Green Line Extension to Medford & Union Sq

[Equilibria]

Equilibria: it is pretty obvious that Arup's savings slide is about overlapping elements, but each element is assigned a % of project for scale-comparison. Stations are 25% of all costs. Union branch (including its station) is 15%. Each row potentially includes iteme in the other rows.

If you say "let's simplify all stations by half" Arup is telling you you're addressing 25% of budget, and implying that saving 50% on 25% saves 12.5%. (They are also pretty explicit that the stations are over designed, suggesting Yawkey instead)

Arup's notes that given the double counting it nets out to 40%, with their big focus being on simpler Lowell Line construction , touching the CR less everywhere,and simpler stations.

All fair enough (though I would disagree that it's obvious on that slide - you have to carefully read the rest of the presentation to figure it out). Still, that doesn't address what those percentages are of or how they were calculated.

 

[Equilibria]

Apologies for the double-post. News, though:

http://www.bostonherald.com/news/lo...board_oks_6m_to_study_stalled_green_line_plan

"The panel yesterday approved deals with three firms that will redesign the project and come up with a new price tag for it, T General Manager Frank DePaola said yesterday after the meeting. DePaola hopes firms under contract will bring costs down $1 billion to its initial budget of $1.99 billion for the 4.7-mile extension."

No speculation in the article of how exactly they'll do that, but $1B savings is such an ambitious public goal, I bet a lot of it involves simply re-estimating the costs.

 

[whighlander]

"Because busses ain't trains" seems like the correct answer to that.

Restated: cross-platform, in-system, all-doors transfer @ Lechmere.

It really depends if Baker believes that voters in Somerville can tell the difference between construction on a single track line vs a double track line by 2018.

Arlington -- You attach much too much value to the "Somerville Vote"

I think the vote that matters the most is the one in June by the Financial Board after the final re-design presentation by Arup:

Yes we build scaled down GLX
No -- "No Build Scenario"

The GLX as it existed in the plans as of Dec 2015 - is currently in Cardiac Arrest

But the Arup-ed GLX might have a chance for survival

 

[whighlander]

Apologies for the double-post. News, though:

http://www.bostonherald.com/news/lo...board_oks_6m_to_study_stalled_green_line_plan

"The panel yesterday approved deals with three firms that will redesign the project and come up with a new price tag for it, T General Manager Frank DePaola said yesterday after the meeting. DePaola hopes firms under contract will bring costs down $1 billion to its initial budget of $1.99 billion for the 4.7-mile extension."

No speculation in the article of how exactly they'll do that, but $1B savings is such an ambitious public goal, I bet a lot of it involves simply re-estimating the costs.

Equilib -- here's how it can play out and everyone except deVal's T leadership, and the original master contractor end-up looking good:

1) Arup proposes a menu of cuts
2) T relents to pressure from transit advocates [in exchange for less opposition to rate increases] and chooses a subset of the cuts
3) renegotiations with the actual subs due to world wide decline in industrial commodity prices produce implementation layer cuts
4) GLX-lite is delivered on-time [new schedule] and under the new budget estimate
5) everyone is relatively happy -- Sommerville can brag that while it didn't get Union Sq that it has more T stops than Cambridge

 

[Arlington]

Arlington -- You attach much too much value to the "Somerville Vote"

I don't want to re-litigate this issue, but I was fully persuaded by F-Line's analysis that there was a lot of latent Som/Med vote that stayed home or voted Baker in 2014, but that he doesn't want to rile up against him. In a close election an angry, high-turnout Somerville could easily provide the X,000 votes needed sink Baker if he's given them reason to be angry at him. Keep them pacified/pleased/indifferent and his path to reelection is much clearer.

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

Apologies for the double-post. News, though:

http://www.bostonherald.com/news/lo...board_oks_6m_to_study_stalled_green_line_plan

"The panel yesterday approved deals with three firms that will redesign the project and come up with a new price tag for it, T General Manager Frank DePaola said yesterday after the meeting. DePaola hopes firms under contract will bring costs down $1 billion to its initial budget of $1.99 billion for the 4.7-mile extension."

No speculation in the article of how exactly they'll do that, but $1B savings is such an ambitious public goal, I bet a lot of it involves simply re-estimating the costs.

