Green Line Extension to Medford & Union Sq

Re: Green Line to Medford to start in 2011

Equilibria said:
Also, it's a Basque company, not a Spanish company. That's kind of a big deal over there.
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That's like saying Boeing is an Illinoisan company, not an American one. A person can be ethnically and culturally Basque, but that doesn't take away from his Spanish nationality. For a company whose headquarters are located in the Basque Contry but has substantial operations all over the country (not to mention other parts of Europe and Latin America), it's not a big deal to refer to it as Spanish.

Let's hope they end up producing something along the lines of CAF's Urbos 3:
 
Re: Green Line to Medford to start in 2011

I wish that we has those here!!! :cool:
 
Re: Green Line to Medford to start in 2011

Equilibria said:
Also, it's a Basque company, not a Spanish company. That's kind of a big deal over there..
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This is like saying that you cannot use the "Made in Britain" because some people in Scotland may not like it, or that a "Made in Canada" would not apply to Quebec, or... you get the point.

The fact is that it is a Basque company AND it is a Spanish company.
 
Re: Green Line to Medford to start in 2011

http://www.theatlanticcities.com/ho...t-always-have-mean-rapidly-rising-rents/9077/
In Somerville, Alderman Maryann Heuston, who grew up here in the 1950s and '60s, sees gentrification as a global trend — a reversal of the suburban migration that destroyed her childhood neighborhood. "I lost a lot of friends," she remembers. "When I was growing up, people couldn't get out of here fast enough." By the late 1970s, Heuston says, Somerville's commercial areas were "desolate" and its residential neighborhoods relegated to those who could not afford to leave. For years, the neighborhood around the Davis Square T-station was the only part of the city that seemed to thrive.

Sometimes lost amid today's controversy is the fact that Somerville — so often overshadowed by its larger, wealthier neighbors, Boston and Cambridge — fought for decades to bring the Green Line into town. Now that construction is finally about to begin, there is a sense among some that, just as an old injustice could soon be righted, another might be about to take its place.

"We're at a delicate point," says Heuston. "We want to be able to take advantage of all that this new world has to offer. But we need to make sure that the people who stuck it out are able to stay."
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Re: Green Line to Medford to start in 2011

Schorschico said:
This is like saying that you cannot use the "Made in Britain" because some people in Scotland may not like it, or that a "Made in Canada" would not apply to Quebec, or... you get the point.

The fact is that it is a Basque company AND it is a Spanish company.
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It has nothing to do with the label. Would you really refer to a company based in Glasgow as a "British" company? I hope not, because that's not entirely accurate.

In any case, my local source calls CAF a "Basque" company. I don't have time to do a full poll of European and Spanish sources on the issue, though, and it's tangentially related to the topic.

EDIT: boston.com has a story on the vote tomorrow. I love how they take one random guy's tweet as news...

http://www.boston.com/news/local/ma...-could-come/xhSL0vUTc8yLZHvNEHbMxI/story.html
 
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Re: Green Line to Medford to start in 2011

Can someone enlighten me as to why these trains cost $5 million a pop?
 
Re: Green Line to Medford to start in 2011

bigeman312 said:
I'm planning on going. Anyone have questions they would like raised?
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I hope to go as well. But in case I don't the main question for me is whether sections of the path will be opened as they are built or will they be gated off until the stations are open and functional? The plan--as I sorta recall--is to build the retaining walls opposite the future path sections in 2015 and then the path/station side in 2016-2017. Presumably this work would continue uninterrupted as future stations come online. However, they are (appropriately) more vague about timing and logistics the further into the future we get.
 
Re: Green Line to Medford to start in 2011

Matthew said:
Can someone enlighten me as to why these trains cost $5 million a pop?
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It is a relatively small order, of an unique spec, with a tight delivery requirement, plus that $4.9 per car also includes spare parts, which can be expensive.
But note that Kansas City has ordered some of CAF's standard Urbos design
http://www.railwayage.com/index.php/passenger/light-rail/caf-usa-wins-kc-streetcar-contract.html
but even their order of a standard design came in at $4.4 million per car ($22 mil for 5 cars), and that was a low price by picking up an option from Cincinnati's order.
 
