Green Line Extension to Medford & Union Sq

There's an MBTA / MassDOT community meeting for this tonight "to offer updates on the project".

GLX Project Update Public Meeting - Wednesday, December 7th
6:00 PM to 8:00 PM
Somerville High School Auditorium
81 Highland Ave. Somerville, MA
GLX Project Update Public Meeting - Wednesday, December 14th
6:30 PM to 8:30 PM
Medford City Hall, Council Chambers
85 George P. Hassett Dr. Medford, MA
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Also, Somerville Board of Alderman to vote tomorrow on whether Somerville will contribute $50 million [spoiler alert: they will].
 
JumboBuc said:
There's an MBTA / MassDOT community meeting for this tonight "to offer updates on the project".



Also, Somerville Board of Alderman to vote tomorrow on whether Somerville will contribute $50 million [spoiler alert: they will].
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DELAYED (Union Sq. branch not opening early):

New Green Line stations are delayed until 2021
By Nicole Dungca GLOBE STAFF DECEMBER 08, 2016

The seven new stations for the embattled MBTA Green Line extension into Somerville and Medford are now scheduled to open in 2021, pushing back the long-delayed project yet again, state transportation officials said on Wednesday.

When the federal government pledged $1 billion to the project in late 2014, the Union Square and Washington Street stations were scheduled to open in 2017, with the other stations scheduled to open in 2020. But rising cost estimates prompted the state to halt the project, and complete a scaled-back redesign.


John Dalton, the new project manager for the $2.3 billion extension, spoke about the new timeline at Somerville High School on Wednesday, and said the public should be confident that the T could complete the project in time.

Full article:
http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/20...ing-delayed/S9Gc1c6PtbiSz7Wj3FVKkM/story.html
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I find it adorable how people still think this project is ever going to get built. It will never be finished. Mark this post.
 
meddlepal said:
I find it adorable how people still think this project is ever going to get built. It will never be finished. Mark this post.
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Meddlepal -- If it is to ever be finished this is the time

President Trump will be pushing for massive real and deliverable [on time and under budget] investment in all manner of infrastructure -- this process will be mediated through some sort of public-private partnership infrastructure bank

The tradeoff will be that in exchange for drastically reduced red tape and federal meddling on projects there will be much less opportunity for "glom-ons" and feature creep.

Municipalities, states, T's , etc will have to come to "the bank" with a project actually ready to start digging -- there will be no more multi-year delays for restudies. Present the project and just like construction financing on a skyscraper -- the 'T" will get generous terms on the financing.

This complete restructuring will do away with the myriads of grants -- all of the funds will be loans to the "T" with the interest financed by the current DOT funds block granted

If the T is capable of dealing with this opportunity -- a really BIG IF -- the Blue Line to Lynn could be done as well as finishing the GLX
 
whighlander said:
Meddlepal -- If it is to ever be finished this is the time

President Trump will be pushing for massive real and deliverable [on time and under budget] investment in all manner of infrastructure -- this process will be mediated through some sort of public-private partnership infrastructure bank

The tradeoff will be that in exchange for drastically reduced red tape and federal meddling on projects there will be much less opportunity for "glom-ons" and feature creep.

Municipalities, states, T's , etc will have to come to "the bank" with a project actually ready to start digging -- there will be no more multi-year delays for restudies. Present the project and just like construction financing on a skyscraper -- the 'T" will get generous terms on the financing.

This complete restructuring will do away with the myriads of grants -- all of the funds will be loans to the "T" with the interest financed by the current DOT funds block granted

If the T is capable of dealing with this opportunity -- a really BIG IF -- the Blue Line to Lynn could be done as well as finishing the GLX
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Yep, we'll get the Liberty Mutual Green Line extension. Fare $20 per mile. Great.
 
JeffDowntown said:
Yep, we'll get the Liberty Mutual Green Line extension. Fare $20 per mile. Great.
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JeffDowntown -- look at the bright side -- if there is a collision at a crossing the T vehicle will be covered in full [as long as they remember to purchase the full replacement value rider] ;)
 
whighlander said:
Meddlepal -- If it is to ever be finished this is the time

President Trump will be pushing for massive real and deliverable ...
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Pathetic "sanctuary city" wants a new choo-choo so its rapists and murderers can get into good white neighborhoods?? Cancel order! NOT FAIR!!

- A tweet we may see just about any day now
 
whighlander said:
Meddlepal -- If it is to ever be finished this is the time

President Trump will be pushing for massive real and deliverable [on time and under budget] investment in all manner of infrastructure -- this process will be mediated through some sort of public-private partnership infrastructure bank

The tradeoff will be that in exchange for drastically reduced red tape and federal meddling on projects there will be much less opportunity for "glom-ons" and feature creep.

Municipalities, states, T's , etc will have to come to "the bank" with a project actually ready to start digging -- there will be no more multi-year delays for restudies. Present the project and just like construction financing on a skyscraper -- the 'T" will get generous terms on the financing.

This complete restructuring will do away with the myriads of grants -- all of the funds will be loans to the "T" with the interest financed by the current DOT funds block granted

If the T is capable of dealing with this opportunity -- a really BIG IF -- the Blue Line to Lynn could be done as well as finishing the GLX
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The idea of the infrastructure bank was Hillary's, which Trump criticized during the campaign. Furthermore, if you actually think any of that is going to happen than I have a bridge in Brooklyn that I can sell ya.
 
meddlepal said:
I find it adorable how people still think this project is ever going to get built. It will never be finished. Mark this post.
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I will second this. This will never be built.


