Green Line Extension to Medford & Union Sq

CSTH said:
I agree with all of this, but my understanding is that all of this is necessary but not sufficient.

GLX in any form ultimately depends on political will in this state to invest more in expanded transit and invest less in auto infrastructure (/raise more revenue from cars as a gas tax and or tolls).

Simplified stations and fewer bells and whistles needs to happen, as does more effective management - those are necessary prerequisite to getting political buy in. But we, the citizens of the commonwealth, will need to demand that investment go into projects like this. Period.

In retrospect, losing the gas tax hike was a debacle. Given the East - West dynamics in the state, i think boston area tolls / congestion charges / parking reform are probably the most promising strategy.
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I don't exactly agree with the main point of this. We need to invest more in transit, but it doesn't mean we should invest less in cars. It may just be semantics, but investment is not mutually exclusive where one must be sacrifice in favor of another. Not to mention we got a ton of bridges that needs fixing and many of those goes under cars.

I also don't see how the gas tax indexing is a disaster in this context. Are you saying if we had it, we can simply use the indexing towards paying to this $1 billion dollar overrun? That's the reason why people voted against the index, people don't trust the government to use the money collected well. The problem is this project has now overrun by a billion dollars, that indexing have no role in that.

Speaking of the money collected well, it was baffling that it this project was costing $2 billion much less overrunning to $3 billion. At the $2 billion mark, it was already higher than many similar project in the US. Much less how much less people are building in Europe/Japan (or Asia minus Japan, but people would point out Asia is willing to put up with more dangers, so Europe is a more fitting example).
 
The Globe posted a copy of the GLX presentation that was made to the Financial Management Control Board. I'd rather link directly, to a .gov site but it isn't online yet (AFAIK, please post a non-paywalled link if you have one). You'll have to burn one of your 5 monthly Globe reads (or use incognito mode) to read the report on the Globe site.

They have a table that shows that for most of the contracts let so far, you can basically predict the WSK value by taking the FFGA value and adding 50%.
IGMP #1 $22.6M -> $32.2M
IGMP #2 $12.5M -> $18.0M
IGMP #3 $62.7M -> $116.7M
IGMP #4 $44.7M -> $39.6M (not "construction" per se, but steel beams procurement)

So, yeah, if you're the FMCB, you look at that and pull the emergency brake, or as they actually did, pull it when WSK says it wants $889M for what the Engineer said would cost $487M.
 
Arlington said:
The Globe posted a copy of the GLX presentation that was made to the Financial Management Control Board. I'd rather link directly, to a .gov site but it isn't online yet (AFAIK, please post a non-paywalled link if you have one). You'll have to burn one of your 5 monthly Globe reads (or use incognito mode) to read the report on the Globe site.

They have a table that shows that for most of the contracts let so far, you can basically predict the WSK value by taking the FFGA value and adding 50%.
IGMP #1 $22.6M -> $32.2M
IGMP #2 $12.5M -> $18.0M
IGMP #3 $62.7M -> $116.7M
IGMP #4 $44.7M -> $39.6M (not "construction" per se, but steel beams procurement)

So, yeah, if you're the FMCB, you look at that and pull the emergency brake, or as they actually did, pull it when WSK says it wants $889M for what the Engineer said would cost $487M.
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Here's a direct link to the presentation:

https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/2299008-glx-contract-presentation-for-fmcb-final-08-21.html
 
fattony said:
GLX adds balance to the extremely lopsided Green Line system. The benefits extend far beyond the people riding a trolley through Somerville. I'm not competent enough to explain it off the top of my head, but read through this thread and you'll find the explanations why GLX has a big system-wide impact.

BRT through Somerville would do nothing for Green Line ops.
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So make the entire Green line a dedicated BRT busway. Compare the cost of the Silver Line extension to chelsea. GLX is about 20X the cost per mile
 
tangent said:
So make the entire Green line a dedicated BRT busway. Compare the cost of the Silver Line extension to chelsea. GLX is about 20X the cost per mile
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I don't know where to start. If that line of thinking worked, then there would be nothing wrong with public transit in Boston or any other American city. But no, when they bustituted the streetcars everything went to shit. BRT is and always has been a red herring. I'm sure Chelsea is glad to have gotten "something" instead of "nothing," but SLG is no prize.
 
tangent said:
So make the entire Green line a dedicated BRT busway. Compare the cost of the Silver Line extension to chelsea. GLX is about 20X the cost per mile
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I'll start then. It would cost way more than you think to change the whole Green Line to BRT. I'll word it in the logic you might be thinking.

1. Tunnel cost - The Green Line tunnel is not design for a bus, much less a long bus. Look at car tunnels and notice that their portals and tunnels are bigger. This alone would means mapping the Silver Line to Chelsea to be incompatible. A more fitting one to map would be the cancelled Silver Line Third Phase where the proposed amount for just short section of a tunnel was $2 billion (and that was over 10 years ago).