Re: Green Line to Medford to start in 2011

I love the journalistic hype they're trying to create around a 24-train order, considering it's only 10 percent of the entire Green Line fleet. Those Type 7s and 8s aren't going to be leaving for quite awhile based on the 2017 date for the first Type 9s.
 
Re: Green Line to Medford to start in 2011

omaja said:
I love the journalistic hype they're trying to create around a 24-train order, considering it's only 10 percent of the entire Green Line fleet. Those Type 7s and 8s aren't going to be leaving for quite awhile based on the 2017 date for the first Type 9s.
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The Type 9s aren't going to be replacing anything, they are the additional cars needed to have enough equipment to cover the needs of GLX. The Type 7 overhaul program has only just started (first one expected back in August). It won't be until a future order of Type 10s before anything is ordered to replace the Type 7s and Type 8s, and that won't be until after the Red and Orange line orders arrive by 2020.
 
Re: Green Line to Medford to start in 2011

There is now a whole Type 9 Procurement thread. Please direct all Green line new-vehicle stuff there (and mods, move the related posts upthread)

datadyne007 said:
I hate to continue the Type 9 discussion in this thread, but I can't find a thread for it, nor has the earlier discussion been split off.

Here's Boston Magazine's article about the vote tomorrow:
http://www.bostonmagazine.com/news/blog/2014/05/13/green-line-new-trains-could-happen-by-2017/

New trains must be delivered by 2017. Honestly I expected a longer wait. We're already midway through 2014.
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Re: Green Line to Medford to start in 2011

The first link contains numerous suggestions for improving the path;

PLEASE WRITE A LETTER about the current Community Path exentension (CPX) design!

Completion of the GLX/CPX design from Washington St. to Lechmere is projected for Fall 2014 (in about 6 months). And we have just one chance in our lifetimes to work on the CPX design, so please help “get it right” this time around!

Read _our_ comment letter here, with lots of pictures:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B0USyucmkk3LXzZGX0pVLVhMSGM/edit?usp=sharing

See MassDOT's 3D motion rendering of the CPX along GLX here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZcU03_W9z1Q

DRAFT LETTER BELOW - Please personalize your letter, add at least a sentence or two (and save in your files for future letters), etc. -- real people read these letters!
____________________________________
TO:
info@glxinfo.com, friendspath@yahoo.com

SUBJECT:
Comments on Community Path (CPX) design

To the GLX Team:

I am writing to thank you for integrating design and construction of the CPX with the Green Line extension (GLX), and also to request that the GLX project:

1) Capitalize on available expertise and local creativity by:

- Assigning expert bike/ped planning staff to the CPX Team
- Creating a CPX Design Advisory Committee comprised of local experts in bike/ped planning and engineering
- Sponsoring a CPX design charrette with this CPX Advisory Committee, followed by a public design charrette

2) Allow options for the CPX and Grand Junction Path (GJP) near North Point and Twin Cities

3) Maximize CPX safety and user-friendliness by:

- Adding several safe rest bulb-outs with benches, on each side of CPX along the viaduct.
- Replacing concrete GLX sound walls just south of Cross St. Bridge with clear UV-stabilized acrylic that can be cleaned of graffiti.
- Ensuring safe bike/ped intersections through signage (yield/stop signs), ground stencils, and mirrors
- Moving light poles outside/above the CPX to prevent collision.
- Replacing Bollards at at-grade CPX crossings with painted Signs/Striping/Rumble Strips, etc. to minimize bollard injury risk to CPX users
- Moving CPX fences the outer border of the right-of-way (or further, with easements), and designing some kind of artistic fencing, especially along the viaduct

4) Create a “Greening the Green Line” sub-Committee of the GLX Working group, to make the GLX even more environmentally friendly, through:

- Opportunities for community gardens, trees, vegetation
- Conducting a formal count of trees to be taken down due to rebuilding the GLX-corridor retaining walls, followed by early replacement tree plantings along/near the corridor and around Somerville
- Procurement of environmentally-friendly materials

