Green Line Extension to Medford & Union Sq

[bigpicture7]

I'd be more interested in comparing performance standards than fancy-schmancy-ness of stations among global cities. (e.g., is the green line efficient by comparison to similar systems). Are we the odd ones out without more modern headway management and safety interlocks? Street-level stoplight priority/control (I realize that doesn't apply to the GLX portion)?

 

[The EGE]

The Green Line is fairly unusual among light rail systems in not having signal priority on street-running portions. (A limited test is supposedly under way, but the methodology is suspicious at best). That's the biggest reliability issue with the GL right now.

The current schedule uses 146 of 152 available cars, for a spares ratio of 4%. Other systems vary from about 10 to 30%; 15-20% is considered best practice. The T's small spares ratio is a result of long-term issues with the Type 8s, the Type 77 rebuild program, and a general deterioration in running times over the past several decades.

Signalling and control systems vary among light rail systems. Muni Metro (San Francisco) and London's DLR use a modern, PTC-like system on their grade-separated sections. It maxes out at around 36-40 trains per hour - lower than the T currently schedules, but about what is actually operated. Meanwhile, Philly's subway-surface lines use unenforced signals like the GL; they actually get up to 50 TPH by allowing two trains to platform in a station at once.

On light rail lines that act as a core line (notably the DLR), stations are typically similar to those formerly intended for the GLX, with elevators and no at-grade crossings. I don't believe there is any new-build light rail system with headways under 10 minutes with at-grade ped crossings.

 

[Matthew]

The new Parisian trams have plenty of at-grade crossings and high frequencies. While they're not "core" they're intended to be a major backbone transit network for outer Paris.

The DLR is driverless so that's it's major "driver" for full grade-separation.

 

[EricS]

Aren't at-grade ped crossings actually quite common, even on systems with headways under 10 minutes? Many (most?) light rail systems in the US operate at-grade through the central city area, where headways would be lowest, with only a few having subway or other grade separation. A few systems that come to mind are Denver (the combined lines south from downtown operate very frequently), St. Louis (6-10 minutes), San Diego (7.5 minutes), and Seattle (6-10 minutes, at-grade just south of downtown).

 

[CSTH]

Several trams in Amsterdam run at 6 minute heads at rushhour - and saying they have at-grade ped crossings significantly understates the issue - more like, they effectively run on the sidewalk

 

[Matthew]

Hah, yeah MBTA officials would have kittens if they visited Amsterdam.

 

[Equilibria]

Several trams in Amsterdam run at 6 minute heads at rushhour - and saying they have at-grade ped crossings significantly understates the issue - more like, they effectively run on the sidewalk

They run at 10mph. GLX will hopefully move at up to 4 times that speed.

 

[CSTH]

I wonder how many GLX trips (north of NS) would be faster with 10mph@6mins than with 40mph@12 mins. Too lazy to do the math. But given concentration of boardings at lechmere and union, I bet its a very healthy number. I know the longest trips will only be faster from the end of the line.

 

[Jahvon09]

Tombstoner -- a lot of people seem to always refer to other cities with "Global Aspirations" -- as if there was an international standard for the design and infrastructure of such

The reality is as usual totally at odds with these kinds of eutopian /utopian pronouncements
-- οὐ ("not") and τόπος ("place") or εὖ ("good" or "well") and τόπος ("place")

Berlin's famous S-Bahn for example -- many of the stations in GLX-type areas are barebones

This train looks so out of date with its boxy-type design and straight exterior designs!

 

[datadyne007]

Former CTA CM appointed as new oversight manager:

https://twitter.com/mbtainfo/status/795676814526054401

Nicole Dungca @ndungca

Big news: MBTA appoints new manager to oversee Green Line extension: John Dalton, a former construction manager at Chicago Transit Auth.

---

Nicole Dungca ‏@ndungca

lol, we had a briefing on some news coming out of this meeting and not a peep of the new green line manager came from executive team.

MBTAinfo.com ‏@mbtainfo

This is important because Feds said the T had to hurry up and do that or they could lose $1B in pledged federal $

 

[Arlington]

What's with this proposed schedule(from Sept 23, for hearing on Nov 16)? Is there really 14 months of contracting spool up for all this stuff:

 

[oyhimylm]

Seriously? It's going to be another 5 years?!

 

[bolehboleh]

I'm thinking it's five more years until they tell it's five more years.

