Green Line Extension to Medford & Union Sq

[tangent]

F-Line - I'm quite aware of the amazing profits that a contractor can make on Change Orders. I'm pretty sure many contractors bid jobs with very little to no profit margin and try to make it up on CO's.

My understanding is that the project (including stations) will be rebid, so no Change Orders for any station design changes (unless the current contractor has already done some work on the stations as part of their current contract). Of course, you still have to pay the designers (Architects, Structural, Mechanical, Electrical, Plumbing, Civil Engineers and the specialized consultants) to change the design. That won't be cheap and in some instances it may not produce any cost savings. Most of the station egresses (number, location, spacing) are based on minimums required by the Building Code or user convenience and not necessarily for a grand design.

On the other hand, if the current contractor owns most of the Station work in their present contracts, we are pretty much stuck with what we have.

Most of the Green Line runs without any stations, just stops with a bit of asphalt and/or concrete for a "platform". Yes, below grade stops require a ramp or elevator and some stairs in addition to the platform, but the rest of the costs should be considered "nice to haves" to be paid for almost entirely by either local developers (ie College Station should be paid for 99.9% by Tufts) or the City of Somerville.

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

Most of the Green Line runs without any stations, just stops with a bit of asphalt and/or concrete for a "platform". Yes, below grade stops require a ramp or elevator and some stairs in addition to the platform, but the rest of the costs should be considered "nice to haves" to be paid for almost entirely by either local developers (ie College Station should be paid for 99.9% by Tufts) or the City of Somerville.

Which costs are "nice to haves"? The electrical feed?...the tracks?...drainage?...light bulbs?

What is Tufts supposed to pick up 99.9% of the cost of to magically make a billion dollar overrun disappear? Be specific.

 

[tangent]

Which costs are "nice to haves"? The electrical feed?...the tracks?...drainage?...light bulbs?

What is Tufts supposed to pick up 99.9% of the cost of to magically make a billion dollar overrun disappear? Be specific.

Everything besides the tracks, the right of way, the trolleys and the overhead lines. If curbstone, asphalt is good enough for Brookline then it is good enough for Somerville.

These stations are absurdly over designed compared to every other above ground stop on the green line:

And to hell with "drainage", there have been drainage issues for hundreds of years, if they can't be fixed for a couple million bucks then just live with flooding sometimes.

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

Everything besides the tracks, the right of way, the trolleys and the overhead lines. If curbstone, asphalt is good enough for Brookline then it is good enough for Somerville.

So...a trolley that just pings back and forth from the legally mandated Medford Hillside terminus until ________ can pay 99.9%!!!! for each individual station to open on the installment plan. One per decade or something like that.

And, oh yeah, like you mentioned but then immediately forgot...it's in a pit, so there's that little ADA matter of getting up and down.

These stations are absurdly over designed compared to every other above ground stop on the green line:

Point to a cost estimate of that pretty picture. Now point to a cost estimate of having to do a design change order to delete all that, shift the retaining walls around, change the overpass design, redesign the egress...everything. Now calculate if all those change orders you've racked up actually save anything.

You want easy answers? Go do all that math and give us some easy answers to back up the pretty pictures.

And to hell with "drainage", there have been drainage issues for hundreds of years, if they can't be fixed for a couple million bucks then just live with flooding sometimes.

Right...just let all those signals short out and the concrete get eaten away under the stations because "fuck that noise".



Thanks for outing yourself as today's thread troll.

 

[tangent]

So...a trolley that just pings back and forth from the legally mandated Medford Hillside terminus until ________ can pay 99.9%!!!! for each individual station to open on the installment plan. One per decade or something like that.

And, oh yeah, like you mentioned but then immediately forgot...it's in a pit, so there's that little ADA matter of getting up and down.

Point to a cost estimate of that pretty picture. Now point to a cost estimate of having to do a design change order to delete all that, shift the retaining walls around, change the overpass design, redesign the egress...everything. Now calculate if all those change orders you've racked up actually save anything.

You want easy answers? Go do all that math and give us some easy answers to back up the pretty pictures.

Right...just let all those signals short out and the concrete get eaten away under the stations because "fuck that noise".



Thanks for outing yourself as today's thread troll.

"The T and its contractor offered wildly different estimates for one of the largest jobs of the extension, which would create three new stations, among other things. The engineering firm the T hired estimated those costs at $487 million, but its main contractor, White-Skanska-Kiewit, projected a price of $889 million."

There is your $889 million right there. Drop it all. No elevators. Just a big ramp for ADA requirements and some stairs, then platform.

 

[citylover94]

Or just remember that White-Skanska-Kiewit was bloating those figures by almost double for everything and that there is no way that is the true cost and they were just hitting the T for money.

Pretty simple answer. I don't understand why so many people can't seem to accept it and instead want to blame the T not the contractor.

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

"The T and its contractor offered wildly different estimates for one of the largest jobs of the extension, which would create three new stations, among other things. The engineering firm the T hired estimated those costs at $487 million, but its main contractor, White-Skanska-Kiewit, projected a price of $889 million."