Thank you,
NAME, TITLE/ORGANIZATION, IF ANY
ADDRESS, CITY, ZIP
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Re: Green Line to Medford to start in 2011

MassDOT has their annual SIP commitment report update posted
https://www.massdot.state.ma.us/Portals/17/docs/sip/2014 SIP Annual Report_final.pdf

Looks like the mitigation for GLX delays will be improved off-peak service on the 80, 88, 91, 94, and 96 buses, improved off-peak Green Line service, buying hybrid-electric vans for the Ride, and expanding parking in Salem and beverly (already underway)
 
Re: Green Line to Medford to start in 2011

Love it for the 87 to be included in that list of improvements. It's one of the more frequently late busses that travels through Somerville.
 
Re: Green Line to Medford to start in 2011

winstonoboogie said:
Looks like the mitigation for GLX delays will be improved off-peak service on the 80, 88, 91, 94, and 96 buses, improved off-peak Green Line service, buying hybrid-electric vans for the Ride, and expanding parking in Salem and beverly (already underway)
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BussesAin'tTrains said:
Love it for the 87 to be included in that list of improvements. It's one of the more frequently late busses that travels through Somerville.
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It looks like they decided the 87 was too far south to be a consolation prize for the GLX Lowell branch, and that the 88+91 which provide superior connections to heavy rail was a better consolation for Union Square.

With the better off-peak buses, they seem to be targeting the places that were promised the GLX, which includes "Medford Hillside" (which either ends at Winthrop St at the "back" of Tufts or at the U-Haul at Rt 16/MVP)

So to "cover" the "inner" GLX at Washington St, Gilman Sq, and Lowell St they did the 80 (twining around the Lowell Line) and the 88 (doubling up on Washington St and serving Gilman and Lowell from the opposite side of the tracks to the 80)

At Union Square, it is an interesting question of "who's next" They must have judged that the 91 was better at being the "Union Square" bus (it is a shorter connection to the Red at Central than riding the 87 to Davis), and having added the 91 (and the 88 and 80 as the Lechmere options) they had covered the optimal Red, Orange, Green trifecta and didn't need the 87 for Union Sq.

Then to "cover" Ball Sq, Tufts and "Medford Hillside" they apparently decided that the 80 to Lechmere wasn't enough (too long a ride for too little payoff), and that, as at Union Sq, real access to the Red line is better than "faking" the GLX (as you might have with even more 80 service), and so they serve the "outer" parts of the GLX Lowell branch with the 94 and 96 from Davis Sq.
 
Re: Green Line to Medford to start in 2011

Meanwhile work is progressing on Phase I with Medford Street now closed for 3 weeks for bridge work.
 
Re: Green Line to Medford to start in 2011

Winstonboogie's post today inspired me to go back to the June 2012 list of mitigation alternatives We know what a garage at Salem and Beverly would look like, but what did they mean by the enhanced GL and bus service?

For the enhanced off-peak GL service, I would guess they picked something like having both the D&E serve Lechmere off-peak and reducing their headways:
Green Line E Off-peak headways reduced from 8 and 14 min to 6.67 min
Green Line D Off-peak headways reduced from 11 & 13 min to 7.5 min
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The buses were drafted as follows (and in descending order) I think it significant that they picked lines in Somerville/Medford very close to the GLX stations, but also emphasizing connecting to the Red line (if people really wanted to ride these buses just "for the bus", they'd already be riding them). They had proposed:
Route 91 Off-peak headways reduced from 70 & 60 min to 40 min
Route 80 Off-peak headways reduced from 35 & 60 min to 20 min
Route 94 Off-peak headways reduced from 48 & 50 min to 30 min
Route 88 Off-peak headways reduced from 30 min to 20 min
Route 96 Off-peak headways reduced from 48 and 60 min to 20 min
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That's actually better than it looks. It means that at College ave, you'll have 5 buses to Davis every hour (~12min when you combine the 94 and 96), and at Washington St you'll have ~10min headways to Lechmere when you'd combine the 80 and 88.

And then I'm hoping they're planning to do 30 or 20 min headways (clockface service) on the 91. I can't see how 40 min headways get you much.
 
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