Agree. For one, a major "redesign"--as in, delete every AutoCAD file and field surveyor's report done in the last 20 years thrown in the trash and start all the way over--cannot be done in the timeframe they want new cost quotes. No credible firm with a reputation to protect would agree to such an impossible deadline if full-on reboot were the only path. Radical redesign takes enough time and cost in itself to make the full $1B in cost savings impossible to reach. It would be nothing but a time-waster for the next several months if they still plan to announce go/no-go by summer. They already know what the final answer is if rip-it-up-and-start-again is the task awarded in this contract.

Short of worst-case disingenuity, which these risk-averse pols understand would be unnecessarily inflammatory to the voters, they must believe that most of that $1B can be attributed strictly to a non-corrupt re-estimate on 80%+ of the existing design. And that the number will be whittled down to the last $100-200M such that real "redesign" work is going to target a narrow parameter range feasibly be contained within station mods. Same sorts of parameters we've discussed last several pages that surgically targeted enough to avoid the sorts of design change orders that end up fighting themselves to a draw.


They either believe this to be plausible, or they are pants-on-fire lying and wasting more money enriching more contractors as a time-killer. I very much doubt with what's at stake that their pants are a raging inferno. It's probably the standard-issue wispy smoke. So they believe this to be plausible, and are waiting for the assessment on just how much plausible it is.

 

[whighlander]

I don't want to re-litigate this issue, but I was fully persuaded by F-Line's analysis that there was a lot of latent Som/Med vote that stayed home or voted Baker in 2014, but that he doesn't want to rile up against him. In a close election an angry, high-turnout Somerville could easily provide the X,000 votes needed sink Baker if he's given them reason to be angry at him. Keep them pacified/pleased/indifferent and his path to reelection is much clearer.

Arlington -- there are probably a few votes in Somerville that might turn against the Baker Way if the GLX is cut completely or gutted beyond recognition -- However, there would be lots of voters who would stay home if "Charlie -FixIit Baker" -- didn't deliver the cost controls on T spending he's promised and the concept of a "GLX-lite" is part of that

Remember that Charlie has 3 years to show that the T is manageable -- and in the midst of it all there's still a lot of muck with pensions and no-shows which the legislature is reluctant to touch.

Therefore, its especially important for the Bakerites to deliver a GLX-lite plan with a realistic budget and credible cost controls

 

[Arlington]

How hard to just VE *some* of the Lowell ROW retaining walls and to skinny down the bottom of the ROW (Arup shows tracks closer together)--not for the whole way, but maybe where it is particularly expensive now and particularly isolated from other project elements?

 

[whighlander]

Agree. For one, a major "redesign"--as in, delete every AutoCAD file and field surveyor's report done in the last 20 years and start all the way over--cannot be done in the timeframe they want. And takes enough cost in itself to make the full $1B in cost savings impossible to reach. It's nothing but a time-waster for the next several months if they still plan to announce go/no-go by summer. They already know what the final answer is if rip-it-up-and-start-again is the task awarded in this contract.

Short of worst-case disingenuity, which these risk-averse pols understand would be inflammatory, they must believe that most of that $1B is attributed strictly to re-estimate on the existing design. And that real "redesign" is going to target a small enough remainder ($100-200M) that it could feasibly be contained within station mods that don't fight themselves to a cost draw on change orders.


They either believe this to be plausible, or they are pants-on-fire lying and wasting more money as a time-killer. I doubt with what's at stake their pants are a raging inferno; it's probably no worse than wispy smoke.

F-Line -- I don't believe that the DoT and Baker approved spending $6M more without the conviction that Arup will be able to deliver real savings on design not just through rebids

The stations excesses beyond mere functionality and the row cut width and track relocations are obvious places to "cut" and the re-scaling of the shop is the other one

By the way -- these days there are plenty of tools and practitioners skilled in them available to modify the CAD without starting over from scratch

Finally, while the Legislature buckled to the T Unions' tune in the area of the Pension Board, the Act authorizing the Financial Board gave it broad powers with which to act

I'm betting the final cost will be $2.5B or less and everyone can claim victory

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

How hard to just VE *some* of the Lowell ROW retaining walls and to skinny down the bottom of the ROW (Arup shows tracks closer together)--not for the whole way, but maybe where it is particularly expensive now and particularly isolated from other project elements?

