Green Line Extension to Medford & Union Sq

I heard on the news that the line was being extended even further & that the line won't open until June of next year. Has anyone else heard about that? Can it be confirmed? :(
 
Jahvon09 said:
I heard on the news that the line was being extended even further & that the line won't open until June of next year. Has anyone else heard about that? Can it be confirmed? :(
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Go back a couple of pages, this conversation started on Monday with:
Arlington said:
Darn:
The GLX will be delayed 6 months per today's MassDOT FMCB meeting. New service dates:
* Union Square: December 2021
* Medford: May 2022

https://www.facebook.com/mbtaglx/posts/10157870268491681
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Jahvon09 said:
I heard on the news that the line was being extended even further & that the line won't open until June of next year. Has anyone else heard about that? Can it be confirmed? :(
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I've heard nothing about the line being extended even further.
I have read that Somerville and Cambridge will be getting their stakes back.
 
Jahvon09 said:
I heard on the news that the line was being extended even further & that the line won't open until June of next year. Has anyone else heard about that? Can it be confirmed? :(
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There are studies to extend the line to Route 16 (Mystic Valley Parkway), but the funding is not available to build that. Maybe if some kind of Federal infrastructure bill ever gets passed by Congress and signed by the President, then the funding for that extension might happen, but that's a long shot.
 
I found it. It IS true. Leave it to Beaver. Things always get screwed up when it comes to construction projects, new vehicles & the MBTA. It never fails because there's always a monkey wrench being thrown into the mix. :(
 
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Charlie_mta said:
There are studies to extend the line to Route 16 (Mystic Valley Parkway), but the funding is not available to build that. Maybe if some kind of Federal infrastructure bill ever gets passed by Congress and signed by the President, then the funding for that extension might happen, but that's a long shot.
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That's all well & fine but....;

Just finish what's there now & get it done. Cross the other bridge when they get to it. They should Stop trying to put the carriage in front of the horse. :unsure:
 
I remember last December thinking "if this thing is on schedule then it should be looking 'close to done' by July." It won't look close to done in the next few weeks. One thing that irks me is how casually they are outright deceiving the public with false dates, only a week or two before changing it. For example, last month GLX and Somerville officials said the School Street bridge would open in June and the Medford Street bridge open in July. Well, they are still digging up roadway on School Street... and Medford Street hasn't even poured some concrete or built fencing. Why even say they're opening ? Why not just say "it's happening soon but we can't say with certainty when."

It's like that friend or family member who says they're going to be five minutes late even though they know it's 30 minutes, but they lie because they don't want you to be angry at them in the moment.
 
There may be contractual targets with the design/build consortium. Part of the whole delay is a global settlement of change orders and timeline impacts with the consortium.
 
The monkey wrench that I was talking about. They'd rather get second-hand news from the horse's butt, rather than from the horse's mouth. Before you know it, the whole thing is twisted sideways & every which way but loose. Also, the media gets things wrong. Case in point; the Big Dig & the Southwest Corridor. Those were two major screw-ups, & it seems as though this one is even turning into a 'years-long Big-Dig-style project. :(
 
Supply chain shortages across the board for all types of construction projects, not just MBTA projects =/= MA corruption or anything else being suggested here. Unless you had a time machine and put your orders in for items you knew would have long-lead times up to today right as COVID started in March 2020, you are facing some pretty serious delays for getting a wide range of materials in on time.

I also have a feeling the Lechmere viaduct is facing change orders related to unforeseen conditions they could not easily/feasibly determine during design. That happens whenever you rehabilitate a bridge from 1912 that hasn't seen substantial maintenance in years. There's a risk you take when scheduling out a project like this, and the appropriate contingencies put in place to accommodate those risks.

That's not to say they could have been more transparent in the delay reporting, but as RandomWalk points out, there are usually contractual targets/language that hinders these announcements from being made earlier.
 
GLX now appears (I believe for the first time) on the Big Fold Out System Map (or "Bus Map", as mbta.com calls it):

GLX Front.png


GLX Back.png


The "Subway Map" has had the stops on there for at least a month already, if I recall correctly.

GLX Spider.png
 
There's a new pump station installed at Washington Street. I suspect the drainage got clogged.
 
Zash said:
Why is Union Square marked as the D branch, but only C and E trains are seen past Govt Center?
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Map with C & E is showing the service configuration pre-GLX (before the viaduct closure). When GLX opens, they will need to show D & E in those sections -- change of service pattern.

In some ways this is kind of silly since nothing is going past North Station until GLX starts to open (at least that is my understanding).
 
Charlie_mta said:
Sure wish they had raised the grade of the railroad and GLX so that Washington Street would not have to dip down quite so deep in the underpass.
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The underpass went from "Low Clearance" to a full 15' The additional clearance they could provide seems to have gone into truck safety, rather than dip mitigation.
use the "History" function in streetview.
goo.gl

Google Maps

Find local businesses, view maps and get driving directions in Google Maps.
goo.gl goo.gl
 
I saw on wikipedia that these trains will max-out at 50 mph (which I assume is the same for the entire Green Line, then?). Measuring the the extension as being almost exactly 5 miles from Tufts to Park St., at first that sounds pretty good--5 miles @ 50 is 6 minutes.

BUT: 8 intervening stops. Let's say 1 minute on average to complete deboarding/boarding for all 8 stops. So that's 8 minutes.
AND: acceleration/deceleration is considerable when there's 8 stops crammed into a mere 5-mile segment. So realistically the trains will average 25 mph? so that would be 12 minutes.

So that combines to a 20-minute average ride from Tufts to Park Street, if the calculations are right--which sounds pretty competitive compared to, well, everything, unless you're a great cyclist (and even then there are all the miseries and unpleasantries and hazards of biking @ 15 mph constantly through the asphalt jungle that is Tufts--Park corridor).

But would it in fact be longer than 20-minute on average? Am I undercalculating due to other factors? Should we allow for more than one minute to complete each stop's boarding/deboarding cycle? I don't think I've seen this computation on this thread (apologies if it's been done already), so I'd love to see someone else's arithmetic if I have it wrong.
 
I’m not an expert, but 1 minute sounds like a painfully long time to sit around with the doors open. I can’t imagine any stop before Park taking more than 20 seconds or so. Park is a special case of course.
 
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