Green Line Extension to Medford & Union Sq

[stick n move]

Good to see it in writing, looks like it is temporary.

 

[kjdonovan]

The John Dalton interview with Somerville Community Access that I mentioned before:

TL;DR from my watching

• Q: "Late Summer opening for the other five stations? So we're looking at July or August?" A: "Well, technically summer goes through September..."
• Medford Street Bridge should open in "next few weeks." School Street Bridge will remain closed "a little while longer."
• Otherwise it is a lot of the host talking himself into a tizzy and then telling Dalton, "You don't need to reply to that; in fact, I'd suggest you don't."

 

[Highwayguy]

the interlocking is a big ole slow zone:

Im assuming those limits are just for the Union Square branch, which is understandable given the curves and gradients. The way it written though makes it seem that those limits would also apply to the Medford branch which would be asinine.

 

[jass]

IMO the only failure of the extension, aside from being 10+ years late, is the lack of escalators to Lechmere. Everything else looks good.

Alon is pretty obsessed with costs, and in some cases, thats important, but the political reality these days is that money is made up.

Every single year, they add $20 billion to the war budget. No one blinks. Costs dont matter, what matters is getting your elected official to give them thumbs up to your project. The reason it is like pulling teeth is because 99% of politicians are very very rich and the only "transit" theyve ever been on is the rental car shuttle*.

*Which is why over the last 20 years this country has spent over $20 billion on consolidated rental car centers that eliminate these buses.

I underestimated.

• Approximately $31 billion in new defense spending, which will bring total national defense spending up to $813 billion.

Biden's 2023 budget would hike taxes on the ultra-rich and corporations, boost defense and police spending

The request to Congress features a new "Billionaire's Minimum Tax," a 20% income tax rate for the top 0.01% earners and households worth more than $100 million.

www.cnbc.com

 

[JeffDowntown]

I underestimated.

• Approximately $31 billion in new defense spending, which will bring total national defense spending up to $813 billion.

Biden's 2023 budget would hike taxes on the ultra-rich and corporations, boost defense and police spending

The request to Congress features a new "Billionaire's Minimum Tax," a 20% income tax rate for the top 0.01% earners and households worth more than $100 million.

www.cnbc.com

It only "costs too much" when you don't want it to happen.

 

[shmessy]

The T should be better at communicating which of these annoying measures are temporary vs. permanent. I've ridden this a couple of times now. Those stop signs at inclines(declines) are reminiscent of old brake-check measures. The viaduct is painfully slow. If travel time to North Station is now X, but the T is committed to transforming it to be Y, then there should be a public narrative about that. I do hope (and want to believe) they're temporary. I'm still so excited this got done.

The 2 posts after yours give me hope.

However, you are spot on. Would it KILL the MBTA to communicate to the public??????

Throughout human history, every war, divorce, lawsuit, fight, etc. originated from a COMMUNICATION lapse. Communication costs nothing. FFS, Steve Poftak.

 

[BostonTrainGuy]

1 - Is there an overzealous safety culture at the T?

2 - This somewhat restores my faith that the speed restrictions/ stop signs are temporary.

1 - YUP

2 - NOPE

 

[Arlington]

I'm sure these "why so slow?" would be rider complaints (not just nerd complaints) if there were enough riders and they knew where to complain, particularly for the Lechmere viaduct crawl.

 

[sneijder]

1 - YUP

2 - NOPE

Despite the safety culture there sure still seem to be a lot of Green Line incidents. Sure, some derailments are due to ancient rolling stock on Red/Orange, but the last few Green Line incidents I can remember seem to be operator error..

 

[stefal]

Despite the safety culture there sure still seem to be a lot of Green Line incidents. Sure, some derailments are due to ancient rolling stock on Red/Orange, but the last few Green Line incidents I can remember seem to be operator error..

Accidents and safety incidents still happen in a 6,400 person agency, and the Green Line still lacks a Train Protection System (TPS) and Collision Avoidance System (CAS) due to its complexity and age. The GLTPS project was selected as one of the critical safety investments/capital projects from last month to receive additional funding, moving the completion date forward a year.