So much of it is what it is because of the existing narrowness of the ROW and all the water management and land acquisition considerations. The retaining wall and ROW width design work was such a huge chunk of the design costs that cure would be worse than disease with wholesale change orders. And physically impossible to change in a lot of places because of the constraints. The measurements are catalogued. You can even corroborate a lot of them yourself by taking one of those laser tape measures down to track level. On vast majority of the route the walls must be there to achieve minimum width...full-stop.

So I think Ayup's slide, like a lot of the slides in that presentation, presents something visually provocative without a lot of details to back it up. The types of retaining wall changes that can be done at actual savings would be small, discrete sections where a very surgical tweak sidesteps most of the change order penalties. Same sort of things we were talking about with station mods that are minimal-impact vs. those that fight a losing battle. Previous contractors weren't looking for the small surgical tweaks, and these guys think they can maybe tease a couple spots out for non-invasive reshaping.

Emphasis on "maybe" and "couple spots". It will not be dramatic because minimum width is what it is and so much of the ROW ain't. Temper expectations accordingly. As I said in my last post, it is improbable to impossible with the short time frame these contractors are being given that the state seriously thinks most of that $1B can come off the books due to pure civil engineering "redesign". Or that a reputable contractor would stake their reputation to such a short timeframe. So either they're lying to an improbably severe degree, or they are virtually certain that a majority of that $1B comes off from re-estimate of existing design and leaves the remainder within range of those discrete...surgical...non-invasive tweaks that do not incur all the substantial overhead of a major re-design.

The timeframe and presence of these contractors within that timeframe...does not compute at all unless they believe that.

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

BTW...rather than dig up more Howie Carr avatars that are getting in short supply on Google Image Search, let me just say that this thread would be lost without a third of every page's screenspace taken up by:

[Poster name -- putdown of intellect with accusation of rank ideological bias]

+

["Now let me tell you about my rank hackneyed ideological biases that are utterly indifferent from any low-ratings AM radio hack, but sound smart in my own head when I quack them into the void!"]

+

[repeat facts well-covered over multiple pages as if they were enlightening new revelations]

+

[play-on-words on some politician's name who's long out of office, because yuk-yuks]

+

[irrelevant rambling sidebar]

+

["I stayed at a Holiday Inn Express last night!" story about wide-ranging expertise in field that isn't related at all to topic at hand, and vague about relation to anything]

It's like visiting Tokyo only to seek out the first McDonald's. The menu is so simplistically consistent it needs no thought or words.













OK...carry on.

 

[whighlander]

So much of it is what it is because of the existing narrowness of the ROW and all the water management and land acquisition considerations. The retaining wall and ROW width design work was such a huge chunk of the design costs that cure would be worse than disease with wholesale change orders. And physically impossible to change in a lot of places because of the constraints. The measurements are catalogued. You can even corroborate a lot of them yourself by taking one of those laser tape measures down to track level. On vast majority of the route the walls must be there to achieve minimum width...full-stop.

So I think Ayup's slide, like a lot of the slides in that presentation, presents something visually provocative without a lot of details to back it up. The types of retaining wall changes that can be done at actual savings would be small, discrete sections where a very surgical tweak sidesteps most of the change order penalties. Same sort of things we were talking about with station mods that are minimal-impact vs. those that fight a losing battle. Previous contractors weren't looking for the small surgical tweaks, and these guys think they can maybe tease a couple spots out for non-invasive reshaping.

Emphasis on "maybe" and "couple spots". It will not be dramatic because minimum width is what it is and so much of the ROW ain't. Temper expectations accordingly. As I said in my last post, it is improbable to impossible with the short time frame these contractors are being given that the state seriously thinks most of that $1B can come off the books due to pure civil engineering "redesign". Or that a reputable contractor would stake their reputation to such a short timeframe. So either they're lying to an improbably severe degree, or they are virtually certain that a majority of that $1B comes off from re-estimate of existing design and leaves the remainder within range of those discrete...surgical...non-invasive tweaks that do not incur all the substantial overhead of a major re-design.

The timeframe and presence of these contractors within that timeframe...does not compute at all unless they believe that.