There is your $889 million right there. Drop it all. No elevators. Just a big ramp for ADA requirements and some stairs, then platform.

The contractor was corrupt...but you have no idea what specific station feature itemizations they ran up the score on. So whack ADA features and issue dozens of change orders so the ramps cost more than the elevators. But pay no attention to the corruption that drove up the price.


Yup. You're taking this discussion real seriously, bud.

 

[whighlander]

Which costs are "nice to haves"? The electrical feed?...the tracks?...drainage?...light bulbs?

What is Tufts supposed to pick up 99.9% of the cost of to magically make a billion dollar overrun disappear? Be specific.

F-Line -- this whole process of building the GLX has been driven by a process known in the Cold War bad-old Military Industrial Complex days as "Gold Plating"

The requesting entity -- in this case the community groups and the CLF asked and the Deval-era-T management gave then what they wanted and then the next community group saw and they asked for more. Deval's managers and the CLF just assumed that the stimulus deal from deVal's friend BHO would be able to supply unlimited Federal Money and on it went with the old Cold War Era DOD contractor adage -- Money is No Object being the basic management theory.

The same thing happened in Texas back about 25 years ago on a very big public works project known as the SSC [Superconducting Super Collider] -- yes it was for a particle accelerator but it also would have been a 54 mile circumference circular tunnel just south of Dallas.

In 1987, Congress with the support of Speaker Jim Wright [Fort Worth] appropriated $4.4 billion... by June 1993, the non-profit Project on Government Oversight released a draft audit report by the Department of Energy's Inspector General which heavily criticized the SSC for high cost and poor management... finally in October 21, 1993 after $2 billion had been spent Congress killed the project and the Higgs Boson was found in Geneva by the CERN LHC.

Today there is a very large hole, some buildings and other infrastructure available in the City of Waxahatchee at a very good price

By the way -- the folks in Newton use the quite minimalist D line [converted from a rail line and located in a similar rail cut with similar bridges, etc.] and seem to do fine with very simple stations [not counting Richardson's architecture]
https://youtu.be/aAkXOrnkjdM
[Newton Centre in action with pedestrians crossing tracks directly]

[Newton Highlands showing Ramp to Walnut St. and grade level pedestrian crossing]

 

[Arlington]

[Newton Highlands showing Ramp to Walnut St. and grade level pedestrian crossing]
Exactly. And if all-door boarding is needed for the crush of riders, switching to POP is way cheaper than buildings.

 

[datadyne007]

This. Does. Not. Compare. At. All.

 

[whighlander]

In the process of researching my previous post I came across a series of YourTubes related to someone taking the Green Line D from Kenmore to Riverside

You get the full panoply of the D Line Stations, ramps, bridges, urban environment, etc. -- It a very fine tutorial on how to build and sucessfully use the old rail infrastructure as appropriated by the T for the Highland Branch -- aka the D branch of the Green Line

https://youtu.be/FMP67wlttRQ
Part 1
Kenmore to Beaconsfield

https://youtu.be/Ra6utu9KfLs
Part 2
Beaconsfield to Newton Highlands

https://youtu.be/v2xmLCpsyf0
Part 3
Newton Highlands to Riverside

 

[whighlander]

[Newton Highlands showing Ramp to Walnut St. and grade level pedestrian crossing]
Exactly. And if all-door boarding is needed for the crush of riders, switching to POP is way cheaper than buildings.

Arlington -- let's build it a see if they come

I don't believe for a minute that the demand will be so excessive on the GLX compared to the D in Newton a city with more commuters than Sommerville

 

[citylover94]

The D line gets around 2,500 riders per mile by comparison this extension is predicted to have around 10,000 riders per mile. That is four times more people using the line and as such it just seems smarter to do the stations as they are designed especially because most of them are already at a different grade than the street level. I still don't understand why everyone is so eager to under build these stations for a future where even more people will be using this line than currently predicted. Also a good point of comparison for the demand on this extension is that it will have more riders per mile than every heavy rail subway system other than the MBTA, PATH and NYC MTA system so it makes sense to me to build it as close to heavy rail specs as possible.

 

[tangent]

The D line gets around 2,500 riders per mile by comparison this extension is predicted to have around 10,000 riders per mile. That is four times more people using the line and as such it just seems smarter to do the stations as they are designed especially because most of them are already at a different grade than the street level. I still don't understand why everyone is so eager to under build these stations for a future where even more people will be using this line than currently predicted. Also a good point of comparison for the demand on this extension is that it will have more riders per mile than every heavy rail subway system other than the MBTA, PATH and NYC MTA system so it makes sense to me to build it as close to heavy rail specs as possible.

Because nearly a billion dollars for a handful of stations isn't in the realm of reasonableness. Not even remotely close. It should be a crazy transit pitch. Sure it would be great if they could build these stations as designed for under twenty million per station, but for anything more than about that much the answer should be no. Even the MBTA's initial estimate was way too expensive.