 

[jklo]

It only "costs too much" when you don't want it to happen.

I do think that Spending Party Time is coming to an end... but being the World's Policeman is still going to be at the top of the priority list if there's some sort of sticking to a budget. If you read the article it says $7B is going to Ukraine and I bet the rest of that $30B is going to Taiwan. If they weren't spending that money they would possibly spend on other things than say infrastructure.

 

[The EGE]

Did anyone catch the names of the electric violinist who played before the GLX opening, or the Cambridge Rindge & Latin student who sang the national anthem?

 

[theSil]

Did the MBTA ever try to have the developer of the Union Square D2.X project build the new Union Square station? Perhaps it would've required too much coordination, but it seems like it should've been possible to get a far better, enclosed station at no cost to the state, in exchange for an easement allowing this project to go larger and build on MBTA land or something.

 

[Brick Top]

Did the MBTA ever try to have the developer of the Union Square D2.X project build the new Union Square station? Perhaps it would've required too much coordination, but it seems like it should've been possible to get a far better, enclosed station at no cost to the state, in exchange for an easement allowing this project to go larger and build on MBTA land or something.

According to the initial terms, in order to build at the desired size in the first place, the developer USQ had to (among other things) contribute ~$5.8MM to the (now refunded) money that Somerville was required to spend towards the GLX:

I have no idea what happened to that payment after Cambridge and Somerville were reimbursed (I assume Somerville did not reimburse USQ), nor whether USQ had to follow through with its other commitments on this list, aside from the elevator and plaza construction, which are still definitely under its purview.

 

[RandomWalk]

I saw that they’re working on the sidewalks by Magoun station today and the bike path crossing at Central St.

Also, they were using a crane to remove one of the large awning parts from the School St stairs. I guess they fabricated it wrong.

 

[devnull]

I was reading through the proposed FY23-27 CIP, and there's still money budgeted for the upcoming fiscal year for the Lechmere Viaduct Rehabilitation Project (slide 38):

This is purely speculative, but maybe that's a sign that there is still a bit of work remaining, and the 10MPH speed restriction might be temporary?

 

[stefal]

I was reading through the proposed FY23-27 CIP, and there's still money budgeted for the upcoming fiscal year for the Lechmere Viaduct Rehabilitation Project (slide 38):
View attachment 22978

This is purely speculative, but maybe that's a sign that there is still a bit of work remaining, and the 10MPH speed restriction might be temporary?

$9m out of a $100 million project is mostly the retainage held throughout the contract until it's fully closed out, I believe.

 

[The EGE]

Time for my semi-annual GLX photo dump: this time with revenue service! I'll start with Lechmere, then Union Square, then on to Medford Branch construction.

From the south end of the platform, there's a nice angle of arriving northbound trains.

It's pretty cool to have an elevated station surrounded by dense development.

At 32-35' wide and 355' long, this platform is huge.

But for some reason, there's about 20 feet of gap between the canopy and the south headhouse:

The south entrance is also a bit underwhelming:

As others have noted, the busway seemed very incomplete on opening day, as though there was still a layer of pavement left to lay. The actual walkways are also extremely narrow, with several pinch points that barely meet ADA minimums.

 

[The EGE]

The north headhouse is similarly underwhelming - cinderblock walls and chain-link fence. I know it's been heavily value engineered, but this just feels cheap.

Two large glass-wall elevators, though? That's more like a civilized transit system. The elevator shafts are a great place to put the artwork as well.

And again, sigh: there's an uncovered area around the north elevators. Slide a little on some ice, and it's a long fall down those stairs.

There's a lot of gravel-covered dead space around the station, especially between the busway and north headhouse:

This is exactly what's shown in the renders of the First Street entrance, but the stainless steel columns that end halfway up and the bare beams feel very unfinished.

 

[The EGE]

Pretty decently sized bike cage.

Hopefully this view won't last much longer - this parcel on the east side of the station is crying out for development.

The station viewed from a southbound train:

The old incline sits abandoned. I wonder how long before PAR develops it.