Green Line Extension to Medford & Union Sq

[F-Line to Dudley]

^ Do those other per-mile calculations include the cost of the cars that ride the rails? Because the GLX per-mile calculation does. Orange Line cars are all from 1979-1981, so I'm assuming they aren't included in the completed in '77 or '87 extension budgets. Same goes for Red Line, as cars are from '69-'70, '88, and '94 but extensions are completed in '83 and '85.

Take the cost of the cars ($183 million) out of the GLX budget and that $2.3b turns into $2.1b and the cost per mile drops to $448m. Still super expensive, but within 6% of the comparable trenched Orange Line south extension.

Yes, no, and not really.


Orange...correct. We're running the same fleet today that clacked over the El.

Red...the 01500/01600's were purchased to feed the South Shore branch. But that was the '71 Quincy Center extension that isn't counted on this list because of the MTA-->MBTA transition, not the much-delayed Quincy Adams and Braintree additions.

No new cars were bought for the +2 to Braintree because they already had enough a decade earlier. QA and Braintree were waaaaaaaay late because the towns could not agree to disagree on station siting. It was originally supposed to be "North Braintree" and "South Braintree" with an opening tacked on a couple years after QC until all hell broke loose. Actual Braintree became the Route 16 analogue in this saga. The good thing is, once it actually did open all the bad feelings were water under the bridge and nobody remembers how stupid the fighting was.

No new cars were bought for the Alewife extension. However, the 01400 cars (1963-94...the ones that preceded the current 01800's) had to go into a concurrently-timed rebuild program so they could run there because the extension was getting the newer ATO signals and those cars could only run on the old wayside system. It probably wasn't lumped in with the construction budget, though, because that was the cars' scheduled turn for a regular 20-year rehab.



The last fleet-expansion car orders were forced by platform-lengthening from 4- to 6-cars on Red and Blue. The new Blue cars were both a fleet replacement and a fleet expansion timed coincident with the BL station modernizations...which made that SGR project heftier-$$$ than the norm. The 54 Red 01700's were ordered in 1988 strictly for purposes of +2'ing every peak-load trainset after they got Central-JFK and the Ashmont Branch platforms lengthened. So...another purely SGR project carrying the car costs.


I don't think you can quibble with the inclusion of the Type 9's. There aren't enough cars to run the full expanded Green Line without another 24 units on-hand. It's a non-optional expense. Just like there weren't enough cars on-hand for those Red and Blue SGR projects to run 6-car trains without shouldering that extra cost load. Maybe if Breda didn't fuck up the Type 8's so badly that the order had to be contractually truncated a dozen-plus units shy of goal they wouldn't have to do this, but that was 15 years ago before GLX had advanced beyond the latest prelim scoping study.

The only conclusion to really glean is: man, 30 years is way the hell too long to be running so short on Orange, and thank god they're finally increasing the fleet size a lot with these new cars. How many working professionals in Boston weren't even alive when Orange last had enough cars to run 'normal' rush hour headways?

 

[ant8904]

Ant -- at least you read what I wrote

Here's how I came to my surmise [I wont dignify it by calling it a theory]:

I'll ask again even though I'll be told that in just feeding you. What you just said was not my question. I did not ask you was how you come to the conclusion to find the Patrick Administration low balled. I asked how you found 2bn to be a lowball number?

You statement that you found $2bn is low balling implies several things.

1. That you don't believe the statements that the contractor inflated and overcharge the work. Unless your definition of lowball includes not calculating in graft, you can't state lowball without addressing that. Actually, even if you do, you still need to explain that.
2. That $3bn somehow an appropriate number despite a cost like that per mile rivals deep bore and other more complex projects.

So again to make it super clear. How is 2bn low balling? Not how you conclude it. How do you say that when it flies in the face of comparable projects and not explaining how you are ignoring statements that contractor were over charging for every work item consistently by 33% (except material).