2. Capacity - Green Line per train can holds far more people than even an articulated bus. Thus replacing the Green Line with a bus means a much lower capacity. You could try to even it out with more busses, but then you start to defeat the purpose as you need more drivers and risk congestion.

3. Long Term Costs - Part of the reason Chelsea costs less is the bus cost less, but it's rolling stock will last shorter. A light rail train can last decades. A bus last a decade.


All that said, GLX's expense is something is wrong with how we are building this. It's is 20x more than the Silver Line because of "something" (Not sure what because it's just so insane) is being done wrong, rather than light rail is just 20x more expensive than a BRT line.
 
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fattony said:
I don't know where to start. If that line of thinking worked, then there would be nothing wrong with public transit in Boston or any other American city. But no, when they bustituted the streetcars everything went to shit. BRT is and always has been a red herring. I'm sure Chelsea is glad to have gotten "something" instead of "nothing," but SLG is no prize.
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If Silver line to Chelsea opens before GLX or if GLX gets cancelled then BRT is no red herring. Dedicated busways with BRT is essentially no different than the green line trolleys. Green line trolleys are not like the Orange, Blue or Red lines where you get higher capacity trains and level boarding.

Sure 20x wasn't including the cost of the buses, but that is part of the benefit ofa busway. You don't have to.
 
tangent said:
If Silver line to Chelsea opens before GLX or if GLX gets cancelled then BRT is no red herring. Dedicated busways with BRT is essentially no different than the green line trolleys. Green line trolleys are not like the Orange, Blue or Red lines where you get higher capacity trains and level boarding.

Sure 20x wasn't including the cost of the buses, but that is part of the benefit ofa busway. You don't have to.
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It is not a simple substitution play.

First of all, you have to move Lechmere station. The elevated north of the Charles River dam has to be replace to support 3 car trains.

The new Lechmere station location in Northpoint is not large enough for a turn around; for storage of cars, for a major BRT station as well. Northpoint is not going to "give" the extra land to the T.

You add another disconnected transfer element to the commuting time for all the potential riders from Somerville, Medford, etc. Complete transit injustice. One seat ride downtown from Newton (check); one seat ride downtown from Somerville (tilt).
 
Silver Line Gateway is on abandoned right of way.
GLX is on currently used right of way where they have to move existing commuter rail tracks and build retaining walls on both sides. They also have to rebuild all of the bridges over the tracks. This makes it a much more complex project for that reason alone.
 
tangent said:
If Silver line to Chelsea opens before GLX or if GLX gets cancelled then BRT is no red herring. Dedicated busways with BRT is essentially no different than the green line trolleys. Green line trolleys are not like the Orange, Blue or Red lines where you get higher capacity trains and level boarding.

Sure 20x wasn't including the cost of the buses, but that is part of the benefit ofa busway. You don't have to.
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The capacity of a GL trolley car is larger than an articulated bus. And you can run 3 car trains. Can you run 3-4 buses bumper to bumper at 40 mph? Maybe you could move that fast if you put some kind of groove in the ground or a guideway the tires can hug... oh wait, now we've reinvented the Paris Metro. Even better if we scrap the rubber tires and but a steel wheel on a steel guide, that would be more durable... and we've arrived at light rail.

The primary thing buses have that is superior to rail is flexibility. Routes can change. You don't get that with BRT. BRT can be the best choice where you need to improve a normal surface bus route, but LRT is not an option for geometry or logistical reasons.

And OF COURSE you have to count the cost of the buses. What happens if you build the busway and forget to buy the vehicles? You can't move many passengers that way.
 
fattony said:
The capacity of a GL trolley car is larger than an articulated bus. And you can run 3 car trains. Can you run 3-4 buses bumper to bumper at 40 mph? Maybe you could move that fast if you put some kind of groove in the ground or a guideway the tires can hug... oh wait, now we've reinvented the Paris Metro. Even better if we scrap the rubber tires and but a steel wheel on a steel guide, that would be more durable... and we've arrived at light rail.

The primary thing buses have that is superior to rail is flexibility. Routes can change. You don't get that with BRT. BRT can be the best choice where you need to improve a normal surface bus route, but LRT is not an option for geometry or logistical reasons.

And OF COURSE you have to count the cost of the buses. What happens if you build the busway and forget to buy the vehicles? You can't move many passengers that way.
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.

I'd rather have lower per vehicle capacity with higher frequency than higher per vehicle capacity with lower frequency. You move the same number of people but they don't have to wait as long.

You don't have to count the cost of buses because we have them already and you can shift buses on and off of a busway. And you can also open segments as they are ready because you can utilize city streets.

Trollies are incrementally better in some ways, just not a couple $ Billion ways.
 
tangent said:
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I'd rather have lower per vehicle capacity with higher frequency than higher per vehicle capacity with lower frequency. You move the same number of people but they don't have to wait as long.

