Green Line Extension to Medford & Union Sq

Re: Green Line to Medford to start in 2011

Did they shut down the viaduct completely, I thought it was still used for non-revenue service?
 
Re: Green Line to Medford to start in 2011

Did they shut down the viaduct completely, I thought it was still used for non-revenue service?

I don't know for sure, but if that was the case why didn't they keep Lechmere open and just skip Science Park?
 
Re: Green Line to Medford to start in 2011

Did they shut down the viaduct completely, I thought it was still used for non-revenue service?

It was a full shut-down, they stored cars overnight in the North Station turn-back and in the Brattle Loop. There was additional shifting of cars to Reservoir/Riverside yards as well.
 
Re: Green Line to Medford to start in 2011

I guess they could run more 3 car trains, although the full shut down is going to suck. Are all the busses going to continue to North Station? The viaduct is way faster than the MoS bridge, especially if that is going to be filled with the 69, 80, 87, and 88 buses. Going to be much worse then shutting the longfellow (granted probably less transit people, but its going to ruin drivers rides as well.
 
Re: Green Line to Medford to start in 2011

If they are going to store trains on the Brattle Loop then Gov't Center will have to be mostly finished by the time they start this.

Alternatively they could possibly line-up trains on the tracks leading to Science Park, assuming there is a crossover that can be used somewhere (don't have the map in front of me).

Still, I think the 18 month shutdown is just horrible and is clearly putting the interests of a few private parties above that of the general public.
 
Re: Green Line to Medford to start in 2011

http://www.bostonglobe.com/magazine...state-crazy/wjqGz7SeXtht5CdtsQTYHK/story.html

Stories like this are PROOF that the T should NEVER have caved to Brickbottom's demands to move the storage yard.

Access to the station itself (and also the Community Path) will MORE than offset any reduced value that may have been due to the storage yard on unused rail ROW.

If the Globe's article isn't proof enough, see also property values near Boston College & Cleveland Circle.

The "artists" of brickbottom are being grotesquely enriched at the expense of riders and taxpayers, and, with the T's complicity, are depleting the funds for (and encouraging the NIMBY extorters of) other possible extensions.

At this point the only justification for taking perfectly-good industrial buildings and displacing the employers and jobs had better be that we get a *whole lot* of 3-car trains parked there.
 
Re: Green Line to Medford to start in 2011

Any kind of infrastructure improvement is going to increase property values. Even from something as seemingly basic as roads.
 
Re: Green Line to Medford to start in 2011

Any kind of infrastructure improvement is going to increase property values. Even from something as seemingly basic as roads.

I know that. You know that. And yet we allow the political class to pacify NIMBYs with our $ when NIMBYs assert (against all evidence) that they're being harmed by transport improvements. Why?
 
Re: Green Line to Medford to start in 2011

I know that. You know that. And yet we allow the political class to pacify NIMBYs with our $ when NIMBYs assert (against all evidence) that they're being harmed by transport improvements. Why?

Because their taxes/rent will skyrocket, and their lives may not currently revolve around public transport, meaning that they may not see expanded public transit as a benefit to them. It's an me vs. them/us vs. them mentality.

I'll love it when Union gets the Green Line (if I can still afford to live here), but my rent just spiked 9% this year, and construction hasn't even started yet. Definitely a reason for NIMBYs to bitch.
 
Re: Green Line to Medford to start in 2011

Because their taxes/rent will skyrocket, and their lives may not currently revolve around public transport, meaning that they may not see expanded public transit as a benefit to them. It's an me vs. them/us vs. them mentality.

The NIMBYs I'm complaining about are mostly owners.

Brickbottom was/is filled with owners- The T basically could have paid the 100 closest neighbors100% for their units as "mitigation" and *let them keep them*--paid $300k cash each (at the time)--$30m--and used the ROW they already owned, and it would have been cheaper and faster than the money spent condemning and leveling industrial parcels.

Upthread, you'll see the absurd stuff NIMBY's said, among them:
Real Estate will fall so much my house equity/life's savings will be wiped out
Real Estate will go up so much my kids won't afford to live here

Given their schizophrenia, Our answer should not be to try to pacify either group, but rather to lock them in a room and let them fight it out


I'll love it when Union gets the Green Line (if I can still afford to live here), but my rent just spiked 9% this year, and construction hasn't even started yet. Definitely a reason for NIMBYs to bitch.

Its a bit more tenuous to blame rents on the Green Line--the rent market doesn't "think that far ahead", the way the ownership market does. Some of these markets are heating up simply because they have access by the 91 Bus to Central and are the "next closest" places as Cambridge overprices.

I'd say your rent reflects more that the tech recovery has been concentrated in central places and that the "not-quite-ready-to-buy" market is full of people who like being close in and car-free--not (yet) something to blame on the Green Line.
 
Re: Green Line to Medford to start in 2011

Totally. Those NIMBY complaints are nutzo.