And if you actually do respond. Don't just give a verbose version of gold plating. If gold plating is the answer, then the current estimation, now that it's all barebones, should be way cheaper than 2.3bn. And no, sunk cost would only explain ~300m at most if you said try that

 

[DBM]

While I found what whighlander just said irritating as he just said that as a matter-of-fact ignore all previous discussion, countering it with the way you are doing is also pretty annoying to me too. It just feel like it is killing the seriousness of the discussion when it get interspersed with random sounds and pictures.

Anytime anyone anywhere is making a mockery of Howie Carr--with his perennially prefabricated, mads libs-style "columns" that are not only perfectly intellectually impoverished but also spectacularly cringe-inducing in their self-dating references while simultaneously obnoxious, grating, and supremely smug and self-satisfied--that's a great thing, an unvarnished unqualified win for civic culture in the face of such immense idiocracy. That Mr. WHighlander is technically the primary target of said ridicule is perhaps regrettable... but again, consider the above...

 

[whighlander]

I'll ask again even though I'll be told that in just feeding you. What you just said was not my question. I did not ask you was how you come to the conclusion to find the Patrick Administration low balled. I asked how you found 2bn to be a lowball number?

You statement that you found $2bn is low balling implies several things.

1. That you don't believe the statements that the contractor inflated and overcharge the work. Unless your definition of lowball includes not calculating in graft, you can't state lowball without addressing that. Actually, even if you do, you still need to explain that.
2. That $3bn somehow an appropriate number despite a cost like that per mile rivals deep bore and other more complex projects.

So again to make it super clear. How is 2bn low balling? Not how you conclude it. How do you say that when it flies in the face of comparable projects and not explaining how you are ignoring statements that contractor were over charging for every work item consistently by 33% (except material).

And if you actually do respond. Don't just give a verbose version of gold plating. If gold plating is the answer, then the current estimation, now that it's all barebones, should be way cheaper than 2.3bn. And no, sunk cost would only explain ~300m at most if you said try that

Ant -- let me try one more time:

Yes, Greedy and Venal Contractors grabbing for what they could get -- a Boston Tradition [with the complicity of the unions] were part of the final big number. However, as previously mentioned, there were real construction issues due to the specifics of the topography, and the need for the design to accommodate the quirks of the existing railway ROW. Also contributing to the High Per mile cost was Feature Creep that happened during the review process, and a failure by someone, ostensibly in-the-know, to anticipate the effects of the, by then very apparent, Boston Area Construction boom on materials, equipment rental and labor costs.

Those were all very real and all very understandable factors that would push the best estimate, of the true cost to complete the project, substantially above the reference figures derived from comparable projects. But the T's management supposedly had intramural expertise in such matters -- someone should have "blown the proverbial whistle."

However, the key to understand the "BiG Surprise" -- you needed more -- a T and friends motivation. In order to get the Federal Commitment -- whatever was known, or even guessed at by the T and MA-DOT, about the escalating cost estimate had to be buried by someone. If the story got out early on -- Congress would have balked big-time at even a $2.3B figure. Its important to remember that all of the Massachusetts delegation is on the minority party side, and has to depend on personal relationships with the Majority Party Committee Chairs to get these kinds of "special favors". Anyone, opposed to spending more money on a Massachusetts project could dig out the "Comparables" and present the GLX as being just another BIG DIG -- and the result would be no or very little money that could be available from the Feds.

So -- the number had somehow to be made manageable -- aka a Low Ball estimate that would be fed to the Feds.

There is no other way that the President could be told in January 2014 [circa State of the Union], that the project would cost $1.4B -- a number, which he then retold in public. Amazingly, this "best estimate" increased to $2.3B when the Federal Commitment Letter was written about Thanksgiving. No-one in the T inner circle could be that ignorant of the realities -- nor could the contractors best efforts at graft be so efficient that the actual number increased by 50% in 9 months.

Therefore, its a case of "Who knew what and when did he or she know it" -- finally there is the $3B "real" number that was disclosed through the independent review. Once again it seems that even the $2.3B was a low-ball estimate for "PR" or Political Purposes??