 

[Arborway]

In 2020, they'll still be working on drainage and retaining walls, which will cost 3 billion dollars, for some reason.

 

[ant8904]

The first page of this thread. I was still a high schooler. I remember how cool to see a brand new and real rail line to open in only a few years.

One of the names of this thread used to be 2011 - the year that I just finished college. I used to think how "late, but still perfectly time for me, will be done just as I graduate college"

It is 2016 now. Now well into being an adult. And still 5 more years to go.

 

[JeffDowntown]

The first page of this thread. I was still a high schooler. I remember how cool to see a brand new and real rail line to open in only a few years.

One of the names of this thread used to be 2011 - the year that I just finished college. I used to think how "late, but still perfectly time for me, will be done just as I graduate college"

It is 2016 now. Now well into being an adult. And still 5 more years to go.

Think about it like being a Chicago Cubs fan. GLX is the subway you could wait a lifetime for.

 

[tysmith95]

Think about it like being a Chicago Cubs fan. GLX is the subway you could wait a lifetime for.

It's not even subway. It's trolley tracks next to an already existing right of way. They might as well make the tracks of fucking gold if they are going to spend this much money and time.

 

[whighlander]

It's not even subway. It's trolley tracks next to an already existing right of way. They might as well make the tracks of fucking gold if they are going to spend this much money and time.

TySmith -- it is kinda mazin -- I'll bet F-Line could give us the man-years [no women in construction then] it took to concert the old B&A to the Green Line to Riverside

I'll bet also that the total time was less than 3 years from start to finish and as for the cost [even with a lot of inflation under the bridge] -- an insignificant amount by modern standards

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

1945. Like everything else we never built but still need to.

Your eyes are not deceiving...Woburn Center.


The Beyond Lechmere Major Investment Draft Study was 2004. Itself a decade late because this was one of the 1990 Big Dig Transit Commitments.


And, yeah, I don't think actual construction time-on-clock is going to exceed more than 3-5 years despite the invasive retaining wall work. These interminable delays in planning are all because they don't have enough project management bodies on the payroll squaring the construction-prep logistics. So it takes extremely spread-thin lower-level minions 3x as long to just do paperwork. And that chews up its own intolerable amount of empty-calorie overhead simply on time-on-clock burned up straining to meet deadlines. Get this new project manager honcho the green light to start mass-hiring to fill out his ranks and things will start moving a lot faster. Top-down from high-level managers to lowest-level internal overseers and contract liasons...then the contractors themselves loading up their armies.

It's the same problem with the pace of everything. Mid/upper management ranks extremely depleted, and FCMB hasn't shat or gotten off pot on what market rate it's willing to pay to fill those positions. When upper mgt. is this depleted you haven't staffed up the hiring managers who hire the front-line staff and the contractor liasons. So everything--from clawing out of the SGR backlog to mounting capital projects--takes torturously long and grinds through too much $$$ at inertia-of-(semi-)rest. Can't multitask. And...most importantly for the FCMB's options...you can't proceed with outsourcing any agency functions--much less walk the talk on any form of privatization--if the positions that deal with the private sector and recruit the private sector are vacant. So to the degree it's chewing up empty cycles with GLX is the same issue they face with general SGR. The redesign and FTA commitment to fund it is only half the battle. New head honcho's got to have the reins to get off to the races on pure Human Resource acquisition for things to get moving.

We clear that hurdle, then I think we're going to start seeing things happen quickly and service start ETA's more or less hold within 12 months of projections in spite of whatever hiccups may arise during duration of real earth-moving. It's like that on projects big and small. Wachusett, for example, lost years on the clock and had to play catch-up not because of something that upended construction...but because project starts were so late and required a last-minute change in contractors. Same for the recent slate of commuter rail park-and-rides and garages which were all hamstrung at the starting gates, then ripped out in single construction seasons. Same for Greenbush where all the NIMBY bullshit chewed up 10 mind-numbing years but then they blitzed the whole thing end-to-end in barely 20 months (cumulative, including the scheduled construction pauses for winter ground-freeze season).

 

[ant8904]

That makes sense. Looking at the timeline. The real construction does seem to be starting again until February 2018 with viaduct and September 2018 with the damn retaining walls. That matches the historical point of construction taking 3 years.

If we compare pure man-hours that actually involves the dirt, it looks like it's the same. The difference - aside of years of politics and funding fights - is we have virtually nobody doing any of the overhead. And we've seen what happens when we just leave it to the contractors to do it for us.