F-Line -- you are right that no one is going to do the redesign in 3 months {Feb-April} -- however what globally experienced contractors such as Arup can do in 3 months is estimate credibly how much can be saved [net including the cost of the changes]

Then when they come back to the Fin Board with the new pack of slides on May 5? they will have credible numbers to back up which of the items they initially selected for study had a significant payoff

It's quite possible that they will come to the same conclusion which you have expressed -- in which case if the rebidding doesn't deliver something around 500M$ in savings-- the GLX will be Deader than a proverbial Door Nail

However, Arup has been part of many complex and initially foreboding projects -- I'll give them some slack to see what they can deliver

The other unintended consequence? of the Baker Way is that Stephanie Pollack is on the team so she can defuse some of the true-believers when GLX-Lite is announced

 

[whighlander]

BTW...rather than dig up more Howie Carr avatars that are getting in short supply on Google Image Search, let me just say that this thread would be lost without a third of every page's screenspace taken up by:

It's like visiting Tokyo only to seek out the first McDonald's. The menu is so simplistically consistent it needs no thought or words.

HUH???

Why can't you just look at what is posted and then reply based on the content -- I know that you do have significant expertise on this forum with respect to matters transit

By the way when was your last Carr-fix? I stopped listening when he started loving Donald





Editors note

OK...carry on.

-- replace by

Keep Calm and Carry On

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

HUH???

Why can't you just look at what is posted and then reply based on the content -- I know that you do have significant expertise on this forum with respect to matters transit

Strange...I often wonder the same why people consistently avoid reading the forum content before hitting "Submit Reply". Good to know I'm not alone in sharing that wonderment: http://www.archboston.org/community/showthread.php?t=2971&page=7

 

[nick]

Interesting read about leftover money from old FHWA earmarks. Maybe the state could direct MA's $111 million portion of unobligated funds toward narrowing the Green Line funding gap?
http://www.citylab.com/commute/2016/01/us-state-dot-highway-funding-earmark-fhwa-congress/431568/

The money has "relatively few strings attached". It could "possibly" be spent on public transit. And while the money is intended to be spent “within the same general geographic area within 50 miles for which the funding was designated," it sounds like the state line is the only real boundary.

 

[Scipio]

The T presented to Somerville recently with some new materials:

Meeting summary: http://www.somervillestep.org/residents-get-important-green-line-updates-at-public-meeting/
Updated value engineering presentation from Arup: http://www.somervillestep.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/CostReductionOpportunities_020516.pdf
Detailed cost spreadsheet: http://www.somervillestep.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/GLXCostComparision_020516.pdf

The big new things I spot are the death of the Community Path, and the belief that serving Union Square with a single-track GLX branch or commuter rail will not jeopardize the federal grant. Plus we haven't seen that unit cost spreadsheet before with the different estimates.

 

[citylover94]

The thing that jumps out to me in the cost spreadsheet is that every station ended up with a construction cost increase of at least 13 million and up to 26 million for the Washington Street Station (which is an increase of more than 100% of the original cost). I just don't understand how because the stations don't seem like they would be more expensive than the Assembly Square Station and according to the T they shouldn't be but both the outside estimate and the contractor estimate higher costs. I would be curious to see how each group estimated the cost for the stations and why the cost is so high.

 

[lexicon506]

What's the point of commuter rail service to Union Square? It's not an employment center, tourist center, or transfer point. Commuter rail would do nothing to serve the needs of the neighborhood (frequent connections to inner-city destinations) while slowing down trips to/from the suburbs. I would rather see them scrap Union Square service altogether than waste money on a commuter rail stop.

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

What's the point of commuter rail service to Union Square? It's not an employment center, tourist center, or transfer point. Commuter rail would do nothing to serve the needs of the neighborhood (frequent connections to inner-city destinations) while slowing down trips to/from the suburbs. I would rather see them scrap Union Square service altogether than waste money on a commuter rail stop.

It appears because the MPO has tucked it on some afterthought "Universe of Projects" PMT documents in the past and done some very rough ridership counts. Since that's enough to deem it "officially" studied, it gets referenced as a formality.

It's not a realistic option. Every time the MPO did do up ridership estimates they were nonexistent. And station construction costs would be much the same. You'd have to contend with similar egress type, and the same ADA snags with the steepness of the Prospect St. sidewalk.



It's just a placebo; pay no mind to it.

 

[ceo]

A couple of things about this:

"Decouple [station] access from adjacent bridges". Won't that make it more expensive, not less, since you'll have to get people up as well as down?

"Single tracking" (the Lowell Line). I remember being told, at the Ball Square station design meeting last year, that they were going to single-track the Lowell Line because there wasn't room for both tracks while they were rebuilding the bridge (since they're doing so one side at a time so they don't have to close it). Or was that just through the Ball Square area and now they're considering single tracking through the entire project area?