This kind of mechanation reminds me more and more of the Middlesex County Court House, or the Boston Common Parking Garage scandals -- where politicians and others went to jail -- and ironically some of the bid processes in use today were mandated by subsequent public law.

There is also the definite odor of the Big Dig to the GLX -- where the Owner relied too much on the "Owners Representative" for all the details -- and so the Commonwealth couldn't credibly analyze the work of the individual contractors and Parsons-Brinckerhoff, the project Architect - Engineer.

In contrast to the T and the GLX -- Massport regularly does projects of similar scope which seem to get done roughly on-time and on budget. Somehow Massport seems to manage to get close to the ultimate costs in the early planning and permitting phase.

If i was Charlie, I'd talk to Stephanie and get her to have Massport Second someone from Houssam Sleiman's Capital Programs & Environmental Affairs office to work for a while with the T -- they are all on the same team and she's on both of the Boards involved.

 

[underground]

Stop posting.

 

[tangent]

The Southwest Corridor was closed for SWC construction - the Providence/Stoughton Line, Franklin Line, and Amtrak service were rerouted over what is now the Fairmount Line. The Needham Line was bustituted; this was originally planned to be a permanent measure but community support resulted in its return in 1987. Still, it's probably the best comparison here. OL north was the only one constructed along an active commuter rail corridor, but that's mostly aboveground rather than trenched so construction was much easier.

GLX is mostly above ground also

 

[whighlander]

GLX is mostly above ground also

Tangent -- No that's one of its signature challenges

While its not in a tunnel -- a lot of GLX is in the old railroad cut

Unfortunately -- the old ROW for the railroad wasn't quite wide-enough to shoehorn in 2 more tracks, the electrical wiring poles and the Community Path

That means a lot of digging and shoring up dirt in a highly developed stretch where there is no free space on the sides

When you compare GLX to some of the New Light Rail projects in less dense places -- the issue of reworking something like the old rail lines in a trench surrounded by houses and commercial buildings usually is not part of the equation for Houston or Denver

 

[tangent]

Tangent -- No that's one of its signature challenges

While its not in a tunnel -- a lot of GLX is in the old railroad cut

Unfortunately -- the old ROW for the railroad wasn't quite wide-enough to shoehorn in 2 more tracks, the electrical wiring poles and the Community Path

That means a lot of digging and shoring up dirt in a highly developed stretch where there is no free space on the sides

When you compare GLX to some of the New Light Rail projects in less dense places -- the issue of reworking something like the old rail lines in a trench surrounded by houses and commercial buildings usually is not part of the equation for Houston or Denver

While this is often repeated it doesn't appear to be accurate. Most of GLX is either ground level or even above ground level. Maybe the perception that it is mostly in a trench is because the road overpasses were built on elevated ground and that is where the stations were located.

Certainly there is a need for new retaining walls along a few stretches, but the idea that this is mostly in a trench... What is the percentage of the total length 20%? 30%?

 

[The EGE]

This might be one of the few times I agree with whigh.

Approximately, there is:
2600 ft (12%) of new viaduct ROW with relatively unrestricted access (Lechmere to Red Bridge)
800 ft (4%) of new viaduct ROW over or adjacent to an active commuter rail line (Red Bridge)
7500 ft (35%) of at-grade or accessible elevated ROW adjacent to an active commuter rail line (Red Bridge to Union Square, Brickbottom to 28, Morton Ave to near College Ave)
2000 ft (9%) of at-grade ROW with adjacent freight tracks (Red Bridge to Brickbottom)
8600 ft (40%) of ROW that is fully trenched, or has restricted access from both sides due to grade, next to active CR tracks (28 to Morton Ave, under College Ave)

That gives you about 20% that's easy to build, 35% that's medium-difficult to build, and 45% that's outright hard to build. SW Corridor on the other hand was 85% medium difficulty (trenched, but no parallel service operating) and 15% hard.

