibly know what it is like?

I have a dear friend who is wheelchair confined. He takes The Ride to places where he has to get to. He has complained heavily about the stations not having ADA access before he became qualified to use The Ride. He also feels that the T can do a little better than they've been doing, so it isn't just me complaining.

I feel bad for him, and have given him rides to places where he needs to get to. he offered to pay me for driving him to places, but I respectfully declined taking his money.

Also, I am disabled with a heart condition, even though I can still walk. That is why I say that ALL of the stations should have been given ADA access. I can walk, but not too far without my legs hurting so badly, so if it might sound to you like I am always complaining & bitching out the MBTA, yes, I do, because the stuff that they are supposed to do, or look into doing, should have been done some time ago.

What has your experience been in other cities? I don't recall other old transit systems (Chicago, NY or Philly) being any better than Boston (or even really close at all?).

 

[Jahvon09]

What has your experience been in other cities? I don't recall other old transit systems (Chicago, NY or Philly) being any better than Boston (or even really close at all?).

Chicago, New York City & Philly, I've had no problems in those cities. I rode on their subways, and they all seem fine.

Washington, DC is another story.

Even though their subway trains seem ok, access to most of their stations were a complete & total nightmare, because most of their elevators & escalators were inoperable.

At just about every station there was and escalator an elevator not working!! Imagine having to walk up or down the deepest subway stations in the country, where the platforms themselves are at least 175 to 200 feet below street level and the escalators are not working!!

I have to lug a heavy suitcase down one of those escalators! Got to the mezzinine level. had to walk down another escalator to the platform because it was not working. During that time, my suitcase slipped off one of the stairs and turned sideways like a drunken dinosaur! By that time, I was so pissed off and irate!!

When I reached the platform, I happened to see a surveyor taking notes on the condition of the access to the stations. I told her just exactly how I felt about it, and that it was crap!! Little did I know that I'd end up in the papers the following week!!

But I think now, that the station access has probably gotten better since then.

 

[djimpact1]

Not trying to be a back-end moderator, but GOVERNMENT CENTER rebuild info in this thread please...ADA compliance is a whole different topic.