As for rents, I'll take your word for it, I'm no expert on the variances between the ownership versus rental markets. I just know that my apartment is nothing special and it's as expensive as a comparable apartment walking distance to Davis or Porter, and I don't even have a T stop! Busses have plied through Union forever, and only in the last year or so have rents increased dramatically. Maybe Central/Kendall just are that intense and even out in Union it's going boom.
/whine over
 
Re: Green Line to Medford to start in 2011

Totally. Those NIMBY complaints are nutzo.

As for rents, I'll take your word for it, I'm no expert on the variances between the ownership versus rental markets. I just know that my apartment is nothing special and it's as expensive as a comparable apartment walking distance to Davis or Porter, and I don't even have a T stop! Busses have plied through Union forever, and only in the last year or so have rents increased dramatically. Maybe Central/Kendall just are that intense and even out in Union it's going boom.
/whine over

I think the value of buses has gone up--particularly with techie/hipster users--as smartphones and cheap 4G make tracking/arrival information believable. Overlay Hubway, Uber, and Zipcar with the icing being apps to track them all. Between them, they mean close-in neighborhoods' mobility (with a decent bus at its core) has vastly improved over the last 4 years.

Urban planners used to marvel at how modern streetcars outperformed the buses that had "always been there". Partly (the hypothesis went) was that the physical fact of tracks acted as a "promise" that the streetcar was coming. Now an icon or a countdown on your phone does that.

Personally, I'm finding that with new apps like Transit (http://thetransitapp.com/) and the hidden gem http://trackthet.com, that the "same old" buses are suddenly sexy--and quite usable.
 
Re: Green Line to Medford to start in 2011

^100% agree as someone who now waits, takes and tracks buses in just this area versus just a few years ago.
 
Re: Green Line to Medford to start in 2011

Note: this is an unofficial student project.

Title TRANSIT-ORIENTED, MIXED-USE REDEVELOPMENT WITH INFRASTRUCTURE IMPROVEMENTS IN SOMERVILLE, MA

Abstract

With the MBTA Green Line Extension to Somerville, an economic opportunity exists to transform the light industrial Inner Belt Core neighborhood through transit-oriented, mixed-use redevelopment. This project provides a vision for such redevelopment based on highest and best use and state-of-the-art design. Urban planning guidelines were used to develop design, including infrastructure requirements to improve multimodal access and street-level enhancements. The final vision is a revitalized, groundbreaking commercial and residential Inner Belt Core.

http://www.wpi.edu/Pubs/E-project/Available/E-project-042612-114237/
http://www.wpi.edu/Pubs/E-project/A...2612-114237/unrestricted/MQP_Final_Report.pdf
 
Re: Green Line to Medford to start in 2011

The May MassDOT/MBTA board meeting is coming up soon, we'll see if the Type 9 contract finally make it to them to vote on.

Type 9 contract is on the board agenda, winning bidder is the Spanish builder CAF:
Authorization to request to approve and authorize a formal contract with CAF USA, Inc., a Delaware corporation with corporate offices in Washington, D.C, to furnish and deliver 24 New Green Line“Type 9” Light Rail Vehicles with Capital Spares, Manuals, Diagnostic Test Equipment,Special Tools and Training Aids, at a total delivered cost of $118,159,822.
 
Re: Green Line to Medford to start in 2011

Interesting. That's the builder that was supposed to supply Houston but got entangled in "Buy America" bullshit.
 
Re: Green Line to Medford to start in 2011

Kinki is packing up to leave MA anyway. I can't imagine it would've been worth sticking around for 24 cars.

Meanwhile, CAF is located in Elmira, NY. For them, opening a satellite facility in MA is much more straightforward.
 
Re: Green Line to Medford to start in 2011

Kinki is packing up to leave MA anyway. I can't imagine it would've been worth sticking around for 24 cars.

Meanwhile, CAF is located in Elmira, NY. For them, opening a satellite facility in MA is much more straightforward.

The Type 9 bid request was from a few years ago and does not require assembly in Mass. Its the upcoming Red/Orange order that has the MA facility requirement.
 
Re: Green Line to Medford to start in 2011

This discussion should be split into a Type 9 thread in order to keep this thread about the GLX and also allow this information on the status of the Type 9s to be found easily.
 
Re: Green Line to Medford to start in 2011

Interesting. That's the builder that was supposed to supply Houston but got entangled in "Buy America" bullshit.

I'm not sure that "the head of the transit agency manipulated the negotiations so that he could make repeated trips to the Basque Country with his mistress" really translates to "Buy America bullshit". I mean, yes the investigation was related to those rules, but CAF will be perfectly willing to build these vehicles in the US, so that affair shouldn't be an issue here.

http://iberosphere.com/2010/09/basque-deal-with-houston-derailed-by-improper-practice/1430

Also, it's a Basque company, not a Spanish company. That's kind of a big deal over there.

From an image search, seems like the MBTA found the perfect purveyor for their bug-face design concepts from a few years ago.
 

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