 

[ant8904]

So the concise version is basically (gathering more from EGE's breaking it down rather than whighlander burying the point with verbose rhetoric and government speculation) is GLX is more complex than it looks. That despite that it is on an existing ROW and analogies to the D-line and other stuff, this project is exceptional that it only looks simple to engineer.

That this project is actually hard - thus costly and expensive, rivaling closer to deep bore projects/heavy rail than other light rail per mile in engineering - and thus low balled when asked back then. And the response for the discussions of contractor graft, while you recognize it played a role, you view the real majority of the cost is understated engineering difficulties with only a much smaller portion of the contractor overcharging.

 

[tangent]

This might be one of the few times I agree with whigh.

Approximately, there is:
2600 ft (12%) of new viaduct ROW with relatively unrestricted access (Lechmere to Red Bridge)
800 ft (4%) of new viaduct ROW over or adjacent to an active commuter rail line (Red Bridge)
7500 ft (35%) of at-grade or accessible elevated ROW adjacent to an active commuter rail line (Red Bridge to Union Square, Brickbottom to 28, Morton Ave to near College Ave)
2000 ft (9%) of at-grade ROW with adjacent freight tracks (Red Bridge to Brickbottom)
8600 ft (40%) of ROW that is fully trenched, or has restricted access from both sides due to grade, next to active CR tracks (28 to Morton Ave, under College Ave)

That gives you about 20% that's easy to build, 35% that's medium-difficult to build, and 45% that's outright hard to build. SW Corridor on the other hand was 85% medium difficulty (trenched, but no parallel service operating) and 15% hard.

Thanks for the numbers. I wasn't saying it was easy, just that it wasn't mostly trenched. 40% is higher than I estimated, but still far less than what I would consider "mostly". Most of the difficulty, as you point out, is working next to active CR tracks.

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

And the response for the discussions of contractor graft, while you recognize it played a role, you view the real majority of the cost is understated engineering difficulties with only a much smaller portion of the contractor overcharging.

Well...there's another problem here. Why were the contractors habitually underestimating difficulty level for so long? Either the contractors were acting on the wrong information from the project managers for the entire lifespan of the project up until the last blowout estimates 'fixed the glitch'; contractors unqualified for the type of design were hired through multiple rounds of design to produce the estimates and it really took this long for somebody who knew what they were doing to 'fix the glitch'; the terms of the contracts were so wildly permissive that there was no protection against wild lowballing until the inevitable 'October surprise' blowout; or ______?


Honestly that probably expands the inquiry about whose truthiness and loophole-exploits led to this debacle, not contains it. That Globe chart of past MBTA projects is visually instructive for discussion purposes, but not official purposes. In the real world the participants' universe of information wasn't constrained to only a list of Boston project approximates. There have been dozens of rapid transit projects completed in the U.S. in the 30 years since the very last local one on that Globe list, covering an enormous spread of build techniques with some of that spread much more closely resembling GLX than any prior local project. The information they had to work on was not a shot in the dark. T management may have trouble perceiving the world outside their system, but does that explain why engineering firms who would be bidding because they are (supposedly) qualified to work within cuts and/or next to active transpo infrastructure...submitted official estimates for so many years that ended up so ignorant of the exact parameters they were asked to work in?

I don't bloody think so.

But in the real world we were never going to get a satisfying "Those bums ripped us off!" good vs. evil answer even in the simplified bounds of "Was this pure ol' contractor greed?" Well, what is pure ol' contractor greed anyway? What conditions allow pure ol' contractor greed to perpetuate? It's never that simple. It's always that murky. Everyone touching the stinking mess always gets tainted by their own actions, tainted by the blind eye to other people's actions, tainted by their own stubborness/cowardice when they fail to address bad actions and bad actors under their noses. Blame is shared. When shit starts hitting the fan, higher-ups are always looking out for #1. Cover-ups, even the smaller ones, always come off worse than the crime.

