Green Line Extension to Medford & Union Sq

[Equilibria]

May 9th Final Report Presentation

I'm interested most in Slide 22, where they claim that their reduced project saves $700M over the "Previous Project". They claim that the old estimate is from iGMP#4 "proportioned to" iGMP#5. But the iGMP estimates from the past two years supposedly aren't trustworthy - that's why the cancelled those contracts.

According to this, the team can account for the entire difference between the prior untrustworthy estimate and their new $2.3B estimate. It's all in the 5 categories listed. That means that according to this group, the $3B estimate was completely legit, just for too big a scope.

That has several problematic implications for me, including:

- If the WSK et. al. estimate was accurate, then you've completely thrown them under the bus by blaming the contracting arrangement for the overruns.

- It's possible that the new consultants have maintained assumptions about item pricing and construction costs from the old, untrustworthy estimates. We know that GLX is absurdly overpriced compared to comparable projects nationwide - why was resolving that not the #1 objective for this study?

- If cancelling the contracts didn't save you any money, why cancel them? What did that accomplish except delaying the project? Under the old contracts, you could redesign the sections piecemeal as you went along - that's the whole point of that method.

I have to stand with the general tone of this thread: I think this entire exercise has been a complete waste of time. If all you did was cut from the project, and if you're endorsing the prior consultants' $3B estimate, then they did nothing wrong and you should have resolved the issue with them. If you maintain that the old method produced inflated estimates (as every prior report on it has indicated), then what assumptions did the new consultants make that caused them to come to the exact same conclusion about what the project would cost as previously designed?

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

They're still tap-dancing around the Community Path truncation at McGrath. As expected, a presentation full of TBD's because they haven't processed all the info in front of them.

 

[bigeman312]

Some of these cuts seem penny wise, pound foolish. They are trying to crack down on fare evasion on the Green Line surface stops in Brookline/Allston/Brighton/Newton, but yet they replicate the same exact operational problems here, under the new proposal.

Also, file this under mind-boggling: the Broadway bridge over the tracks now won't have sidewalks. This is the only route connecting squares (Powderhouse, Ball to the west and Magoun to the East) in Somerville. People walk here a lot, and will only be walking more with the GLX. How do they feel they can cut sidewalks from the bridge? Huh? Did I read that wrong?

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

I'm also puzzled as to how some of these stations can be ADA compliant with all elevators, escalators, and ramps cut.

 

[ceo]

I think you must have read it wrong. They're eliminating the parking lane and the right-turn lane to bring it down to 2 lanes + bike lanes + sidewalks.

 

[Ruairi]

I've been 8 years living in Somerville/Cambridge and whenever I mentioned GLX to a local, they'd laugh at me. Only now I'm beginning to get it. Even if it does go ahead, they are saying another 6 years to lay 4 miles of tracks with platforms that are glorified sidewalks at a min cost of $2.3b. Seems like gross mismanagement all over the place! (I know theres other aspects to the build out but still, it's ridiculous)

 

[datadyne007]

I'm also puzzled as to how some of these stations can be ADA compliant with all elevators, escalators, and ramps cut.

Yeah, I think they messed up that ramp section of the table. The redesigned Ball Square clearly has a ramp:

 

[tangent]

Some of these cuts seem penny wise, pound foolish. They are trying to crack down on fare evasion on the Green Line surface stops in Brookline/Allston/Brighton/Newton, but yet they replicate the same exact operational problems here, under the new proposal.

Also, file this under mind-boggling: the Broadway bridge over the tracks now won't have sidewalks. This is the only route connecting squares (Powderhouse, Ball to the west and Magoun to the East) in Somerville. People walk here a lot, and will only be walking more with the GLX. How do they feel they can cut sidewalks from the bridge? Huh? Did I read that wrong?

I believe they now say this could be a separate pedestrian bridge. Without a design it is hard to say what that would look like.

Edit: Oh I see what you are saying. The pedestrian bridge is mentioned for College Ave not Broadway.

 

[ceo]

What's interesting is that they claim the simplified construction completely offsets the 18-month reprocurement delay, resulting in no change to the completion date.

I don't see any mention in the report of the plan to implement all-doors boarding on the Green Line, which is what makes the no-faregates plan practical.

 

[bigeman312]

I think you must have read it wrong. They're eliminating the parking lane and the right-turn lane to bring it down to 2 lanes + bike lanes + sidewalks.

I hope you're right, but on Slide 12 it says "parking lane and sidewalk removed"

I believe they now say this could be a separate pedestrian bridge. Without a design it is hard to say what that would look like.

That appears to be the plan for College Ave, but not from what I can tell for Broadway.

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

Everything about this presentation is:

TBD
TBD
TBD
TBD. . .


This is just throwing conceptual darts at the wall to distract people from the fact that they have abso-fuckin'-lutely no idea what their true costs really are. Because this whole exercise has been about anything BUT addressing the elephant in the room re: contractor graft.


It's like they should form some sort of "board" that "controls" all things fiscal so they don't look like a bunch of blind squirrels getting hit by cars.

 

[tangent]

That appears to be the plan for College Ave, but not from what I can tell for Broadway.

Yes, your right. Sorry, College Ave was the next line.

I am hoping that is just a mistake then. Removing the parking lane (why was there ever parking for like 10 cars on a bridge?) and doing a full closure rather than a partial closure makes sense as cost savings. But eliminating the sidewalk wouldn't make any sense unless somehow pedestrian bridges to either side were less expensive, but I kinda doubt that.

 

[datadyne007]

Everything about this presentation is:

TBD
TBD
TBD
TBD. . .