You don't have to count the cost of buses because we have them already and you can shift buses on and off of a busway. And you can also open segments as they are ready because you can utilize city streets.

Trollies are incrementally better in some ways, just not a couple $ Billion ways.
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This is all contradictions. You are going offer high frequency bus service, but somehow not purchase any new vehicles. Are you going to poach vehicles from traditional (low frequency, street running) bus routes to run high frequency on the busway? What happens to all your old bus routes now? You'll have to decimate the headways of (or cancel entirely) over a dozen traditional bus routes to run 4 minute headways on a 4 mile busway. Somerville will get BRT and half the Boston Metro area will have no buses at all. Brilliant.

repeat after me:

BRT is not a free lunch.
BRT is not a free lunch.
BRT is not a free lunch.
BRT is not a free lunch.
BRT is not a free lunch.
 
CSTH said:
I agree with all of this, but my understanding is that all of this is necessary but not sufficient.

GLX in any form ultimately depends on political will in this state to invest more in expanded transit and invest less in auto infrastructure (/raise more revenue from cars as a gas tax and or tolls).

Simplified stations and fewer bells and whistles needs to happen, as does more effective management - those are necessary prerequisite to getting political buy in. But we, the citizens of the commonwealth, will need to demand that investment go into projects like this. Period.

In retrospect, losing the gas tax hike was a debacle. Given the East - West dynamics in the state, i think boston area tolls / congestion charges / parking reform are probably the most promising strategy.
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Post Mortem on GLX to Somerville as an analog of the situation in Greece:
  • 1) Stephanie who was with the CLF -- they CLF and fellow-travelers decided to Gold Plate everything "mitigation-wise" to screw the Highway Lobby -- so we got a whole bunch of things such as the GLX promised and the Big Dig cost a whole lot more and took a whole lot longer
  • 2) Deval and his crew including Beverly Scott always believed that as it was other people's money being spent -- who cares how much was spent
  • 3) that all the Unions and their cronies Gold Plated / Gold Bricked all the jobs -- "do anything -- but - work" if you can -- Just don't Kill the Job" -- and so we spent money like the proverbial drunken sailors -- the result everything that the Mass Gov't has built has been grossly late in delivery, grossly excessive in planning and grossly overpriced
  • 4) Finally -- Ironically -- the one chance to actually being in other folks money for some of the infrastructure projects was the Olympics -- but the same people who provided the muscle for the CLF -- they were the muscle for No Boston Olympics

So now comes the reckoning -- there is a chance to rethink things -- and perhaps find a workable solution which will deliver the required service in an affordable manner

I would say that all in all -- this decision by the new T Management to re-evaluate GLX is a victory for the Taxpayers
 
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Can't call it a post mortem if you are dissecting a live project. Pollacks stated intent is not to kill it but to bring it back to something resembling good value for money. Ditto Aloisi.
 
From the end of a Globe article today on options.

Option 5: Something nobody’s thought of

The state’s final option is a bit of a Hail Mary pass: to solicit input from the public to see if anyone has a brilliant idea for a solution.

Officials said they are accepting comment via e-mail — planning@dot.state.ma.us and info@glxinfo.com — through Sept. 9. And, at the state transportation board’s next meeting on Sept. 9, officials plan to allow extra time for public comment.
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I suggest hiring the contractor who told B24 that he could build a 69,000 seat Olympic Stadium for $175 million.
 
A BRT option for the GLX was considered and rejected in the original study back in 1994. I forget the exact reasoning, but I think it's still on the GLX website. IIRC it wasn't actually cheaper and had much lower capacity.
 
fattony said:
This is all contradictions. You are going offer high frequency bus service, but somehow not purchase any new vehicles. Are you going to poach vehicles from traditional (low frequency, street running) bus routes to run high frequency on the busway? What happens to all your old bus routes now? You'll have to decimate the headways of (or cancel entirely) over a dozen traditional bus routes to run 4 minute headways on a 4 mile busway. Somerville will get BRT and half the Boston Metro area will have no buses at all. Brilliant.

repeat after me:

BRT is not a free lunch.
BRT is not a free lunch.
BRT is not a free lunch.
BRT is not a free lunch.
BRT is not a free lunch.
Click to expand...

Those aren't contradictions, those are options. Flexibility and cost savings is what BRT would have given you.

But I don't think at this point BRT is going to be a solution unless the project gets cancelled outright. And I don't think the project gets cancelled because there is too much Federal funding on the line and too much planning around this. This is about reducing costs by putting everything back on the table. If we get to cancellation then it would take another ten years after that for anyone to even consider alternatives because people would be slow to give up on GLX. So in that way, yes BRT is a red herring at this point. But I think it is a fish with an important lesson.
 
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