Yes...there's a whole lot of "graft" questions to pursue here. Because the answers we've been given don't add up at all. We've still got a jarring discrepancy to square as to why the contractors were fired under implication for doing something unethical (if not contractually illegal) with their estimates, but the only difference now in the estimates is attributed to raw engineering cuts. Which, the fired contractors empirically could've reproduced exactly if told to pursue the same cuts. We've been told who the "wrong" party was...but no one has accounted for what the difference is between "right" vs. "wrong". That's one hell of a whopper that still has to be explained.

The fact that it's going to be a very murky, complex, and asterisk-filled answer less-satisfying than "THESE GUYS: BAD!" doesn't mean rigorous inquiry isn't still required on the very same "graft" questions about why something stinks to high heaven. Because it's a logical fallacy that there was ever going to be a neat-and-tidy answer in the first place. It means we have to give up on the notion of there being neat-and-tidy answers and get ready to wade into some serious murk, not withdraw or necessarily change the questions. If a neat-and-tidy "graft" answer was the goal all along, then we're just asking leading questions...not searching for actionable truths.

 

[whighlander]

Thanks for the numbers. I wasn't saying it was easy, just that it wasn't mostly trenched. 40% is higher than I estimated, but still far less than what I would consider "mostly". Most of the difficulty, as you point out, is working next to active CR tracks.

Tangent -- my original statement was

While its not in a tunnel -- a lot of GLX is in the old railroad cut

40% certainly qualifies for use of the words "a lot" or "much"

So there were legitimate construction complexities which resulted in a higher number once the actual drawings were being prepared and qualified people looked at the topography of the ROW

However, my other original point that someone in the T either knew these issues were there and covered it up or they didn't but should have known -- either way there was mismanagement of the project

In the latter case -- gross negligence or incompetence
in the former case -- a conscious effort to deceive and conceivably criminal malfeasance

Since substantial amounts of Federal Funds are involved US Attorney Carmen [not Big Papi] Ortiz perhaps should do some looking at the way the project was handled

 

[Deetroyt]

I have to say, if given the choice, i would take the stations over anything else that doesnt NEED to be done. For example, drop community path, shrink the maintenance facility, and cut anything else that can be cut. I don't think the stations needs to be as nice as they were designed, and can be more utilitarian while keeping prepayment. Someone mentioned this earlier, but I feel like they should only be trying to pay for the extension. Any of this feature creep like community path, stations that are overdesigned, etc. should be dropped. Let the people who want the community path figure out another way to pay for this. I know it would be impossible to drop at this point because its what the community wanted as part of the extension, but I think it would make sense to remove any excess on this project, and yes i do consider the path to be excess over the track extension.

 

[bigeman312]

I made this argument last night to an anti-GLX person, and it made them rethink their stance. I felt smart, so I'll share it here:

He said: the state cut it from $3b to $2.3b. That's still too much money for them to spend. It's supposed to be a $2b project, so spending more than that means they are getting ripped off. They should have seen the $2.3b number and canceled it.

Me: The state found a way to cut the total project cost from $3b to $2.3b, but that isn't all paid by them (warning, I know I fudged some of the numbers in my argument, but I'm going to report it as I did, because I'm not that smart). $725m has already been spent on the completed work. That's sunk cost. So, in reality, the state shrunk the remaining portion owed from $2.275b to $1.575m. We are getting $1b from the feds for this project. We don't see the money if this project disappears. Say what you want about federal involvement (I know he's against it), but they already collected our tax money, we might as well get some of it back, rather than having it go to another state. So, after federal money is deducted, the state lowered the remaining cost from $1.275b to $575m. Now, factor in that Somerville and Cambridge, of their own volition, are ponying up $75m. The state found a way to shrink their remaining obligation to get this project built, from $1.2b to $500m. So, the state has to decide if they want to spend $500m to get a $2b project built, or if they want to return money to municipalities and the feds, walk away from the work that has already been paid for and completed, and not have anything to show, all to save $500m.

He was convinced.