This is just throwing conceptual darts at the wall to distract people from the fact that they have abso-fuckin'-lutely no idea what their true costs really are. Because this whole exercise has been about anything BUT addressing the elephant in the room re: contractor graft.


It's like they should form some sort of "board" that "controls" all things fiscal so they don't look like a bunch of blind squirrels getting hit by cars.

FWIW, here is the actual full report: http://www.mbta.com/uploadedfiles/About_the_T/Board_Meetings/GLXBOARDREPORTFINALv2.pdf

The document above is the presentation on the report.

 

[ant8904]

Everything about this presentation is:

TBD
TBD
TBD
TBD. . .


This is just throwing conceptual darts at the wall to distract people from the fact that they have abso-fuckin'-lutely no idea what their true costs really are. Because this whole exercise has been about anything BUT addressing the elephant in the room re: contractor graft.


It's like they should form some sort of "board" that "controls" all things fiscal so they don't look like a bunch of blind squirrels getting hit by cars.

I hope you're right. By all logic and information we believe we know, you should be right. But it is not a good sign when the consultant hired seems to say absolutely nothing about that. The only cost savings they shows is stripping even the sidewalks out of Broadway.

Here's comment from that isn't repeating everyone else here: it's probably not a good thing to have your expert consultant give a number that backs the allegedly inflated numbers to the entire public and then put it to bid. Even if the truth is the $2.3 BN is maintaining assumptions per what Equilibria said, no one is saying that and so the bidder would allow follow that narrative.

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

Jesus Christ...reading the detail report on the maint facility shows the lard there was even worse than in my last comment. They were asking for automated facilities they don't even have at Riverside.

I'm now convinced either the design consultants took them for all the money they were worth submitting a gearheads' Taj Mahal, or this was a self-satisfying "Fuck you" to the Brickbottomites who put them through hell on site selection where they were just going to reward themselves with every toy they could get their hands on. Other than the halving of vehicle storage which still seems a little dodgy that's the one real "cost control" redesign that they nailed spot-on.

The rest of these changes are inconclusive murk.

 

[Equilibria]

!#@*$&@*&$&@*$&

The IPMT did not solely rely upon the information provided within the extensive ICE documentation. Rather, the IPMT construction cost estimators reviewed and modified that documentation to generate a new construction cost estimate that reflects the significant design changes. The IPMT also reviewed the alternative options with the FTA, with representation from the FTA Program Management Oversight Consultant, the MBTA’s GLX Owner’s Representative (HMM), as well as staff of MassDOT and the MBTA. The IPMT concluded that all other alternatives, such as a new detailed bottom-up cost estimate methodology, were either not feasible within the IPMT reporting deadline of May 9, 2016 and/or did not offer any significant increase in price certainty.

Let me get this straight... you cancelled the contract with the ICE because they never gave you a reliable estimate, and it's documented that you never produced a complete estimate of the project cost (including on this same page in this document) but you retained all their assumptions about unit and construction costs because... you RAN OUT OF F_ING TIME!?

When you keep all the assumptions, you get the same result. All they did here was cut a whole bunch of the project so that the variables next to the coefficients would be smaller. If you read higher up on the page, you see how they try to justify this...

The previous GLX ICE was not tasked with preparing an overall budget; rather, they priced the same previous scope against the proposals of the previous CM/GC contractor. Under the previous CM/GC estimating process, the contractor had to provide a price/estimate that was within 10 percent of the ICE’s estimate of that same scope. The estimates for the scope of previous iGMP#4 were never successfully delivered within that 10 percent range before the negotiation process was halted.

That makes very little sense to me. Your $3B estimate in 2015 came from extrapolating the contractor's estimate, which you note here was always unreasonably high compared to the ICE. Then, you claim that the ICE is the basis for your $3B estimate in 2016. We know from prior reporting on this process that the ICE kept revising its estimate out of deference to the contractor.

So now, you're letting the ICE completely off-the-hook despite FIRING THEM FOR INCOMPETENCE NOT ONE YEAR AGO because you don't want to go to the trouble to ask if and why they were wrong about anything. In doing so, you've guaranteed the same exact answer that they got, which makes this entire exercise... completely pointless.

 

[CSTH]

!#@*$&@*&$&@*$&

So now, you're letting the ICE completely off-the-hook despite FIRING THEM FOR INCOMPETENCE NOT ONE YEAR AGO because you don't want to go to the trouble to ask if and why they were wrong about anything. In doing so, you've guaranteed the same exact answer that they got, which makes this entire exercise... completely pointless.

Pointless only if your objective is to generate a rational estimate of achievable cost savings.

Not pointless if you have other objectives.

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

And now the board is saying they need to stick up more cities for contributions, and...oh...private business too, because they've been getting rich and reasons. Don't covet your neighbors' goods too transparently now, guys.

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

...aaaaaaand the Board is discussing whether to delay the vote till another day. This is my shocked face: :-|


At least every Board member who's spoken up has been enthusiastically in support of continuing on. So...there's that.

 

[bigeman312]

Holy shit this is infuriating.

Could you imagine any consumer acting this way?

Consumer: "I want to buy a new T-shirt. This is the only store I see right now, let's see how much a T'shirt cost."
Vendor: "$200."
Consumer: "$200! That's ridiculous. Way too expensive."

...a few days later....

Consumer: "I figure that if a T-shirt costs $200, a sleeveless shirt is probably only $150. If I get one made of really thin material with no logos on it, it should probably only cost me $130, and I guess I can live with a thin, sleeveless shirt."

WHAT SHOULD/DOES HAPPEN IN REAL EFFING LIFE:

Consumer: "T-shirts don't actually cost $200. Forget about that price. I'll find out what T-shirts actually cost, so that I have a good price point to ensure that I am paying a fair price."

This stuff isn't rocket science.