It's a shame - the infrastructure in this country continues to be below par and traffic is getting worse everywhere. But hey, we at least we can say we dumped over $100 Billion into the F-35 program!
 
Happy 2017, guys. This extension is now officially 2 years past the original opening projection, and there's no shovels in the ground right now.

Just remember, that if we instead opted for DMU's, we could probably already have a service running with just a third or fourth railroad track added in plus platforms for less than 1/3 of the current estimate, plus numerous growth opportunities with additional investment.
 
BostonUrbEx said:
Happy 2017, guys. This extension is now officially 2 years past the original opening projection, and there's no shovels in the ground right now.

Just remember, that if we instead opted for DMU's, we could probably already have a service running with just a third or fourth railroad track added in plus platforms for less than 1/3 of the current estimate, plus numerous growth opportunities with additional investment.
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No, no, no, no. This is the absolute laziest of strawman arguments, and you of all people know better than to go there. A frickin' DMU on the Lowell Line would offer nowhere near the service levels required to serve the demand GLX is supposed to serve. Indigo service levels are for Winchester, Woburn, and 128...not Somerville. The DMU cop-out has already been proposed multiple times over as a way to cut-and-run from the GLX commitment, and it's been shot down every single time as a total laugher cop-out woefully inadequate to-task. There's no new angle to shine on that one; it's been proven bunk umpteen times. You know damn well that the "DMU's: The new God mode just like BRT was a God mode!" canard doesn't apply here.

GLX isn't shovel-in-ground because project management was so lax it encoraged cartoon-supervillan levels of contractor corruption. And the state was so late in realizing they'd been had that it took an 11th-hour reboot. This has jack shit to do with the viability of the proposal or the mode it uses. It's a godawful mess. But it is NOT a godawful mess because of modal warfare. That's disingenuous in the highest.
 
^ Quick innocent question from a project outsider: why has it been implied that no work has been done on GLX thus far? I thought substantial work had been done to prep for laying new track...widening the right of way, adding new bridge overpasses, etc? I realize that the GLX track hasn't been laid and the new stations haven't been built, but, for example, I thought all of the work I was seeing done near/along Boston Ave. (such as these new bridge track beds here) were associated with GLX?

Can someone summarize what has/hasn't been done on GLX? What is the status of this pause point? Thx.
 
F-Line to Dudley said:
No, no, no, no. This is the absolute laziest of strawman arguments, and you of all people know better than to go there. A frickin' DMU on the Lowell Line would offer nowhere near the service levels required to serve the demand GLX is supposed to serve. Indigo service levels are for Winchester, Woburn, and 128...not Somerville. The DMU cop-out has already been proposed multiple times over as a way to cut-and-run from the GLX commitment, and it's been shot down every single time as a total laugher cop-out woefully inadequate to-task. There's no new angle to shine on that one; it's been proven bunk umpteen times. You know damn well that the "DMU's: The new God mode just like BRT was a God mode!" canard doesn't apply here.
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I don't know that, because I see an antiquated system running inbound trains through a single-track Salem tunnel every 12 minutes for an hour while 3 outbounds get threaded upstream. I'm amazed to think what DMU plus NSRL could do.

bigpicture7 said:
^ Quick innocent question from a project outsider: why has it been implied that no work has been done on GLX thus far?
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Work as been done, but there hasn't been a single construction worker clocking-in for months now.
 
BostonUrbEx said:
I don't know that, because I see an antiquated system running inbound trains through a single-track Salem tunnel every 12 minutes for an hour while 3 outbounds get threaded upstream. I'm amazed to think what DMU plus NSRL could do.
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DMU's are nowhere near the stratospheric improvement over current commuter rail rolling stock as EMU's, and EMU's aren't even in the same universe as any rapid transit mode at attainable frequencies. Nor can you reach all of the line transfers from or get completely through the CBD on the CR mode. Nothing except the GLX plan as-built is going to adequately serve demand in Somerville, and fulfill the commitment the state made to serving that demand. As I said, the DMU canard has already been floated multiple times over and rejected for the empirical bunk it is for meeting this project's goals. Go spelunking on Google for all the stories of that being brought up through the past 5 years' worth of community meetings. It's been beaten to death, and never ever passed the smell test.


And do not mention NSRL in the same breath as GLX project delays, because that's an even lazier and more transparently disingenuous strawman. NSRL, if they were so motivated to giddayup on greenlighting it tomorrow, can't feasibly open in any less breakneck a pace than 20 years from now because study work on it has been at a dead standstill for 13 years and has a decade's worth of paper and engineering to churn through before it's shovel-ready. That's a whole generation of Somervillians later who needed mobility yesterday, and still not at the full rapid transit frequencies needed to satiate demand that's cresting right now. The projects have jack squat to do with each other...now or when both are running through the same corridor.
 
My point was that we could have had some service sooner than we will have any GLX service -- not that a full build EMU plus NSRL could have happened faster (it certainly could not have). An EMU service would initially start off by piggybacking on existing infrastructure and improving existing infrastructure for not just the creation of a new service but also an improvement to an existing mode. The end game would have been a pairing with a south side line such as Fairmount, through-running at high frequencies with connections at North and South stations. It would have assisted in reaching a tipping point in electrifying commuter rail, plus there'd be potential for these modes to coexist on four tracks rather than two modes limited to two tracks each. Freight and switching/yard access would not be harmed nor conflict with revenue service as much as will happen under GLX.

It is almost all about the end game. The full-build potential under maximized utilization.
 
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