 

[fattony]

I made this argument last night to an anti-GLX person, and it made them rethink their stance. I felt smart, so I'll share it here:

He said: the state cut it from $3b to $2.3b. That's still too much money for them to spend. It's supposed to be a $2b project, so spending more than that means they are getting ripped off. They should have seen the $2.3b number and canceled it.

Me: The state found a way to cut the total project cost from $3b to $2.3b, but that isn't all paid by them (warning, I know I fudged some of the numbers in my argument, but I'm going to report it as I did, because I'm not that smart). $725m has already been spent on the completed work. That's sunk cost. So, in reality, the state shrunk the remaining portion owed from $2.275b to $1.575m. We are getting $1b from the feds for this project. We don't see the money if this project disappears. Say what you want about federal involvement (I know he's against it), but they already collected our tax money, we might as well get some of it back, rather than having it go to another state. So, after federal money is deducted, the state lowered the remaining cost from $1.275b to $575m. Now, factor in that Somerville and Cambridge, of their own volition, are ponying up $75m. The state found a way to shrink their remaining obligation to get this project built, from $1.2b to $500m. So, the state has to decide if they want to spend $500m to get a $2b project built, or if they want to return money to municipalities and the feds, walk away from the work that has already been paid for and completed, and not have anything to show, all to save $500m.

He was convinced.

::slow clap::

 

[bigeman312]

(takes bow)

 

[Matthew]

From what I hear, the MBTA GM came to Brighton last month and made the case that they don't have enough maintenance capacity to comfortably deal with the existing Green Line system, much less the extension. If anything, the maintenance facility should not be shrunk (at least, not that much) because the spare capacity is badly needed.

The community path also doubles as emergency egress. It is not legal to build a transit viaduct or tunnel without emergency egress these days. I don't know how much more the path elements cost over and above the bare necessities of egress, but it seems likely that dropping the path would cause a lot of pain for little gain.

(Side note: the guided busway in Cambridgeshire has an adjacent access pathway that was opened to the public as a shared-use walking and biking route; it has become extremely popular and the project can hardly be imagined without it now).

 

[tangent]

Most of the difficulty, as you point out, is working next to active CR tracks.

Just one more thought on this... Are they planning on shutting down the CR and using buses during certain periods of construction or are they planning on working at night? I wonder if they could do something there to reduce project costs and/or use the savings to bring back some of the higher priority design elements.

Nothing is more annoying than projects that go into it thinking they can keep the road/rail open for the duration of the project, spend a lot of time and effort to achieve that and then they end up with partial closures anyway.

 

[HenryAlan]

So, if I'm getting this right, the project is estimated to cost $2,289 million, of which approximately $701 million has already been spent, $1,000 million is coming from the Feds (contingent on the project finishing), and $75 million is coming from Camberville governments (contingent on the project finishing). As everyone who has ever played poker or taken an intro to economics course should know, sunk costs should not be figured into decision making. Those costs have already been spent regardless of the outcome of the decision, so they don't matter one way or another. That means that the question, as far as the Commonwealth/MBTA is concerned, should come down to this:

Should we spend $513 million new dollars for a seven station, 4.7 mile Green Line extension plus a new maintenance facility or should we walk away?

To me, this seems like a no-brainer. Yes, $2.3 billion is a ridiculous number, but the Commonwealth/MBTA in making their decision should only care about their marginal cost and their marginal benefit. And the marginal cost to the Commonwealth/MBTA in this situation really isn't very large relative to the marginal benefit of the finished extension. Charlie Baker shouldn't care about the $1 billion in federal money, $75 million in municipal money, or $701 million in spent money because he doesn't get to spend those funds on anything else if he cancels the project.

Now, there is also the question of whether the project will actually have a total (not marginal) cost of $2.3 billion, and whether that is an over- or under-estimation, but that is a totally different question.

Great post, indeed the focus should be on marginal cost to the Commonwealth relative to full benefit. And not only is it a no brainer to those of us who spend a lot of time studying and thinking about the issue, but $513 million for a 4.7 mile, 7 station extension should be a no brainer to just about anybody.