Anyone claiming to advocate for rail transit should seriously ask themselves how any system with costs like that could possibly be maintained let alone be expanded.

 

[datadyne007]

The stations have nothing to do with the excessive cost. The bulk of the construction cost (which is only one piece of the total cost, see below) is in the retaining walls, existing rail relocation, drainage modifications, bridge work & essentially all the horizontal elements. The needed maintenance facility/yard also adds to the cost. We can all agree that the GL trains need maintenance.

You are also forgetting that a large chunk of the total cost is the equipment cost of 24 new Green Line Type 9 trains.

The procurement just needs to change/project gets rebid. Once it does with the typical CM-at-Risk or Design-Build, the costs will still be high given the unchangeable conditions of the project, but they will not be astronomically out of control. It is going to be more expensive per mile to build a short extension in a dense area than it is to build a longer one in a less dense area. You can get better deals per tons of earth moved, wall poured, etc for longer distances. This is just basic construction fact. It's the same reason families shop at BJs. Things are cheaper in bulk.

 

[chmeeee]

Most of the Green Line runs without any stations, just stops with a bit of asphalt and/or concrete for a "platform". Yes, below grade stops require a ramp or elevator and some stairs in addition to the platform, but the rest of the costs should be considered "nice to haves" to be paid for almost entirely by either local developers (ie College Station should be paid for 99.9% by Tufts) or the City of Somerville.

Everything besides the tracks, the right of way, the trolleys and the overhead lines. If curbstone, asphalt is good enough for Brookline then it is good enough for Somerville.

These stations are absurdly over designed compared to every other above ground stop on the green line:

And to hell with "drainage", there have been drainage issues for hundreds of years, if they can't be fixed for a couple million bucks then just live with flooding sometimes.

F-Line -- this whole process of building the GLX has been driven by a process known in the Cold War bad-old Military Industrial Complex days as "Gold Plating"

The requesting entity -- in this case the community groups and the CLF asked and the Deval-era-T mana... WHARRGARBL

[Newton Highlands showing Ramp to Walnut St. and grade level pedestrian crossing]
Exactly. And if all-door boarding is needed for the crush of riders, switching to POP is way cheaper than buildings.

You're all desperately trying to cut off our collective nose to spite our face. It's like walking into a Toyota dealer, seeing that they're trying to sell you a Corolla for $60k, and instead of telling them their price is insane, you try and negotiate it down to $55k by removing the radio and the heater.

Assembly Row cost what, $60MM? For discussion, let's say your penalty box zigzag ramp with at-grade crossings and POP would cost $10MM. So your "cost savings" will bring the project down to $2.65B.

Let's review:

Project with full boat stations should cost $2B. Actually, it should cost $1B, but we'll just stick with the 2 because Massachusetts. So you want to pay $650MM over budget for a project that's missing the improved user experience, pedestrian safety, accessibility, and efficiency improvements that it should have had since the beginning?

We shouldn't be arguing about what useful features to omit so we can overpay a corrupt contractor to keep building the line. What we should be doing is reworking the bidding process so the costs can be within an order of magnitude of normal for what is already in the design documents.

 

[tangent]

Yes, of course the project as designed should just cost less, but it is easier to obfuscate costs on a more complicated project. Especially if the configuration of the station and design is hard to compare directly to other projects.

Take any of those bare bones stations from other projects mentioned earlier in this thread as a basis for a station design and you can approach an apples to apples comparison where literally any general contractor could ballpark costs of a few concrete slabs, ramps and maybe a bus stop enclosure or two.

The bidding has to start from a smaller base set of requirements to achieve any meaningful cost control.

 

[chmeeee]

You literally just said the same thing worded in a different way.

The stations are not the problem.

 

[datadyne007]

The stations have nothing to do with the excessive cost. The bulk of the construction cost (which is only one piece of the total cost, see below) is in the retaining walls, existing rail relocation, drainage modifications, bridge work & essentially all the horizontal elements. The needed maintenance facility/yard also adds to the cost. We can all agree that the GL trains need maintenance.

You are also forgetting that a large chunk of the total cost is the equipment cost of 24 new Green Line Type 9 trains.

The procurement just needs to change/project gets rebid. Once it does with the typical CM-at-Risk or Design-Build, the costs will still be high given the unchangeable conditions of the project, but they will not be astronomically out of control. It is going to be more expensive per mile to build a short extension in a dense area than it is to build a longer one in a less dense area. You can get better deals per tons of earth moved, wall poured, etc for longer distances. This is just basic construction fact. It's the same reason families shop at BJs. Things are cheaper in bulk.

I'm carrying this to the next page.

Thx Chmeeee for reinforcing my points that got chopped off on the last page.

 

[JumboBuc]

I've found that I tend to agree with just about everything Arlington writes on archBoston. There's nobody else on this site whose posts I find myself nodding in agreement to more than his. That being said:

The stations are not the problem.